by Souri, 20/9/05
I had a fantastic opportunity to interview Lachlan Creagh from Pandemic Studios Australia about all things concerning game animation. Animators rarely get as much exposure in the games industry compared to their other creative colleagues, so it's hoped that this interview with Lachlan informs you budding animators a bit more on the role of a game animator.
Lachlan certainly has quite a bit of history in the Australian game development industry, so be sure to read his Bio at the end! :)
To start off with, can you give a brief backgound on yourself?
I am an animator at Pandemic Studios Australia, (if I took on the adminstative type stuff I probably might be labeled "lead"), but I also do concept design work, modelling and texturing. I did all the ingame and cinematic animation for Crypto and the shell version of his co-Furon, Orthopox in the game Destroy All Humans, plus a bunch of other stuff.
I've been with Pandemic since October 2000. Prior to that I worked with Evolution Games as animator/artist for 18 months (basically from when they started). Prior to that I worked at Auran for about 3 years as animator/artist (from the start of Dark Reign -whenever that was), and before that I was in video production for about 3 years.
How long have you been an animator?
As a job, since about 1993. In games, about 9 or 10 years.
What made you decide to enter a career as an animator in the games industry, and how did you get your foot in the door?
I wanted out of the video production industry, because all the cool ads with a nice budget got made in Sydney and Melbourne (where the head offices for a lot of companies are), and because it wasn't me. Also, I'd been shown a glimpse of it when I first met John Passfield and Steve Stamatiadis when they were trying to get "Stereo jack" off the ground.
My initial foot in the door was at Auran at the very start of Dark Reign, -I had mainly TVC work to show but i also had a few dinosaurs and monsters, and a bunch of personal drawing work. I think the TVC stuff worked at the time because the guy hiring me had a similar background and the dinosaurs and stuff related to game aspect. I think games jobs were so much more obscure then there wasn't the same demand on the part of employers to have work that was directly applicable.
Since that initial start I've sort of moved job to job without really having to apply-sort of via the incestuous nature of the Brisbane industry, which is a problem because I still haven't got a proper reel together 9 years later.
What kind of game related work have you done and any other achievments have you made?
Pandemic Australia.
On the Destroy All Humans I basically did all of Crypto's(player character) in game animation and cinematic animation and Orthopox's game shell animations, and a bunch of animations for male NPCs and 'Holobob', and entirely modelled textured and animated "the cow". There were a few cinematics where I animated all the characters in the cinematic plus modelled and textured stuff. I did the rigging and morph shapes and lipsynching for all the things I worked on.
Earlier in development I worked with Matt Brady on the initial concept designs for the game. And then switched to modelling and texturing (Matt as official concept designer kept going and did a great job). I spent about 8 months modelling and texturing male NPC characters, buildings, props and vehicles for the game at the start-a few of which survived. I then switched to animation, which at that point needed fixing and global redoing very badly (in a mad rush of course to meet our first E3 showing). One of the first things I did was redo Crypto's anims, give him morphs and a mouth with teeth.
The project prior to DAH was called "Oddballs" on which I again worked with Matt Brady in the initial concept design, and then switched to ingame animation of the prototypical player character(for about 8 months the it was only one in the game- but in a variety of colours). "Oddballs" was about these funny little creatures in a fantasy world that compulsively eat blue inflated chickens called quockles at any cost. Oddballs" had party game elements and was really, really fun to play- you'd beat each other up and it was fun (and there were some nice designs from Matt in there too.)
On Pandemic Australia's first game, Army Men RTS, I modelled textured and animated all of the soldiers, and the hero characters, and animated them in all of their cinematics. I also did a bunch of animated props like goldfish and swaying plants, plus a lot of other environment props. (I also tried unsuccessfully to get them to put plastic dinosaurs in the game to fight the plastic army men, and even modelled and animated a few as a sort of pitch....sigh)
At Evolution Games I worked on their game demo's "Europa" and "Spotswood and Eric.
