Meet our alumni
Charlie Lui - Game Art & Design
Original program: Game Art & Design
Alumni Information
School: LaSalle College Vancouver
Grad Year: 2007
Program of Study: Game Art & Design
Degree: Diploma
Employment/Professional Information
Company Name: EA Sports
Location: Burnaby
Job Title: Technical Artist
Primary Responsibilities: User Interface Animation.
Describe a Typical Work Day:
As a technical artist I create Flash-based animations and effects via timeline and ActionScript. I can be designing motion demos for front-ends and in-game HUD. I also help ensure art assets and designs are integrated into the front end without sacrificing the overall artistic vision or exceeding existing technical limits. I sometimes define and create pipelines for art asset flow with various tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
What accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?
Creating front-end animations and effects for successful games like FIFA Street and FIFA Euro 2012. Breaking people’s expectations of what the game’s front-end platform can achieve. There is nothing more rewarding than hearing a “Wow!” after showing an animation effect!
What are your creative inspirations or influences? Who are your heroes?
I take inspiration from various mediums and artists. Some notable ones are surrealist artist, Rene Magritte and animation maker, Hayao Miyazaki. Recently I have also begun to listen intensively to jazz pianist, Hiromi Uehara.
What do you enjoy the most about your career?
Being able to switch between problem solving (programming) and artistic tasks (animation design) means I will never get bored! I also have been very fortunate to work with a great supportive team that inspires a shy person like me to bring out the best of myself.
How did your education at LaSalle College Vancouver help prepare you for your career?
The Game Art and Design program gave me extensive training on my artistic sense and my programming background. I was able to create highly polished animations while finding ways to trick past the technical limitations of any given platform.
What advice do you have for people beginning their careers in your profession?
The video game industry has always been challenging, and the recent economy doesn’t help. It takes the most passionate minds with dedication and professionalism to survive. Perhaps the most important question to think about is, what are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve success?
Your profession is constantly evolving, from the technology you use to new career opportunities that didn’t exist five years ago. What trends do you see on the horizon that will affect how you do your job or your profession at-large?
While social gaming has seen a huge increase over the past years, recent developments around the major players in this field has me worried about the future of the social platform. I am quite confident that the mobile platform will stay strong in the future. This change is leading me to move my focus from Flash towards HTML5 and related web technologies.
