You will have the main gameplay story but to understand what this character has been through in his or her life, and why he or she is wearing the clothes they are wearing, makes the character all that more believable. The first thing is to understand ‘what is the story of your character’. Q: What are the most important elements to get right about game character design? It’s amazing to see this industry push the boundaries year by year and I am very excited and humbled to be part of it. The animations on the character are mostly mocapped, and trying to get little nuances like an ankle pivoting is something that is a must these days or things will just do not look right. Today the point of entry is a high end realistic-looking characters with facial expressions. Animations were very basic at the time as well. Our main objective as artists was to try and have the textures not stretch as much as possible on a very low poly characters, as well as polygons popping that would make the character proportions look wrong while animating. When I first started, there was little to no facial animations. The evolution of the character in game has evolved by 1,000%. I have been in the industry for over 20 years now. Can you tell us, as a developer how have you seen the game character evolve? Q: Hello Mark, and welcome to our Feature Stories.
Lost Boys Interactive is very excited to introduce Reallusion’s software to our internal workflow.” – Mark Stefanowicz From Rigging to cutting Polys down for in game models is so far the best software I have used. “I have worked in the games industry for over 22 years for companies like EA and Disney and I have worked with a lot of different pipelines. Reallusion’s pipeline to get AAA quality characters done fast and efficient is amazing. Lost Boys quickly grew to a studio of 16 in 2018, and worked on titles for Square Enix, Digital Extremes and Call of Duty. In 2016 Mark decided to go out on his own with his partners and create Lost Boys Interactive.
Mark went on to become Studio Art Director at Junction Point and oversaw development of Disney Epic Mickey 2 while also engaging with other Disney pillars in the organization, from the Archives to Pixar Animation. Mark eventually joined Electronic Arts as a Lead Artist and progressed to the position of Art Production Manager for Central Art. In 2011, Mark join Disney to become the Art Director of Disney Epic Mickey, Disney Interactive’s flagship game.
Realizing his potential, Mark’s parents enrolled him at the age of six to the Tringarli School of Art.Īfter his time in college, Mark began his career.
At a very young age, his parents would see him drawing in their living room, lost in his imagination and creativity. Mark Stefanowicz is originally from Chelsea, MA. Multi award winning Art Director with 20+ Years of Video Game and Mobile Industry Experience.Director of Art for Disney’s Epic Mickey and Epic Mickey 2.