Game Role Game Design 1

Lighting Artist

    I had the honor to interview Ringling Alumni Bethany Lo, 2011 graduate with computer animation. She has worked for Moonbot Studios, Reel FX, Naughty Dog, and presently for DreamWorks Animation.

    Our assignment was to pick a game industry role so that we can interview someone in that field. I choose lighting artist sense I had little information on that role. Found Bethany on Linkedln and contacted her right away. Interview her with 10 questions which you can see below along with her answers. Learned a lot not only about my favorite series and company but about a role I was pretty unfimiar with. Also a link to my presentation is below!

1. What got you into becoming a Lighting Artist for games?  

"Naughty Dog was my first experience in the gaming industry (at a AAA level) and honestly I had applied thinking I wouldn't get it haha. But I did and I've always loved games so I guess luck, connections and a love for video games got me into it."

2. What is the most important part of your job?

"Making sure the player path is well defined and getting my assigned levels done in a professional and timely manner."

3. Who do you work closely with in your job for example ( concept artist, environmental, etc ) and why?

"Naughty Dog is definitely different than other gaming studios (at least from what I've been told) in that everyone collaborates constantly. I worked closely with basically everyone (including QA) to get levels working properly. For example when I was lighting the prison break in Uncharted 4, I worked back and forth with the level designer, art director and concept artist in coming up with other ways to light the scene for maximum playability and drama. I would pitch ideas to level designer, the concept artist would quickly spitpaint something to what I had suggested while adding in their own ideas and we pitched it to the art director for final say. I worked very closely with the environment artists on my level too because if something was broken lighting wise, there's a strong possibility of the prop/area in question having broken uvs or shaders. I worked very closely with my concept artist on various levels for artistically and painstakingly placing cloud shadows to direct the player's eye. For QA there would be a lot of times where I didn't have time to look at a bake so I would ask them to bug any issues they saw and I would fix them later. Basically it's very important to keep good relations with everyone on all the teams so your work will go as smoothly as possible."

4. What programs do you use to create what you do?  

"Maya, Photoshop and Fusion occasionally. Naughty Dog also has a lot of in-house tools and custom pipeline features that I had to learn on the fly when I got there. So lighting was done maybe 30% in Maya, 20% in a program we made/use called Charter and the rest is all done on the PS4 dev kit in game."

5. Do you work with other lighting artist? If so how is work split up?  

"I was a special case where I was brought in specifically to assist other lighters as well as work on my own levels. I would pick up any tasks they needed to have done (such as placing light probes, placing/capturing reflection maps, troubleshooting bugs they didn't have time for: like why are the godrays bleeding through this wall, etc) So it honestly depended on the person and how much work they had on their plate and how much they were willing to let me help out with. And can I just say that keeping your files organized is so very important because there were times where I had to sort though other people's files and they were like a pig sty. hahaha"

6. What can be difficult with lighting like common mistakes or issues?  

"A lot of issues can come from bad UVs but then us Lighters get blamed for "broken lighting" when it was really just the environment artist that didn't uv the object properly so the lighting baked black. We'll get these obnoxious bright spots in our light bake sometimes that we call trapped photons and they're really hard to get rid of because it's like playing whack a mole. Like every other bake will have it and sometimes they'll go and come back on a whim which makes them really hard to troubleshoot so sometimes we have to hand paint them out which is a pain."

7. Any new techniques or systems that have improved lighting design in games?  

"That's a tough one since I don't really develop the systems. Technique wise, having a good renderer helps a lot. (good raytracer all that jazz) The faster you can achieve the results you want, the better. We do a mixed of light baking and run-time lights to get the look in our levels but from what I've been told, the system isn't all that new."

8. Any advice to a student interested in doing lighting for games like things to focus on or look for?  

"Study real life~ Notice the details in just everyday environments around you. Like the shapes on the walls from casted shadows, the patterns certain light bulbs make, how reflections drift on a shiny floor when you walk past a window, how color bleeds from objects onto other surfaces from the lights around them etc. And when you light in game, always think about the how to direct the player's eye along the player path. Single player vs multiplayer can make a huge different too because then you have to consider who you'll be looking at and can you see ten other characters well enough to shoot at etc. Always make sure you lighting has directionality (aka a primary light source) from which you can design the rest of the environment around, otherwise a room can look flat and overlit if you have too many light sources. Just because something is physically and realistically accurate doesn't always mean that it will look aesthetically pleasing. It's ok to bend the rules a little to make something look nice from all angles. Also learning practical lighting and photography can help a lot too. I personally came from a feature film/animation background but I personally felt that it helped me a lot to watch movies (live-action/animated) and play other games to expose myself to a wide range of techniques and styles."

9. What games did you work on and what part did you take in the development of it?  

"I worked on Diggs Nightcrawler (where I modeled, textured and lit environments and characters) and Uncharted 4 where I just lit. For some levels (such as the sunken ruins multiplayer map) I designed the lighting on my own while with others (like prison break) I worked in collaboration with the concept artist, art director and level designer to achieve a look we all felt proud of."

10. Do you believe with the education you worked for from Ringling provided the tools you needed to do these projects or did you learn more from real world experience?

"Honestly for my time at Naughty Dog, I felt like both helped a lot. My experience in Maya from being in CA at Ringling helped me learn the pipeline and tools quickly. Also learning how to deal with stress and intense deadlines at Ringling helped me manage the crazy work hours during crunch. Of course Ringling doesn't teach you everything and lot of it was learned on the fly and being on the job but I feel like Ringling provided me with a solid foundation from which I was able to custom build my career off of. Though I will say trying to do anything outside of animation was a bit difficult at Ringling because they tend to cater to those students instead. But you can't expect Ringling to prepare you for knowing in-house software at certain studios haha. Just need to learn how to be flexible and learn quickly."

Link Below for Presentation

https://docs.google.com/a/c.ringling.edu/presentation/d/1Bcfga6wWgOa4iceI10P5LLIUlfvdN9TPo5ZoTd2xZ1A/edit?usp=sharing