On the first, "Europa" I concepted, modelled textured and animated all the human characters and most of the aliens. On the second, Spotswood and Eric, I modelled textured and animated the dog "Spotswood" plus a bunch of other enemy characters like rats, a blob creature and coal critters. ( I think Evolution revisited "Spotswood and Eric" after their Rocket Power game- and so occasionally I see reels from people with stuff worked off of animations and models I originally did:-which is a weird feeling because when you spend so long on something, it rightly or wrongly feels like you had some ownership.) Prior to Evolution Games I worked at Auran on "Dark Reign", an add on pack for Dark Reign, a mod of Dark Reign called "Mad World", and something called "HellGate" which became "Harn", and which(after I had left) became a few other things too. On Dark Reign I basically modelled textured and animated all the humanoid troops and some vehicles, and did all the explosions and weapon effects. I also worked with Jacob Hutson on Marketing art and a short promo thing.
On "Hellgate"* I did a lot of the concepting, modelled, textured and animated a bunch of monsters and worked on marketing art. The project was then changed to "Harn" and most of the monsters were thrown out because they didn't fit the new "world". I then concepted, modelled , textured and animated a new bunch of orcs, undead, animals and a few human characters.*see waffle at the end
Any side projects that you've worked on?
For a long while I've worked on and off with a company which is now called "Iceworks", located in Paddington, Brisbane.(Its the one on the corner near Suncorp Stadium covered in street art.).
For Iceworks, I mainly do drawings and concepts for some of the event work, openings and installations/sculptures they do. They do really exciting stuff, and the real bonus is sometimes you get an invite to the swanky occasions with free wine and food haha.
I've worked with a company called Radium on the series of "Inner Health" ads over the last 6 years- they're the ads with the little blue guys they sometimes air during weekdays. I basically did everything on these.
I think these ads are a triumph of underpowered home computing, and bargain basement budget (whimper). There are snippets of ok animation in these but no nicety or effects so really only a first pass in production house terms. Doing the animation is the easiest and fastest bit but there's no time generally. So as a result in any "crowd scene" I'd have to ration the animation time to skew toward the front three guys in a shot while everyone else does sod all(or does it badly or both).. I did the last one a few months back on my laptop- something I wouldn't recommend to anyone.
On these ads I generally never have had time to add nice rendering effects or compositing, or refine anything, or add the proper amount of attention- which is depressing and actually very shameful really. The first one I did was the worst. I'll never forget those 3am hallucinations.
I have a nice fast real computer now so those days are over for at least 6 months.
Who are your influences and what inspires you?
In terms of art there are a lot, but also you find that your taste changes over time. Of contemporary guys I like Brom (a bit over him now), Ashley Wood,Katsuya Terada. -dark graphic looking sort of stuff. I like European and Japanese comics both for content and quality of art, I hate "Image Comics" style stuff. Of the older sort of stuff I like John Singer Sargeant, Gustav Klimt,Egon Schiele, Ingres, and Norman Rockwell plus a whole bunch of sculptors.
But mainly though I love animals and plants, and have piles of books on them, and wherever I go I head to the zoo if there's one around. Things are fresh at the source, so when I can I try to see the real thing.
If I'm stuck for ideas for a monster, or colour schemes for them, it's amazing the things that exist in reality already.
Your favourite animated movies or shorts? (Disney, Pixar, Anime etc)
I love stuff by Pixar, I liked "Iron Giant", and anything by Studio Ghibli. I grew up on Warner Bros though-the sort of Chuck Jones or I. Freleng stuff.
There have been a bunch of animated series this day that I like;-even some of the stop motion ones for kids are nice.
Its also really amazing how the Japanese cartoons have made a real art form of sucking you in and stringing you out to the next episode- they seem to have these massive stories where American ones seem so much more episodic and "missable".
What's most fun about being an animator and the work you do?
Mainly there's the fundamental aspect of making something appear alive( for me my style is more 'nature based' , so even if I'm doing something cartoony for better or worse I tend to try and make things flow a bit.) Every now and then you actually get to do something creative, or slip something in under the radar of the "No!" people or the" grey faced yes men" and make them confess that in fact cool and creative is the better way.
What are the least enjoyable aspects of animation?
