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I S S U E #6

P L U S

#justOneArtist

@Ceiga

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Editors Letter
To my knowledge I dont think Ive ever dedicated a whole issue of Ceiga or Ceiga plus to one
artist six artists yes but not one single artist. So why finally create an issue for just one artist
you ask?
Ever since I decided to become a man with a million side projects and a full time job I havent
really had much time to research and reach out to artists Id like to feature, so its always nice
when someone reaches out to me instead of the other way round and thats exactly what
Matthew Trevelyan Johns did.
Matthew isnt the only artist who has contacted me directly via email oh no, I receive tonnes of
emails on a regular basis from artists, animators and film creators looking for me to promote
their work. But what makes Matthew so different is that as well as being a Masters degree holder
in Computer Games Technology, he has also worked in senior art positions on many award
winning games, including two BAFTA award nominated titles as well as the Guinness World
Record holding PC smash hit, Star Citizen.
His site contains between 120 and 150 showcase images, which is more than enough for a
single issue (maybe even two), and his work is definitely of a quality worthy of the pages of this
magazine.
So sit back, relax, make yourself a cup of coffee (or tea), and enjoy the brilliant images youre
about to see.

E D I TO R

Richard Bray
info@ceiga.co.uk

The gladiator is one of three ships that have been created at

Foundry 42 so far as part of the implementation of a brand
new art production pipeline. My goal for the Gladiator was to
not only faithfully recreate the concept artwork provided, but
also to create a brand new ship for the game, so detailed that
it would set a new precedent for the quality of future ships
produced for Star Citizen.

STAR CITIZEN
Developer: CLOUD IMPERIUM GAMES Publisher: CLOUD IMPERIUM GAMES

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Growing up in the countryside I have always been

surrounded by nature and with the recent surge of film
and gaming media featuring environments that portray
the abandoned theme, I wanted to work on a project that
allowed me to not only to explore this same topic , but also
to learn the CryEngine SDK and to put to practice many
of the skills I have developed in my 6 years working in the
games industry.
I chose Severalls Psychiatric Hospital as the setting for my
environment and decided to use just one photograph as my
main source of inspiration. Ive frequently been required to
work from very little concept art in my professional career
and I enjoy the challenge of using one main image and
expanding upon it with my own imagination and sourced
reference images.

SEVERALLS - HOSPITAL
Severalls Psychiatric Hospital...long since forgotten

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A BIT MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST

Up until this point in the magazine youve only seen Matthews great work, well this is where you get to find out a
little bit more about him. Heres a short interview between him and I.

1) Could you tell us how you developed an interest in the 3D

the award winning Star Citizen, which is an incredible project and a lot

Industry and your education?

of fun to work on! My big break into the industry therefore came with
my job at TT Games and I believe my 3D work was first noticed on the

My interest in the 3D industry is rooted in a passion for video games,

game art forum, Polycount by an artist (who's work I admired greatly

something that took hold at a very early age, where I would spend

at the time) called David stman. I was brought in for an interview and

hours watching my elder brother play Alex Kidd in Miracle World on

can happily say that I accepted the position of Environment Artist and

the Sega Master System after school. As a child I had always loved

began my journey in the video game industry. So I suppose the moral

art too and would spend hours at home doodling and creating my

of the story is to try and get your work out there as much as possible,

own comics etc and so as video games evolved and opportunities to

because you never know who might be watching!

create my own content emerged, I was immediately hooked. I started

in secondary school in my spare time, creating custom sprites and cars

3) What limitations have you had to work with (in terms of poly

for the original Grand Theft Auto game using MS Paint and by the time

count, lighting etc) when making Lego games?

I had reached College (17 years old) I was making multiplayer levels
and releasing them to the online community for the very first Call of

The Lego Games were so much fun to work on and though many people

Duty on the PC. Ironically, it was at a time where we could only afford

might believe that video game limitations in general put annoying

dial-up internet and so I couldn't actually play the levels I created with

restrictions on an artist, at TT the restrictions were really just seen as

any more than one other person without terrible lag...but I enjoyed the

a challenge and it was so rewarding to see the creative ways in which

creation process so much that I just kept on making them. It around this

the artists were able to work within the limitations and still make lovely

time that I realised I could perhaps pursue a career as an artist in the

environments and visual effects. Personally I think the most challenging

video game industry and so I applied to Portsmouth University, where

restrictions were those that we faced when developing the more recent

I hoped to study a BSc (Hons) in Computer Games Technology. I was

LEGO Movie videogame. Mainly because the art direction of the project

fortunate enough to be accepted on to the course and subsequently

dictated that the entire world should appear as if it were created entirely

on to the Masters degree where I dedicated myself to learning all that I

from LEGO bricks, something that we'd never attempted before. It's

could about 3D content creation for the video games industry...

