Studio: IGT
Website: http://www.igt.com/
Alejandro Parrilla is a 3D artist for IGT in Reno, NV, a company well known for its themed gaming machines. Originally from Venezuela, Alejandro's travels have taken him from Spain, to Orlando, Florida and now to a city world renowned for its visual displays.
Alejandro Parrilla is a 3D artist for IGT in Reno, NV, a company well known for its themed gaming machines. Originally from Venezuela, Alejandro's travels have taken him from Spain, to Orlando, Florida and now to a city world renowned for its visual displays. We recently got a chance to talk to Alejandro about his twisting path through the graphics industry and how he wound up in a field many may not initially recognize as a part of the 3D market.
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Can you tell us a little about yourself and your history with 3D?
I started out back in 1997 as a traditional/digital illustrator in my hometown of Caracas, Venezuela. After a couple of years I decided to explore new places to expand my experience and knowledge, and I "took a leap across the pond" towards Spain. By that time, I was familiar with a very basic 3D package called Raydream 3D (Wow, that was primitive) and my interest for 3D was growing exponentially. During my first months in Madrid city, I used to visit the news kiosks in the street twice a week to learn the latest industry news. There was a magazine that always had the most impressive imagery on the cover. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether it was a photograph or not. It turned out those great images were built using LightWave 3D. From that point I got myself a copy of the software and followed every possible tutorial I found online and in the magazines to enrich my skills in the field more until I reached a point where I needed more advanced training.
Long story short, I studied an intense course on LightWave 6 at a school that gave me a good base to perform as a 3D artist, but it wasn't enough. I was living in a country where there was almost no 3D industry and I wanted to develop my skills more. So I decided to jump to America and enrolled in The DAVE School in Orlando, FL to learn digital animation and visual effects. It was a great experience and I had the opportunity to prove my skills. My last project was Batman: New Times. I had the opportunity to work with stars of the caliber of Dick Van Dyke, who I was glad to meet at the SIGGRAPH conference a couple of years ago, Mark Hamill, Courtney Thorne-Smith and Adam West. The film was awarded with two Silver Telly Awards, one of them for Best Animated Film. We also got an article in Animation magazine. Thanks to my effort during the production on the short, I got my first American gig with Wolfhound, an animation house in Orlando, Florida. I helped produce a series of 3d shorts called Bobo Blocks that air in Gina Ds Kids Club, a nationally syndicated kids show.
Apart from that, I enjoy making 3D illustrations for publications. My most recent work includes several illustrations for articles in the HDRI3D magazine and an illustration in the gallery of April’s issue of 3D World magazine of a cool character William Vaughan created, Tofu the Vegan Zombie.
I also got the cover of the Inside LightWave 3D v9 by Dan Ablan in collaboration with William "Proton" Vaughan.
My regular Digital Artist job is at IGT’s Video Graphics department. I love doing 3D and I also enjoy collaborating with other artists like William "Proton" Vaughan, illustrating articles for magazines and creating cool characters that hopefully will emerge successful in the near future.
What feature of LightWave do you like most?
It’s hard to say. I like many things about it.
I like the modeling toolkit. I enjoy building organic models and LightWave makes me almost feel like I’m using actual clay, visually speaking, of course.
I also love lighting, and LightWave's lighting tools are really great.
I also enjoy character rigging and animation.
Are there any plug-ins you use on a regular basis?
I use external plug-ins such as FPrime for fast texturing, lighting feedback and rendering, Unfold 3D for quick UV mapping solutions. In modeler, I use VertiBevel when it comes to hard surface modeling. It’s a nice and easy-to-use plug-in to achieve complex bevels.
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What are your duties at IGT?
My title is 3D Artist III. In IGT's hierarchy, it means I'm a step below the Senior Designer position. Hopefully my efforts and consistent work will earn me that step ahead in a year’s time.
My responsibilities involve creating innovative game ideas, helping the Project Leads build game interfaces and everything that involves 3D creation process: character modeling, rigging, lighting (probably one of my favorites), animation, rendering and compositing, or post-production. I would consider myself a good all-around 3D artist because I enjoy every aspect of the 3D production process.