One of the least enjoyable aspects is the fact that everyone seems to have an opinion on art stuff- without having any knowledge or expertise to back them up.
People don't apply this to programmers: if you sneak up behind a programmer and see a page of code on screen there's no way for a non coder to pick whether its any good or not, but loom up behind an artist and people can't help themselves.
More often than not there is this inverse relationship between authority and qualification.
There's a difference between knowing something looks wrong and knowing why,- ie in a model of a face,-recognizing whether it looks completely human is easy-it's a fundamental thing that humans do,- but actually knowing why it looks wonky and what to do is the tricky bit and that sort of stuff is what it is our business as artists to learn.
People seem to care far less about how animals look though, for example: it seems that if you paint something black and white for some people this will pass for a model of a cow.
The other horrible thing about game animation is that every animation has so many limitations on it. The rig generally has to be such that you can do anything to it- not just walk in a straight line. Whereas in film or TV you can have a rig per shot or more if you want. The animations themselves have a lot of limitations you need to work within, a thing that people in film or TV never have to worry about unless they are using some sort of crowd simulator.
An annoying thing is also when your animation synchs perfectly in max, but for whatever reason playback gets out of synch in a cinematic and instantly looks ass.
So What does it take to be an animator and how does one to become one?
Well I'm still trying to get there myself, so I'd say, in a wanky way, its more like a path or way of practicing and learning rather some sort of end result that is "animator'. Like all art (well what I would call art) I'd say it requires the ability to 'see' and understand.
The seeing though extends into remembering the rhythm of what you are watching,-in the same way you'd listen to a song and trying to remember it/learn it,- at least that's how I approach it, so for example: you're
orking on a section and watching it playback, and seeing if it matches to how you're 'singing along' in your head, or whether it misses a beat.
What technical and artistic disciplines do you need?
For me I'd say I like good 2d drawing for starters, mainly because that's a procedure that requires the same sort of "seeing''. Art technically I think a knowledge of anatomy is good but also some self awareness,- so that when you act something out you can think about what you are doing, where your weight is etc.
Computer technically you need to be able to use the software in a production sense I suppose,- but in an industry of increasing specialization what does that mean? Probably understanding how models and animation are represented by computers is necessary mainly for trouble shooting(read your sanity), understanding why/how software does what it does and what it ought to do, and talking to programmers,- everything is you see is just numbers(very matrixy).
Also you need a problem solving ability to be able to help yourself and not suck up too much of other peoples time when you encounter difficulties and be self sufficient.
Once you have established what's going on/not working by a series of test examples to isolate things, then proceed directly to the programmer responsible for the code and get instant results, rather than weeks of limbo (or trying to strangle me). - This procedure of isolating the problem is also needed for the sort of stuff I do where you are working with a programmer working out the prototype of an animation- i.e. how does the guy jump, how is the ship going to land, which animations are cycles, when do we switch models/animations etc.?
Is formal training important?
I think exposure to quality work is important whether that exposure is formal or what. I think some of the more traditional animation courses like some of the three year ones would still be money well spent, because once you're working there's not much time to develop the things you'd like to improve in yourself as an artist(as opposed to just the things that get someone else's work done).
In our industry it's more a case of "can you do what we need?", rather than a degree as such. Probably at Uni you'd be more likely to encounter useful critique and guidance than say some private training place- I say that only because some places seem to want to just teach people how to use software and don't really care about the art (taste?) side of things. It seems they don't try telling students how they might make their run cycle better or whatever, or even trying a couple of different cycles before hitting on the one you think is best:- so that you go from the pure practicality of how to do it to "what is the right animation for this character/situation?"
Which software do you prefer to use and why?
I use Max still because I've used it all along, I'm not sure if I prefer it, but at least with hair and cloth maybe there's some fun to be had now(not ingame though). I like and prefer to use Deep Paint when I'm texturing.
Can you cover the areas of work you've done in games?
Pretty much anything ingame modeling and texturing or animating, I've done only a little bit of level stuff, and not a lot of effects stuff in years. The only thing I haven't had a go at is a proper high rez rendered cut scene.
What kind of work is an animator expected to do for games?
