JEssica Helgesson - Senior 3D Artist Q&A

Join us for this incredibe Q&A with Jessica Helgesson, Senior 3D Artist at Midwinter Entertainment working on their first game, Scavengers. Jessica has previously worked on beloved series such as Star Wars Battlefront, Battlefield and Mirrors Edge and is here to share her invaluable experience and advice.

Intro

Hi, my name’s Jessica Helgesson and my 3D journey started in Stockholm when my parents bought me a Nintendo 64 when I was around 9 years old. I played so many fun games on that console but what got me completely stuck was The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time. I wasn’t a very good student at a young age but that game definitely saved my english grade and set my course on games.

A couple of years later down the line when it was time to pick a high school I realised that I was living a 5 min walk away from one out of two high schools in the whole of Sweden that offered 3D on the schedule. I think we were working in Maya 4 back then (fun fact - My first 3D teacher was a member of the Swedish punk band Tant Strul).

Straight after highschool I moved to Falun, a town further up north, to attend the school Playground Squad (yes that is the name) that offered programs for artists, designers and programmers. The second year it was time to apply for an internship and this is where I was lucky to land a gig at DICE where I got to contribute to the first Mirror's Edge.

Daily Life at Midwinter Entertainment

Midwinter is a very remote friendly studio based in Seattle. I joined in 2018 and have since then worked remotely from Sweden but combined this with trips over to Seattle to visit the team in person as well. Thanks to this constellation I have been very lucky in the whole pandemic situation, already having my home office up and running when the world suddenly changed.

I usually start my day with syncing everything that the team has been working on during the night (there is a nine hour difference between Stockholm and Seattle). This is followed by a streak of focused production work within my area and after lunch I start shifting over to more of a communication mode. This is where I catch up with outsourcing, follow up on discussions on Slack and then when the evening approaches the team in Seattle wakes up and we have a couple of hours of overlap with syncs and meetings.

At Midwinter I focus on weapons, items and vehicles but being a small studio (even if it has grown quite a bit since I joined) my day to day work varies quite a lot. I have my main focus but help out wherever I am needed.

How do you start your day?

My mandatory coffee is always there and I usually spend some time just looking through the trending art work on Artstation to wake up. Then I read up on slack, check my todo list that I always try to prepare the night before and then just dive into it and start.

How has your focus and artistic preference/style changed through the years?

When it comes to focus my very own personal curse has been that I have always wanted to do everything and that hasn't really changed but it has resulted in some insight to what I enjoy making the most throughout the years. I think I started out more focused on the micro detail but have trended towards broader and broader strokes throughout the years. Instead of worrying too much about how my individual asset looks isolated I care more about the entire ecosystem it belongs to.

On the artistic preference side of things I think that I only saw realism as the one and only true thing to strive for for a very long time. I remember being -oh so- disappointed when I saw the first early screenshots of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker where Nintendo had taken a very stylized approach to the game but that I ended up being completely charmed by. These days what I appreciate the most is a red thread throughout the art direction, clever ways of conveying storytelling and pretty lighting. This is something that can make or break any game regardless of style.

What is your biggest interest in game development besides environment art?

Definitely characters, storytelling and dialog. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think I will aim at becoming a writer anytime soon but I simply love falling in love with really good characters that are embedded in a fantastic and convincing world.

If you had to start your career again from day one what would you do? What would you tell the younger version of yourself?

If I were to reset I would go aaaaaall in on lighting and materials. The light and the materials creating the bounce light wields so much power over any scene so that is definitely an area of high interest for me personally.

When it comes to what I would tell my younger self - I would tell her to start saving for her pension! :)

Apart from that I would have told myself it helps (tremendously) knowing what you want and if you don’t know what you want then try to define what experiences will help you reach that insight. I have spent years accepting opportunities that have been fun and challenging at the time but that wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do deep inside. Becoming an artist of any kind requires time, dedication and grit. The sooner you start leveling in a field that you are the most happy in, the better. And lastly, it is going to be alright. Even if you mess up!

How do you think the role of an Environment Artist will change with the growing popularity of procedural workflows?

