Introduction thread - Tell us a bit about you!

[Skylebones]

There has been quiet a bit of introduction threads lately, and I though it would be a good idea to create a thread for people to introduce themselves. Maybe some of the newer people who are too shy to start a thread will post in this thread instead. So feel free to tell everyone a bit about you!

I guess I'll start since I'm pretty new, and haven't introduced myself.

My name is Sky and I've been working in the CG industry for 8 years now. I spent the first two years working as a modeler on an animated TV show that aired on PBS. After the show ended I made the transition to video games working on the Tak series. Creating video games is what I really wanted to do, so it was a welcomed transition.

I worked for Disney Interactive for five years as a World Builder (Fancy way of saying Level Designer/Environment Artist). If it was a movie-tie in that came out in the last few years, I probably worked on it. I enjoyed my time with Disney, but my ultimate goal was to create my own games and not someone else's games.

Which brings me to where I am now. After a bit of a break at the start of this year(2009) I'm now doing freelance game art, along with working on my own games. Its been a strange transition. With pro's and con's. I miss the steady work of being at a studio and always having work lined up. But I enjoy choosing my own hours and having time to work on my own projects and work my way towards my ultimate goal.

Well, that pretty much covers me.

Feel free to give a little bit about you, and lets get this thread rolling!

[brokenpoly]

Great thread Sky!

I`ll try to follow up with some info about myself, so here we go

My name is Roald and I`ve been working professionally with 3d and games for the last 4 years. When I first started studying 3d, I wasn`t really sure where I would end up, but I quickly realized that I wanted to work with games. When I finished high school (?), I started studying Digital Animation at a private school on the westcoast of Norway. I already knew a lot of 3d before going there, but I learnt shitloads from some of the other students. One of my fellow classmates actually did some work on the recent Avatar-movie, so there were some really talented people in that class.

After studying a year on the rainy westcoast, I went overseas and almost finished a bachelor in Computer Animation at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough. Middlesbrough has to be the worst place on Earth, so when TerraVision, a company in my hometown of Trondheim, needed a 3d-modeler, I applied and was offered the position as Lead Artist. Needless to say, I moved back to Viking land, without my bachelor degree, and here I have made plenty of games the last 4 years. Being the only 3d-artist in the company, I quickly learnt how to handle tight deadlines and the first couple of years I learnt more than I could learn in any university or school. The last couple of years I felt my learning curve was slowly stabilizing, so from January 1st 2010, I quit my job to work on my own projects and skillset for a while.

What happens next, nobody really knows, but I`m 110% sure I did the right thing

Stay tuned for the next chapter!


Btw. I`m spending most of my days with 3dsmax 2009 nowadays, but trying to learn Zbrush 3.5r3 at the moment.

[sixbelo]

@skylebones: Nice idea.
@brokenpoly: Good luck with your projects.

Well my intro is going to be pretty short as its not as interesting as others. : )

My name is Tony and I'm recently laid off from a large software company where I was a Product Support Engineer for an online ad management solution. Now I'm taking the time to seriously try my hand at 3D and specifically the game industry.

I haven't done any professional 3D work or game development, but I've dabbled in 3D for a while and attended a school waaay back when for computer graphic design. I ended up preferring web over print because of the combination of art and techie stuff and favor 3D for similar reasons.

I'm married with 3 kids and am doing my best to raise them to be as geeky as me and so far succeeding. I grew up on comics, drawing and video games.

I really really really suck at FPS shooters.

I'm pretty chill and laid back and love learning new things and helping people when I can.

[giyomu]

ah a nice thread here , it is always good to know a bit more about your fellow forum mate XD

Well In my case my way till 3D and the like come more from random path ^^.

Initially I am graduate from Audio Engineering School, when I spent 2 years learn all the stuff involving in studio , live , broadcasting etc...as soudn engineer, was pretty cool time , i enjoyed it a lot.

Then soon after that I worked a bit in france doing that job , get fun time travel on tour for local "serious band" in my country, and then leave my country for where I am now >> Japan.

