Ubisoft Toronto's Lead Modeling & Texturing Artists on Their Working Experience

80.lv: Hey Theo and Jasmine! Can you tell us a bit about what you do?

Jasmine Wong: Hello! I am the Team Lead artist for the Texture Team. Texture may be an often-overlooked aspect of game development but it is imperative to bringing an immersive world to life and giving depth and dimension to characters, objects, and everything else within it. As a Team Lead, I oversee the art process pipeline, texture budgets, shader usage, the testing of the assets in the game environment, and the process of reviewing texture quality. Maintain efficient collaboration between the team members and other dependent teams.

Theo Mills: Hi! I’m a Team Lead Artist for the Modeling team. I’ve been in the games industry for 7 years, previously working in animation and practical special effects.  My main role as a Team Lead is driving the quality and establishing asset production workflows and pipelines. The day-to-day involves checking in with artists on their current tasks, doing art reviews on submitted work, working with the Tech Art team on developing our pipelines, and generally being the point of contact for other departments when it comes to any art asset in the game.

80.lv: Why did you choose to get into the game industry?

Theo: Gaming has always been a passion of mine, but I always found myself more interested in the visuals in games more than the gameplay itself, so it was a natural progression to learn more about game art production and finally go to school for it. I originally went to school for traditional art and practical effects, but when more and more schools started offering game art programs, I decided to pivot to digital art in general. From there, I spent 2 years working in the animation industry before getting my first job in games working at Ubisoft Toronto on Far Cry 5. 

Jasmine: I’ve been in the gaming industry for 16 years. It was an internship at Rockstar that kickstarted my professional journey and where I discovered how fun it was to create a game world — from the initial grey-blocking stages to polishing its final assets. Being able to utilize colour and silhouettes of shapes to create scenes that are representative of the world they belong to is a challenging but very enjoyable process!

80.lv: Could you tell us a bit about the culture within the art community at Ubisoft Toronto? How do you work together and support each other?  

Jasmine: One aspect of my role that I particularly enjoy is brainstorming ideas with my team members or other departments. That's the culture of Ubisoft Toronto — we share ideas or give each other constructive feedback all the time. It isn’t unusual to hear about innovative  GDC tech talk videos, Blender tools, cool movie lighting setups, and so much more!

Theo: From an art standpoint, we are really trying to encourage people to share the work they are doing with the team at large; this helps us avoid artists feeling like they are working in a vacuum, which is a common occurrence with large AAA development.

80.lv: What are some of your proudest moments or biggest accomplishments at Ubisoft Toronto?  

Jasmine: I still remember the exact day, December 27, 2021 - The day I finished the terrain textures set for Far Cry 6. Given the tight budget and the need for lots of content to fill the game, the biggest challenge was the planning and co-ordination with Technical Team] to ensure the project was within budget.

Finally locking down all terrain textures in the game, and presenting the system to the World team so that they can utilize the assets while keeping everything within budget was a major accomplishment and a huge relief! As for my other accomplishments, I make awesome waffles, from savoury to sweet. I have fed a lot of hungry artists over the past seven years.

Theo: You’ll never forget shipping your first game and for me, that was Far Cry 5. It was a really satisfying and proud moment. Additionally, shipping an AAA game is an already challenging feat, but shipping an AAA game during a pandemic was really something else! I'm proud of how our many teams nimbly pivoted to remote work during the lockdown, overcoming multiple obstacles and learnings to ship Far Cry 6. 

80.lv: What do you enjoy most about working at Ubisoft Toronto – what gets you motivated and energized?

Theo: The thing I love the most about working at Ubisoft Toronto is the people. I'm a firm believer that the team makes or breaks how successful a game can be. Not only financially, but also as an enjoyable experience for the developers.

80.lv: Finally, could you share some tips for artists interested in joining the studio? What skills, experiences, and behaviors will help them stand out? 

Theo: The advice I usually give to aspiring game artists is to keep their projects in scope and seek out peer feedback as much as possible. Game development at any scale is a very iterative process, the more artists iterate and seek feedback, the faster they will improve and the easier it will be to land a job. Doing one big portfolio piece over the course of months can be exciting, however, earlier on in your career, I think it's a good idea to choose smaller projects that you can complete and move on from as a better way to grow as an artist.

Jasmine: I find that the ability to effectively work as a team is essential in the game industry. Since it's important for every aspect of the game, from AI, animation, lighting, and game design, to be synchronized, communicating effectively with other people becomes a very important skill.

Theo Mills, Team Lead Artist at Ubisoft Toronto's Modeling team

Jasmine Wong, Team Lead Artist at Ubisoft Toronto's Texture team

Interview conducted by Arti Burton