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WoU, Who?

This week we’re catching up with Adrian. With a background in industrial design and video art, now his skills are used as a WoU technical artist

GAME
PEOPLE

4 MINS READ

Virtual Reality Experience

DATE

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

AUTHOR

World of Us

The World of Us Info editorial team comprises a global network of creative minds, makers, writers and industry experts. The team strives to research with enquiry and openness at its core, while constantly searching for opportunities to exchange knowledge and expand as a community.

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Born and raised in Romania’s Cluj Napoca, Adrian is part of the TractorSetGo collective. “We were approached by the TALES team to collaborate on the WoU project almost 2 years ago. We loved the project and happily jumped on board.” And so began the creation of our game. 

With an academic engineering background under his belt he felt there was still something missing in his education journey and went on to pursue the more creative angle of video art. “This combination was the perfect place to start for a technical artist such as myself.”

“My work started from my childhood passion. I loved animations and computer games from a young age. I happily remember playing Starcraft 1 with friends back in 1998 when it first came out.” Much like many on the WoU Game team, inspiration came from play. “Once I got older and life became serious I decided to follow my passion and make a living out of it. So in the past 20+ years I have been involved in a lot of computer graphics projects occupying different roles mainly orbiting visuals, art and design.”

So, what does a technical artist do? “My role is to create visual assets like terrains, particle effects, shaders, animations, etc.” To break it down even further, visual assets are anything the player sees in the game. This is of course no small task! Adrian also handles the project management of collaborations with teams around the world who are contributing features in our game. The clouds you see may be created somewhere on the other side of the world to the flowers that bloom. 

“In my opinion game design and education go hand in hand. Games are just another way of delivering complex information. Children naturally educate themselves in playful interactions with the world around them.” There are so many ways to engage young people and in a world of bright lights and handheld entertainment - education needs to integrate not compete.“

Like any curated school textbook, games can direct the child's attention in a direction that matters and it is meaningful for their future. It's like a film that adds the visual dimension to a book—a game adds the interactivity dimension ...