When Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II hit last year, it was, for many, a very welcome departure from the tried-and-true RTS formula. But there was a big gap in the shape of the ever-popular Chaos Space Marines faction, and that’s something Vancouver-based Relic Entertainment rectified this week with the release of DOWII’s first expansion, Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising.
A lot of VFS grads work at Relic, to put it mildly. There were about a dozen on DOWII (check out our interview with one of them, Game Design grad Francois Chaput), and Chaos Rising is no different.
Along with many millions of viewers just like you, we watched the Oscars last night. Many incredible (and some underappreciated) films were honoured, and it was a real source of pride for us to see all the love for District 9. Though it didn’t win, it brought some deservedly renewed attention to this sci-fi gem.
So we’d like to take this moment to join in the applause for our nominated graduates, Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, as well as the many other alumni – especially those behind the film’s beautifully integrated visual effects – who made District 9 Oscar-worthy. And make no mistake – it was Oscar-worthy!
For Neill and Terri, especially, it’s a high point in what will surely be a long career. We haven’t seen the last of them on the red carpet!
The perennially eerie Tim Burton has once again returned to classic children’s literature in his next film, Alice in Wonderland.
Opening in theatres this Friday, a number of VFS grads have helped realize this not-surprisingly eccentric tribute to Lewis Carrol’s magical story of a girl who tumbled down a rabbit hole.
Update — Not surprisingly, we’ve just heard from more 3D grads who have worked on this film: Veronica Marino (Compositor) and Jacob Curtis Miller (Digital Artist).
We’re very pleased to announce an official partnership between Vancouver Film School and 5 Alarm Music, America’s largest independent production music library for film, television, radio, and commercials.
5 Alarm has contributed music to such productions as Transformers, A Christmas Carol, and HBO’s True Blood – and that’s just a tiny selection.
“VFS partnerships are very important to the student experience,” explains VFS Managing Director Marty Hasselbach. “5 Alarm Music is great example of an opportunity for students to have access to a phenomenal music library which truly enhances the work they create while they’re here. It also becomes the perfect go-to resource after they’ve graduated and enter their own production world.”
Cassie Lord, General Manager at 5 Alarm Music, tells us: “We’re excited to partner with VFS and believe that providing professional tools to students is a valuable asset to their education. Understanding music rights can be cumbersome and we want to aid their understanding of music licensing and gain an appreciation for production music.”
Everyone here at VFS is very proud to make this partnership official, and we look forward to seeing the results in action!
When we were getting set to announce the official partnership between VFS and Pixologic, makers of the industry-leading ZBrush, one of the first names that came to mind was ‘Intervain’.
She’s a talented 3D modeler who works at Ubisoft Digital Arts in Montreal, what the venerable game developer calls a digital cinema creation studio. Her work was last seen in Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, the well-received 36-minute film Ubisoft created in the run-up to the splashy debut of their game Assassin’s Creed II.
In light of the partnership, it seemed like the perfect time to catch up with her and find out a bit more about her background, her VFS experience, and her life as an artist.
First of all, let’s talk about your experience heading into VFS in 2005. Did you have an art background already before you started the program here?
Magdalena: I had no experience before I went to VFS. I’d only opened 3ds Max twice and made some primitive spheres and that’s about it. I did know Photoshop very well, because I’d learned it on my own to do some website design. I wasn’t educated as an artist, either – my degree is in English Literature.
What prompted me to study at VFS was a Pixar movie, Finding Nemo. When I first saw those turtles I had an epiphany – I simply had to do this for a living. After that, things just snowballed and through a very lucky set of coincidences, a year later I landed in Vancouver.
A model based on James Tissot's The Fireplace, created by Magdalena Dadela using ZBrush
Did you expect to be focusing on modeling when you started the program?
Magdalena: No. In fact, I was convinced I would be an animator before I got there.
