LIVE | Good Habits for Remote Working with Michael Shinde

[Music] what's up everybody welcome to another episode of game dev unchained the number one game development podcast about game development and the lifestyle thereof i am your host brandon pham and with me a special guest michael shinday hi dear michael what's going on man oh yeah look at this setup bro look at this setup this is how my house this is how i hang uh well this is the part of the podcast where i actually asked our guest which is yourself to introduce yourself to the listeners and viewers out there of who you are where you've been where you at where you're heading uh cool man so uh right now i'm a senior concept artist at riot games uh working on valrant uh mainly focusing on the environment so maps and stuff and then let's see prior to that i was at turtle rock for about four or four years something like that

uh doing the same thing working on environments and stuff like that for back for blood and then like two other games that never made it out uh and then before that uh i was working on outsourcing studio um doing like marketing art and stuff and also i teach so that's why i'm doing that like on the side as well yeah you're doing 10 things at once well uh one one of the things that i wanted to bring you on here and there's a lot of history here i need to use this kind of episode to catch up with you as well uh but one of the things that i wanted to kind of uh drive home is you've always been kind of doing remote before remote was cool so i remember at turtle rock you were kind of having like an agreement in place where you were able to kind of commute some days and stay home and others and i think with concept art it's always been flexible in that way i know a lot of concept guys that have always you know you guys were the first uh when it comes to freelancing and being able to work this flexible

schedule so it wasn't too surprising that you kind of had like this this agreement uh going on but do you mind kind of talking about was it i remember was like for personal reasons but also the advantages of that uh the turtle rock was kind of flexible when it came to to things like that do you mind kind of diving deep into the deal how was it when you first brought it up was it alarming was it part of the deal when you got hired you know when you're like hey this is is this i i need this to kind of work if you want me to come here yeah uh so for so yeah it was like it was way before covet or anything like that happened so like the the expectations back then were a little bit different um it it it was mainly driven by personal stuff like with family things um but i did yeah i had to like bring it up before i got hired and make sure that they were definitely okay with it because you know obviously like at that time the standard for for like most studios was that they wanted to

have everybody there like five days a week which is understandable because you know i think at that time they were companies were just like hesitant about uh remote workers i think even i've heard some stories i won't say aware of people getting let go when they've brought it up so when they brought up that they they would need to work remote for whatever reason so i was i was a little surprised that they were able they were okay with it and i think part of it was uh i think maybe part of it was because of the personal reason that i had uh and then maybe some of it was timing like they needed somebody uh so they were like maybe letting it slide i don't know but yeah it was it was an uncommon thing um but thankfully like it worked out um and and two i think with what you mentioned with concept art like being kind of at the forefront of remote right um it kind of makes sense that they allowed it i guess

because like with with 3d guys right like with what you used to do with the environment stuff um it's like almost i mean back then right like way more difficult to to pull off mainly just because you'd have to have the engine on your computer at home and all these other things and and getting that set up for somebody was way more difficult than just having to like put photoshop on a computer right and then and then whatever 3d program if they used one right and then like dropbox or whatever you know so yeah i it was it was it was a weird setup but thankfully yeah it worked it worked yeah i mean there was definitely um concerns right uh when it comes to integration like what 3d or any other disciplines there's always security issues that comes with that so either they send you a rig and have it set up to you um it was a very rare thing i mean i only saw that before i kind of met you and was working at turtle rock it was very reserved to

lead levels where they used to work there because of family or whatever the reason they had to bounce to a different state but instead of the company letting them go completely they kind of worked out this deal so it was one of those things to kind of paint a picture before kovit it was one of those things where it existed but only to a very selective few very favorite uh yeah yeah so that's how we saw you over at the studio michael you were favorited right i was like this guy can bounce in and out whatever but a lot of it too is what you said i think because of concept art you guys had very limited necessity for tools that kind of help with transition uh but i will say that turtle rock was um you know was ahead of its uh time because they did that for a couple other people i think right yeah yeah i think they did for a couple of yeah you know everybody has like their i can't speak to everybody's situation right but like everybody had their own like reasons why they were allowed to do it and i think you're

right you know with the whole seniority thing uh where that was more common right like you had to be working actually i think they had this in place while i was there like when i got hired they said that you could i think work from home maybe i might be wrong but i'm pretty sure like 85 percent sure that they had like a policy that said that you could work from home after you had been there for like a year or something like that um but i was able to like kind of skip that line for some other personal reasons um yeah but to be fair also um while i did do some working from home i also was getting up at four in the morning to leave at five to be there at six uh on certain days where i had to leave early because of certain things so instead of working from home i would do that schedule which was brutal yeah and i think you left one most important part is like you were talented i think because you were good they allowed that if you were completely trash right they

wouldn't trust you to kind of do with this because a lot of it is self moderation right i think uh a lot of studios now that are struggling with this you have these middle managers producers type that uh are really having a hard time go going along with this zoom call only management right and um to kind of let you do that at that time was a lot of trust that you are able to deliver right so uh and i think a lot of students had a lot of issues with that at the beginning but are kind of forced into this situation but yeah you said it wasn't easy right you had to do the crazy commute a lot of it was your your you were not just because you of personal reasons but you did live far away and you couldn't move any closer to the studio right uh yeah yeah i could yeah i couldn't move any closer and again that was tied to like personal stuff but um yeah i mean dude the commute was brutal bro like i think on average right like it was uh