Evil and bitter Lach thinks: Realize other people's dreams.
Good and sensible Lach thinks:
Generally animation includes:
Adjusting the mesh to work better with the skeleton,
Making any morph shapes,
Testing the skinning/character in engine,
Doing an animation such that the first version that is included in the game build is in what I would call the "ballpark of acceptability".
Making sure cycles don't kick pop or 'limp' when they aren't supposed to.
Making sure cycles start and end at the right phase WRT each other.
Making sure animations start and end where they ought to.
Making sure the duration or immediacy of any animation is correct WRT gameplay- i.e. jumps/attacking moves.
Very important is reliability in tight situation: there are times in a crunch when things need to be done fast and done right, and no one like staying to 3am fixing anyone else's stuff when you could be home.
In my opinion, when you are doing animation for games, the work is only done when it is in the game and looks good. There are a host of evil forces trying to prevent this, and sometimes they prevail, but you must take responsibility and try to ensure your work gets in and is put in right and works and looks good. You can't just export something and cast it off into the void and call it done. It has to be in the game and working before its 'done'.
My latest lesson is "trying to make it stay done" whereby, as your "eye of sauron" is cast upon the cinematics, someone else is changing the configs and programming "frodowise", undoing your good deeds, and forgetting to include certain vital animations./
What would be the more challenging things to animate, and what should all animators at least be capable of for games?
A: A horse done properly or a cat done properly.
B: If you can't get something done or you don't know why it doesn't work, don't try and strangle me.
Seriously though, having a sense of balance and support within animations and a sense of the driving force for a given action, ie you
can't realistically push off very far with a straight leg.
+Something other than an anime style run cycle.
Which area of animation are you most excited or passionate about?
Right now I'm interested in anything with a story, since anything with a story is immediately more memorable than the isolated episodic game animations I'm used to. I'm passionate about animal animations and models done nicely.
What is your opinion on Motion Capture, Physics simulations (e.g. Ragdoll), and other technologies such as automated lip synching that have taken over some of the tasks animators previously handled by hand?
In terms of motion capture and rotoscoping:
These rely on the quality of the actor, and require the matching of the acting to the intent of the animation in terms of how the final segment fits in (start and end wise) and plays back AI wise. All of which I think is very unlikely to occur the way you really want it. Having reference, and learning and understanding, and using but not relying on the reference is the way I would prefer because, for those with eyes to see, you will be able to extract what you need a create a 'pure' version of the motion that fits your restrictions. The limitations of in game animations often require you to make something unnatural look natural, or to exaggerate(in a natural fashion) just so you can see things happen more clearly, or to make something move in a restricted fashion but not make that restriction self evident(and give the game away).
To take a wanky art stance its 'communication' we're doing(for people with short attention spans) and so I think creating 'pure' animation is what art(and the games I like) needs. Motion capture and rotoscoping are best for games with a cast of thousands, - but Chuck Jones didn't rotoscope so neither should I if I want to ever be like him.
I think ragdoll is useful but sort of relies on the fact that most of us don't know what is or isn't realistic in some of the situations ragdoll is applied, and since the simulation if very rudimentary there still needs to be some means to guide the solution to be able to get what you want- i.e. consider the sort of stylized 'deaths' you see in martial arts films or westerns.
The trouble with automated lipsynch is, it still doesn't know about subtext and context- maybe they'll end up making procedural stuff that's that good.( I'll be going where the art is if that's the case.)
What further changes do you see in the future for animators in game development? Will specializing in a certain area be necessary?
I think specialization will be necessary, especially for the motion capture pipeline side of things, and there will be a rise of the "effects/procedural" animators. More important is the rise of Chinese, Korean, and Eastern European labour. There is a great hype, and hand wringing about games having to be gi-normous, cast of thousands affairs with massive labour requirements but I don't believe the extent. More fun is better than bigger in games in my opinion. I think people should think of more interesting small scale games done well, work smarter, work creatively instead of blindly equating shiny displaced polys on screen to sales.
