Champions Online Team: Avery Wong

Continuing their series of "Meet the Team" articles, Champions Online focuses this week on environment artist Avery Wong. Check him out:

Q: What do you do on Champions Online?

A: I am the lifter of mountains, the conjurer of light in places of darkness, the CREATOR OF WORLDS! In other words, I am an environment artist. My hands dip in everything from working with terrain, building Strongholds, creating models and textures to making fog pretty and lighting environments that will dazzle your minds and eat your souls.

Q: How long have you been working in gaming, and what did you do before Champions Online?

A: Before Champions Online I worked on City of Heroes and City of Villains. Before that, I was going to school at the Art Institute of California - Los Angeles to obtain a bachelor's degree in game art and design.

Cryptic was nice enough to offer me my first job out of college (technically, I was still in school when I accepted the offer) and I have never looked back. I have been here for three-and-a-half years and I love it here! I love MMOs and I love making games, and I love the creative freedom I get at Cryptic. What better place could I be?

Q: What is your process to create an environment for the game?

A: Generally, the first thing we do is have a "kick-off" meeting with the designers and producers to discuss the environment and look at the different concepts and gameplay mechanics. Next, I'll quickly white box the environment if that hasn't already been done. After that, if it's an outdoor environment, I jump into our proprietary terrain editor. If it's an indoor environment, it's usually into 3DSMax or our proprietary environment editor. After fleshing out what the environment looks like, I go in and add lighting and FX.

Q: Who is your favorite Champions Online character?

A: Mind Slayer looks rather enticing in that latex outfit and pink hair - youch! I love playing psionic-type characters in other role-playing games, and the fact that she is a psionic makes her rather appealing. I mean, she fricking kills people with her MIND BLADES! Slice a little ego here, cut a little id there - how cool is that?

I'll be playing a mental-powered character come launch!

Q: What aspect of the game are you most excited about working on?

A: I love "phat lewt" and where do you get the best phat lewt? You were going to say quests, weren't you? But you'd be wrong! It's Strongholds, of course!

I've worked on some very interesting Stronghold environments. I can't really reveal much, but let's just say there's literally a lot of "big minds" at work here. Oh - and dinosaurs and giant Chihuahuas. You've got to have dinosaurs and giant Chihuahuas.

Q: Tell us a story!

A: Hmm. Not really much of a story, but more of a proverb once relayed to me by one of my college instructors. "If you give a man a fire, he will be warm for a night. If you set a man on fire, he will be warm for life."

Q: What do you do when you're avoiding work?

A: When I was in school, playing videogames was called "studying." My major was game arts and design, so it worked. Now that I am in the industry, playing games is called "research." I guess I do a lot of research. I'm also into photography and can be seen roaming the office lugging around my gear for one reason or another.

Q: What is your secret superpower?

A: I can detect where Shayne is in the building at all times. This allows me to avoid his awkward advances.

Q: What is your guilty pleasure?

A: Melon heated in a microwave. Ack! I read the question wrong! I'm a major geek. I love tech, I love tabletop war games, collectible card games and role-playing games. Right now we're running a Warmachine league at Cryptic. Let the good times (and heads) roll!

Q: What games are you currently obsessing over?

A: Currently, I tend to focus on "researching" the finer points of espionage and the art of the backstab in Team Fortress 2. I run a TF2 league with one of my co-workers and we have a blast (or a stab)! I've also been researching Age of Conan and Second Life recently.

Q: What advice do you have for someone who wants to break into gaming?
A: Don't be afraid to network and never burn bridges. You'll never know where you'll get your first big break from - even the most humble and apparently unrelated prospect could be the key that gets you where you need to go. Having a solid portfolio and working on projects in your free time are great ways to improve your skills and make yourself stand out.

That college education is a good start, but to really break in, you have to improve on your own, outside of class.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: I took all these profile photos and all I got was this lousy interview.

Hmmm....*takes notes* "into latex and pink hair..."