40 to an hour you know and then on on days where it was like tremendously bad it was anywhere from an hour and a half to sometimes two hours yeah i remember i commuted with a co-worker once um because she lived in the same the same city as me and it took us two hours to get to work and that's with carpool you know so i definitely i miss the commute sometimes because you know with cobin and everything like you you are always at home and you miss the studio bye but also i missed going through a billion audio books you know and podcasts and stuff like that uh that's something that i do a lot less now that i don't commute so that's one thing i miss about it at the very least yeah i mean there's definitely that alone time that um i'm sure as a family man uh you miss yeah dude like i gotta go to work babe this is not my choice uh yeah but i do understand obviously we prefer

to be at home uh i mean we always listen to podcasts doing other things but there is that that piece that you do find during commuting like i'm with you man i've done the reverse commute uh being in orange living in orange county i usually go to la which is i think the normal normal version of the commute not many people go to orange county unless they work at blizzard or something uh to to to make that sacrifice right but you know oc la la to llc uh in california is the worst the worst um would drive by three accidents every day or something this one time i think i told you right this one time we were driving and you know as we are super sleepy super early and i just drove past a motorcycle in the car pulling with nobody on it like where the [ __ ] is the guy oh my god bro yeah so he flew somewhere and i was like and it was basically months after where i decided like i can't do this i got to ride the train or

something it's too dangerous it's just a matter of time that you're gonna hit someone right even though it added 20 minutes but the reason why i want to illustrate how difficult it was pre co pandemic and why uh you were at the front lines of this is for that very reason right there's a lot of good jobs out there that um unfortunately a lot of these good jobs are in centralized like expensive city it's like in the center of like a very expensive place so what you see is 40 minutes 50 minutes out or where actual employees would live and they have to go into these inner cities or expensive areas to kind of work and like you said man it's you were you're saying two hours each way sometimes uh yeah that's a lot of time four hours of your day just just destroy it right yeah sorry yeah for what

so uh i want to kind of go into the next part where uh you know i think a lot of people are still actually having issues with this and for me personally i always thought when it comes to office politics right that happens in the office right i thought that was it right all right so when people work at home all this problem would be solved right uh which was not the case and there's like three four reasons to that but like i would say the first reason would be maybe in part in addition to the office politics but self-management right so i want to kind of hear you know your your your first trial and error of when you were self-managing uh and a lot of people now are are having difficult time with that with you said you know family coming and barging in whenever they want to not having your alone time so creatively yes those commute times were terrible like you were saying but it was really good to

kind of sit there and let things kind of happen right which i feel nowadays i don't really have you know i'm trying to that's basically occupying my mind uh doing things all the time so i want to kind of hear like your first stages of that and now where you feel like your expert level what the differences are at least for you yeah like uh i mean my career kind of started as a work from home um because like i was doing i was working at outsource studio and it was a remote outsourced studio too yeah so i guess you go way back yeah like way back right yeah back in uh what was it 2015 is you know that when that started i think i mean not way back right so have you even even been in an office i know right you've always gotta know that's been like a street shot all the way through at home yeah all right that's nice um i you know it's funny like i've only been into the riot office once to like pick up once or

actually you know like twice to pick up lunch and drop off stuff yeah you know the sad part i didn't grab a coffee from the from the like crazy freaking coffee thing that they have there and i didn't grab food i just like went and went out but that's what i did but anyways um let's see yeah i mean i've i started as remote so i learning self-time management was i guess started there right and that was i i was definitely like pretty strict on myself about it at the beginning um because i was trying to i was still trying to figure out how my working process was and how long it would take me to do things because because when i started at that company i was still in school i was i hadn't graduated yet so i was on top right on top of working there on top of working there i was still doing like a four-class load at academy of art university yeah um so so i i guess you could say in order to not get fired i had to learn are you from the bay or recently i'm from i'm from uh torrance like south

bay uh near los angeles but i went up there yeah for school to learn okay um yeah yeah so so yeah like in order to not get fired like i had to make sure like i was able to balance those things to you know which was critical right yeah especially since it was like my first intro into the industry i didn't want to let let my boss down especially since i i really wanted to work there at the time i was it was actually like the company i was shooting to work for and i was thankfully like able to get it um and then like with the whole turtle rock thing i um i i think at that point i was i was like pretty good at self-managing and like knowing that you know if you have an eight hour work day uh i didn't need the full eight hours to get what i needed done i could get most of most if not all of my tasks done within like a four hour block if i had it like and sometimes even less than that right like i mean i haven't thankfully i

haven't worked at a studio where i've had the crunch pretty pretty bad you know and most of the times concept doesn't have to crunch anyways um very few exceptions but like there's some there's some studios out there where that happens but i've been able to avoid it um so like for me if i can get like a three to four hour window in my day to purely just like sit down and focus and that's the only thing that i'm doing then i'll be okay and then the rest of the time it's either like meetings lunch like and i'm sure like you remember right with turtle rock yeah lunch was anywhere from like an hour to you know hour and a half maybe you know um brainstorming yeah the brainstorm yeah yeah we're out there you know getting work done they just don't they just don't know it um so so yeah and then with with where i'm at now like i started i started as a remote employee at riot so i you know again following the same trend uh and that the same thing with turtle rock right that that mindset has still just carried over i just have gotten better