I start my initiation of 3D and Overall game programming in a complete autodidact way , messing around with various 3d app , I guess i spend quite a bit of tome with Gmax , Maya PLE etc...play with engine like blitz or dark basic
I kept going at this till I start get more serious work in 3D as learning things , which drive me to my first 3D app I bought, that was XSI foundation 4.0.
Since almost 2 years now because of self work / learn I am working in freelance outsourcing world (with it pro and cons) but form last years my client listing get better so i can start to get some "real living" form this even tho it can be a bit rough sometimes 

With the experience I got and still get at doing such work , I am trying to get some studio work here in japan, because even if freelance work have lot of advantage to control your time , I will like get some experience in this industry by getting involved in more "pro scale game", I am 35 soon so i need hurry before they said to me that I am a old papy  .

of course after the discover of unity , and all iphone related stuff I start to leran on that and I also get some personnal project or collaborative project with other Artist friend, to build some game on my own, where i can get some skill in code by practice

So to conclude i am quite interested in getting into all the pipeline , be it graphic , audio (of course ^^), and coding
I have few iphone game cooking up at the moment which i work on between my different freelance assignement, hope I will get them on track for the store this year 

well I guess i already spoke too much >> Next >>   

[Robert G]

Yes, indeed nice to read about other people’s story.

Well, in my case:  My name is Robert Glotzbach, I was born and still live in Amsterdam with my sweet wife and two little sons (lived in Russia for a couple of years).
In my youth I had many different interests, music, technical things, programming, moviemaking and so on, maybe its not surprising that this is actually still the case. Of course its not very practical all the time to have so many area’s one wants to work in, so I always tried to limit myself.

My career so far consist of different periods were I worked in certain area’s:
I was a musician for a long period of time were I played the trombone in different orchestra’s, pop groups and recording sessions. As a result I started my own sound studio were I did recordings for theatre, video, records, cd’s and TV. Also composed music and wrote songs which were sometimes used in theatre or on TV. In between I also did some multimedia presentations for schools here in Amsterdam.
To fill the financial gaps in-between the creative projects, I did some construction jobs, carpentry, plumping and so on.
At a certain moment I was asked to make a small movie, a presentation for a book that was going to be published. Quite early I realised that some necessary footage for this project was only to be obtained with a 3D package. After researching different packages I fell for C4D as yet another love, recently I added 3D-Coat to my arsenal.
So here I am in front of Unity, a place were all my previous experiences come together and make a strong marriage.

Time to brush up my programming skills (honestly started doing that already) and GO. 

Kind regards, Robert

[malzbie]

This is a nice thread!
And I think I also have to introduce myself.

One thing I must say: I’m German and my English is not good.
I can understand most things, but I haven’t spoken (written) it for a long time (about 25 years).
Ok, here we go:

Hello everybody!
My real name is Andreas. I’m 41 years old, have a wife and two kids.
I live nearly in the middle of Germany in a town called Kassel.

Since I was 13 years old, my hobby has been the computer. I started with the Commodore VIC20.
At that time, I learned programming in Basic. Later in Microsoft’s Visual Basic, HTML, PHP and now in JavaScript.
I also make CG Graphics and animations in Cinema 4D.  And I try to make music with my lovely synthesizer program called Fruity Loops.
I often play computer games on my PC and on my Wii.   

Last year in August or September, I heard about Unity 3D for free. That was it! My entire hobbies in one Program!
I’ve tested it and here I am! Unity is my new love!

My first project is a Space Taxi clone. You know Space Taxi? In a world with a low force of gravity, a taxi with a rocket motor has to pick up persons on one platform and bring them to another. My game does the same, but in 3D!

And here is a screenshot of it:

http://twitpic.com/yrurx

[sixbelo]

Howdy and welcome!

Please keep us posted on your games progress.

Lots of C4D people here! I played with it way back on 6CE, then jumped to XSI 4.0 and back to C4D R11.

[droffset]

Hello!
Let's see... I'm Sergio, 34 years old with a wife and a 19 month old son.  Originally from Texas, then Miami, now New Zealand.
I started out in theater, Tv commercials, some indie film, then 3D.  Long story later, now I work in VFX as a contractor.  

Gaming: started out with Zaxxon on the TRS-80, then C64, NES, Gameboy, PC, N64, PS1, PC, PSP, Wii, PC.

I have used Maya since v1.5 and have played around on a few of the editors out there, especially Unreal tournament2003. Unity is awesome because it is very friendly to Maya people.

