Star Citizen Live: Gettin' Turbulent

I think it's because a project like this requires a full commitment and a level of passion. It's not just a business relationship. And since we've been on the project since the very beginning, coming in to help even at the Kickstarter stage of the project, there was already a desire to continue, to jump in on the dream and find what we could do to help to make it happen. We were super fortunate that Chris trusted us at the very beginning to start building a crowdfunding platform for the game. I remember meeting Chris the first time in 2012 and asking, well, are you going to keep crowdfunding? Like, of course we're going to, there's a vision to build. And so I didn't get that at the beginning, right? Now I do. But I think the reason why we've stuck together is because we've been able to build a business relationship together that makes sense for both sides, that economically makes sense, but also is built on passion and relentless optimism. I think that allowed us to jump into crazy projects. Just at the very beginning even, the project was taking off even bigger than anybody would think. And so we were the team that had to respond initially because CIG was basically Chris and Sandy at the beginning, right? Eight people, though. It's like a small shell. So I think the reason why this has worked out is because we've become an integral part of the family, right? In the missions that we take and in the way we execute them. And I'm hoping that that will continue because, for me, Star Citizen is, I love the project. I love the universe. I'm a gamer myself. And so it's very easy to just get carried away and always go the extra mile.

So I've been wondering that question for a while. Turbulent is a company that I started with my partner Mark in 2002, where we both met in other companies and we sort of became the rescue fire team on many technology projects. We had the opportunity to start a company with a very small project, but it was like the seed of something. And so we started Turbulent as a, oh, you've got technology to do? Like, yeah, we can do it, right? And so we started as we would take any kind of gig. And over the years, we sort of specialized in certain clients in the media and entertainment business. So initially on the web, then closer to games, then closer to even TV show, movie, film, where we build custom technologies for interactive works or VR et cetera. So we sort of became specialists in the crazy projects, right? We've even done some installations in Philly for a local artist in Montreal that had a super large installation to do with 10,000 spots in downtown Philly. And it was like last minute, we need a gang of thinkers to figure out a solution to this. So that became sort of our calling card. And obviously, we've both been gamers, Mark and I, very different types of gamers, but we've always been close to games. And so we always wanted to get closer to the video games industry. Obviously, we're in Montreal, which is, video games is a huge business in our city. And just around our office, there's just a million studios, right? And so it was easy for us to get close and then start building technology for games. And that's basically how, through projects, we got to meet Chris and then fall in love with the project.

In the initial crowdfunding, there was already a desire to fund a bigger game. Chris has always had this vision that he has now. And so he needed to be able to build up a team and the people around it. So there was already a need to build bigger. There was already a web platform at the time. And there were major issues with it during the launch, so that it could have put the project in danger. And so through contacts, we got referred as a team that could come in and help sort out the situation. And so the entire relationship started with a really small project that I've dubbed literally "fix the website". And so we started this, I think it was end of November 2012, initially. And then we fixed the issues and then we moved on to, okay, how can we keep this going, keep the project going and start delivering? The hangar module was right around the corner, right? So November, December, we fix, we start building, we launch the first platform, I think in June 2013. So it's not even five months later. And then two months after that, the Hangar module. And all of this needed infrastructure work and new stuff with a new team that we never met before. And the Hangar module back then partnered with Behaviour.

Right, so from the platform, obviously, even starting right at the hangar module, that's already an extension of the web. We're no longer just doing web, we're doing authentication work, account systems for the launcher, the very first launcher. The OG before Doug. Fun memories of that. And so we still had to power that. So we're already pairing web platform engineers with game engineers designing APIs to support that. And so that was the first touch point. You've got to remember at the time, CIG is a company that's being built, right? The game scope is also being assessed. And so there's a lot of people that are working on the engine, right? We're talking at the time porting the engine to 64-bit, entity port systems, item port systems, everything's coming online. And so there's no time to build services, right? Or we don't have a team to build support services for the hangar module et cetera. And so that's where we started, over the years, to get involved on that side, to try to help out getting a bit more firepower there. So if I remember right, the very first service we made was the Arena Commander leaderboards service, which is now very old.

But due to get some updates in the upcoming 3.18?

Yes. We're working with the AC team on that for sure, to sort of put them back into shape a little bit. I mean, the interfaces are still perfect, but the service is really old school, very legacy. That was the first one, right? So the way it's built is a bit bizarre because at the time it was extracting data from the game. There was no real game backend. Really, really the first one. Fast forward a couple of years later where there was even more need for game services. So the party system, right? So we got involved in helping out to build the first party system, group systems. That also came with chat and the first voice over IP and then ultimately face over IP transport in the back end. So that's teams that are literally contributing, working solely with game devs on implementing services.

Oh, yeah, of course. I skipped a ton of web stuff in the meantime. The very first Community Hub, the Issue Council, right, was our first experiment.

Issue Council is huge.