at uh managing it i guess i don't know yeah i think just as you start to know yourself better as an artist you realize like how long it's gonna take you to do things and as long as you have the the mental discipline to to make sure that you don't slack off uh you know you should be fine i guess everybody's different you know i know everyone is different and i kind of want to ask you on that so you know you've been kind of in the game of remote working for a long time are you seeing like similar mistakes that colleagues are making that you made at the beginning are you seeing inefficiencies now that managers are remote like what i would love to hear your perspective since you've been doing this for a while and you had it you know both ways where you had managers in the office and telling you what to do but now they're remote do you see you know every studio is different but at least in your experience what have you been able to observe well i i think the position i'm in now um because i'm like a senior concept artist

i my and and it's also like a testament to the manager bro uh that i have so he's very good about trusting uh his team and making sure that you know he's gonna hire people that he believes can do the work without him having to be on them all the time yeah so you know i i guess that's just you know having that's like what a good manager would look like you know someone who hires trustworthy people that are going to be able to manage themselves and and you know just kind of nudge them if they need it right but i i think in the i have [Music] i i guess like in the office um i was i was the same way where i wanted to be the type of artist that was i didn't like being managed per se like you know having somebody over my shoulder i think i actually work worse when somebody is constantly trying to

uh yeah like look over me and and like micromanage uh and i would say at turtle rock at least in studio they were the opposite of that or they they were like very kind of hands-off i think in some regards at least for environments right i know some of the character stuff like they were very hands-on because they were like very passionate about characters but for maps uh on all i think in all three games that i worked on there um maps was pretty chill in terms of manager style and producers and stuff like especially for concept i never felt super pressured and stuff um and then as that transitioned into remote work uh you know i mean again that was like at the beginning of the pandemic and everybody was trying to figure stuff out um but i don't feel like the i don't feel like the management style changed too much if anything it just

made it more difficult because of having to do the zoom stuff which i can't you know that was an adjustment for everybody so i can't necessarily say it was only because the managers or whatever you know when everybody's trying to adjust to this new like world that you're living in you know there's an expectation that there's gonna be some growing pains in all departments yeah well what what are your impressions in because that's quite new right i'm did the the amount of meetings for you increased when you had officer managers in the office versus now where everyone's kind of remote being increased let me try and think back i yeah probably um but you know i i think when you're working at a studio and you have meetings i sometimes i didn't mind i didn't mind that you know because it was a chance to like to get everybody on the team together and you know it's a it's a meeting right but like you're also like it's it's game dev you know it's like it's fun it's not like you're going at

least most of the time there's some meetings that are freaking boring dude but um yeah i i don't think it probably increased i don't know mainly because it's just communication things you can't just go walk up to somebody's desk it was it was i've been at riot for a sec now and i kind of forget turn rock stuff sometimes but i feel like it uh maybe for good reasons i mean sometimes i mean naughty like i you know yeah yeah it's fun it's quirks you know for sure but i think overall like my impression of turtle walk was good you know a lot of that a lot of that is like you know you and the whole crew and stuff like that you know people make the studio um i'm a my big big proponent of like if you work with dope people then no matter the studio you'll probably enjoy your time there significantly more yeah than if you were working on like your dream project but you didn't but you weren't like connecting with anybody on the team or whatever i'd much prefer the opposite

yeah every day well i mean you're a lot wiser than i was um starting i mean always it wasn't always like that you know like when i was at when i was at one pixel i was i was still in that mindset for sure but then i'll be honest like i wasn't i never thought like oh hey i really want to work at turtle rock you know and that's nothing against them it was just um you know when you're young and you're getting into that yeah yeah your sites are like i want to work at blizzard i want to work at riot naughty dog all these like huge names at the time that were doing all these groundbreaking stuff right um internal rock is like a relatively small studio but you know i got there and and you meet like all these people that you know in some cases right they're going to be your friends for you know your entire life you know and that was what happened to me and um yeah so like again i can't be a bigger proponent for that that type of i guess path if you want to call it that

well i would say this you know despite my experience of good or bad i've always like you said met some good people at every single place i've been at and i think that is the takeaway um you know uh you know at that point when i was at turtle rock i went the opposite you know i started triple a all the way through to then and wanted something different and wanted something smaller and so i went to turtle rock and uh i met you guys which made it super fun and there were a lot of things that trevorrock did that was awesome uh you know in terms of the perks and everything it was great and it was in orange county which is my my hometown or home county uh that's where i spent most of my time growing up so i wanted to be near here uh there's not a lot of places here uh even today uh to today i know obsidian is still around i got bought by microsoft so that's a little point up uh

and the the people who made um the vr game is around and they got bought the loan echo studio yeah lone echo that's that's a little up and then there's blizzard of course and then there's turtle rock there's not a lot and then amazon amazon yeah yeah yeah i mean if you want to count them so it sounds like a lot right but yeah it's uh you know it depends on like what you want to choose from you know i don't like to be honest the the choices that you list it off i'm like yeah i mean i would love to kind of hear your thoughts you know you've been obviously you're at a great place right now you're pretty happy there it's one of your dream studio i'm guessing through college um what what has your has your view change in terms of what you look for right in studios now uh besides i mean it sounds like you guys have it all over at riot but you know let's just say an alternate universe

