Dappchat with our Art Director
Ever wondered what it’s like to be the Art Director of a gaming studio that is producing some pretty incredible digital simulations? Today we caught up with Tyler Muehlen, dapphaus’ resident Art Direct to delve into the secrets of his creative process, exploring what it takes to produce visually stunning and immersive gaming experiences.
As an art director, Tyler is responsible for leading a team of artists and designers in the development of the game's visual style, ensuring that every aspect of the game's design, from characters and environments to lighting and special effects, is cohesive and visually appealing.
Q. What does your typical day entail as Art Director?
A typical day for me involves a lot of different things. Checking in on the progress of various projects and working with the team on identifying creative challenges / finding solutions and providing feedback and notes. Most of my time is spent split between doing this and working on our internal projects.
Q. If you could use only one texturing suite for the rest of your career, what are you choosing?
Without a doubt Substance Painter though Quixel’s Mixer has been giving it a run for its money lately. It would be hard to choose honestly! Really it's the right tool for the right job.
Q. Your 3D artwork is always incredibly detailed and realistic, what 3D applications do you use for execution? Which do you think is the most important to have?
My main weapon of choice for modelling/unwrapping/rigging is Modo. I’ve been using it for a long time now and its modelling tools are just fantastic. I use it to create pretty much everything and then send the models and animations made in it to either Unity or Unreal.
I also do a lot of photogrammetry and scanning along with traditional modelling to bring scenes and artwork together. For that, I use a number of different programs. I use Reality Capture for high-quality stuff that I want to combine DSLR / Drone captures for model creation. The Polycam app on iPhone is also an essential tool because being able to quickly capture something while I’m out and about and let the cloud process everything has been a game changer.
It would be hard to say what is the most important to have but I would probably pick Modo because it’s the glue and workshop that keeps all the other elements talking to each other
Q. Everyone has a style and genre of design that is their favourite, what is yours? And why?
I’ve always been a fan of sci-fi stuff which is a pretty wide umbrella but specifically, I was an 80’s kid so I tend to gravitate towards the chunkier / cassette deck dirty future that was so prevalent back then. I come from a film VFX and motion design background so for most of the stuff I do- I tend to focus on very cinematic feelings or short tight animated loops.
Q. To the aspiring young game developers out there, where do you suggest they start their learning journey into the 3D modelling/animation world?
These days I think you would do extremely well to download Blender and start from there. It's an amazing program that can do incredible things. I only recently started playing around with it a bit and if I didn’t have 10+ years of Modo muscle and workflow memory baked into me I would be using it a lot more.
There is an absolute massive wealth of knowledge out there to absorb and learn from.
To all the aspiring game developers out there, we encourage you to take our Art Director's advice to heart and strive to learn and grow in your craft. With dedication, passion, and hard work, the possibilities in the gaming industry are endless. Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey into the world of gaming art direction!