It's not a game, but take that latest PSP ad for example- its not a cast of thousands, but watching the two PSP golems duke it out is compelling and interesting. I think what will happen is a few years of this realistic blockbuster mentality and then for reasons of product/IP differentiation there then be a rise of games that are stylistically different,- and hopefully that when artists can breathe and be valued again. I believe this because everything is striving for this same realism then they'll all look and feel the same, so then if you are some publisher, if you want your product to stand out what better way than for it to look different(and easier to defend IP wise).
Not only that but theres what I call the "golden palace" effect: -- i.e. you go to Europe and see Versailles-, amazing! fantastic! so ornate!, 30 Palaces and castles later its "yeah nice, ornate and detailed, ...pass the salt". Its something we currently experience in films- see a cast of digital thousands just aint what it used to be- I mean... after 500 or 1000 they are just so many dots.
My other rebuttal for insane detail is that you don't need it, for example: - paintings that appear realistic enough don't have every hair and wrinkle painted, so much is instead suggested and its amazing sometimes how little you need to convey something. Spend the horsepower on mood and style, and proper AI I say.
What kind of skillets do you like seeing in a portfolio reel and what abilities do you want to see demonstrated?
Well I like good drawing. I also like good animation, and creativity but that's just me. Some companies probably specify this sort of thing, but then they go and make people do uncreative things and never use their drawing and do only what their told once they hire them, which is madness really.
I like seeing the sort of things that can't be motion captured so easily. I think anything with a story is more memorable, and so that's what I'd like for myself for my reel(someday). Unlike certain foreign teabagging fraternities I understand the limitations of ingame animation so I can appreciate episodic ingame segments (which aren't as glamorous/appreciated as a full-on rendered scene).
What sets apart a good portfolio reel to one that you'd toss to the side?
I don't actually get to do any of that portfolio judging.
The work has to be in the ballpark of the work done where you are applying,- ie if your work is nearly as good, or better that the stuff you've seen from where you are applying, then there has to be some other reason not to hire you. Probably more and more there will be stylistic concerns applied to people applying for jobs- so don't have nothing in the style or genre of the games made by where you are applying, because faced with a choice, they'd go with whoever has most good work similar to that 'house' style.
What definitely should not be put in a demo reel?
A. Footage of yourself smoking a bong and rapping (to a song that isn't the one on the soundtrack).
B. Pencil drawings of penises in martini glasses (please why lord?)
C. Someone else's work.
D. Your own work but of a wildly different quality to the bulk of the rest of it(people then get suspicious about the good bits that are there.)
Are there any other tips you can give for aspiring game animators?
I would say try to meet demand and not react to demand. So try and figure where you think things are going, and then tailor your study to that- so for example procedural stuff will be more and more important, so that's an avenue to specialize in for the future probably. Also if you aren't the worlds greatest 2d artist maybe you'll be the best "particle effects" guy.
As far as acting for animators use "see. think. do. speak" in that order as an easy start.
Any comments you'd like to make to close this interview?
Ideally I say its best to work at something you like to do because you'll do a better job, but we're in an industry where 99% of the time someone else owns everything at the end of the day, and that could possibly break you sooner than the opposite. When we have studios with casts of thousands that will become worse because you'll have that plus the feeling of a hapless, nameless cog. The answer is to maintain your own work(that you own) when you can, and invest in your own IP -even if that's an investment in time only( if you take the any other industry people get rich only by investing in themselves and their own companies).
Lachlan's Bio
Basically I started by doing industrial design at uni (QUT-actually it was QIT then)- and then halfway through the postgraduate(1991) I decided to swap to animation. My GPA suffered a bit in the semester before I gave up industrial design,- the moral for anyone out there is if you decide you're not interested get out immediately and don't stick around doing a half assed job.
I then did a 1yr course at ACAT in Canberra (1992) specifically in computer animation/electronic art. ( The course had a fairly technical, research and 'procedural' bent, which in retrospect was fantastic and has lasted me all this time- so Stuart Ramsden, if you're out there, thanks for that.)
