Life in the Industry

So after my layoff from Trendy and after doing the quick 3D scanning project, I put out my resume to a select few studios. The results were great! 

I had a phone interview with High Moon Studios, an on-site interview in Irvine with Amazon, an on-site with an indie studio in Florida, an art test from Epic, and an on-site interview with Hi-Rez in Atlanta. A few other studios, like Telltale and Blizzard, got back to me letting me know the position was filled but the overall experience of having to reapply and prove myself to a new studio was overwhelmingly positive. 

I ended up taking the offer from Hi-Rez and I started my first day of work on May 23rd on the Paladins team! Now at Trendy I was a Tech Artist and was a jack of all trades, mainly in charge of making the rigs and setting them up in engine and getting them playable (among many other things like material creation and custom collision setup). However, here at Hi-Rez my roles as a Tech Artist have shifted to be engine side only doing a lot of Anim Tree creation and polish for the unique characters Paladins puts out for both 1st person and 3rd person views. So right away I began ramping up on how Hi-Rez and the team I work with operates while they were putting out Bomb King. Here's an introductory video of him.

With Bomb King shipped, the team began spinning up on our next champion, Viktor, who I was in charge of getting in. He was the first character I owned fully from beginning to end for both 1st person and 3rd person and it was trial by fire as it was only my second week on the job. Yesterday Viktor shipped and I'm proud to say he received great reception not only from the community but from the in-house team as well! For such an easy kit he actually turned out to need some quite complex logic, for all of his transitions between abilities, to get him feeling like an FPS character the FPS community has come to expect. Here's an introductory video of him.

Now, I am working on the next champion but only his 1st person this time as the associate Tech Artist I work with will be undertaking the 3rd person. Looking back though, I am happy with my choice to relocate to Atlanta and call Hi-Rez home.

Making Games Is A Passion.

-Ben