I like turn-based strategy games no matter if on the computer or on the tabletop.  Currently loving Warmachine/Hordes MkII.  I'd like to do something like that in Unity when I learn a bit more.

I have a good plan for a fun game and I'm working on it slowly.  Hopefully it will sell at least 5 copies, or enough to buy a pizza.

Nice to meet you all!

[RT-Visualization]

Didn't notice this topic before, anyway...

I'm Nicolas, 27, I live in Italy but I just came back from Dublin few months ago where I spent 2 years working and enjoying Guinnes . Currently a design engineer with the secret dream of make videogames...

Well, the main reason I started with 3d was just work, but after learning mechanical design software I started to learn various 3d apps, and right now my workflow is based on Softimage, Zbrush and real-time 3d engine.
I mostly do non-organic objects, but character design is something that I can develop with no problems and of course because I like do that!

My purpose in the near future is to start my own business in Architectural Visualization and Product presentation, but my dream is to go to work in Japan for Capcom, always loved this company and its games!

I'm expert in low/high poly modeling, texturing, rendering, not so good in animation but still learning!

I have so many ideas about making games, but unfortunately I have no time at all since I constantly rape my guitar and piss off my neighbours by playing so loud
I was thinking to start develop games for Iphone and web games in general, but is something that right now I can't do since there are some things that I'm still learning, so instead of develop something crappy I rather prefer to develop what can I do and, who knows, one day I'll find a team that will hire me to do what I like, videogames

[Cireva]

Hi

I´m Christian . I live in Bavaria ,Germany ,right now and I´m 16 years old.
I´m working with C4D for about 2 years now and started with a little course in my hometown.
Some of you may also have seen me on 3D Attack forum
I really like modeling and modding so I want to get my own games started with Unity.
In future I really would like working in the 3D Industry, especially Game Development.

Yeah thats me

[Thomas P.]

Hi

I´m Christian . I live in Bavaria ,Germany ,right now and I´m 16 years old.
I´m working with C4D for about 2 years now and started with a little course in my hometown.
Some of you may also have seen me on 3D Attack forum
I really like modeling and modding so I want to get my own games started with Unity.
In future I really would like working in the 3D Industry, especially Game Development.

Yeah thats me

Welcome on board Cireva. Nice to see you here as well Make sure to show off some stuff you made.

[Cireva]

I will do Fokker is coming 

[rstralberg]

My name is Roland Strålberg and I'm living in a small Swedish community Kalix. up in the north about 40 km from Finland. My profession is C++/C# programming and I have been programming for both hardware, Windows and Linux professionally for more than 20 years. And that tells a bit of my age. I'm 56 today but still eager to lean new things.

I fairly new Unity (had the Pro version for about 2 months) so I'm here to learn.

Roland

[Thomas P.]

I fairly new Unity (had the Pro version for about 2 months) so I'm here to learn.

Roland

Age doesn't matter much in our profession Goo to have you on bard Roland!

Thomas

[Night_Fox]

Hey all, just got setup and thought I'd pop in a little bit about myself!

I'm a Game Designer and Theorist as well as a 3D Artist and animator!

Used to T.A. and Teach up in MN for Brown College whilst being a student as well. Now I'm slaving away making simulations and animations as a gov contractor, anything from Northrop to NSA.

I've always enjoyed theory and unlike many people, I hold no game as the "worst" unless it strives to be the worst!

I've dabbled in all aspects of game design, c++, audio and foley effects, pre and post production work! All of it fun stuff and more than that, its helped me to understand the work that other people do, and have great respect for those who know it best!

Hit up the blog I have to see my ramblings and theory, give your own questions and response, I'm always happy to teach just as much as I'm happy to learn!

Hope to be able to offer my services to folks who need it hear, till then game on!

[Thomas P.]

Hey there Night_Fox. Good to have you on board as well

[narven]

Hi,

My name is Pedro Luz from Lisboa - Portugal, 33 years old. Just another newbie

[3devils]

I just found this thread after making my own: http://www.theunityartist.com/forum/index.php?topic=646.0
Hello Everyone!

[Tavy]

HEY HEY!  Welcome!

Tavy

[Thomas P.]

Welcome to all of the new guys here Hope to see and hear from you!

Thomas