Creative Metaverse Podcast

Hello creatives, Ryan wants you to meet Jet Olaño. Jet wears many hats; he works with Unreal Engine Virtual Production Fellowship as an Instructor/Unreal Engine Technical Artist and is the Owner Operator at The Secret Hideout. He helped to instruct Industry Professionals learn a hands-on approach to In Camera Visual Effects (ICVFX) using the Unreal Engine. Also, to teach skill such as: Camera Tracking with Optitrack System, Camera Calibration, Ndisplay Configuration Creation, LED Wall Panel Replacement of ROE Black Pearl panels and Stage Operations.

Make sure to learn more about Jet Olaño at the links below.

Hello Creatives, Ryan wants you to meet Jason Belic. He has known Jason for a really long time. All the way back to when Ryan worked at Pixologic. Ryan is putting the spotlight on Jason, so you can see a whole other dimension to the type of people and jobs in our industry.  Jason is an artist, but he’s worked in development and building technology solutions most of his life. All of this is to get you ready for a class we’re building that will teach Creatives more about coding.

Make sure to learn more about Jasonat the links below.

This week we're bringing you a talk by the amazing Ashley Sparling filled with career advice for those looking to get into the game industry. Ashley is a veteran of the industry having worked at studios like Ubisoft and others and now running his own company, K9.

Make sure to learn more about Ashley at the links below.

This week Ryan is turning the mic over to Jacob Claussen and his career talk. Jacob Classen is currently a Lead Environment at Fall Damage Studio in Stockholm, Sweden and a Mentor at Vertex School.

In this episode, Bita and Jacob go through his amazing journey to become a professional artist and the courage to continue push his creativity. Along with being a recognized artist in our industry.

Jacob is also an educator who resonates with his student and shares many of the workflows that he uses in the Game Industry. He has worked on with studios like Ubisoft (Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and The Division 2: Warlords of New York Expansion) and Starburst (Overkill´s The Walking Dead).

Make sure to learn more about Jacob at the links below.

This week Ryan is talking with the Co-Founders of The Rookies, Alwyn Hunt and Andrew McDonald. Together have put together a platform for first year artists to show their hard-earned talent, in a highly commentative industry. Alwyn has an established background in fine art and the CG industry. Some notable credits are The Hobbit 1 & 2, Watchmen, Harry Potter and many more. Andrew's background is as an Industrial Designer, Animatronics Specialist, and Full-Stack Web Developer. Some notable credits are Suckerpunch, Watchmen, The LEGO Movie, Legend of the Guardians and many more.

Join Ryan this week as he interviews Sean Spitzer, Unreal Enterprise - Senior Instructor/ Master Mentor Artist for VP at Epic Games. Sean has been in the games industry for 18 years working in both console and social gaming verticals. He has an extensive background in education teaching game art and design related topics at both the Academy of Art University and The Art Institute of California. During his time in the Games Industry, he has worked within and alongside companies such as Sony Entertainment, Interplay, Infogames, Zynga, Shiny Entertainment, iWin, and Gazillion. His credits and experience encompass titles like Run Like Hell, Enter the Matrix, Tribal Rivals, Yo-ville, Family Feud, and Wheel of Fortune as well as others. Over the last 8 years he has focused on servicing the social gaming industry and has built a deep knowledgebase of different art methodologies and pipelines. Sean’s experience includes TV production and the development of animation content. He has worked with the Academy Award Nominated studio, Bold Studios on interactive TV, animated children’s TV projects in Europe, raining Disney’s animation team and visual development to help create Frozen’s MYTH a VR experience and even Worked on Love Death and Robots Season 3’s short Vaulted Halls with lighting and shading work.

This week Ryan is interviewing Dam Weiss, Senior Character Artist at Untold Studios. Dan has worked as a Character Artist, Creature Artist and look Dev Artist in some very well-known films and shows. From titles such as Man From U.N.C.L.E., Captain America: Civil War, Renegades, Lion King and  Moon Knight. Dan gives us a glance at working film in today's evolving industry, form being ready to strike at unexpected opportunities and how normal it is to move between studios. 

