Mark Craig - Founder/Programming Director @ Lucid Games Ltd

Today’s guest lecture was presented by Mark Craig, founder/programming director at Lucid Games. To kick off the presentation labelled ‘Programming at a modern games studio’, Mark went on to tell us a little about his history and background in the games industry. Mark was previously lead programmer at Bizarre Creations for 15 years, before he made the massive leap of founding Lucid Games.

The presentation was split into two parts; Part 1: Essential Programming Skills and also Part 2: Getting a Programming job. These two sections were split off into multiple sub sections which described programming languages and also what to do when it comes to applying for a role or interview tests. As an artist working to gain a job in the games industry, all of the information that was shared by Mark was extremely useful as it opened up a whole new chapter of knowledge when it comes to creating games. Understanding different aspects of the creation of a video game is extremely useful; with the help of marks presentation it allowed me to understand scripting languages and also the responsibilities of a programmer a whole lot clearer.

Throughout the games industry there has always been a divide between programmers and artists, these two jobs are completely different to one another which makes it a little harder to communicate during projects. Within the past few years, the games industry has been gifted with what are described as technical artists.

“The technical artist is a new concept and role in the game industry that is starting to take hold. Every company has a different idea of what a technical artist's roles and responsibilities are. However, to really maximize the development process, a company must integrate the technical artist to the fullest capacity”. [1]

This particular job in the gaming industry comes with multiple responsibilities such as working within 3D software using scripting languages such as MaxScript or Mel to create custom tools to improve the artist’s workflow and efficiency of the team. A technical artist is known to bridge the gap between sectors, artists and programmers. Working closely with lead artists and programmers allows the technical artist to ensure that both teams are communicating and also ensuring all art assets that are created don’t exceed technical limits of the platform that the game will be released upon.

References: Jason Hayes. 2014. The Code/Art Divide: How Technical Artists Bridge The Gap. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1651/the_codeart_divide_how_technical_.php?print=1. [Accessed 13 February 15]. [1]