Right now I see procedural workflows making our lives easier. Instead of starting with a blank canvas you can generate a base that does the heavy lifting while you massage the content into something visually appealing. Imagine combining this with the existing stuff we saw in the UE5 demol. Feels like we are going to see bigger and bigger worlds in the not so distant future.

As for how this will affect the role of an environment artist I think it will be even more important in the future that you’re skilled at seeing the big picture and prioritize accordingly. I think that artists in general that are good at adapting to new tools and technology are going to thrive because I don’t think the pace is going to slow down anytime soon.

What would you suggest to artists at the beginning of their careers to focus on if they wanted to be an Environmental Artist?

Again, know what you want to do and if you don’t know then try to define what experiences will lead to that knowledge and set your aim at that. This advice is of the broader stroke but the one common thing I have seen among talented people I have worked with during my years in games is that they have been consistent in their aim in what they want to do and that has resulted in them getting really good at what they do.

Another thing is to invest some time in knowledge that doesn't age. Software for example will always age (when I started in the industry all texturing work was done in Photoshop) while the understanding of lighting, composition, storytelling and modularity are things that have been around for some time now and I think they will continue to be as important 20 years from now as today.

For an environment artist specifically it’s also key to be really good at effectively blocking out your environment to get all the vital building blocks in place so that the space can be tested and iterated on.

Importance of Colour Theory

I can’t claim that this is an area I am very experienced with but I would say that generally it comes down to making conscious decisions when creating your worlds and leaving as little as possible up to coincidence. When it comes to combinations of colors there is a long proven tradition to take knowledge and inspiration from. Some art does happen by accident but it is not an accident that you for example see the orange/teal combination (complementary colors) in big blockbuster movies like Mad Max and Joker.

Is there anything you are seeking to learn such as software or techniques or find interesting that is upcoming for game development?

If I had a free month to dive into anything I would want to explore Houdini. I have seen that software do so many powerful things in everything from creating tools for artists and insane VFX simulations.

What are some common pitfalls in Environment Art and how to fix/avoid them?

To name a couple of things I would start with saying that thinking realistic assets makes a realistic scene. What I mean by that is that I have seen artists spending a lot of time creating super detailed textures that look very realistic when in isolation but that get applied on something that looks off that breaks the intention. I think this usually happens when you forget to look at references for a while or when you don’t ask for feedback early on in your project. Slowly and steadily making you blind to your own work.

Another thing that I have observed are environments being well executed from a crafting perspective but lacking a soul. When making a level in a production there is usually a lot of effort going into making each level feel unique in its own way. It can be something as simple as a memorable lightning setting but it can also be a set piece, vista, vegetation, weather etc anything that makes it stand out. The same thing goes when creating your first portfolio pieces. Making something solid is good but showing it off in a unique fresh wrapper is even better.

The last thing I wanted to mention is presentation and lighting plays a big part in this. I think that it is incredibly easy to feel a bit tired in the last stretch of a personal project and that you just want to call it done and move on with your life but it is so important to combat that feeling, be patient and take that little extra time to tie everything together. Spend time balancing the textures, polish the lightning, see if you can add effects to give more life to your scene. Decide on a couple of camera angles and make sure they look good and are properly set dessed.

Finally if you are posting on Art Station for example spend some time on a solid thumbnail and that your pictures and/or videos come in a specific order you like and that they are coherent. That will take your piece further than you might think at first.

When working with Level Designers what do you find is the best approach to providing and receiving feedback?

I think it is important to remember that you are both trying to make the best possible game experience together. The only difference in your roles are that one is focused on creating an immersive world and the other is focused on a fun gameplay experience. To achieve a good feedback loop is to make sure that your team (or your pod, group etc) has a steady and healthy dialog flow to begin with combined with an understanding of each other's focus.

When working with a team, which traits do you find the most helpful in junior to mid-level artists?

My favorite recipe for a person that has just started their career is someone that is not in too much of a hurry to excel while still being vocal and clear on where they want to go and what experiences they want to achieve. Add some willingness to communicate, a pinch of organization skills and openness to feedback and we have a home run.

The above are traits that are discipline agnostic but If I were to focus on artist specific traits I would say that the ability to take a step back and look at how your creations fit into the big picture is something I value in an artist of any level.

