The Lost South African Game Developer Interviews Part 6: Judd Simantov

Last year I wrote an article for videogame industry trade site Gamasutra entitled ‘The South African Game Development Scene: Past Present and Future,’ which attempted to look at the history of game development in the country and surmise how an industry may rise and move forward here.

The article was based on interviews conducted with a diverse, influential and talented group of developers both from and based in South Africa, but a lot of the responses were unfortunately not included due to the nature of the piece, so in an effort to share this potential goldmine of knowledge with aspiring game developers and gaming enthusiasts, I decided to start posting the interviews here on El33tonline, in full, continuing today with part six, and an interview with Naughty Dog’s Judd Simantov (you can read part one, part two, part three, part four and part five at your leisure).

Judd Simantov is the Art Technical Lead at Naughty Dog Inc., having moved from South Africa in October 2004 at the age of 22 to use his specific skill sets related to 3D animation, modelling and technical scripting, and to pursue a career in the field of videogames.

Initially, Simantov’s focus was purely on animation and digital visual arts, working on CG movie shorts and animated advertisements, before being offered a job opportunity at Naughty Dog in Los Angeles, California. Feeling frustrated by the lack of opportunity in South Africa to utilise his unique animation technology skills, Simantov took the job at Naughty Dog and is now responsible for the developer’s character and animation pipeline, as well as the development of the technologies driving the animation.

Simantov has held presentations related to his work at Naughty Dog at Game Developers Conference (GDC) events every year from 2007 up to and including 2010 (excluding 2009, to my knowledge), and has helped the team at Naughty Dog create and ship both Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and the recent industry-crushing, multiple award-winning Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

Simantov also co-created the 3D art plug-in and related website, CGMuscle. To find out what he does in his spare time (when he has it), you should definitely visit Simantov’s personal blog over here, and check out the range of artistic endeavours he busies himself with.

Let’s begin this fascinating and highly inspiring interview with Judd Simantov:

Q: What first got you interested and excited about games and digital visual arts?

Judd Simantov: When I was really young, I was into art and animation and then I got into video games as I got a little older. However, as I moved into my teenage years, I mostly focused on sports and social things and really thought I was going to end up being a professional basketball player.

When I was about 17 a friend of mine came over to my house and showed me how he could build a table in Max [3D Studio Max, a professional 3D modelling program]. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I started playing around with it and built myself a really cool basketball hoop (I hadn’t quite got over that yet :) ) A few months later, the same guy showed me Chris Landreth’s Bingo and said it was done in Maya [another industry standard professional 3D modelling program].

At the time, I wasn’t savvy enough to know that software really didn’t mean much and decided to abandon Max and pick up Maya. Needless to say, that was the start of my career in Computer Graphics. At the time, I was really more consumed with making short films and didn’t think about how CG pertained to games.

Q: What initial steps did you take in order to work in digital visual arts? What time period was this?

JS: At the time (2001), there were some schools in South Africa, but I had heard from several people that I was probably better off buying some books, DVD’s and just learning things at home. I took the advice and started working on my own stuff at home. After a short period, myself and my friend (Marko Misic) that had first introduced me to Max decided to start up a small studio doing commercial work. This was the period that I really learned the most. Even during the periods that we weren’t very busy, we came up with goals that would improve our portfolio and worked towards that.

On a side note with regards to schools, one of the primary things that many schools do wrong (both in South Africa and internationally) is that they teach software and promote teaching Maya, XSI or any other major package. However, these are the least important skills for any specialized position. If you want to be an animator, the principles and fundamentals of animation are what matter. If you want to be a Technical Artist, anatomy and programming principles should be the priority.

Software is just a tool!

Q: Was your education path influenced by the availability of specialised courses in South Africa at the time? Did you think or know that there was a demand for experts in animation and visual effects in South Africa at the time, or was it simply something you were interested in?

JS: I knew a small amount about the industry and as I got more interested in it, I did my research and discovered more. There are some great studios that were and are still doing good work, but unfortunately there really aren’t the right kind of projects available for somebody that aspires to work on a triple AAA video game title or a Pixar quality film.

Q: What in the way of visual arts were you involved in prior to Naughty Dog?

JS: It was all commercial work. I tried to mostly do character work, but character jobs were few and far between and so most of the time I got stuck doing orange juice commercials or logo animations. I got pretty frustrated with that and really made a conscious decision to focus on creating a demo-reel that could get me a job overseas.

In terms of companies I had worked for, the company I started with Marko was called Back2Back. I also had a working relationship with Depth Animation, Phil Bolts “The Feedback Project” and then just before coming overseas I worked at The Refinery for a few months.

I met some really great people and learned a lot from working at those different studios. My responsibilities were always very general, but character setup/rigging and pipeline tools became my niche. Those skills never got put to use that often though, so I ended up doing more modelling, texturing & particle work.

Q: Interestingly, Naughty Dog is the first game development company you have worked with. Please talk a little bit about what intrigued you about working in game development as opposed to your previous work in animation and visual effects.

JS: At first nothing! :) I actually had no interest in working in video games and wanted to work in film. However, I had always played games and once Naughty Dog contacted me, I realized they had made Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter. So my interests changed. I had played both franchises and was interested in hearing how my skill set would fit into their pipeline. They flew me out here (Los Angeles) and showed me around the studio. This was at the start of the PS3 and my skill set was much more applicable than I had anticipated.

Also, the people were great and the studio looked like such an amazing place to work. That was a defining moment for me in terms of realizing how badly I wanted to work on such a big project and how important it was for me to be surrounded by such talent.

My growth during my first year at Naughty Dog was tremendous… mostly because I annoyed the crap out of everyone, trying to learn as much as possible. Obviously that growth rate has slowed down a bit, but I still learn something new every day.

Q: If possible, could you tell us what your current responsibilities at Naughty Dog are?

JS: My primary focus is overseeing the character and animation pipeline. That involves the animation tool set, character rigs, facial setup, the exporting of characters to the game. So, I create the skeleton and animation rig that drives [Nathan] Drake and all the characters [of Uncharted], as well as creating the setup for their faces that the animators then pose and animate.

I also developed many tools to allow the integration of motion capture into our pipeline - this was actually one of my first responsibilities and Jeremy Yates (Lead Gameplay Animator) and myself finally got to present this at GDC 2008. I also did a presentation on our facial system at GDC 2007. Attending conferences and sharing ideas is something Naughty Dog really encourages.