Q&A WITH TIM SIMPSON A.K.A POLYGON ACADEMY

Tim Simpson, also known as Polygon Academy, is well known in the industry for his impressive lighting work and art tutorials. In this special Q&A you can learn about how he got where he is today, the workflow he uses for his projects, tips he has for other artists in the games industry and mistakes he sees far too often.

Introduction

I am a “self-taught” artist who has been working in the industry for over 12 years now, mostly as an environment and level artist but recently made the switch to being a full-time senior lighting artist at WB Games Montreal. In my spare time I create game art tutorials for my online YouTube channel Polygon Academy.

I had the opportunity to learn some 3DS max in high school and saw the opportunity to get into the game industry by just working on my portfolio and not having to pay to go to college/university, so that’s the route I decided to go. So I spent a lot of time working on developing an environment art portfolio and eventually got my first junior artist job at a small studio in Vancouver.

Q: What inspired you to create the Polygon Academy? Has creating videos to teach artists made you reconsider your process at all?

For me it was a combination of wanting to give back to the game dev community that has helped me get to where I am today, as well as the ambition of building up a functional side hustle that leverages my strengths and skills I have built over the years. I basically want to create the content that would have helped me back in the days when I was struggling to get into the industry from my parents basement.

Creating the videos and teaching has helped me look over the strengths and weaknesses of my own workflows, often finding more efficient ways of doing things, or having people in the comments letting me know there is a better way. I have learned a bunch of quick workflow hacks from people watching my videos and letting me know there is a quick way of doing what I just demonstrated. I definitely don’t know everything, so it is great to learn from the community as well!

Q: When looking at Junior Artist’s portfolios, what are the most common mistakes? How do you fix these mistakes?

Most junior artist portfolios look like all the student work they did in school, exercises in learning specific software. This leads to a jack of all trades master of none look to their work. Almost all student/junior portfolios I see have a substance shader ball, a prop, maybe a small environment, a character etc. but none of the work is at that AAA quality bar or high level that we want to hire for a specific job title.

I would say the quickest way to fix his is to figure out what you actually enjoy doing, and then buckle down for another year or 2 and get really good a the skills of a specific job. IE: environment artist, character artist, vehicle/weapons artist. Don’t try and do everything as when you are learning it takes time to develop the eye for what looks good and spreading yourself too thin will only hinder your progress.

Q: Would you be able to do a breakdown on the composition of one of your environments in terms of lighting, flow and color? These breakdowns are extremely useful for our viewers.

The quickest way to see my process would be to watch my ArtStation challenge series on Youtube where I build an environment, and highlight most of my thought process. You can find the entire playlist here.

Q: When you start your day modeling do you do any warm up before you start?

Not really, I am usually picking up where I left off, I don’t do much modeling these days. I tend to look at ArtStation for a few minutes to get the creative juices flowing and then just dive right into whatever I am working on.

 Q: When working with a team what do you find the most helpful traits for junior to mid level artists?

A willingness to listen and apply creative feedback from more experienced artists is huge and being able to look at what you are working on in context of the overall game instead of treating every asset like a hero prop. Chances are no one is going to notice the tiny edge bevels on that railing or the slightly differently rotated bolts on the wall panel when they are running around blasting enemies during gameplay. So instead of spending an extra 4-5 hours on an asset to add all this micro detail, you could better deploy that time focused on improving the macro of what’s on screen is sometimes hard to learn for juniors.

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

Learning the basics of art are a good place to start, so things like scene composition and scale, creating assets that have a sense of weight and a balanced ratio of details etc. Learning the importance of color theory and how you make the person viewing your final images feel is super important.

I would say learning some 3d modeling software like Blender/3DS Max/Maya etc is going to be useful, as well as I would recommend displaying your work in a game engine like Unreal or Unity. If you want a job in games, you should be making realtime art if you want to be a 3D artist.

Q: What skills do you find most frequently lacking for artists trying to get their first job? How can they improve or learn these skills?

Usually composition and nice lighting are missing from a lot of junior portfolios, and those 2 things have a huge impact on the final look of a portfolio piece. Also the final presentation can suffer if props are just displayed floating in space on a black background or something boring like that. Little diorama shots are great for grounding props and making it feel a lot more presentable for final portfolio screenshots.

It's going that extra 20% at the end of a project you are probably tired of working on is what makes it shine. In a game studio you don’t really have the option to work away from a task until it is really done well, this usually means multiple levels of revisions for anything you are working on, so best to get into that groove early on.

Q: When it comes to composition, what are some of the things junior artists or students often are lacking or forget?

The biggest things I usually see are weird camera angles with tilts/dutch angles for no reason, or not paying attention to negative space, so the empty space around objects that can help balance the image. Also when it comes to environment flythrough videos I prefer to see basic camera moves, like slow pans or locked still shots. A lot of juniors record a camera flying through the environment looking at everything and it feels like a camera on the back of a bumble bee as it flies around and looks super amateur. Try and keep things simple and cinematic, you don’t have to show everything!

Q: With the growing popularity of procedural workflows such as Houdini how do you think the job of an Environment Artist is changing?

Environment art jobs in the west are drastically changing more and more to be more world building roles. A lot of the time at larger studios you will be doing very little actual modeling and asset creation as that work is much cheaper to outsource. You might be building larger structural meshes and modular kits, but high poly modeling that trash can or crate…probably not.  

Q: If you were starting your career from day one over what would you do and where would you focus? What would you tell younger Tim?