For about 3 months after I did a job seeking tour of Brisbane Sydney and Melbourne- basically cold calling, which in retrospect i can't
believe I did, but then jobs were thin on the ground- essentially you had to wait for someone to be hit by a car before there was an opening. Probably also was the fact that I was peddling a a showreel of Dpaint and Real3d, and the companies you dreamt of working for had such insanely expensive silicon graphics machines with Alias or Wavefront that they were hardly about to hand over the reigns to learners(ie me).
I then got a job for about 3 months at a company in Brisbane called Video Image,- a company apparently notorious for all the wrong reasons, but laughably so (in retrospect).
I'd say more but I'm not sure if the guys who ran it are in prison or what- but lets say I'm sure they like Michael Jackson's style.)
So then I bought a computer, and a copy of 3d Studio and sat for 6 months learning it(all the while applying for jobs/waiting for someone in a job to die)- since i figured the only way to get a real job was to try and be so good at the software (the companies used) that the only reason not to give me a job was that their guy hadn't been hit by a car.
I finally landed a job at a video production company called Multivisuals (which was where QPIX is now), with a few 1.44mb floppy disks of FLC files of segmented dinosaurs and leopards running around. I was at Multi's for about 3years doing animation and graphics for video production - so some animated ads, some flying logos, some corporate videos stuff, some stuff for a theme park near Cairns. While I was there I met some great guys, including Paul Buckley (an animator currently at Iloura who I have the greatest respect for), and Peter Ford (a producer also now in Melbourne somewhere). It was Peter who introduced me to John Passfield and Steve Stamatiadis, who at the time were on the verge of starting production on "Stereo Jack", (and also to Hugh Fleming who was painting in the corner of their loft). I was all ready to jump ship and then unfortunately the game fell through, but I had had a glimpse of the "alternate reality" that was available, -( one that didn't involve Marketing people standing behind me arguing about "who's call" it was.).
And then came Auran.
I applied at Auran in their very first round of hiring and got a job as an animator/artist on the game Dark Reign, (Auran was then above a snack bar in Paddington). On that game I did a bit of everything, but mainly I modelled, and animated the humanoid troops and some vehicles, and did all the explosions and weapon effects, and with Jacob Hutson did Marketing art and a short promo thing.
At Auran, after Dark Reign we artists did a quick add on pack while most of the (more sensible) programmers resigned and hightailed it for the big smoke- America.
We made a mod of the Dark Reign engine called "Mad World" about mad scientists competing to destroy the world with giant robots/monsters which has never seen the light of day. "Mad World" was my introduction to the great waste that is the games industry, - where, for whatever reason, the last X months of your work is sent to a void, and because someone else owns the work it is not only not released as a game or anything, it basically never happened in a "Ministry of truth" kind of way.
Then at Auran we began work on "HellGate" which was to be a 3d (!!!) game which initially was a game about fighting a shitload of monsters and demony things- a sort of Diablo killer. On that I concepted modelled and animated a bunch of test monsters, and even a high rez game box cover, which again were summarily thrown out when it was decided to change the game to an obscure roleplaying licence "Harn"- a setting in which monsters didn't really exist and people just got around in gritty realistic squalor, (but there were these orc kinda things).
So then I concepted, modelled,textured and animated a bunch of orcs, some humans, and animals, and a few of the lonely remaining monsters and undead. Then I was fired from Auran (after being there about 3 years), partly for my visible/audible growing disatisfaction with the direction things were going, but absolutely because I took a bunch of the artists from Auran to visit the guys one night at Gee Whiz(John and Steve's pre Krome company).
Visiting Gee Whiz and saying 'hi' to the guys I'd known for years had apparently "endangered the entire project"(?!).
Auran has apparently changed in the years since and is now by all reports a much much nicer and less paranoid place to work. So then it was a couple of months in the wilderness, and then the connections I'd made at Multivisuals (Paul Buckley and Darren Roach) led me to a company called Zoonimedia. Darren, (who's a great illustrator/cartoonist), had scored a job there and through him I got an introduction to Fil Barlow.
