another and will not let it happen. Decide where you want to go, and go
there. Don't "settle" for a games job if you can't get into ILM. Both compa-
nies need people who are dedicated to what they do, not someone who's
scheming to make a lateral move in the Lucas organization.
Q: What projects have you worked on over the years? How big
were the teams doing these projects?
A: I worked on seven Star Wars games over the years: Rebel Assault and
Rebel Assault II, Rebellion, DroidWorks, X-Wing Alliance, a finished but never-
released game called Rebel Agent, and a never-completed one called The New
Emperor.
The type of game and its production schedule determines the size of the art
team. Shorter production cycles meant we had to put more people on a
project for a shorter amount of time, which was always a pain. The 3D
team for Rebel Assault consisted of only four or five artists. Rebel Assault II--
which I was the lead artist on--had as many as 15 3D artists on it at a given
time. Pre-rendered games like that require a lot of artists, whereas a flight
simulator game like X-Wing Alliance needed only about six artists.
In addition to all those Star Wars games, other titles I worked on in some
capacity include Full Throttle and Ballblazer Champions for LucasArts, plus
Critical Path and The Daedalus Encounter for Mondo Media/Virgin
Interactive. At Totally Games, I've just finished working on Star Trek: Bridge
Commander for Activision, and am now working on an Xbox title for
Microsoft.
Q: Which models or animation have been the most interesting
for you? Which have been the toughest, and why?
A: I was a huge Star Wars fan back in the days of the original trilogy--
before the dark times of Episode 1--but my fondest memories were of my
work on an adventure game called Full Throttle. It was great fun to work on
something other than Star Wars, and to have a chance to do some "car-
toony" character stuff in 3D. It was mostly a 2D game, but after I did a test
to determine if we could use 3D animation for all the game's vehicles, they
were sold. It was a blast modeling the vehicles and characters from Peter
Chan's designs.
One of the challenges with Full Throttle was to figure out a way to match
the look of the 3D elements to the 2D elements. I did this with a mix of
special texture maps and carefully reducing the palettes to a very limited
range of colors, then compositing them together. That sounds pretty
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