what are the things that are most important to you where it definitely needs to hit and other things don't hit uh it doesn't matter as much yeah uh i mean i think still if if i had the opportunity to work with like a group of people that you know i knew i got along with that would for sure and you know the thing is the longer you work in the industry too like the the easier that will be to fulfill because you know more people right um so that's like still pretty big but i think with the with riot um it was kind of like a dream studio and i actually never thought that i would work here because i didn't have like if you look at my work none of it really fits riot's like typical aesthetic you know and the reason why i got it was because i have one or two things in my portfolio that really fit and i actually like specifically catered for applying to riot um so that you know that's how that worked

out but you know in terms of like what i look for in a studio i i want to work uh on a game that i'm passionate about where i enjoy playing it you know and that's kind of what i have right now um with with valerian i really enjoy the art style i like it's like stylized and semi-realistic at the same time but i don't do like any photo bashing work basically it's all like drawing and painting and stuff which is what i really enjoy doing now because i spent a lot of years doing photo bashing stuff and i actually have grown to very much dislike that type of work and that working method um and like there's a whole there's like a whole bunch of reasons for that too but i guess like the main one would be uh i i kind of used photo bashing as a crutch at like the beginning of my career in order to significantly level up

the way that my work looked um and it worked right like i was able to get jobs and stuff for companies that were looking for that type of work but it also hindered me in some ways that i maybe didn't realize at the time where i you know i could have been stronger in designing in line work and not relying on 3d and photos to kind of carry me through in certain cases um so so all that to say i i think i've just gotten tired of doing the photo batch stuff because i feel it feels robotic to me it also reminds me of of these like things that um i don't like doing any more or problems i had in my work process i'm still trying to resolve and i'm trying to make sure i don't use it as a crutch yeah um and that's why i like i like where i'm at now because that challenges me like on a daily basis where i'm doing line work i'm doing just strictly painting it's all like design stuff which is you know a lot more fulfilling i think than than photo based stuff um

so yeah so you know when it comes to what i look for in a studio something that can fulfill that itch for me you know that that wanting to like like actually create you know without outside influence and having to spend google you know time on google all the time and and then making sure that the team itself um you know if like even if it's a new like a new team entirely right the team itself is gonna be really dope and i kind of feel that the the valor maps team has that same vibe that i was getting from turtle rock where everybody was like really close you know ever like it was it's hard to explain to the people that that maybe haven't experienced it before but you know when i say like everybody is close you know like you know what i mean um and that's that's like really really cool if you can get that yes uh no backscabbing uh

care for each other's career and work uh it is is it sounds like one of those things that is easily obtainable but it once you get into like a groove of people that you want to actually hang out with outside of work i don't think i got there with you guys i don't think i hung out with you guys outside of work but i know a lot of you guys did i was almost there right but uh well you know i mean you're a busy guy dude but yeah yeah we i think we played basketball like we would invite you to basketball you know yeah we play ball and all that stuff uh and i agree with you like uh well i kind of want to touch on this topic a bit you know the photo bashing stuff it seems like every concept artist i talk to don't like it but it's so widely used maybe because it's efficient but is there ever a way to kind of get rid of that or i mean is it just too advantageous where art directors just love that [ __ ] because i every concept artist i talk to never likes that process never i

think that if anything it's just getting easier to do now yeah uh and the techniques are just getting more crafty where it's you know it's it's looking better and it doesn't take as much time and um in some cases you know it's just yeah i don't i don't know i i don't think it's gonna go away um and art directors do [ __ ] love it sorry i'm not allowed to cuss but yeah you can um [ __ ] it you can type yeah art directors you know in most cases they like it unless unless you're at a studio where it's they definitely don't do that type of stuff um but you know like i said it's it's one of those processes where it's it's much easier to learn how to photo bash than it is to learn how to paint uh well you know yeah because because photo bashing you're just taking something and altering the altering it but it's already there it's already like a thing that exists right so um

it's much easier to teach somebody how to attach like a bunch of adjustment layers to an image that you cut out and paste it in there um to teach somebody like how to render uh like a highlight that's that's warm and then the shadows are cool on the other side right and yeah and why why it should be that way et cetera et cetera right because at that point you're you're creating something from scratch rather than something that's already halfway or three quarters of the way done um and yeah i i think it's a shame that it's that way because um you know i i think just i i prefer the painted stuff now but that's all just personal opinion but you know again i don't think it's gonna go away it's just gonna get faster and faster especially with tools that are coming out and things like uh nvidia's all their ai crap that they're doing that's making it crazy too uh and then and then also too with um epic's uh material library that they have for free

now yeah that stuff is just and then you combine that with things like blender which is also free so it's like you know it's it's very very easy to make high quality photorealistic work for minimal effort but the problem again the problem with that is a lot of like a lot of students they don't learn how to uh properly design something because they think that since everything is at their fingertips already uh you know you know you can kind of skip that process and i've seen that a lot in the students that i've taught where you can tell some that they've they've watched like the tutorial videos and stuff on how to do this specific process but then they are missing the composition and the lighting fundamentals and design principles and stuff like that that that make your photo bashed image read well um and that's a shame you know because i i went through that a bit at the beginning of my career and in school and stuff and