Can you tell us some more about IGT?
International Game Technology (IGT) is a global company specializing in the design, manufacture and marketing of computerized gaming equipment, systems and services. It derives its revenues in two ways: product sales and placement (gaming operations) of its gaming products, services or intellectual properties. IGT operates in two segments: North America and International, encompassing IGT's efforts in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan, Latin America, Russia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.
IGT’s headquarters are located in Reno, Nevada.
What are some projects you've worked on recently?
Let me start by saying that IGT is the leading gaming machine manufacturer and every year we produce a wide variety of games to fit the demand of casinos all over the world. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to show or talk about most of them due to strict business regulations. We have a number of geographic-themed games, successful mega jackpots such as Fort Knox and Party Time and movie-based games such as Star Wars, Alien vs. Predator and Terminator 2.
How did you find out about IGT?
I heard about IGT from a friend. IGT has been using 3D for several years in production. 3D is broad and can be used to accomplish many things in professional environments. It can be used for creating graphics for printed media, TV broadcasting, films, visuals for medical presentations, mechanical simulations or in our case, for video gaming...
How does LightWave fit into your production pipeline?
LightWave 3D is our package of preference since it allows you to accomplish the job in a short period of time with great results. Great looking renders and fast modeling tools are the best features LightWave 3D has. Although we are a big company we can consider the 3D department to be a small studio. LightWave is a perfect tool for this kind of production pipeline.
How does work for a gaming machine differ from other 3D work?
The process is very similar to working in any other 3D production. All the steps have to be covered. What is different from other forms of 3D is the final product and the way to approach it. Instead of making movies and following a storyboard/animatic to tell a story we focus on ways to make a game thrilling and entertaining.
Are there any projects that have been particular favorites?
I worked on two animations of a camera fly-through for a game themed on a famous series of movies. I created most of the elements for those sequences. The task included modeling, texturing, rigging, lighting and animating environmental assets such as a series of booby traps, climbing vines, foliage, rocky caves, spiders and treasures. I was lucky enough to work with other great artists in this project. The result was a very successful game that's incredibly appealing to the eye. It's definitely fun to play. I wish I could give more details about it. Since I got hired at IGT I have worked on more than eight different games and all of them have one thing in common: Lot’s of fun and good 3D.
Are there any projects that have been particularly challenging?
I would say that all the projects are challenging. Every game is a different monster we have to tame. I just finished working on an animation sequence for our Asian market. I love making these kinds of animations because it gives me the opportunity to build the entire set. I had to solve this puzzle in only two weeks, a very short time to build a Chinese landscape. The project got a very favorable response from our clients. I also had the assistance of some very experienced artists. Working out 3D environments is fun, and LightWave is a good friend when it comes to speed. Although I also work on designing imagery in 2D using After Effects and Photoshop, my gig is 3D. And LightWave is what I use to do that work.
How are themes for gaming machines created?
The themes are created as a result of brainstorming sessions we practice. The artists have the freedom to come up with new ideas that are compiled and studied by game experts that study the market and what could be potentially successful in a game.
Can you give us some background on the images at left?
The first three images are environments I had to create for the bonus sequences for the game I mentioned previously based on a famous series of movies. It's a game that's still in production and I can't really tell much about it. I built all the assets for those sequences.
The fourth image is a character for the bonus in the game Money Bags. I had to model, rig and animate this guy dancing and celebrating. It was my first task at IGT.
The fifth is the interior of a pimped-out limo for the game Fort Knox.
The sixth image is a model of the Emmy awards statue that I modeled and rendered for NewTek. It was displayed at SIGGRAPH 2005 as part of NewTek's booth. It was 20" long.
The seventh image is a character I created that's still a work in progress. I developed some ideas for a possible animated short I plan to make in the future.
The eighth image is Tofu the Vegan Zombie, created by William "Proton" Vaughan. This illustration is in the gallery of 3DWorld magazine (April 2007). Tofu broke into a grocery store to satisfy his craving for veggies.