This week Ryan is talking to the industrious Nora Shramek a Senior level Lighting and Render Artist. She helps shed some light on what it is to be a lighting artist in a studio. Learn how a robust skill set helps in her communication and collaborate in her studio pipeline. Plus, how modern artist can benefit from a background of traditional art skills, married to a fundamental knowledge of science and math to attain not just a look; but rather a functional understand of why the end result looks right.

Tune into this episode were Ryan sits with James Jacob Co-Founder of Ziva Dynamics and Director of Technology Incubation at Unity. James talks about his time working on project like Lord of the Rings and Avatar, as well as his current venture in tools for Rigging. See how the industry has blossomed through James eyes.

This week Ryan has the pleasure to present to you a conversation with Vimal Kerketta, a digital sculptor/character artist whose work has been featured in many movies, video games & toys.  To shed light on his beginnings for aspiring artists, Vimal recounts how he started off his artistic career. Like many it did not start in the area of art, but rather in a different field. Vimal has an unapologetic attitude that is too be admired about making art that he loves first and then share it with the world. Which helps us better understand what so many artists say, "...do what you have passion for." And he reminds us that this is different to each person and to be thoughtful in where our passion stems from.
Vimal Shares what it was like to work on the Matrix and what it was like to sculpt some of the most recognizable face in the production.

Ryan is excited to present his conversation with Ian Spriggs, 3D Portrait Character Artist, who's portraits push our expectation of 3D character work. Ian's work is raw and true to the subject, but in his chat with Ryan we are shown the artistry woven into his work.  How there is an intension behind the eyes, or a thought placed into the mannerisms and posture.

Listen in, Ian talks about how he started in art, the trials encountered with finding artistry in higher education to how he found his niche in 3D. Also, we ponder on the future and how we can evolve art past our current understanding to utilize 3D to newer heights.

Ryan has the pleasure to chat with Jasmine Jai, Senior Sound Designer at HoYoverse. She crafts the sound and acoustic mood in games. Listen in on this conversation and start to listen to the ambient noise that defines your surroundings. Jasmine's job is one layer that helps build an immersive experience in the game design pipeline.

Listen in on Ryan's chat with Nacho Riesco. Nacho is a Freelance Digital Sculptor well known for his elaborately crafted jewelry and highly engaging demos on Pixologic's YouTube channel. They will discuss Nacho's start as an artist and his view on digital sculpting from the point of view of a traditional who is less concerned the technical side of digital art.

Nacho's work often ends up printed, cast or even translated to run on a CNC machine. He touches on the integration of digital sculpting in modern projects and how it aids modern tractional artist with sculptures and reliefs. Plus, we learn from Nacho the art of freelancing and with a focus in the jewelry arena.

This week we have our Producer at Vertex School, Jean-Marc standing for Ryan. Join Jean-Marc's conversation with Thomas Tobin, a talented Senior Tech Artist at Unity Technologies. Also, Thomas teaches Houdini at the Vertex School and shares his knowledge of procedural design with his students.

Thomas gives us an in-depth view of his process and how he found his niche as a Tech Artist, from working as an Environment Artist to an internship at SideFX to learn about Houdini. 

Kurtis has worked on with studios like Scanline and Zoic Studio.

Make sure to learn more about Kurtis at the links below.

We invite you to listen in on Kurtis Dawe and Ryan's conversation about Prime Ape Panet. Kurtis Dawe now has decided that he wants to use his skills and experience to bring a high-value project to NFT space with Prime Ape Panet. The project is headed up by Kurtis and a team of designers who are known for many productions like The Lion King, Godzilla, and many other animations for Marvel, Disney, MGM, and much more.

Kourtis gives us an in-depth view of his process for how his team creates the insane volume of work, from sculpting in Zbrush to rendering in Houdini and finally the loving touches in Photoshop. Also, he gives us a sense of perspective from the Artist point of view as a creator in the ever-evolving NFT community.

Kurtis has worked on with studios like Scanline and Zoic Studio.

Make sure to learn more about Kurtis at the links below.

