Feature: Take This Job and Love It! - Artist - Sal Divita
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Name: Sal DiVita Title: Lead Game Designer / Art Director / Animation Director - Midway Games Notable Past Projects: NBA Jam, WWF Wrestlemania, NBA Hangtime, NFL Blitz, NBA Showtime, NFL Blitz 20-02 Current Project: MLB SlugFest Schooling/Degree: 2 Associate's Degrees in Illustration General duties of your position/title: My duties include, but are not limited to: - Defining the overall look and style of the games and defining game design and rules. - Defining character and texture styles and creating character models. - Animation acting, directing and choreography. - Defining audio style and choreography within game. - Some overall project management. Salary Range for your title (not necessarily what you specifically make): $90,000 + How many people are in your department/team? If you are a manager, many people do you oversee? There are over 70 people in the sports department, and about 20 on SlugFest. What was the most valuable bit of knowledge or experience you brought with you to the job? Work hard and others will hard with you. Don't get involved with office politics; making a great game is what is most important. Make your part of the game the best it can be, and voice your opinions constructively about other parts of the game. Have a lot of patience with talented, junior workers, as many of them will eventually turn out to do great work and be great team members. What was the first major lesson you learned once you started working in the industry? Work hard, do a great job, keep a positive attitude, and listen to your game elders! Actually, do more listening than talking for your first project. What academic focuses would you recommend for someone who wants to do your job someday? Make sure you build your traditional skills first, meaning you have to have a great vision before you can create great game assets. Become proficient at 3-D art tools such as Maya and 3D Studio Max, and don't think one package is better than another, learn them both if you can. They are both great and suck equally, just in different ways. Common misconceptions about your job? Everyone thinks that because I make games, all I do is play them all day long. That couldn't be farther from the truth. As this industry becomes more mature, the process of making games becomes more like running a military operation and is extremely stressful. On the production end, the work is very repetitive and mind numbing sometimes. Another misconception is that since I am considered an art director, I just tell everyone else what to do and take all the credit for the work. That also couldn't be farther from the truth. During production I create much of the art assets myself as well as sit with artists and programmers every day, working for hours at a time on each element of the game, making micro-decisions on textures, lighting, geometry construction, game play, audio, etc, etc. Every job and position in the game industry is grunt work. Is college a necessity, a really good idea, or not required for your line of work? College is a good idea no matter what. The more you know, the better. At the same time, a great body of work and experience is what matters the most. If you do great work and have a great attitude, you will do well in ANY industry you focus on. What tools and software do you use on a regular basis? Microsoft Outlook. Just kidding. I mostly use 3D Max, Photoshop, and some proprietary tools made "in house." What's your advice for breaking into your line of work? Focus on making your portfolio as impressive as possible! If you do not show that you know what looks good and what doesn't, usually no amount of direction will help and employers will pass. Know your tools well and make sure you find out as much about your tool as you can, even though it may not be related to what your current focus is. Play with different features; it sometimes reveals ways of making the asset creation process better and faster.
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