if i could go back and make sure that i fixed those things at the beginning i would definitely be more well-off so i'm trying to make sure that my students don't make those same mistakes because they can be unhard to they can be hard to unravel once they are they're set in place yeah yeah i definitely agree i think all disciplines are kind of going through a similar cycle where these tools are getting so much stronger uh it is really up to the creative to uh take it up the notch right uh where the default is already good but to make it great uh you basically have to go uh back to fundamentals all these things that we learned in these books that we ignore uh like bring all that knowledge uh and when the tool is just a tool set right yeah like even with 3d arts same thing man there's characters i always make fun of characters because they are kind of like the glory uh prop right yeah i don't know a lot of character artists don't like hearing that but it's a glorified prop uh but

like you know there's just like insulting that you could say something wrong bring it on right so both both disciplines respect each other but it's a glorified problem uh but like you know we we have metahumans we're having all these you know they're going through a mocap uh animation phase right now where yeah you can basically build a character kind of like those world wrestling federation games right you make your own avatar which is a very smart way of doing it it won't cover everything but if that tools continue to develop it becomes a very accessible thing where you can adjust make it look like a certain way and then it's auto rigged and has a full set of animation already said but that's a huge time saver where uh like you said with photo bashing uh photo bashing is very approachable for me i don't draw right but i feel like i can get there with it but

it is uh completely boring uh to you guys but at the same time i don't have the fundamentals that you guys have or i would say a conceptual visual library that you guys have to rely on to make the composition interesting and and draw from right i still got to do google search and stuff so there's a lot of steps that is being cut out and i think it becomes a problem uh later down in line when we're becoming more senior in lead level and we have to come up with something out of nothing right yeah and you build a career building something out of something else it's very hard to kind of suddenly become that artist and be original right and i think that's kind of what you're saying that if you rely on these tools too much to kind of make the final art look good for now uh when it becomes time to step up where to be fair most people don't have that opportunity to kind of make something uh and call the shot on it right most people are uh gonna be you know uh

assembly line workers right which is fine but like it is a uh it is one of the reasons why that when you do move up the ladder in the industry that there's only one pinnacle lead right one pinnacle art director and like a lot of other people right but uh i i i do see a similar thing happening in all disciplines even environment art men they are coming out with uh ai driven world building right crazy yeah mega scans you know props or being picked photographed and then yeah i mean that's the that's the thing right like mega scans is your guys's photo bashing right essentially i mean yeah and again that leaks into concept art because we're using the same stuff but yeah i mean if you again if you don't know how to put a scene together and make make it pleasing you can have all these great scans and stuff and

textures but it's just still going to be like a blobby mess or whatever you know yeah um yeah i like going back to the whole like fundamentals thing like i've been uh i'm in the middle of designing a 15-week course for for the school that i teach at and the first couple of weeks are going back to it going back to fundamental stuff where it's uh it's doing like ellipses and cubes in perspective and you know how to plot an ellipse on like a slope and things like that and um a lot of things that i learned back in the day but definitely just forgot how to do because i never had to really use it in in my everyday work right because with photoshop there's a bunch of different tools that you can use to kind of fake it or whatever but it's actually been really enjoyable to kind of pick up the books that i have in my my art book library and look back through them yeah yeah it does go like this like dusting off the freaking the you know the centuries

worth of dust you know um but yeah it's actually been really enjoyable to go back and and see those um and just do these little exercises but i'm recording myself do these exercises and trying to describe like how i'm doing it so that's been really fun and i think if students can find joy in that also you know it would be super beneficial for them but sometimes it's just boring right people think it's yeah i mean yeah it was boring until i entered and they still think it's lauren your students like why is he not showing us photo back you don't want to make cool [ __ ] i mean that's [Laughter] it's unfortunate but the cycle repeats yeah i was in those classes too man doing color theory and all this [ __ ] i was like when i get to the 3d but now now that i'm older i'm appreciating those fundamentals and i'm like oh man i wish i prayed paid more attention to design principles right and then like even topography which was i thought was [ __ ] i was like oh now i understand

why [Laughter] yeah your eyes as you think back yeah so this is one of those things that yeah i know the ones that get it obviously were excelling but i think as uh as a whole most students kind of ignore that stuff which you know we want to do the cool [ __ ] right i was one of the those people who's like why am i not learning how to 3d model man it's been like year one one and a half year in and i haven't touched the 3d model program what the [ __ ] yeah i have this stupid pencil in your hand bro what is this like why am i drawing this dude you know but yeah i definitely uh uh see that happening now it's i'm i think it's one of those things that as uh funny enough i think as the industry matures right now that tools are being so easily accessible and students can make good looking work right and then the the gap between good and great is like i feel like incrementally getting smaller because there's so many tools that disposes kind of make these really fast

that the edge is actually what you're saying going back to the fundamentals uh to to to make your composition that much better right uh yeah you just gotta ultra zoom is like that's why this is better it's like oh okay because like the thing with world building and everything that i'm seeing is uh there's with mega scans you can throw a bunch of art in the scene in the same amount of time before right but now i'm my eyes are bleeding from too much detail right and i've seen that with a lot of games like too much like going on in this corner right now it's like you don't need to see that much so it's like that subtraction is actually it's actually i feel what makes a lot of games come out because you know how many zombie games in the apocalyptic world can you see you see so many bro yeah and that's that's also part of the reason why i i got you know i was tired of photo bashing stuff and then also too with the realism thing where um you know like at that at that time