Yeah, I'm really happy about this, to be honest. The Issue Council was an experiment at first. It was like, how can we get backers that want to help to really help us? And then the first thing that came to mind was, well, if we could have a system where we could get bug reports in one funnel so that we could bring them to the producers of the different teams with the right importance from the community, giving them a voice in the process, that that would help. And so the very first Issue Council was built really rapidly just to see how that goes. And then it was a huge success. I mean, even to this day, I'm still proud because the bug reports we get from players are very, very high quality.

Yeah, the story about the Star Map is a funny one because we had reached some kind of a milestone with the team and then we were looking for what the next project was going to be and then, in typical CIG fashion, we asked the community, hey, what should the web team do next? And then there was a whole bunch of other things we thought were going to be voted on. And then the Star Map was definitely the top winner. And so we started doing research on how we could implement a star map way before the game would even touch that data, based on the lore of the universe, their positions, but still be respectful about basically how it's going to look in game. Star Map was a very long project and very ambitious because it was on the web. We're in a web client. We don't have StarEngine. We don't have a high poly count. It needs to run on everybody's machine in Chrome. That was a super cool project. That's the first time we actually introduced Game Horizon to the project, doing shader work for us. So the web Star Map was big. I was really proud of that because at the end of the year, we did win an award. It was the Adobe Innovation Award of the Year. But the category we were in was against other web interactive experiences; Star Wars was in there. There's giant other things in there. So I thought that was really a big achievement for the team. I mean, it's still running today.

Oh, it's a really ambitious project. I mean, I feel good about it. I think that the game teams, the service teams, and all the directors that were involved did a fantastic job at it. I think the idea to take an entity system in a game engine and make it persist is huge, right? I mean, you can do it in ephemeral storage, but to do it at the scale we're doing is a crazy proposition, right? And so I feel like we've done a really good job at it. And what I like the most is that it was really one of the first projects where we had full collaboration between game teams and the network team and the service team, really close collaboration. Not a separate silo kind of approach. It was really meshed and that really worked out. And I think everybody feels really good about it because nobody was left like, oh, your thing doesn't work. It was like, no, let me help you. Everybody was very much moving forward. And so that's really cool. I mean, I feel good about it.

I don't know exactly. I think we are up to at least 50 to 60 people in that team. It's crazy. It's also very nice because everybody in the team is so talented. It's incredible. And the vibe is great. I'm happy that we're able to bring another unit to build locations in the game world. Plus now we're adding to that group other disciplines that can help them make better content.

I was going to say, it's more than just a locations team. There's a tools team, there's a locations team, there's a characters team.

Character team, yes, exactly. Gameplay developers are also in the mix. Obviously, the design team is working all together, but I like to see it as a unit because the idea has always been, in the approach that Guillaume, who you've met in other shows, has always proposed for the team, a multi-discipline team that has all the facilities to build what they need to build. That takes time to get all these people on board. But it's really cool because now you can see the output is steady. The team is happy as well, we're rolling through it. But you're right, now we've got some gameplay programmers, and the online service team is right next to this. So they all work together, even on service-related problems when there are any. So yeah, that's been a super exciting ride, to start a new studio in the city for Star Citizen, talking to candidates, getting them excited about joining the project, showing them what we're doing. A lot of people were like, the project is big, I don't know if I want to get in there. And then I would invite them over to the office to meet some people. They would see the vibe and then that would convince them to join. Or I would put them in one of our sim pod pits and then they would go, yeah, I want to work on this.

Yeah, it's a really long story and I'll try and abbreviate it as quickly as I can. In school, I always wanted to be an architect. I was fascinated with engineering and all that kind of stuff, and physics and maths and art. All of those worlds sort of come together. I was due to go off and study architecture, but a quite serious car accident meant I missed my window at that time, and bizarrely I ended up in catering for a year, which ended up being two years, which ended up being three years, which ended up being four years, because I got used to the money, I got used to the lifestyle, and I just thought, you know what, I'll just kind of do what I do, and I just ended up hating it. Absolutely hating it. So I went back to uni, what you would term a mature student then, and just studied. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I just wanted to do something with graphics. I didn't know it was going to be 3D. My whole family is quite creative. I just wanted to do something creative in 3D. Yeah, that's what I did. I just threw myself at it hammer and tongs. And then literally every living, breathing hour that I had spare, I was doing 3D work. That's what I really sort of leant towards. And I got my first gig in the industry with a company called Free Radical Design. They no longer exist anymore. Well, they do actually. They've just opened up shop again. But they're the people behind TimeSplitters. And my first game that I got to work on, unofficially, was Star Wars Battlefront III. It never was. And that was the game that, well, it was just the 2008 financial crash, a lot of bad stuff happened. So yeah, my first title was pretty awesome to get, and I've just sort of lived and breathed sci-fi ever since.