really a testament to the skill level of the programming and technical

art departments at TT who were able to come up with extremely clever,

2) What gaming companies you have worked in and how did you

optimisation methods that could take a complex LEGO model, made

manage to get your foot in the door?

of literally thousands of 3D LEGO blocks and millions of polygons and

strip it right down to get it ready to be added to the game. We also

A large portion of my career had been spent working at TT Games, the

had special texturing techniques, where we were essentially mapping

people behind the award winning, LEGO video games. It's a fantastic

textures of complicated LEGO brick arrangements that were baked from

place to work and I was lucky enough work as an artist (and later a

high poly models, on to flat polygons, transforming relatively simple

senior and lead artist) for five years, before moving on to become a

environment structures, into towering blocks of intricate LEGO bricks -

senior environment and vehicle artist at Foundry 42. Foundry 42 are

these are the challenges that really push an artist to be creative, which

part of Cloud Imperium games and are responsible for development of

is exactly why the games are such great fun to develop.

more importantly, get the most enjoyment from working within this
4) Could you list the titles youve worked on, any awards they

industry. So my best advice, find your passion, work at it and enjoy it!

might have won and tell us a little about which project have you
enjoyed working on the most and why?

6) Do you work on your own personal projects?

Certainly, the titles I have worked on include:

Definitely, in my opinion it's really important to keep pushing yourself

outside of the work environment as well as in, the games industry

- Star Citizen, which is the current holder of the Guinness World Record

moves so quickly and there is constantly new and exciting tools for

for the most money raised for a Crowdfunded project ever!

us to play with and so taking the time to stay up to date is hugely

- The Lego movie Video game, which was nominated by the British
Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for the 2014 award of Best
family game.
- Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, which was nominated by the
British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) for the 2012 award
of Best family game
- Lego Rock Band, which was nominated by the Academy of Interactive
Arts and Sciences for the award of Family game of the year
- Lego City: Undercover

important. It can be quite common that a new program or method of

work is developed, but your current project simply doesn't require it's
integration, when that's a two or three year project, that's a long time
to go without learning the tools outside of your studio. So I'm always
working on personal projects, sometimes these projects remain forever
unfinished, sat in a folder on my computer at home and sometimes I
push them through to a finished state and display them on my portfolio,
but regardless of whether you finish or not I think it's really just about
pushing yourself to learn.
7) What plans do you have for the future - in terms of work?

- Lego Legends of Chima: Lavals Journey

- Lord of the Rings: Aragorns Quest
As for which of the projects Ive enjoyed the most, well, its funny but
this is such a hard thing to consider, there are projects that push you
so much, that are so challenging, such hard work and require huge
sacrifices to truly realise the final product and to some people outside
of the industry that might sound like something thats hard to enjoy.
But its also those projects that you look back on and are the most
proud of what you and everyone involved managed to achieve! So I
think in their own way, every project Ive ever worked on has been a
fantastic experience and something that I can take away and personally
be proud of, but if I were to choose, I think it would be a close call
between LEGO City: Undercover, for the great challenge it posed to
myself and everyone at TT coupled with the reward of creating a truly
fun game and Star Citizen, because its a hugely ambitious project, Ive
learned so much, and met some truly great talents through working
on it.

I think my future plans in general terms are really just to keep pushing
myself, to keep learning and to keep loving every minute!
In terms of actual tangible things, my aim for the near future is to try
and put the work that I've been doing in my spare time out in to the
world a little more, as a way of helping to not only share my techniques
and projects with more like-minded people, but also to help push
myself and maybe even inspire others a little. The online community is
one that I've learned so much from throughout my career and it would
be really great if I were able to put some of my own material out there
to help other people. I've just created a youtube channel and facebook
art page and am currently hard at work trying to create some nice
content/tutorials that I can put up there for people to see. The links for
which are below:
https://www.facebook.com/matthewtrevelyanjohns.art
https://www.youtube.com/c/MatthewTrevelyanJohns