everybody was trying to chase the the like the last of us and uncharted type like realism or whatever you know there's no but like yes yeah it's still still right um but after a while it's like yeah you know i think like the reason why those games look look really good is because they they knew how to self-edit and do uh materials that they were very very meticulous with the way that they designed their materials and the value groupings and things so that it didn't feel super noisy but then you have a lot of games that just aren't doing that and the way they crafted like lighting as well um and you know for me i just got a little tired of that type of stuff which is why like for me stylized artwork is more appealing now because it's a lot more self self editing in design like color choices yeah like like when you do stylize stuff you know with or with realism you can get away with a little bit more right you don't you can you can kind of fudge some things in terms of like design but with stylized stuff if the

design is off it will really show through because you know you're out you're you don't have like a bunch of detail to kind of hide things you know that's why things like tf2 and overwatch and stuff like that they're they're so successful for their time um because the the way that they handled like character silhouettes and and environment designs and things like that it was so um like i guess you could say simple right deliberate everything was deliberate yeah i think if we uh i think i've noticed the last last year and a half um the the most popular games the aaa games are leaning towards stylize now more than realism of course there's a lot of realistic games but you know if you look at horizon zero done i would kind of lean that more towards stylize a bit right because it is a made up fantasy world uh still based on realisms but like obviously this concept team had fun with that right they've still probably got a bash not quite there but i would say

this because you guys have to hand draw that [ __ ] style less concept that's why there is less is more you know no one wants to like do too much lines these guys are like no this is better it's like someone that concept artist yeah design principles we're just lazy dude yeah yeah that that first concept that was developing arthritis right it was like no man this is this is where the energy is going this is where this is where you want me to draw how many wires bro yeah i know how many houses do i gotta hand draw this [ __ ] this is a this is a flat wall dude that's actually why valerian's successful is we're just a bunch of lazy concept artists and we're just we're just making flat walls dude yeah i mean i know i know yeah i don't know is he the lead that you were talking about yeah yeah okay yum is the lead yeah i i make fun of yam all the time because it's like all right man you're just drawing boxes with colors on it good job somehow yeah yeah everything is just a box dude that's it that's all it is on valerie yeah just different colored boxes different different shapes just rectangles all over the place what i do love what you guys do is uh uh

when you guys were first like coming out with that thing and uh you know i was a huge fan of counter-strike counter-strike was my first first-person shooter introduced to that genre right so when i saw that gameplay that you guys were doing with like your own twist and then uh varied designer levels like you said like boxy right designers love boxes right uh i thought it was perfect um the way that you were is designing it and it was just a great i love the environment i love the characters i love the gameplay so you know for the longest time i was making fun of ride of being like a a one game studio yeah yeah now since i don't know what happened man like since then killing it uh uh since then valerian being like i think the second announced game or third or something that that was uh killing it but uh i do see that and uh and and what you guys are doing that is leading the industry but

i believe also because everything is over photo bash for the longest time that it is starting to look the same right um and the realist the irony of people kind of looking at the last of us as like the way to do post-apocalyptic uh it's kind of becoming very formal like now in terms of the art directions like how can i tell from this game to the next and i think slowly the industry is finally learning is like we can't do this it's bad for us because we don't stand out but uh you know for for the customers out there i'm starting to kind of bleed them together and clump that that whole game genre together so it doesn't help me feel attracted to that game even though i like it you know uh there was that game was it the day before today or something

something stupid i've never heard of it yeah day before today it's a zombie it's supposed to it's basically the division with zombies right oh god okay so so the premise is interesting because you know i never played the division for you know clunky reasons uh but like yeah i would love to hang out in a zombie infested world but i mean first of all the name is stupid day before yesterday the day for before today is yesterday so it's like no one talks like that and second of all the way it looks yeah it was just very it was exactly what last of us would look like in the open world but you know i don't think that's enough anymore if you look at the biggest games the last couple years during the epidemic it was fall guys valorant um what else was there uh well fortnite dominated um and of course you have war zone but that's called duty that's kind of a category of its own but like there was a lot of games last two years and uh that that were

i would say not the norm right uh these games used to not dominate the realistic games yeah unless you're nintendo right so i definitely see that that trend kind of moving towards and probably it's you guys complaining all the time uh concept guys here is like hey i can draw it's like do you yeah do you yeah sometimes like i think i can uh you might know what's crazy bro as is back in the day like at when i was doing the outsourcing stuff um and even a little bit at turtle rock there was this process where if you would if you spent a bunch of time like cutting out a photo you know for let's say it's like street objects and stuff um you would take a p you would open a psd and you would just place that cut out into the psd for later use like instead of having to find another one right for like basic objects but then sometimes you know that process started to get to the point where you're cutting out things that were specific and dude i've

seen i've seen concepts where the same thing like the same object was like in multiple different concepts or like one or two different concepts because there's like a group of artists like a group of concepts like from outsourcing or whatever that were using the same like cutout psd like alpha stuff you know they would just like collect a library of them that the entire team would use so then you start seeing repeated objects just all over the place yeah you know like they would hide it pretty well right but in some cases if you had a good eye you could tell it's like disney animation yeah they would just rotoscope the same movie what was it that was a jungle book right and yeah and winnie the pooh or something like that yeah man so stuff like that you know it's crazy and and i don't know yeah you just get you just like baffle that some some of that stuff uh just a little laziness yeah i i think it's one of those things