I would still definitely go the self-taught route, and probably end up a level/lighting artist as I have always been into environments more than characters. But I would probably get a lot more focused in my portfolio development. Back when I was learning I was just making random projects like cars, guns, the occasional zbrush monster…the jack of all trades mistake I mentioned. I was wondering why studios were not replying to my applications, and when I finally deleted most of that random content from my portfolio and focused on environment creation specifically, I got results a lot faster. I always say it took me 6 years to break into the industry, but if I had a focused plan I would probably have gotten in a couple years sooner just by re-directing my attention to the most relevant skills to a specific job title that I am passionate about. 

Q: Do you seek out feedback if so where did you ask for it? How did you respond and implement feedback?

Yeah I usually get a good amount of feedback from my good friend and art director Lincoln Hughes, as well as post my work on websites like Polycount or various discord servers like Dynusty Empire or No More Grid. Most of the time I will take all the feedback, see what the most common issues and heavy hitting tips are and go back and implement them, which usually brings the quality of my work up substantially. Anyone wanting to get into the industry should do this, you are going to have to get feedback from your art director and in a production environment you don’t really have the option to not implement it.

Q: For you, what are the biggest differences between a big studio and a smaller one?

Larger studios tend to have a lot more systems and processes in place, and you are really focused in what you are doing within your specific role. Smaller studios you tend to have a bit more width in your job description, for example you might be making some textures, models and doing world building, while at a large studio you are probably focused on world building exclusively. Right now as a lighting artist, I focus solely on lighting environments, which allows me to really go deep on that specific skillset.

Community Q: Do you prefer to work on a AAA game or a smaller project?

They both have their pros and cons, I find I learn more on a daily basis at a smaller studio because I have to find solutions to a wider variety of problems, while at a AAA studio it tends to be smoother sailing and I know what to expect day to day and get to work on huge titles. Both are nice, and that is why I have changed jobs at various points in my career to keep things fresh.

Community Q: How to scope your project when you are a beginner?

I would usually recommend taking your initial scope of what you think you can do and cut it in half. That might sound crazy, but I constantly see beginner artists trying to make insanely detailed, massive environments and getting overwhelmed and discouraged. Think of the final presentation, it will probably be 3-4 “hero” screenshots and maybe a couple breakdowns.

Building a 30km square forest isn’t really going to do more for you than building a small section of path with a little building or something. Quality over quantity is huge. Also working from existing concepts (again, pick something SMALL as a beginner and increase complexity with each finished project) can help ease the burden of trying to come up with creative designs yourself. I much prefer working from someone else’s badass concept art than trying to get super “creative” and make things up for myself.

Q: How best to deal with indirect light map seams across modular panels in an environment?

Build things in a way where modular seams are in natural points, like where a wall meets a pillar. Don’t build a flat section of wall out of a bunch of duplicated 2mx2m square flat meshes. Just use one larger modular piece for that large wall area. The less lightmap seams, the less problems. Most people go far too micro modular with their kits when adding some larger pieces solves so many headaches. Make more pieces for your kits, the extra cost is super minimal in most cases.

Q: What are the hottest future areas of training in Gamedev right now?

Probably Technical Art, it’s a super broad discipline from tools to crazy engine features etc. Also Technical Lighting Artists will probably be a lot more common next gen. Anyone who can make others lives easier on a day to day basis is going to be valuable, so people who can save a ton of time by using something like Houdini are going to get snapped up pretty fast.

Q: What can we be on the lookout from you in the future?

Lots more free YouTube content and then some premium level courses for those who want to go deeper or are super fans of the channel, probably next year. I have a lot of interesting ideas for content, just gotta find the time to produce it!

Q: Do you have any additional tips or advice to share with our readers?

The big idea I have been pushing lately is to chase mastery, not money. Mastering a skillset will likely result in a job/higher income opportunities as a side benefit, but most beginners focus on trying to get a job by getting their portfolio to the “minimum” level of quality before spending all their time applying to studios and waiting around to hear back. If you are spending 90% of your time on skill development, and consistently posting work that is really high quality, your inbox will have plenty of job opportunities from recruiters hitting you up instead of you chasing jobs. Then you also have more leverage because they end up trying to get you instead of you desperately chasing them. Money is a direct result of the value you bring to the table, which is based on your skillset, so focus on that.

Community Q: How does Tim keep his head so shiny?

A daily coat of fresh unicorn tears. ;)

Crunch and Burnout

When it comes to burnout it is good to develop a bit of self awareness. Are you struggling to finish a project because it is hard? Or are you genuinely not enjoying the work itself any more? Every project tends to have a low point that you have to push through, but if your day to day is becoming miserable for months on end, it’s time to step away and take a break.

When starting out there is a lot of pressure to get good fast but forcing yourself to work every second on art is a great recipe to spiral into burnout. Patience is so important, taking 2-3 years to develop a skillset while taking time to travel or do other hobbies is way better than going insanely overboard and burning out a year in. Having a long term view is key. Never be afraid to take time off if you need it, for me I usually come back more inspired and eager to get back to work after a extended period of vacation/time off.

Outro

I hope this advice is useful to anyone looking to break into the industry or progress in their career path, I know the journey can seem long and painful sometimes. I consider myself an extremely “joe average” kind of guy, so if I can do it, chances are you can as well! Just have patience and try to enjoy the actual process of creating art day to day.

Having a long-term perspective of “this is something I will be committing to for several years” will help a lot. The evolution of the internet and the huge variety of learning resources out there today are well ahead of what was available to me at the start of my journey into the industry, so take advantage of it.

You can learn directly from industry experienced artists for an extremely low cost these days. I say I am self-taught but I would never have gotten to where I wanted to be without investing in myself through various training materials (Gnomon, Eat3d DVD’s etc) and most of all, consistently putting in my time to push towards my goals, even when I wasn’t super motivated or in the mood to do art. Keep at it and you will eventually surprise yourself with what you can accomplish.