5) What advice would you give to someone trying to get into the
gaming industry?
I think the best piece of advice that I could give to someone considering
a job in the games industry, particularly from my point of view as an
artist, is to simply ask yourself 'Is this my passion?' I think that those
truly great games are built by only the most passionate of people, by
those people that live and breath the content that they are creating, that
go home and think about it in the evenings, that practice in their spare
time and that genuinely enjoy the process of game development. In my
opinion, it is those people that are going to be the most successful and

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During early stages of production I worked alongside another art lead to determine potential art styles for the
game, we created numerous example scenes/demos each
with distinct art styles which were submitted for overall
approval from our Art Director and from Jon Burton, the
founder of TT Games.
For this project TT Fusion adopted the game engine and
development tools used at a neighbouring Travellers Tales
studio, in favour of our own in-house tools which were primarily used for development of handheld games. In order
to help train our artists, I documented all aspects of the
transition to the new tools, including information on a variety of topics, from installation, to more advanced game
asset creation and implementation techniques.

LEGO CITY: UNDERCOVER

Developer: TT GAMES Publisher: NINTENDO

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During early stages of development I helped to trouble

shoot appropriate methods of development for recreating the incredibly detailed 3D environments that the Lego
Movie film production company were creating whilst ensuring they ran efficiently in real time.
This was a big effort between all of the senior artists on the
team, working alongside our incredibly talented technical
artist, discussing our requirements as well as providing test
cases and feedback for the multitude of scripts that made
creating our Lego environments possible.

LEGO MOVIE GAME

Developer: TT GAMES Publisher: WARNER BROS, INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT

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I have always been a fan of sculpture, particularly when

dynamic anatomy is the subject matter.
Im also a huge fan of the traditional sculptor, Richard MacDonald and wanted to do something similar in content
to some of his works, which seem to prominently feature
gymnasts and dancers.
I spent a lot of evenings and weekends with this one, studying video footage and a great many reference photos to
try and capture this figure in such a dynamic pose, but Im
very proud of the final outcome, I hope you like it too!

ANATOMY STUDIES

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SINGLE PROJECTS
Personal project

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DAVINCI RESOLVE 12
Public Beta Available

Professional non-linear editing with

Hollywoods most powerful color corrector!
With version 12, weve truly made Resolve more powerful than ever before with
the introduction of a full professional nonlinear video editing system in addition
to enhanced colour correction and finishing capabilities, allowing users to edit,
grade, and finish projects all in a single tool.
Weve revealed several new features not announced at NAB for the first time
today too, including a new Smooth Cut transition that uses proprietary DaVinci
optical flow algorithms to create a seamless transition between different parts of
an interview, so you dont have to cover jump cuts with b-roll.
Weve also added in native support for both Intel Iris and Iris Pro GPUs, which
will dramatically improve performance on a wider range of systems, including
laptops, so editors and colourists have a much smoother time working remotely
or on-set.

Other new features include:

- Enhancements to core editing tools such as all trim modes, multi-slip, slide, and
ripple and role. Editors can now select multiple points for dynamic trimming and
asymmetric trimming of clips, even if theyre on the same track.
- A new multi-camera editing feature that lets editors cut programs from multiple
sources in real time. This includes the ability to automatically synchronise
different clips and camera angles together based on timecode, any given in/out
points, or sound
- Timelines can now be nested, edited together, and expanded or collapsed in
place to greatly simplify the editing of large, multi-scene projects

- New transition curves to let editors create and edit custom curves for transition
parameters
- New on-screen controls to see and adjust motion paths directly in the timeline
viewer for more intuitive animation of titles, graphics, video layers, and more
- Big updates to core grading and colour correction tools for colourists, including
an easier to use curves interface, automatic colour analysis and matching
between two or more clips, an incredibly accurate 3D perspective tracker, and a
new 3D keyer with improved matte finesse options
- Custom smart filters for a faster colour grading set-up across projects
- New tools to ripple grades across multiple clips and flatten pre and post-group
grades into a clips individual grade

- An entirely new high performance audio engine that offers higher sampling
rates and greatly improved realtime audio playback performance
The DaVinci Resolve product line has also been rebranded with this release.
The free DaVinci Resolve Lite will now be renamed to DaVinci Resolve as there
is nothing lite about the free version. Meanwhile, the paid version of DaVinci
Resolve will be renamed to DaVinci Resolve Studio.
A full breakdown of what each of these different versions include can be found
here: www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/compare
Download Spanish, French, German, and Italian translations as well as the English
press release at http://bit.ly/1IBoqcb

Download the Public Beta at

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

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