that yeah as a trained eye you know let's just call them nerds concept nerds can catch it right there but you know the point being is that that leaks into into games you know yeah it does that will that will slowly trickle down into into the 3d guys no no i i can definitely see it like over like as a blip right you don't notice it only like the the train eye can see it but now that you have mega scans now they have metahuman what you're gonna see the next few years is the same looking characters the same looking environments and uh you know as a bundle it starts to devalue the game the story that you're trying to tell whatever game that you're putting out with these same assets it's people are going to be distracted by it it's like i thought i saw this familiar mood in another game i just played right and they just turn off even if the game design is dope right but that that's the problem with recycling i mean it's the number one

reason why uh people hate sequels right or franchise games right now we're sharing assets across multiple games sharing the same photo bashing techniques right it does uh i think bring the industry down a notch eventually um yeah and and two i think that when you have like you said with the mega scan stuff um mega scans meta human that's all part of the unreal library right so so like if i'm an indie developer right and i'm thinking of doing this this game or experience or whatever am i gonna go with unity or should i go with unreal which has all these package things that i can use you know it starts to just make the industry more and more i guess uh one note right because everybody's using uh unreal because it has all these assets that are free use and you know yeah rather than diversity which yeah just in general right you'd like to see yeah and especially indy like you said

it's important for you to stand out and now you're using the same thing as everyone else it's kind of hard the edge like we were mentioning is getting slimmer and it really does take just enough to kind of stand above everyone else this is indian and big man i'm seeing both ways that's why i think the trend the next couple years is gonna be towards the stylist i'm already seeing it with a lot of studios where uh people are not so concerned about hardware and pushing the limit and i think that's gonna be a game for first party like microsoft and sony to kind of keep at it in the realistic space um i'm i anticipate more like little big nightmares you know uh yeah super hyperilla but in a fantasy gore type of look and then uh

horizon zero dawn that just came out something along those lines where it's it's real but like fantasy real right it's not call of duty or last of us it's like it can't be that anymore it's too yep i wouldn't say it's not easy to make those games but it is too easy to replicate that art style yeah they said uh what was that one game uh i haven't played it yet but lost arc which is supposed to be pretty good i was like kind of that like fantasy uh little stylized bit stuff right yeah which did really well and it was free to play i think yeah that's so there's a lot of i think opportunities i mean not not to kind of bash them it's great it's a great time to be a game dev you have a game idea that it you know it's doable now from start to finish um but like you said before you have to find that edge and fortunately it's going back to those boring classes and colleges and kind of reminding yourselves yeah kind of remind ourselves like how how exactly this fits

into into my workload you know yeah i think yeah i don't know i i get excited about about doing those little uh sketches even though they never get shown or whatever and they're not exciting to look at right it's like oh look dude i just did this box with uh rounded corners on it and i actually plotted out the rounded corners accurately you know nobody cares nobody wants to see that but i got excited about it and actually you know i feel like it's making me a better artist in one way or another you see you see how it benefits you i think a lot of people have trouble seeing the end result like you're students right now right this is like what why are you teaching me this i know how to do triangles son uh yes i mean like how how is the the teaching thing been with you like uh i know you you had the school yeah well the school is gone i actually had to put down pause uh for a little while as i was kind of focusing on another industry but like you i was teaching man almost as long as i was in the

industry um i would say half at least half of my career was teaching at physical schools at first for like three years straight and then slowly online um and uh it's this is where i always get jealous of you guys concept-wise right uh you know it's a pencil and paper right or in your case wacom pen with photoshop right nothing really changes in terms of technology 3d man if something i just finished recording is already outdoor outdated like two seconds later right yeah yeah so it's one of those things um with any technology based uh uh education or knowledge it's very hard to kind of keep everyone up to date um and that that's at least on the teaching side it's like oh this new tool came out so everything that you learned up to now is not completely useless right i think a lot of that knowledge can still go into uh

lower tier like mobile apple watch didn't go anywhere but like mobile mobile or even valon right valerian has a lot of old school techniques in how you guys build those environments very old school techniques so um in that way stylized games uh find a lot of these old techniques very useful uh yeah but it's hard to convince students that right because they're so they want to learn the flashy unreal five what is the latest and greatest you know you're the old guy i'm the young guy you know especially with nanite now then i i don't know how it's going to solve everybody's problems bro yeah you just from zbrush to unreal and in some cases yeah you can do that and it's amazing but you know not every game is going to be built with that it's certainly not mobile um but it's very hard to kind of convince students that is like yo i'm not trying to make

nes games dude i'm trying to nest i know right it's like okay grandpa uh like psp is old to them right it's like yeah psp oh my god psp yeah that's different i know so uh i think that's always the the the struggle between students and teachers at least for me right the technology part uh yeah it's hard to kind of keep them relevant and or at least care about uh the old stuff as much as the relevant stuff so yeah yeah i think it's kind of the same with uh i mean we don't have the technology like issue as much right i think the biggest thing is just like saying oh hey with the 3d stuff now it's not so much maya and moto or whatever it is in 3ds max it's the industry standard now is just blender just go download it all blender yeah that's the thing yeah which is good right because it's free and it's like actually a really good tool especially for content it is good and it is great and it's

