This week we sat down with Shane Mitchell, currently a lecturer at the University of Teesside and formerly an animator and modeler at studios such as Codemasters, Silicon Dreams, and Freestyle Games. He has worked on a number of titles including Buzz Monsters, Buzz RoboJam, BBoy, Urban Freestyle Soccer, Lego Island Xtreme Stunts, LegoSoccer Mania, and finally Toca World Touring Cars.

PCN: So what made you decide to enter the gaming industry, and what was your experience like?

SM: I did a degree in Fine Art and I’d spent most of it working with nascent digital technologies, mainly in the area of non linear video and digital photography. I’d always played games and looking around at potential options after graduating, Games seemed like a good choice.

In my own personal experience the people I met and worked with were probably the best thing about the industry – there are some amazing artists in industry and you make some really good friends. I’m still in touch with people from way back.

PCN: Do you have some pointers for thriving young developers that want to be apart of the industry one day?

SM: I’ve always felt that hard work and professionalism are important. Working in games you need to be motivated and part of a team – people rely on you and you rely on others. You also have to be a good artist, as obvious as that sounds. Being a really good artist is something you have to work at all the time and continual self development is a must. Just keep trying and keep practicing. Never neglect traditional art skills, these are very important.

PCN: What is your favorite game that you’ve worked on and why? What about your favorite studio?

SM: ToCA was an amazing experience and extremely hard work – we came in at the end of a console life cycle and were using every trick in the book to squeeze more into the game. I learnt so much on that project. BBoy was my first major game as an animator and was incredibly tough but what we put together with a small team was incredible.

Every game has been great to work on, but I have really fond memories of working on some lesser known games that were aimed at a younger market – there was a lot of freedom in the design, artwork and animation and they were just really good fun to make.

PCN: Since you were in the industry when it was still quite young, you’ve gained experience on quite a few platforms. What’s your favorite console, both to play and to develop for? What was it like as a modeler to develop games on all these different platforms? Did the platform change help improve more detailed models or was there relatively little change between generations?

SM: I always felt the Gamecube was a pretty amazing piece of kit but it remained under exploited in a lot of cases. The current crop of consoles are so powerful though, it does give you more options as an artist – there are more polygons and more texture space now than what there used to be, but in reality the most important thing has always been to be a good artist first and foremost.

If you get into the technical side of art it can be pretty interesting where you can take the technology and there are always console specific things that can be tweaked. Multi platform development has its own set of problems and advantages, and things always change throughout development.

In terms of playing, I’ve never really been partisan – I currently have a 360, a couple of DSs and a Wii, and I’ve played on lots of platforms in the past – Dreamcast, PSX, Gamecube, Megadrive, BBC, Spectrum 48k and an old wooden panelled Atari with Pong, Boot Hill and Space Invaders!

PCN: As a 3D modeler, what was the biggest Prop/Vehicle/Environment you created, and how many tris was it? What do you think of the industry now? Is the focus for ultra real graphics best for the industry or does this undermine the fun factor of older games?

SM: My last games as a modeler were on the PS2 generation, but I did do some research work into multi million tri modeling using Nurbs which was pretty interesting. Cars at 2.5 million tris are pretty cool. Over the years I’ve created vehicles, props and environments to several different budgets – a good artist will be able to model something that looks good and works whether it’s 300 tris or 30,000 tris.

I’m not sure that ultra real graphics is a goal for the industry anymore. It’s the old style over content argument, and developers are aware of the Uncanny Valley as well, which is why I feel there has been a move to stylization within artwork of late.

I personally believe that things such as peripheral vision for 1st person games and excellent AI will be the things that make games more immersive than graphics. Whether peripheral vision ever becomes utilized is hard to say and probably even harder to implement, but technology keeps moving on. Empathy and a connection to what’s going on, on screen, are also key to a positive, natural experience. “Old style” games still hold up though – Lost Winds is a great game for instance that is beautiful to look at and great to play and some of the stuff on DS is amazing as well.

PCN: What made you want to become a Lecturer at the University of Teesside?

SM: I’d always been interested in teaching, and several friends over the years had encouraged me to try it. It was a good point for me to cross over into it. I always set myself goals, and I knew I wanted to work at University level for an institution with a good reputation – hence the decision to go work at Teesside.

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If you would like to know a little bit more about Shane and see some of work then check out; http://www.shanemitchell.co.uk

We would like to say thanks to Shane Mitchell for taking his time out and giving us this little interview.