Oscar Nacher Garcia is a 3D Environment Artist working in the AAA video game industry. He graduated from Teesside University with a bachelor’s degree in arts, focused on Environment Art and Design. He started his career as a Supervising Environment Artist for 31st Union and 2K Valencia in 2016, contributing to the environment art direction and content for scenes featured in Cyberpunk 2077, Call of Duty WWII, Blood&Truth, and more.

After three years, he moved on to work at Sumo Digital, where he developed level art and environment content for Sackboy: A Big Adventure. In 2021, Oscar begun work at Ubisoft Reflections as a Senior Environment Artist, where his duties include world building, environment design, level art, and team management. As part of Ubisoft Reflections, Oscar has worked on Assassin’s Creed: Nexus, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora DLC, and unannounced IP.

Oscar’s story is one of passion and determination. You will get a glimpse into his day to day as a Senior Artist, and the inspiring journey he has undertaken to get to this position. In the end, we’ve also asked Oscar about some tips for upcoming artists, and how to get great work out during a tight deadline – such as the one you’d find at DurJam!

Early Career

What’s your current role, what does it usually involve?

I’m currently a Senior Environment 3D Artist at Ubisoft. My job involves the creation and design of different visual elements that you can see in environments in games. This involves things like creating props, materials and assets in 3D, from architectural assets like walls, columns, or whole buildings, to furniture and small clutter, as well as other props that are later used to dress the game world and give it authenticity and deepness.

Another of my main responsibilities is Level art and world building. This means using the assets previously created to make the level. I will use those assets and props to “set dress” and decorate the level, think of it as building a house in the sims or creating something in Minecraft. This is where I put a lot of my composition and storytelling skills to the test. I will use the assets to create some micro storytelling in the environments and to fulfil gameplay needs that the Level design team has for the environment (covers, player paths, cinematic locations).

Collaboration with the other departments is essential, I work very closely with other teams like Design and Technical Art so the level is not only visually stunning, but also technically solid and fun to play.

What inspired you to pursue 3D art as a career?

I have always had a huge passion for video games since I was a kid, from the first game I played on my old PS1 I became obsessed with them. I made my first game design document when I was 12 and always dreamed of making games, but for me this was like being an astronaut. Like, who does that? I always thought it was an impossible dream, until one day one of my teachers just said to me, “If you really like it that much, why don’t you just go for it?”

For some reason that really struck me, and I told myself, “Yeah why not?”. I started researching how to get into video game creation and discovered a school in my hometown with an Art for Video Games course. After high school I enrolled and from there started learning. I was always very bad at maths and sciences when I was young, but turns out, you can just make the cool visuals and become a professional game artist!

How was it like finding a job after graduating, and what would you tell new grads pursuing art?

Not going to lie, it was very tough. No matter what course or game art degree you are doing, it’s usually not going to be enough to land you your first job. You’ve got to keep working very hard on your portfolio. After I finished uni, I tried applying for some AAA and indie studios, but I had no luck. My portfolio just wasn’t good enough. I then spent a whole year solely working on it, trying to push my limits and quality further and further with each portfolio piece.

After a year of hard work, I got a call from a friend and ex colleague from my old art school, he told me he was working for a local Art outsourcing studio and that his boss had seen my portfolio and wanted to give me an interview. I went to the interview, extremely nervous to show the Art Director my latest pieces, and he just asked me when I could start. I was surprised when I found out that my first project ever in the industry was going to be Call of Duty, a game which I grew up with!

That’s how I landed my first professional job in the AAA industry. Getting your first job is a combination of lots of hard work, networking and a bit of luck. The best advice I can give to new grads is to focus on your portfolio. That’s the main thing that’s going to get you a job, so work really hard on it, push the quality further which each piece and try to learn as much as you can. Your graduation papers are not going to matter at all if your portfolio is not up to standards. In fact, some of the greatest artists that I’ve worked with were self-taught.

