Funsmith Fireside Chats Episode #4
Guest: Paul Forest
Paul Forest is the current Pipeline Technical Director at Amazon Games with the latest release New World. He’s a veteran technical artist and director, who has worked on games across consoles such as
- Playstation 1
- Playstation 2
- Playstation 3
- Xbox
- Xbox 360
- PC.
Notably, he has worked on World of Warcraft and has contributed from the expansion pack Wrath of Lich King all the way to Legion. Overall, Paul is also a rare polymath who’s able to hone his skills as a superb artist and a skilled programmer, in addition to a great understanding of game design.
In this episode, we are exploring what a technical artist actually does and why this role is so important in the making of graphic dense Video Games. We’ll also go into the technical steps necessary to turn a design concept into a playable version with proper graphics, modeling, and animation.
Paul will also share some wisdom on how to grow and thrive as a game development professional, no matter which role you’re in.
Listen to The Full Episode
Podcast Platforms:
Referenced Links & Resources
Connect with Paul Forest:
Instagram | LinkedIn | Website
Connect with Alex:
Connect with Ari:
Mentioned Resources:
Game Design Skills | Learn Game Design
New World Game | Paul’s New Game
Free Game Design Learning Resources:
What Does a Video Game Artist Do?
What is Video Game Mechanics (Beginner’s Guide)
How to Become a Video Game Designer
How to Write Game Design Document with Examples
Game Design Portfolio, with Examples (Guide)
Episode Chapters (with Timestamp)
0:00 – Introduction
1:45 – Alex introduces Paul and why he invited him to the podcast
2:32 – The nature and mission of Paul’s work as a tech artist
3:54 – What is iteration time, and how does it relate to quality?
4:39 – Synched models: Growing horns and wings on warlocks
6:08 – Is the job of a tech artist actually boring?
7:01 – The work flow for bringing concepts to life with modelling
8:24 – Advantages of using a base skeleton in animation
10:09 – How governments influence what can and cannot be represented
12:17 – Hands, bones and faces: Increasing presentation quality and visuals
15:07 – How does a pipeline in game development work?
19:18 – Paul’s favourite part of the process
20:31 – Transporter accidents, and how to overcome them
22:55 – Machine learning for facial animation and lip-syncing in “New World”
27:56 – What makes a good concept artist
31:57 – Challenges of game audio design within tight deadlines
34:23 – Python – the default language for machine-learning work
36:00 – The story of how and when Paul learned Python
42:10 – Something Paul learned from somebody he mentored
47:27 – Who were Paul’s mentors over the years?
53:41 – Advice on how to get started as tech artist
More Guest Quotes From This Episode
“Technical art is one of the most vague job descriptions in the industry.” — Paul Forest
“One of the big missions that is universal to all Tech Artists is getting that iteration time down so that you can actually try out your ideas as quickly as possible.” — Paul Forest
“Everytime you get to test something, everytime you get to try out your idea, the time involved in trying out from playing it in your prototype that’s the thing we want to get to be as short as possible because the more iterations the more turns of the crank, the higher the quality you’re going to get.” — Paul Forest
“With Tech Art and Designs it’s more of trying to figure out how we’re gonna do it in the first place.” — Paul Forest
“A lot of people often tend to think that Tech Art is a lot of programming or it’s very rigid but it’s a more creative form of art because you have to explore the unknown and be comfortable doing that.” — Paul Forest
“Production pipeline is the process from having an idea to a concept to an asset to animate to rigged and animated asset and then finally in the game. Technical pipeline is all of the little steps in between each of those pieces taking the file from the modeler, getting it to the artist, getting the artists’ texture onto the rig, the rig can animate and then finally converting the file into a way that it can actually appear and play inside the game.” — Paul Forest
“When you get to the game in the user’s hands and you see that look of delight and you’re in there playing with them —it’s awesome. Absolutely the best part.” — Paul Forest
“Concept art doesn’t directly impact the way technical artists deal with things other than as a sanity check like did we hit that target.” — Paul Forest
“Tech art team generally is more in the facilitating kind of role.” — Paul Forest
“These days, it’s all about python. Python is absolutely in every 3D application. It’s all in the game engines. It’s brilliant because the syntax is simple, it’s very easy to pick up and the philosophy of the language is not tied up in some particular academic theory.” — Paul Forest
“An attribute of technical artists is if you don’t stay on top of technology, you are doomed to die.” — Paul Forest
“Mentoring is a fantastic activity. It’s true, you learn more from your students than you actually managed to get through their heads and that’s okay.” — Paul Forest
“You shouldn’t take a job because you think it’s prestigious or lucrative or whatever. You should take a job because you’re going to get skills out of it.” — Paul Forest
“The only skill required is 1) to be able to recognize that you don’t know something; and 2) be able to learn that thing and dive as deep as you need to get the job done.” — Paul Forest
“What matters isn’t the technical skill, it’s an attitude and humility towards life to be able to say ‘I don’t know’ and learn.” — Paul Forest
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