An example of this would be to not only create an asset and call it done but to test it in its intended place and evaluate how the asset fits in. Is the asset color balanced? Is the light behaving correctly on the asset? What about the scale? Can you jump on top of it without getting stuck? If someone in your team, that is fresh or fairly fresh in the industry, is already asking him or herself these questions and acting on them you have a solid player in the making.

What separates a Junior, Mid-level and Senior Environment Artist and what advice would yo give to someone looking to move up a level?

If we leave out pure artistic skill for a moment I would say that it is directly connected to the level of independence you have reached and the level of responsibility you are able to handle. The lower range for independence starts at being able to set dress limited areas of a level while the higher range means being able to handle blocking out a level from scratch, set dressing, terrain work, performance work etc. The lower range of responsibility starts at simply delivering your work within the given deadline or clearly communicating beforehand that the time won't be enough while the higher range makes you the person defining the estimates while also being capable of mentoring others.

When it comes to artistic skill, especially in games, the lower range is being able to make something pretty while the higher range is way more about finding the best possible pretty by balancing visuals, time, design and performance.

For artists just starting in the realm of 3D what do you think are the most important concepts to learn and any tools/software you would recommend learning?

When it comes to concepts I think PBR and good topology is a good place to start.

When it comes to softwares the game industry standard 3D software usually leans towards Maya or 3D Studio Max but I do see more and more people embrace Blender (and it is free!). If you then want to pivot towards organic modeling Zbrush is a must. When it comes to texturing I think the Substance or Quixel ecosystem are both incredible where Quixels strength lies in their photoscanned library Megascans and Allegorithmic strength lies in their finetuning and node based approach. When I create a large environment I tend to rely more on Quixel but If I create a detailed asset from scratch I rely more on Substance. Lastly if you want to present your 3D creations in an engine I would default to Unreal because of the oceans of tutorials, documentation and support you can get online.

Lighting Tips

Base color values are super important when lighting your scene! If they are in harmony you’re in a good spot to light your scene but if they are all over the place (in both brightness and saturation) and you start to compensate with more lights or a higher light intensity to brighten them up your scene will become rather fragile and dependent on a very specific setup and placement. Ideally your scene should be in a good place with just a few lights and then any specific placement is only there to enhance or draw attention (rather than saving your scene). I should add though that this is coming from a game perspective where you’re able to run around everywhere as opposed to film where it is more about making a specific shoot look good.

Another thing that comes to mind is not going overboard with turning on and adjusting every accessible feature, coloring every light and make huge changes in post the first thing you do.
It will be hard to get a good grip on the state of your level this way. Approach lightning with a scalpel instead of dynamite.

Tips For Starting At A New Studio

A good first step is of course to get to know your team and map out the surroundings. Who is a good person to ask for feedback on a day to day basis, who can help you set up a devkit, where is the coffee machine, who are the leaders on your team etc.

Another thing I find useful is to either play some of the games the studio has made in the past before joining and then make sure to join in on playtest as soon as you start. This is to get a grip of gameplay and the visual language and fidelity.

And of course - be your charming self! ;)

Where Do You Find Your Inspiration?

A bit of everywhere really. In the real world it usually comes from travels and nature. I enjoy observing how light behaves on large colorful surfaces like building facades. Where I live all the roofs are covered with orange-red roof tiles which gives an interesting effect when you combine that with a generous population of seagulls with white bellies.

I also spend a lot of time on Artstation where I feel like I get a good mix of everything from environments, characters, props and concepts. Then there is the ocean of movies, series and anime.

Where Do You Seek Feedback?

Professionally I bounce off everything I do off my Art Director and fellow artist at Midwinter. When working on personal projects I have the luxury of having a partner that is also an experienced 3D Artist but I also try to reach out to new and old colleagues to get some new perspectives as well.

Tips and Advice

I know this is a bit lame but don’t forget to take care of yourself. Eat healthy, exercise from time to time, try out a standing desk etc. If you want to last until you retire and beyond you need to put in some hours in that as well.

Future Work

Right now the only thing on my mind is getting our game Scavengers launch ready. The first game Midwinter will release as a studio!

Outro

I hope you got something out of my rambling above and that you find a good place to call home in this exciting ever evolving industry! :)