For the first three terms, modeling had no appeal to me. I found it boring, and, well, I wasn’t awfully great at it. Having a friend in the class who already did a lot of modeling before coming to VFS was also rather discouraging at first. Animation was worse, though. I really didn’t enjoy it. So after about three months, I decided to change my initial intentions and go for visual effects instead and I was convinced that’d be my final decision for quite a while.
Then in the last few weeks of Term 3, just as we were about to choose our stream, I had a bit of a breakthrough moment in my modeling class. I started to enjoy it and got better at it. So in the end – the last week possible – I chose modeling. The fact that there was a very good modeling teacher had a lot to do with it as well.
I always advise those who ask me about VFS not to even think of choosing a stream before they’ve tried a bit of everything first, because they might be surprised.
An environment in Assassin's Creed: Lineage
Your most visible recent work was on Assassin’s Creed: Lineage, which took a lot of people by surprise. There was a lot of anticipation about the game, but Lineage came out of left field for many, and it was very impressive. What can you tell us about the project and your work on it?
Magdalena: The project was great fun and it was a bit of a challenge. We didn’t have that much time to work on it and there were three long episodes to be done – from the ground up. There was a lot of work for the modelers, which is always enjoyable.
For me, it was also a challenge because I’ve never worked on sets before. I am primarily a character modeler and though I have done some statues and sculptures on Lineage – like a church altar or a square fountain – the sets were my main focus here. We had to rebuild all of the original game assets completely because they had no details at all other than in the textures and would not hold up on a big screen. Apart from modeling all the buildings and interiors – there were five of us working on this – I also worked on texturing some of them.
You mentioned on your blog that you can be seen in a Lineagebehind-the-scenes video working on a door, something you call “an adventure”. How does something so simple become so challenging?
Magdalena: The door scene was a challenge because it involved an extreme close-up. We were working in HD, which means very high resolution textures and a lot of detail which would be seen close up on a big screen. Because there was a sudden change in the camera move, there had to be a lot of adjustments done to the textures and modeling in a small amount of time – so from a simple job, it got a bit more complicated overnight…
It’s mostly a time thing – as is always the case in this industry – which means longer hours and some stress but still a lot of fun.
Today sees the release of SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, developed for PSP by Vancouver’s Slant Six. The game picked up a good review from IGN a couple of weeks ago and looks pretty promising for anyone in the market for a third-person tactical shooter for the handheld.
VFS alumni behind the scenes of the game include Game Designgrads Pamela Livara and Chris Lee - both serving as game designers, naturally – as well as artist Kirk Takei, a 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad. Quite a few grads who have landed at Slant Six in recent years, so it’s quite possible many more worked on the title!
From 3D: Character Designer Julianna Kolakis, Previsualization Supervisor Zeke Norton, Lead Layout Artist Jeffrey Burt, Look Development Artist Julien Stuart-Smith, Concept & Creature Artist Ryan Lim, Effects TD James McPhail, Lighting TD Richard Sur, Compositor Aruna Inversin, Roto/Prep Artists Cesar Rodriguez Bautista and Cynthia Rodriguez del Castillo, and Animator Anthony Di Ninno
From Classical Animation: Animator Dave Mah
From Film Production: Art Department Assistant Eli Best
The much-ballyhooed BioShock 2 hits shelves today – and few sequels in recent memory are as talked-about. As gamers prepare to return to Rapture, this time as a Big Daddy, and the good reviews roll in, we take a moment to congratulate 3D Animation & Visual Effects grad Jacob Palmer, an animator on the game.
(In fact, we’re pretty sure he’s not the only grad on BioShock 2, but we haven’t been able to confirm the others… yet.)
iPhone development is a funny thing – it empowers the little guy, but there’s a lot of little guys. Still, whatever the challenges in being heard above the App Store din, the fact is that the iPhone is basically unrivaled as a petri dish for independent game designers who actually want a shot at finding an audience.
So it’s no surprise that you’ll find VFS grads in the mix and making their iPhone offerings available to all. We caught up with the alumni involved in two recent examples.