Have a listen to our chat with vertex mentor Chico Spans. Chico is a vegetation artist at Massive entertainment. Before that Chico was an environment artist at playground games as part of the road team working on Forza Horizon 4 and before that he was at Sticky studios.

Chico gives us an in depth view about his journey as an artist and how he intentionally set specific goals to work for a AAA studio and the perseverance needed to get there. Chico talks to us about mega scans and some of the most powerful artistic lessons he has learned. Have a listen and get inspired by Chico's unique story.

Datagen provides high-performance data that is key to production-ready algorithms to accelerate R&D and improve computer vision models with access to a fully controllable synthetic data generation platform.

In this episode, Ryan meets with Gil (CTO and Co-founder), Teddy (Marketing Manager) and Evan (Director of 3D Technologies and a Vertex Mentor) to discuss the synthetic approach to computer vision.

Make sure to learn more about Datagen at the links below.

Jacob Classen is currently a Lead Environment at Fall Damage Studio in Stockholm, Sweden and a Mentor at Vertex School. 

In this episode, Bita and Jacob go through his amazing journey to become a professional artist and the courage to continue push his creativity. Along with being a recognized artist in our industry.

 Jacob is also a educator who resonates with his student and shares many of the workflows that he uses in the Game Industry. He has worked on with studios like Ubisoft (Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and The Division 2: Warlords of New York Expansion) and Starburst (Overkill´s The Walking Dead).

Make sure to learn more about Jacob at the links below.

Tyler and Larry have a PHd in NFTs and host a popular podcast called That's Nifty where they interview amazing artists working in this space.

In this episode, Ryan talks with Tyler and Larry to unpack what an NFT and what they've learned from collecting and interview artists like Aeforia, Smeccea, Kid Mograph and more.

Jama Jurabaev is a concept artist working at Lucasfilms and is founder of BigMediumSmall Studio.  Recently complete design work for episodes of Boba Fett on Disney +.

In this episode, Ryan and Jama go through his twitter feed to talk about Jama's amazing artwork and the tools he uses.  Along with being a recognized artist in our industry, Jama is also a powerful educator and shares many of the workflows that he uses on a daily basis on his twitter and Artstation.

Make sure to learn more about Jama at the links below.

Andre Holzmeister is the artist behind ArtMonkees' upcoming NFT release. In this podcast, we catch up with Andre just as he finishes up the last piece of art.  Andre goes on to talk about how it has been his dream to create a toy collection and how that dream was impossible or insanely complicated back in 2007 but now is within his reach because of the power of non-fungible tokens.  

He also mentions how Doritos' beat CryptoPunks to the market by over 10 years. Make sure to check out the podcast to learn more about Andre, his upcoming project, and get an inside look at what it takes to put together a 5,000 character NFT drop. 

Artmonkees goes live January 23rd on the Solana block chain January 23rd. 

Have a listen to our chat with Doug and James from Super Pop Drop as they talk to us about digital artists in the fashion metaverse space! Think digital wearables and all the other assets that you need to create a fashion show like avatars, runways, lighting setups etc... 

You'll hear all about their journey to Super Pop Drop from their days as creatives in luxury fashion and how to find jobs with companies like theirs who are seeking out 3D artists.

Doug and James were photographers and branders for luxury brands for Neiman Marcus, Diesel, and Loreal. They created the first images for Amazon fashion and photographed countless celebrities like Kate Moss and Kylie Minogue before they started Super Pop Drop. Super Pop Drop has partnered up with model coach extraordinaire Miss J Alexander and DressX to create a digital wearables NFT collection and an online Shopify store that solely sells luxury NFTs.

With the next Metaverse fashion week upon us there is much to learn about how digital artists fit into this space and how to find jobs with a wide variety of companies.

Have a listen to this fascinating chat with digital sculptor Auriea Harvery from her home in Rome and Vertex here at the Leona art gallery in the heart of East Austin, TX. 

Auriea Harvey is a digital sculptor producing simulations and objects that bridge physical and virtual space. Auriea Harvey is a boundary-breaking artist originally from Indianapolis, Indiana. She talks to us about her journey as an artists in the digital space from student to video games to NFT's. 