Similar to Nate in some respects, in that I was a mature student coming into university. I'd spent years floating between different jobs. I've always wanted to make video games, be involved in video games. I did it in my own time when I was supposed to be doing my schoolwork. I was making mods for Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, that kind of stuff. But I kind of drifted into a job. I was doing junior project management actually. It was okay, I had good prospects and I was earning okay money. But I remember driving home daydreaming about seeing a game I'd made being presented at E3 or something like that. And I just thought, what am I doing? I need to do something about this. So, like Nate was saying, I've had a creative background as well and my family are creative. So it made sense for me to go down an artistic path. So that's what I did, I went back to university and studied. I was lucky enough in university that my tutor at the time, or one of my tutors, Dean, managed to get me a placement at TT. As you know, a lot of guys from TT eventually came over to work at Foundry 42, CIG. And yeah, that was my path through there as well. And it was good working with Dean as well, because there's a Battlefront connection in a similar respect, as he worked on the Battlefront games, one and two. So it's a funny connection between us there as well. So yeah, when I came over to TT, I think I was there for three years working as both a VFX artist and an environment artist. And then I had the chance to come over to CIG and took it with both hands.

I think for me it's the combination of so many different elements and fields coming together into a single product, so to speak. If you were to work on a film or on a book or a piece of art, it's very singular. Whereas a video game combines so many of these different disciplines together. And I think video games are the only real thing that you can immerse yourself into that world. Equally, with other media, it's not quite the same feeling that you get to capture somebody with the world that you create. So that, for me anyway, was always the appeal of video games: making that cohesive unit of different disciplines.

For me, I just love video games. I've played video games since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I'd rush home from school, play video games. This is way back. Do you remember the Vectrex? I actually brought it up in studio the other day and everyone looked at me like I was from outer space. I was like, okay, I'm getting old. Nobody knows what this is. So there is that connection. But of course, you fantasize about going to work on a film every now and again or doing different things, which I've had the opportunity to do. I've been very lucky. I've managed to work in architectural previs. I've done some film work. I've worked for Apple. I've worked for the McLaren F1 team. I've gone through a lot of industries to get where I am. You just find your path, if that makes sense. But the key thing for me about working on video games is the culture and the people. You don't really get that anywhere else. Especially with CIG, it's a very organic process, putting the game together. And I love that. And bizarrely, the years that I had in catering, not that the catering thing was that bad, taught me to appreciate people more than anything. Because in catering, you're dealing with 70 staff at any one time. That's what I used to have to do. And then you would be dealing with two, three hundred customers at the same time. So you've got to develop your human social skills and be able to communicate clearly and know when you're winning, know when you're losing. So I'm always quite thankful for that experience. It's taught me an awful lot about just working with people and I think it serves me quite well with the team that I'm with now.

Where to start? It's really hard to explain in a non-crazy way. Art direction, first and foremost, is different for different people. No two art directors are going to deal with it day in, day out the same way as I do, or Ian on the PU may work differently. And I know Jake works in a potentially similar fashion to me, I think. But for me, you step out of being in this sort of, not a bubble, I don't think that's the correct way of putting it, but you've got a very, I would say, linear set of goals that you need to achieve. You're part of a thing, you're part of a big chain. When you step into the director's position, you're no longer playing the instrument, you become the composer, if that makes sense. And you need to have a pretty good understanding of all of the things that you're asking people to do, right? So a composer, for example, will play music. He wouldn't compose without understanding what he's asking people to do. So I think there's a very large element of that going on. That's at least how I work. I pride myself on trying to understand what I'm asking people to do, because otherwise you're just talking complete rubbish, in my opinion. And that's a struggle, right? So you have to go off and you have to learn things. On Squadron I'm responsible for quite a wide spectrum of teams now, many of which I've not had much experience with. And I've had to adjust and learn. So it's not like when you get to be a director, you're done. It's literally the polar opposite. Once you get to be a director, you are literally back at square one with a lot of stuff, which is tricky.

With great difficulty. When you're comparing it to looking at something in what I would term 2D, which is film, as in a linear point of view, it's completely different. Everything needs to hold up, for a start. But a lot of principles do trickle through. The eye should never stare, it should always wander. There are certain things that you can do to feed into that. The laws of the golden ratio and lighting, the principles are still the same, it just takes a lot longer. You can do a beautiful corridor in a matter of a day, maybe two, but what's around the corner? It's very tricky. I can't really put into words the challenge, at least on, I know you get it in the PU, but on Squadron, that we have, especially with a game that deals with vast scale. I think Jake will attest to this. The biggest challenge that you have with our game is trying to portray scale in space. Because in everyone's head, when you're going across the surface of a space station, they're instantly going to go to the Death Star. And they're going to fly past all this greeble sort of stuff. In reality, the Death Star would be gone in a couple of seconds. That's the flight model that you're dealing with. So trying to balance those expectations is tough.

When new people come to join the team, that's always one of the biggest challenges: getting people to understand that scale, work at that scale, and understand where to keep the detail. You get someone who's used to making FPS environments and making the corridors and things, and then you go, okay, now we've got to make a solar system effectively. And they're trying to break it down in the same way that you would do a corridor. And it's about focusing the art in the right places. And then it becomes more about how do you craft the experience. And again, you're asking about why video games? And it's because of the experience. Sometimes you're not just directing or creating artwork, you're directing and creating an experience for the player, right?