Flip TacTic
Jesus Rodriguez graduated from the 3D Animation & Visual Effects program in late 2008. He would go on to establish the Florida-based Playmore Games as a way to work his way into the game industry. Long-term, he hopes the company can be a testbed for recent grads like him: “Ideally, I would love to gain enough interest to begin getting projects and giving recent grads from VFS a place to get their feet wet. I want a place where grads can come learn, get some quick games and experience under their belt, see how the development process is, and move on to bigger things.”
Flip TacTic is his first offering, a “3D tic-tac-toe game unlike any other out there,” as he calls it. “What sets our game apart from the rest is the balance and strategy we added to an otherwise simple game. You can use two main abilities or one super ability either defensively or offensively to win.”
Alien Space Lizards ATTACK!!! is a 2D actioner with a lot of personality and many VFS grads behind it - Game Design Senior Instructor Andrew Laing helped group Game Design alumni together (as well as a Sound Design for Visual Media grad and a member of the VFS Resources staff – full credits here) and published the game to the App Store through his own company.
For the team of alumni, it was a great chance to keep their skills sharp and tackle the challenges of the medium. “The most interesting part of designing for the platform was making a control scheme that worked without any of those buttons that us designers depend on,” says Game Design grad Andrew Myers, Design Lead and Programmer. “But with that challenge, I think something great came out of it. The innovative control scheme that we came up with adds that layer of fun and accessibility that a lot of iPhone games are missing.”
Andrew acknowledges the challenge of rising above a flooded market – “no matter how well-designed the game was or how fun it was to play, without any marketing or reviews, the game will slip between the cracks and into App Store obscurity” – but at the end of the day, it’s about successfully creating an enjoyable play experience for gamers. The team knows it’s done that. (Video showing off the gameplay can be found here.)
“Once you start playing the game and getting into the flow of shooting enemies, gravity nodes, and coins, it’s quite difficult to put down,” he says. “I’ve heard quite a few reports of people missing their stops on the Skytrain…”
Alien Space Lizards ATTACK!!! and Flip TacTic are two recent examples of VFS alumni finding ways to get their work out there. Are you a VFS grad developing for the iPhone, or finding other distribution avenues for your indie projects? Let us know at blog@vfs.com!
“I remember sitting in class, fantasizing about getting a script actually realized on the screen, and I’m pretty sure, at that point, I was still thinking of a short film! When District 9 came about and I was lucky enough to have a feature-length script made — and in my opinion, made well — I didn’t think it could get any better than that. I certainly didn’t even dare to think Oscar nominations! I don’t think I’ve missed a single Oscars since I was 7 years old, and to be actually attending as a nominee this year is ridiculous. I couldn’t feel luckier!”
Congratulations to both Terri and Neill on their nomination!
Not sure what these are?
When Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II hit last year, it was, for many, a very welcome departure from the tried-and-true RTS formula. But there was a big gap in the shape of the ever-popular Chaos Space Marines faction, and that’s something Vancouver-based Relic Entertainment rectified this week with the release of DOWII’s first expansion, Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising.
Along with many millions of viewers just like you, we watched the Oscars last night. Many incredible (and some underappreciated) films were honoured, and it was a real source of pride for us to see all the love for 
The perennially eerie Tim Burton has once again returned to classic children’s literature in his next film, 
We’re very pleased to announce an official partnership between Vancouver Film School and 
When we were getting set to announce the 
You mentioned on your blog that you can be seen in a Lineage 
On the heels of 
The much-ballyhooed 
Jesus Rodriguez graduated from the 
Alien Space Lizards ATTACK!!! is a 2D actioner with a lot of personality and many VFS grads behind it - 
Andrew acknowledges the challenge of rising above a flooded market – “no matter how well-designed the game was or how fun it was to play, without any marketing or reviews, the game will slip between the cracks and into App Store obscurity” – but at the end of the day, it’s about successfully creating an enjoyable play experience for gamers. The team knows it’s done that. (
