Interview With Gavin Goulden

How and why did you get into game development?

Like many people in my position, I just loved games.  I’ve always been artistic to some degree, trying to mimic drawings in comic books and drawing Doom fan art when I was a kid.  I considered different careers when the time came, but none of them fit as well as game development.

I followed, at first, a very standard path into the industry.  I graduated from high school, went to a throw away college for a bit and tried to get into the industry knowing practically nothing...but thinking that I was pretty hot stuff.  After a few years of personal development, mod work and small contracts I landed a fulltime gig.  From there it was just moving up to where I am now and, hopefully, further still

What are the specifications of your PC?

Honestly, it’s nothing spectacular and I have been meaning to upgrade. P4 3.2, 3gb Ram, Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS…Wacom Intuos 3, dual widescreen LCD monitors (Samsung 940nw)...all pretty standard stuff, nothing special.  I feel as though I’ve been just upgrading a rig for years now and, eventually, would just like to buy a new system straight up.  Maybe a Christmas gift to myself, hah.   

I also have an Alienware m17x laptop but I can’t stand the setup…so I barely use it for work.

What are your preferred software packages and why?

3D Studio Max, Pixologic ZBrush and Adobe Photoshop.  Photoshop is a standard and I really don’t know anything outside of it for 2d work (though Alchemy helped me out in DW4, I don’t think you can use it to the same extent as PS.) 

ZBrush is the first sculpting package I’ve used.  It’s fairly standard in the industry, at least I’ve never worked in a place that uses Mudbox or any other sculpting package…so I’ve never really had to use anything else.  I have tried Mudbox and, though it is a great application, I’ve just become more accustomed to ZBrush and how it handles things. 

As for 3d applications, I’m fluent in 3 major packages (XSI, Max and Maya) and HIGHLY prefer Max to all of them for what I do, though if XSI became the industry standard…I would be pretty happy too.  Max is a well known app with a large user base that can supply information to new users.  Out of the box, Max is pretty much ready to go and, unlike Maya, doesn’t need a ton of customization to be useable.  To me, it seems that whenever someone champions Maya they often follow it up with ‘After you install this ‘ or ‘Once you have this script.’  That just doesn’t jive well with me.  Maya may be more accessible and friendly for the advanced user who isn’t afraid to get into scripting but, to me, Max is much faster – much more stable and much much more friendly to game development pipelines.