1999. When Bethesda (developer of Fallout and Skyrim) was a shithole,
Bethesda has been scouting a woman from DAS, a software company specializing in engineering modeling and simulation.
At the time, neither Bethesda, who hired this person, nor the hired meister himself thought he would work in the gaming industry for over 20 years.
This is because this person has never professionally learned any specialized knowledge related to game production.
This is because I majored in biology.
However, after graduating from George Mason University in 1992,
As there was no suitable job to utilize his major, he spent nearly four years unemployed.
In the end, I looked for jobs at companies that were even slightly related to my major.
DAS was a company mainly in charge of outsourcing work to the U.S. government and national agencies.
Because the scale itself was so small, there was an inherent shortage of manpower.
Christiane Meister, who came to work at DAS, initially worked on work that was somewhat related to her major.
At some point, he began participating in 3D modeling and concept art, including creating polygons for models of various military equipment.
I was confused at first because I had no expertise in 3D modeling, and later stated that it was unexpected.
It is said that he developed his skills through self-study while working on his own.
However, since the work at DAS involved a lot of simple, meaningless labor, I was hoping to move to another company.
A completely unexpected variable came to her.
There was an incident in which this game failed commercially at an all-time high.
Daggerfall is an exploration in a wide open world and an element of conflict between factions.
It was a game that attempted to use the core elements of Bethesda’s games so far, and the reviews from critics were good.
Because it did not fit with the RPG trend led by Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, and Fallout that were released around the same time, it was ignored by the majority of gamers.
After experiencing such commercial failure, Bethesda had no choice but to proceed with a large-scale restructuring.
Most veteran developers have been replaced by cheaper industry newcomers.
For reference, it was also during this time that Robert Altman, a heavyweight in American politics and law, joined the Bethesda management team and founded Zenimax.
Although Bethesda, which carried out this restructuring, gained experience in 3D work through simple labor at DAS,
Christiane Meister, who had no experience in game development and was cheap, was the best candidate for hire.
For Christiane Meister, Bethesda was a much better job than DAS, so the job change took place immediately.
In this process, his talent was recognized to some extent, and soon after changing jobs, he was given the position of lead character artist for The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.
Many people think of it only as a person who creates basic concept art or art used for modeling.
In fact, in 3D games, the person in charge of 3D modeling is often the artist.
This was also the case with Christiane Meister.
The problem is that as soon as I joined the company, I was given the big position of lead character artist for Morrowind, which had Bethesda’s fortune at stake.
The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was a huge commercial success.
It received great reviews from RPG fans as well as general gamers.
She grew to the point where she was in charge of the art and world art of the Morrowind expansion pack.
Subsequently, he participated in the development of Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion as a lead character artist.
At the time, Bethesda had neither the capacity nor the plans to hire professional animators.
She, who was a character artist, was delegated the role of lead animator.
Oblivion is considered the worst development period for Bethesda game artists.
Generally, in game development, the art and concept are created first and then full-scale development begins.
Oblivion was developed using a Seo-sun structure, with the game and technical elements being developed first, followed by the art and concept.
This is because Bethesda had a tight schedule to release it on Xbox 360 and PS3, the next-generation consoles at the time, while developing the Morrowind expansion pack.
Even under such a tight schedule, Christiane Meister received rave reviews from fans and gamers for her art design and modeling work in Oblivion.
Because the animation was not professional, the quality was low.
The problem was that she was a biology major, so when producing animations of various animals and bugs, including horses,
Since the related knowledge was extensive, I showed sincerity in doing the work by hand on a frame-by-frame basis.
This became an opportunity for the detailed motion of animals and bugs in Bethesda games.
Bethesda’s parent company, Zenimax, has fully purchased the rights to the Fallout series.
Development began with 80 developers, 20 more than before.
Christiane Meister was in charge of secondary art and animation during the development of Fallout 3.
This person created Radroach’s animation, which most people hate. (Paul 3 modeling was created by Jonah Robb)
Bethesda has enjoyed successive commercial successes with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3.
We succeeded in increasing the number of employees to about 100.
The parent company, Zenimax, established an online studio and acquired Id Software, Arcane Studio, and Machine Games.
Of course Christiane Meister also participated.
With the hiring of professional animators, animation work was liberated.
Meanwhile, Todd Howard said to Christiane Meister:
We requested an image and armor design to represent the main character of the game.
The result born like this is
It was iron equipment called the Nord male + Dovahkiin set.
In addition, this person was responsible for designing several creatures, characters, and armor that cannot be disclosed yet.
Jonah Robb, who was in charge of the character artist for the existing Bethesda Fallout series, declared to be a freelancer.
She played a supporting role in the Fallout series, but this time she naturally participated as the main worker.
Overall design and modeling were revised with a new lead concept artist.
In the case of Radstack and Yao Guai, we changed their appearance to be more realistic than before and created some new bug creatures.
Overall, I was a biology major.
We focused on changing the appearance of animals, which had been neglected in the previous series, to be more realistic.
She was in charge of overall character art and modeling even during the production of Skyrim.
As Bethesda grows in size and the number of employees increases to 500,
Currently, he is known to be leading ‘Bethesda’s Creature Department’, which is known among fans through art books, together with Ben.
Almost 15 years after entering the industry, I am now doing work that utilizes my major.
As you work hard, you end up working in a field that seems to have nothing to do with you.
This is the story of a biology major who is saving his major haha.
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