Another piece of advice would be to network – I cannot stress enough the importance of making connections in the industry. These connections could be the difference between getting your dream job or not. Go to game dev meets in your area, participate in game jams and be active in online forums. Ask for feedback and advice to veterans of the industry and if you are lucky enough you might even get some mentoring from an industry professional.

The Day to Day

What does a usual day on the job look like?

My day usually starts with attending one or more meetings. Things like scrums and standups which are important to give the rest of the team an idea of what you’re working on, what your plan is for the week, and if you have any blockers or issues that you need help with. After that, I plan how I’m going to tackle my tasks. I usually sync with the other teams like Level Design to make sure we’re collaborating closely
and efficiently, communicate any needs and issues. My current main tasks focus on Level Art more than creating content, so I spend most of my time replacing blockout with final art and creating the composition of the scene. I will try to find opportunities to add micro story telling and make sure that my composition fulfils any gameplay needs from the design team.

I am currently working on new content for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, so my main tool now is our proprietary game engine Snowdrop. That’s where I spend most of my day, set dressing the scene, planning, and briefing any new asset needs, as well as making sure the composition of the scene is up to standards.

As a senior artist, I’m also currently a line manager, so I have junior artists under my charge that I mentor. Some of my responsibilities as a line manager include making sure that artists have anything they need to succeed at their work, from software requirements to information to mentorships. I act as a bridge between artists and leadership and have personal 1 on 1 meetings with artists where they can express any concerns or issues, and we can talk on how to solve them.

Do you work in a team? If so, how many people do you usually work at a time with on a project?

One of Ubisoft’s biggest pillars is international collaboration between other Ubisoft studios from all over the world. A big project like Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry is never done by one Ubisoft studio. So, the team headcount can be in the hundreds between all the departments from all the studios collaborating. At Ubisoft Reflections, we have a proud history of collaboration with other Ubisoft studios, with close ties to Massive in Sweden, Ubisoft Shanghai, Red Storm in the US, or our Canadian studios in Montreal and Quebec

How do you handle the block out process early on in a scene, and would the process change if you only had 24 hours to do your work?

The main rule for me during the blockout phase is to go from big to small. I usually focus on getting the big shapes out of the way, which define a lot of the visual language of your level. This will also help you bring inspiration to the scene and polish the final layout that you want for it. The blockout phase is one of the most critical phases in a project to define the visual language of your scene, so it’s important to nail it down from the beginning.

It’s quite easy to lose focus and start working on small details because they are really fun to do, so you need to keep your mind focused on going big to medium to small shapes so you don’t end up focusing on small details that you might have to discard later cause you didn’t work out your bigger shapes first. If I only had 24 hours to do a whole scene blockout, I wouldn’t change my approach that much. I would maybe simplify shapes even more, using simple silhouettes instead of defined ones, also focusing even more on big and medium shapes and leaving the smaller details for a future iteration pass.

The Advice

What are some skills that students could pick up during an event like DurJam?

Game jams are an excellent opportunity to experience what true collaboration in a video game project looks like. You will have the chance to work alongside other people with different specialties than you to create a finished product. It will help you build collaboration, communication, and time management skills.

Game jams are basically a sneak peek at what working on a game feels like and at the end of the experience you will have a cool project that demonstrates that you are capable of working in a team to achieve a final goal. Game jams are also an excellent opportunity to build your contacts and friend network. Who knows? That friend you made on the last game jam might open you the door to that dream job you were looking for, so I definitely recommend participating in events like game jams and other networking events!

What’s the best way to get experience and level up your skills before graduating?

As an artist, the best way to get experience and develop new skills is to work on your art portfolio and learn new pipelines and tools. Watch tutorial videos, go to game dev conferences, watch breakdown videos from other projects, participate in game jams, and involve yourself with the game art online community. Build a strong network of contacts and friends. Do not fall into the trap of believing that graduating and whatever work you do in university is going to be enough to land you a job. Work hard and don’t stop developing your skills.