The final image is Quincy, also created by "Proton". I made this illustration for an article of HDRI3D magazine, and it's also the cover of Inside LightWave v9 by Dan Ablan.
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Have the recent changes in LightWave impacted the way you work?
Honestly, because of the nature of the way we work, we still haven’t been able to switch to LightWave v9 though we have them installed in our machines. It’s not a good idea to change software in the middle of a project but my experience with LightWave tells me that it can only be for the better. I only use it at home but I can't wait to use LightWave v9 at work to apply the new goodies like the new node-based shader editor and some goodies such as the sub-surface scattering for skin simulations, stress maps, etc. Those will open new possibilities to improve the look of our products.
Are there any new features of LightWave v9 you've found particularly useful?
The new node-based shade editor opens new doors to texturing, gives more control and, once you understand the way it works, makes you a much faster texture artist. The new camera tools allows me to do some R&D to find new looks and distortions that don’t come in other 3D packages.
The addition of Edges in modeler gives more control and allows you to save polygon count when using weights. No more slices needed for sharp edges when modeling in sub-patch mode. Relativity is a nice card to have up your sleeve. It allows you to setup automatic actions that wouldn't have been possible before.
Have you tried LightWave v9.2 yet?
LightWave v9.2 has improved the workflow in the node editor and allows me to work with vast amounts of geometry in a scene with no hassle. I also like the new feature that allows you to see the X and Z axis with no grid in the perspective view. The edge loop expand and contract selection options are a nice addition, but my favorite ones are definitely the new camera lens menus and the excellent new look of the motion blur. LightWave has definitely taken a big step ahead from LightWave 8.5. Some of the issues LightWave v9 presented as a new version were fixed in v9.2. I believe this version will allow us to make the switch at IGT. I am personally planning to work with v9.2 in my next game.
Do you have a "LightWave tip or trick" others might find helpful?
Here are a few:
1: In modeler, many artists model their characters facing negative Z axis. Then they create all the morphs and when the time comes to rig the character, the objects should be facing positive Z. If you rotate the model 180 degrees to face the right axis, the morphs won’t follow. So instead of rotating the character the solution would be to mirror the character based on the Z axis. If your character happens to be asymmetrical and has elements that need to stay on a specific side, then use the "rotate morph tool".
2: Let's say you are animating a character using the "pose to pose" method. In order to edit the curves in the graph editor I’ve seen lots of artists selecting all the bone structure in the scene editor. In a complex animation this task can take minutes. If you open the graph editor with the character object selected and simply hit shift+G, it will bring all the channels of every bone in the structure to the graph editor immediately. This can save you hours of work.
3: Keep your models as clean as possible. A perfect organic model doesn’t have any visible triangles on it. This will avoid the appearance of creases in the render or invisible polygons. Also keep in mind the polygon flow. Some modelers create good looking characters that are a literal disaster when it comes to rigging. They might work when they are meant to be as sculptures but when you are going to animate them, rigging can be a headache. Clean poly flow is a time saver in the long run. Keep that in mind.
What's next for IGT?
There is always a new challenge, and our goal is to stay at the cutting edge of the gaming industry. Watch out for our new releases. They are all great fun.
Do you have any advice for someone new to the 3D industry?
Knowing how to use a 3D package doesn’t automatically make you an artist. Take the time to learn basic art principles and concepts. Study color theory, art history, photography, experience other traditional arts and cultures. You’ll learn a lot from them and you’ll gain knowledge that will take you far.
Never stop working. If you go to bed one single day without having done any work during the day, you are wasting your time. Working hard is the only thing that will make you better.
Also try to learn from other artists and never make the stupid mistake of thinking you are the best in the room. Chances are you are not and that attitude will make you earn enemies and will make you miss opportunities that are before your eyes. Also widen your sources of learning.
Don't limit yourself to look at art created only in this industry. You never know when you’ll get a great idea inspired by something that has nothing to do with 3D production.
Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Alejandro!
IGT