updated all the time with the latest greatest and like a huge community for add-ons and things like that which make it even easier to do things in there um especially if you don't have to make it if if you're not looking to make things like production ready right you can model something and it'd be sloppy and that's perfect for what i do right yeah but again it's like the struggle for on my end is keeping them grounded and saying hey like let's not jump there too quick right yeah maybe maybe learn how to draw a box you know that might help you like at least in my experience it might help you but what do i know i'm an old guy yeah we're all getting old i would ask you one last thing here um the number one concern that i have because it is a different world right and i do feel this remote thing is best reserved for uh experienced more seasoned and responsible artist right what i feel and

and you know in several ways a lot of students are coming into this uh kind of pandemic remote thing and i don't think that's healthy for their learning uh to be a part of you know the work environment and and like like i feel i i haven't maybe that's one of those you know future episodes that i would love to come kind of talk about like new new new developers coming into this kind of post-covet world well have you seen any of that do you have students that are going into the workforce and basically remote base from start most likely for the next three five years as healthy unhealthy your thoughts yeah i i i do i can think of one student i had a student named uh irepan who's like this amazingly talented artist and great person um and i talk about brainstorming she's a senior concept artist at blizzard now um

and she's i'm pretty sure like she did like full remote from out of school into working at turtle rock with me and then to blizzard um so and i think in her case uh she didn't she didn't suffer from like any like negatives in terms of you know like picking up bad habits from working from home but she did for sure miss out on like the fun stuff yeah like being in the office right because like you know i and i'm really sad that i didn't get to work with her like physically at turtle rock because that would have been like really fun right and as you know like the tur-rock environment and the maps and maps team was like really awesome um so that's a bit that's a shame and i do think that overall like it's it's like a net negative to to start your career uh working from home um if if the intention is that you're going to be working as a full-time artist in the games industry right like of

course there's like the freelance the freelance route and contracting and things like that and that's a whole different discussion because most of the time you know like there's there's cases where you do go in but there's it's a lot more common at least in concept that uh you could probably just do a full remote but again like if you're if you're intending to be a full-time artist i feel like they're they're mis they're for sure missing out on a lot of things because um you know just the whole slack and google google meetings and stuff like that as a way of interacting with your co-workers on a daily basis um when you're supposed to be face-to-face it's just not the same you know i i yeah i just wish that uh it wasn't that way but you know it is what it is yeah they're [ __ ] uh i would add on to that i would say this right because if i think about you know as we're getting more senior leads and you know as we go up the ladder right uh we we tend to recommend

friends right it's a very referral based industry um i don't think about that person that worked really hard at the computer and i never talked to right and which is what basically zoom meetings are right you meet people essentially just to talk about hey how's your work blah blah and then you leave which is what this environment is all my best connections have always been outside of work it's like playing basketball with you guys you know those are the people i recommend because i created connections outside of work or in the workplace or we're just [ __ ] around in the cubicle right and it's not ever really about wow he was really good at making art i you know i was it's like a little bit right but for sure it's it's like the cumulative memories of like how they were as a person right and like all that stuff yeah yeah so i do see that as a potential danger to all these badass artists that are fully remote as they get further along in their careers um because

you know how often are you gonna recommend that type of person right that's what's happening that's such a good point dude yeah i didn't i didn't even really think about that because um yeah damn that's such a good point man um because the way you know again i didn't mention this before but the way that part of the reason why i also got the job at riot was because dmacc recommended me um when when uh yam hit him up about it because he's like oh hey dmacc worked with shinde maybe i should ask d-mac about it and you know obviously like me and dmacc were very close and and all that stuff so like you know gave me a good recommendation stuff but like i wonder if that would have been different if we never actually met face to face you know for sure like it's got to be like that he would be like oh yeah like he's it would have been it would have been more of like a vague generalization i imagine right yeah if all he had was your r station to go off it's like yeah i guess he's good and try him out oh yeah yeah i mean the main thing is like when we recommend people

it's their personality and you just don't get that in this type of environment unfortunately i think that's the biggest downside this is remote right there's a lot of upside but this is the biggest downside you just don't have that personality reference from all these other things that we do in the office in lunchtime right you don't have that i wonder what it's going to be five years down the line how these people actually progress up the ladder right because i think the same people who are recommending or promoting and all this stuff or starting studios together they're still going to hang on to the memory before kobe it's like oh i work with this guy in the office and i'm i'm the exact same way you know there's people that i'm only meeting through online interaction and it's very hard to kind of like get that same level of uh joy that i get when i'm working with someone in an office and having all the experience right so yeah definitely definitely

all right well uh that is an hour uh i want to thank you for uh sparing your time uh hanging out with me uh i would like to say that this is the part where i shut up hand over the mic to let the good people direct to you on how to find you uh and connect with you if they want to uh cool yeah i am let's see i'm on twitter at uh m shinde underscore art um i don't have an instagram because i am a terrible artist um let's see other than that i just have a facebook and then twitter and i have an art station which you can just type my name in there and find and then um let's see other than that uh i'm slowly working on putting out a gumroad video on uh some keyframe illustration techniques so be on the lookout for that eventually

when i get done with it i'm like crazy busy right now with all the billions of different things i'm trying to get done for work so i will try and have it out asap and when i do i will post on twitter about it all right and we will share all the links in description as always will be found on the video links and all that stuff so uh at the very