After plumbing the depths of net art and video games, she has now turned her attention to digital sculpture, 3D printing, and mixed reality. The work is presented as sculptures that blend digital and handmade production. She is half of the artist duo Entropy8Zuper!/Tale of Tales/Song of Songs, known for their pioneering works in Internet art, video games, and XR. Auriea lives in Rome and is a Professor of Games at Kunsthochschule Kassel. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the RF.C Collection, and Rhizome’s Net Art Anthology. 

Her video games and VR works have had international success, including exhibitions at the Tinguely Museum, Basel; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the New Museum, New York; Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; and ZKM, Karlsruhe. She is the recipient of a Creative Capital grant and a winner of the Independent Games Festival Nuovo Award. She is represented by bitforms gallery, NYC.

Omar Awediah is the Character Art Lead at Sucker Punch Productions and a mentor at Vertex school. Before that he was a character art lead at Amazon game studios and Obsidian entertainment and Cloud imperium games. 

Omar gives us a glimpse into many aspects of his life as an artist creating characters for a major studio. You get to hear all about Omar's journey in art from being an intern all the way to a character art lead. He talks about how to be a better artist with critiques, and how to overcome a lot of the vulnerability that comes with the territory.  Have a listen to our chat taped live at the Yellow Jacket Social Club in Austin, TX and his home in Seattle.

Giovanni Nakpil, Creative Director

Gio, has been a digital model supervisor for Industrial Light and Magic, worked on principal creatures for "Star Trek" and "The Avengers," amongst other notable Hollywood films before switching gears to designing and building video game assets for Valve Corporation, then onto Oculus and now working at Adobe. Listen to Gio's thoughts on education, apprenticing yourself, perfect practice, hierarchy of forms, listening to your gut and software evangelism (yes, that's a real thing). 

Check out this awesome interview with John Jasper Fielding, a Lead Animator at the Mill! John's got some amazing history with cinematic animation. Listen in and learn from him! Enjoy!

Listen to this awesome interview with Robert Morrison, a Lead Animator at Certain Affinity! He's got some amazing insights into the world of animation. 

Listen to this awesome interview with Elaina Scott! Elaina Scott has worked on titles such as Iron Man 3, Avengers 2, The Hunger Games, Fast Five, Insurgent, Transformers 4, TMNT, and The Fantastic Four. Hear her tips about landing a job in the industry. 

Listen to this awesome interview with Andrew Tan, an animator at Sucker Punch Productions!

Check out this interview with Mark Peart, a lead animator at Super Spline Studios. Mark has animated for huge franchises, such as Lego and Call of Duty. Enjoy!

Check out this awesome interview we had with Sophie Shepherd, an animator at Creative Assembly!

Check out this interview with Matt Tovar, a character animator who also works as an assistant professor! Matt shared with us a lot of great insights into the world of animation and his journey to get where he is today. Enjoy!

Listen this interview with Ju Li Khaw, a senior animator at Arkane Studios! Ju Li had a lot of insight into being a professional animator. Enjoy!

Listen to this interview with Jess Simard, a 3D animator at Playground Games, as she sheds light on her experience working in animation. 

Check out this interview with Mike Jungbluth, an animation director at Bioware. Mike has a lot of insight to being an animator!

Listen to our interview with Jon Mack, an amazing animator working for Facebook's VR-AI department. With years of experience working for AAA games, he's got a lot of insight into the world of animating video games. Enjoy!

Check out this new podcast with Lana Bachynski, a senior animator at Riot Games! 

This will be the first podcast of an Animation series, spearheaded by the head of animation at Vertex school, Dan Perry. 

Check out this interview with Michael Rudd and Kaushit Saha. Michael is the CEO and Art Director of Playwood Games, and Kaushit is a freelance artist who worked on the game "Wartile."

Check out this interview with Nayoun Kim, a senior character animator at Jellyfish Pictures! She was so fun to talk to, and has a lot of insight into being an animator in the industry today. She's worked on big pictures, such as Kung Fu Panda 3, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and The Croods. Enjoy!

Check out this new episode with Brandon Pham

 Check out this new episode with Vuk Benovic 

Check out this new podcast with Mohanad Hossam