Interview with: Kiel Figgins Animator www.3dFiggins.com ::Transcript:: Artist Profile: Kiel Figgins Job Title Animator Studio NCsoft, Austin Credits Tabula Rasa, Heaven Vs Hell, Ms. PacMan: Maze Madness 2, GunForge, Leisure Suit Larry's Pocket Party, Azura Personal Site http://www.3dfiggins.com Q. Describe your role at your studio A. I currently work at NCsoft on Tabula Rasa as a Creature Animator and TD. I do animation, setup, exporting, implementation, bookkeeping and MAXScripting for animation tools. I work along side three other animators, one more focused on animation the other more towards technical, the last mainly does particles and effects. The four of us all work under the Lead Animator. Typically, I am given a variety of tasks on a daily basis from setting up characters, researching new tech paths, implementing characters into the game, scripting tools, and of course animating. By working this way, I can take a creature from a model all the way into the game and fix any issues that may arise. Q. What is your favorite style of animation to work with? A. I find that I truly enjoy all facets and types of animation. My particular favorite is exaggerated realism, especially in the form of fast actions and acrobatics. I mainly attribute this to the Aeon Flux series. Animating fast action allows you to show so much energy and release the potential in characters. Having a character strike a hard hitting pose or showing a creature unveil its true form in an eruption of fury, really gets the viewer’s blood pumping and gets them excited. Q. What is your favorite kind of game? A. Real time strategy is by far my favorite. Games like Starcraft, Warcraft, Command and Conquer, and the Dune series are still on my computer. With the limitless ways to build, command, and ultimately destroy your opponent, they just keep me coming back. Atop that, I truly enjoy micromanaging and seeing how many tasks I can juggle, so building and commanding an army tests that in a great way. Q. Which Maya animation tool, command, or editor could you not live without? A. The Graph Editor, no question. Compared to other 3d packages that have versions of it, Maya has one the most robust, clean and functional Graph Editors that I’ve used. The Graph Editor is essential in all my animations, making it easy to spot loop errors, tangent corrections, and add subtle nuances to existing curves quickly and accurately. Q. What advice might you have for the up-and-coming animator? A. Define what you enjoy and where you’d want to be, and it will become so much easier to achieve. If you know the specific company, research them, find out what they are looking for in a demo reel or portfolio. If it’s a style, take Prince of Persia’s all the way to Rayman’s, start looking up companies that follow that vein, this will give you a wider base of reference to draw from and companies to look into. Once you’ve established a direction, the process is fairly straight forward: Spend every ounce of time you can practicing and producing work. But most importantly is to do it Every Single Day, even if it’s just for 30 minutes, doing it daily is better then doing it once a week for a few hours. Get a website to show your work you’ve created and keep it updated and current. Companies won’t just magically call you up and offer you a job. A website will allow you to showcase your work and get your name out there. Atop that, you can email companies a link to your website instead of sending out rather expensive demo reel packages. Participate and post your work on online forums and keep up on the posts and work of others to see what they are doing and see how you can apply that into your own animation. Remember the people on these forums are your competition, but are also a tremendous resource of insight and knowledge, all you have to do is tap into it. Revise your work based on the feedback given by the forums. This will not only build your reputation on the forums, but also get you revisiting your own work and bringing it to a higher level. Get to know your peers, in school or the online community, they can provide their skills to best emphasize your assets and work with you to help create larger, more elaborate projects. Compile the very best of your animations, between 10-15 clips, or roughly a minute and a half of content, that are suited and aimed at a specific company’s style and requirements into a Demo Reel. Host that on your site, write up a formal cover letter or email and start the road to employment. Good luck! Related Links: - Kiel's Website - Tabula Rasa's Website