A Dive into the Virtual Art Department with Joy Lea Ep. 15

In this week’s episode, we are joined by Joy Lea. Her background in the video game industry has led her to be in the world of virtual production. She has worked on the Lion King, the upcoming Avatar Sequels, and more. Joy shares her knowledge on how to get better at virtual production, things to be wary of when mixing kits, her thoughts on Unreal 5 and more.

Highlights of the Episode:

00:00 - Introduction

00:14 - Introduction guest

01:10 - Background of the guest

02:38 - Inspiration to get in the industry

04:23 - Working her way from indie titles to triple A games

06:20 - Breaking Into Today’s Virtual Production Industry

08:20 - How to find mentors in the industry

09:59 - The truth about passion-based jobs

11:14 - Working from home versus from the office

13:09 - How to improve your craft

15:18 - Thoughts on the Meta-verse

16:26 - Why all game engines are fundamentally the same

18:18 - Figuring out the bridges between the different game engines

21:54 - Advantages of virtual production

23:30 - Why virtual production isn’t that expensive

27:16 - Being careful with scales in the marketplace

27:35 - Mixing different kits and focusing on the shaders

30:34 - Current programs to work with

33:06 - Using Blender on a professional setting

33:46 - Adjustments when working in a big company

34:49 - The beauty of today’s free tools

36:33 - How to scale properly

38:33 - Transitioning from model making to the Virtual Art department

41:37 - Thoughts about Unreal 5

45:44 - Learning from other people's work

48:44 - Working with the camera department

50:00 - Collaboration with the scouts

52:31 - Fellowship experience

57:15 - How directors should prepare to meet with the Visual Arts Lead

59:25 - Closing Segment

Quotes:

The Unreal Marketplace has so much free stuff that you can just take it all, and keep it all and make a giant library over time, and build stuff.  You don’t even have to make assets from scratch anymore, at this point.

Bricks can really determine scale in any sort of scene, just measure a brick and make sure it’s the right size.

Going back in time to learn how they did it back then will help you a lot when figuring out when to make a model efficient. It’s like learning how to do a really hard way in order to do it the easier way now.

You can learn so much by just taking other people’s work or other people’s sets. Take them, pull them apart, see how they do things, see how things look together… That’s all really useful.

Connecting with the Guest:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyholle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ggbaby/?hl=en

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/joylea

Connecting with CG Pro:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/becomecgpro

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/becomecgpro/

Website: https://www.becomecgpro.com/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/edgevisualCG