ZBrush User Group Meeting Featuring Naughty Dog
Join Pixologic Inc., Naughty Dog and Gnomon on Thursday, Oct. 24th for a special ZBrush User Group Meeting featuring a behind-the-scenes look at this year’s seminal hit, The Last of Us. Naughty Dog artists Michael Knowland (Lead Character Artist), Bradford Smith (Senior Texture/Shader Artist) and Frank Tzeng (Character Artist) will provide an in-depth look at the art of The Last of Us, covering cloth sculpting, texture sculpting and face sculpting. Arrive early for the meet-and-greet and secure yourself a seat. Then from 7:30 to 9:30 pm we’ll take a wild ride behind the scenes into the making of one of this year’s biggest games. This exclusive event is one you won’t want to miss. Take advantage of this all-access pass into the design process for The Last of Us while networking with other industry professionals. Check out more artwork from the evening’s presenters at Pixologic. Schedule
Where Gnomon School of Visual Effects 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90038 View Map
Special Guests
Lead Character Artist, Naughty Dog
“I took a Computer Games Design degree back in University, where initially I wanted to be a level designer. At some point in my 2nd year there I really got into modeling characters—about the same time the D’Artiste Gears of War 2 Making Of book came out, and also as Dominance War 3 began. At the time there was just something very appealing about making a ‘hero’ type of character to me. From there I graduated and got a job at Frontier Developments in Cambridge (England) and worked on a project called The Outsider (it got cancelled) and Kinectimals. At the same time, I was working on a character that got me top row on Zbrushcentral ‘The Gunslinger’, which ultimately helped me get noticed by Naughty Dog just a year later after being at Frontier. From there I did their art test and got the job. I then came in pretty fresh into the Last of Us as the only character artist working on it in-house, and worked hard as the character team grew, and eventually Neil Druckmann asked me to be the lead character artist on the project. Two and a half years later we shipped the game.”
Senior Texture/Shader Artist, Naughty Dog
“I graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2004 with a BFA in Computer Animation. Upon graduation, I joined Electronic Arts Tiburon as one of the first texture artists on the research and development team for the Xbox 360 console transition. After leading that transition and launch title production as a texture artist; I worked in various other environmental and lighting roles before becoming the Senior Lead Environment Artist across multiple AAA franchises and platforms. I joined the Kennel at Naughty Dog in late 2010 as a Texture / Shader Artist during the production of Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. I am also part-time instructor at Otis College of Art and Design; teaching environment and ZBrush classes in the Digital Media program. In my free time I enjoy photography, and learning the joys of theme-park rides with my wife!”
Character Artist, Naughty Dog “My name is Frank Tzeng and I am from Taiwan. I am a character artist at Naughty Dog and graduated from Art Institute (Orange County) with a major in Game Art and Design. I decided to become a character artist right after I took a ZBrush class at AI which was taught by my mentor and good friend, Stephen G. Wells. I immediately fell in love with ZBrush. ZBrush has been the software that helped me the most since then. After I graduated, I was lucky enough to get hired by Sony San Diego and continued to learn a lot from all the talented character artists on the team, especially Rafael Grassetti. I’ve worked with them on some really exciting projects including Killzone 4 and Puppeteer. At the same time, I continue working and practicing really hard on my human head sculpting. Finally, I recently created my first fan art piece with my rendition of Walter White from Breaking Bad. This personal project got me noticed by a lot of people and also got me on the Top Row on ZBrushCentral, CGhub, Kotaku and interviewed by 3D Total. This exposure led to being noticed by Naughty Dog, where I eventually passed the art test and got hired to be a part of the character team.”