Zoonimedia/Artopia basically did design for animated series-the ones you'd see on TV in the morning like "Men in Black", "Godzilla", "Extreme Ghostbusters"- so they'd design the characters, the props the vehicles, the settings. At the time they were mostly through the 3d animated "Starship Troopers-RoughNecks" and were beginning on Max Steel" and "Heavy Gear". I managed to get part time work, and did some drawing concept work on Max Steel plus some 3d work on tests of some of Fil's characters. Fil and the guys at Zoonimedia (and the work of the overseas Artopia contingent) again gave me a glimpse of another world. (A world where people get paid for drawing and good ideas, and to opportunity to see and learn from some high quality work.)
At the same time a bunch of exAuran guys (and I) decided to make a game ourselves, and formed a company- which would become Evolution Games. Initially artwise it was me and Shawn Eustace, then quickly joined by Michael Shardlow and others. At Evolution I initially did the concepting,modelling,texturing and animation of human characters, monsters, and some concepting on environments, on the first demo "Europa". The next game demo at Evolution was called "Spotswood and Eric". On "Spotswood and Eric" I modelled,textured and animated the dog character "Spotswood"(Michael did "Eric") and several enemy characters like rats, a sludge creature, and "Big Fishy". (Concepting at Evo was at this point done by Milenko Tunjic who I worked with at Zoonimedia as well).
Right at that time, mid 2000, a couple of the guys I'd originally worked with back at the start of Auran(Andrew Payne and Adam Iarossi) were returning from overseas. They had been working at Pandemic (and previously Activision) in the US and now that they were returning, they were bringing Pandemic (and a dancing designer Matt Harding) with them. The "Spotswood and Eric" demo at Evo was going well- but we'd gone about 16 months at Evo and a deal still hadn't been signed, and although I was surrounded by 95 % good people, Pandemic had an offer I couldn't refuse. (well the game I could but, it was a game and a starting point for things to come).
The first game for Pandemic Australia was "Army Men RTS."- mainly because it was an easy first quick game using the Battlezone engine. The Army Men license itself was a bit of a dog and 3do, its owners, had made really dire games with it historically. I think we turned that around with our game and i think reviewers had to concede we made a fun, playable game- even if it wasn't earth shatteringly complex.
On Army Men RTS I modelled textured and animated all of the human units and hero characters, and modelled textured and animated a lot of props. I did some illustrations for the opening movie, and some concept work. (Matt Brady, another great artist and ex Zoonimedia guy, was the official but then part time "concept artist".) The project after Army Men was an inhouse developed game called "Oddballs".
"Oddballs" was about these funny little creatures in a fantasy world that compulsively eat blue inflated chickens called quockles at any cost."Oddballs" had party game elements and was really, really fun to play- you'd beat each other up and it was fun. On "Oddballs I did a fair bit of initial concept stuff with Matt Brady, and then I did the all animation of the prototype ingame character "Targus". With every animation I was trying to convince Microsoft that I, as "the animator", was capable of AAA level game animation, because apparently at the outset certain foreign "teabagging officionado's" weren't so sure. (At that point I it was just me animation wise at Pandemic, Microsoft 'encouraged' Pandemic to bring on an animators with film credits to take charge/do the work, since Motion Picture experience was apparently a necessity(?).)
Microsoft then dumped the project a year in- apparently because it skewed "too young" in their demographics, and wasn't "edgy" enough....I'm not sure- the details were handed out on a need to know basis and couched in official and concilliatory talk....but whatever- the end effect is the same. (I think the same happened to everyone in the world- everywhere every game character became dark and edgy with a gun in their hand and a chip on their shoulder.)
Briefly we hoped beyond hope as the Pandemic LA big guns, who believed in us and our game, tried shopping the property around publishers.... but because at that stage the overall story, and hook was hard to describe to publishers simply (a big no no for any would be game makers out there.) they met with refusal.
And so, the rule of lowest common denominator thinking casts its shadow across the pacific. In response to the rebuttal of our dream project, and amid other game pitches, was born "Destroy All Humans". Initially the plan was it would have everything that the other game didn't- an easy hook (about killing people from a novel point of view), and easier gameplay (which originally used the tried and true "blow shit up" school of thought).
Sumea would like to give many thanks to Lachlan for his time on the interview!