Visual Media, FX and Games

Interview with Boris Ignjatovic, Technical Artist

Boris Ignjatovic, a Technical Artist at Maven, has been involved in many well-received projects in the last five years. Spaceman Stu, a McDonald's advertisement completed in 2010 for the Leo Burnett agency, netted an Annie Award nomination; Boris completed rigging and modeling for the eye-catching short. Today he's taken some time out of his busy schedule to chat about his career and love of 3D.

When did you first become interested in 3D and animation?

I started thinking about it when I was in elementary school. But the first big steps were made in second year of my High school. I was in High School of Mathematics, school for talented, and to be honest I didn't understand any of the programming we were doing, especially it's use. So all the geometry and algebra we were doing I knew it has to do something with the games, but had no idea what. I did a bit researching and in a short period my parents decided to put me in the Autodesk training center over summer. So instead of spending summer break at the beaches I was in school and got to admit I didn't regret one moment of it. That is when I first fell in love with CG.

8th Indian Ocean Island Games Advert (2011) - Rigging, Lighting, Camera Animation

How did you land your first job?

My first big gig was G-Oil anthem at Kompost, Zurich. At that time they were in small studio in beautiful town St. Moritz. They contacted me via LinkedIn and asked for my help. The producer didn't explain much about the project. When I came in, guys from Kompost were so awesome, full of creative ideas and energy. I never imagined that I can do that much in that amount of time, and have that much fun at the same time.

What do you love most about your job?

Problems! When you're just trying to figure out how to solve them. You put all your energy into it and focus so much that sometimes I forget to eat. A lot of people find programers, riggers, as non artistic type of people, but what they don't realize is just how creative you must be to work as a tech guy. I guess the best feeling is when you find a workaround at the time when the whole crew is in dead end.

Is there anything that you don't love about your job or the industry in general?

I've been asking this question myself for a long time now, and about the job, no. There is always something to creatively occupy you, in this profession. As for the industry in general, well I must admit, movies are not that good quality as they were 20 or 30 years ago. Even with the technology we have today. There isn't much thought in developing a good story but in spending more money on special effects.

G-Oil Anthem (2010) - Animator

Tell us a bit about the thought process behind your work.

Well for G-Oil anthem the toughest thing was, implementation of desired amount of plants in just one week time period. So I thought of a system to make all the plants/assets modular. And more I'm learning about the CG the more I see it's tendency to be consisted of all the small pieces nicely connected and put in the right place. That way we can go all the way back to the beginning and its change won't affect the end outcome. Somehow having all on "one button push" seams to be the right way.

As for the famous Spaceman Stu, I could say the toughest thing was art director's wish to make it as organic as possible and still to keep cartoonish kids style. Models of Stu and his dog weren't that hard compared to the rigs I made for both little guys. Animation department had really big demands about these two, but as much as it was hard, it was also fun and would do it again, definitely

What's your favorite piece of software, and why?

Maya in combination with Photoshop and After Effects. Those are really competent to work with each other and easy to implement into almost any pipeline I had opportunity to work with. I also love Python scripting langage and its integration in almost everything. It's really powerful and must say organic, which gives you ease of learning and connecting to many software packages. As much as I love these I'm very open to anything new. Somehow I learned how much I don't know and how much is there to be learned. I'm always in search of new creative ways of making interesting solutions.

What's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to you?

I really can't answer that because I just can't decide. Generally I love traveling and every time I go somewhere new it feels like an adventure. Guess that every travel is exciting enough to be on the top of my list.

Do you have any advice for aspiring technical artists?

Never give up!!! Keep on thinking. There's a solution for everything.