{"data":{"id":13139,"title":"Meet Michael Morlan!","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/13139-Meet-Michael-Morlan","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/13139","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/13139","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"Meet the team","images":[],"images_count":0,"translations":{"en_EN":"On last week\u2019s Wingman\u2019s Hangar, you met the man behind the camera, Michael Morlan. Michael will be shooting and streaming an all new episode this week, airing tomorrow\u2026 and until then, here\u2019s his in-depth interview. The Hangar will be all-new tomorrow, with Chris Roberts answering your forum feedback questions!\n\nHow did you get started in the game industry?\nI backed into game development. Heck, I backed into a 3D animation and video production career quite by mistake as well. Well, perhaps not entirely by mistake.\n\nOne of the chain of experiences that lead me towards game development was a 1982 college course in hand drafting \u2013 yep \u2013 pencil, straight edges, French curves, and paper. That led me, later, to latch onto a casually-acquired copy of AutoCAD \u2013 back when it was 2D \u2013 and later 2.5D.\n\nIn the late 80\u2019s, I was working as a programmer\/analyst for CRSS, a large architecture and engineering firm in Houston and, on the side, playing with the crude 3D animation tools that came through the IT department. I\u2019d create spinning logos and play with materials and lighting. Apparently, that personal exploration didn\u2019t go unnoticed.\n\nOne day in 1990, as I was wrapping up a pre-Internet, phone-line-networked, Macintosh-based sales forecasting system, my director of IT handed me a folder and told me to read it. It turned out to be a description of the Texas A&M School of Architecture\u2019s Advanced Visualization master\u2019s program. And, CRSS was teaming with the school as a corporate partner. They were creating a sister visualization lab and I was being asked to lead it.\n\nWithin a couple weeks I was arms deep in Wavefront Advanced Visualizer training and helping specify a variety of Silicon Graphics workstations and a full video editing suite. Those were heady times \u2013 $100K hardware and $50K animation software. The job of the visualization team was to help architects and engineers examine and communicate their designs to our clients. We were trying everything \u2013 photo composites, sunlight studies, massing studies, and fully-detailed fly-throughs of finished designs.\n\nIn 1992, when the construction market shifted from new construction to re-use projects, CRSS got caught cash short and went down hard. Since our department was essentially an R&D and non-revenue effort, I was laid off. It was quite the shock.\n\nSo, I set out on my own as a freelance animator. I bought an SGI Indigo and Macintosh IIe, scored a gratis copy of Wavefront, and started spinning logos for money.\n\nIn 1995, I was reconsidering my direction when I ran across a want-ad for this company, Origin Systems. Apparently, they were a game developer seeking animators. I overnighted my VHS demo reel and was called to interview the following afternoon. I did the usual round of interviews \u2013 called the \u201cbeauty parade\u201d by interviewing experts \u2013 and talked shop with a variety of people from Chris Roberts\u2019 and Warren Spector\u2019s teams. But, it was the lunch-time chat with Richard Garriott and art director, Beverly Garland, that led to an offer that afternoon.\n\nOn Febuary 25, 1995, I began my career in the game industry.\n\nWhat projects have you worked on? Have you worked with Chris Roberts before?\nI worked for Origin Systems from \u201995 to \u201901. I didn\u2019t have the opportunity to work for Chris but helped out on a number of games. While I was brought on, ostensibly, for Ultima 9, my first real contribution was the writing, animating (with the excellent Denis Loubet) and editing of the Crusader: No Remorse intro flic and interstitial flics. That was an interesting challenge because the team had already created a gunfight between a menacing mech and some armored humans for that year\u2019s E3 and were committed to using the shots for the finished intro. So, I actually had to write around that existing scene and the current limits of 3DStudio R4. Nine drafts later, I had a working script and set to recording voice-overs, building a dope sheet, and parsing out shots with Denis.\n\nThat was my intro do the game industry. In the ensuing six years, I was fortunate to have a credit on a number of games including a little project called Ultima Online:\n\nCrusader: No Remorse \u2013 flic writer\/director\/animator\n\nUltima IX: Ascension \u2013 flics, particle system programmer, designer, artist, animator\n\nUltima Online (1997) \u2013 intro flic, 3D artist\n\nUltima Online: Third Dawn \u2013 co-art director with my good friend, Scott Jones\n\nUltima Online: Lord Blackthorn\u2019s Revenge \u2013 flic* Ultima Online: Age of Shadows \u2013 cloth map artist\n\nAfter CRSS went poof, I joined my long-time friend, Eric Peterson, at Fever Pitch. We suffered through a number of studio\/publisher contracts, got bought out twice \u2013 Warthog, Gizmondo \u2013 before it all imploded in 2006. Fortunately, I had been working on the side as a freelance cinematographer and had a fairly strong demo reel so I hung out my shingle and made moving pictures my full-time profession.\n\nSix years later, Eric was working with Chris on a fund-raiser for this game called Star Citizen\u2026 or Squadron 42. I wasn\u2019t sure. Anyway, I made the mistake of congratulating Eric when they raise of six-million bucks and his immediate response was, \u201cDude! I need you!\u201d\n\nWhat are you doing for Cloud Imperium?\nI hired on, ostensibly, to be a project manager and help Eric with this little web show called \u201cWingman\u2019s Hangar.\u201d Apparently, it had evolved from a shtick he had done during the fund-raiser where he set up a web camera in the hallway away from the main conference room and did his own comedy bits. One of the promises of the fund-raiser was a weekly webcast about the ongoing game development, and the Hanger was born.\n\nSince there wasn\u2019t much to do in the first few months of building the team and ramping up design and production, I spent all my time improving the quality of the show, taking it from two dorks in front of a web-cam with barely a couple chairs and a file cabinet between them to a fully-produced talk-show format with motion graphics, music, interviews, news, and the most favorite segment, F-F-F-Forum Feedback! And, producing \u201cWingman\u2019s Hangar\u201d became my full-time job. I also write all the scripted elements, and direct, shoot, and edit everything. Finally, I stream the show most Friday mornings.\n\nWhat are you most excited to see in Star Citizen\/Squadron 42?\nI am a huge fan of space novels and short stories \u2013stories writ large over the span of the universe and eons of time. Some of my favorite works include Stephen Baxter\u2019s Xeelee Sequence and Manifold trilogy, and Poul Anderson\u2019s Harvest of Stars series. I watched Star Trek TOS voraciously as a kid. Although I was never captured by the later Star Trek series \u2013 they were too sterile to become emotionally attached \u2013 I fell in love with Firefly. I love the familial struggle of those characters. And it is that about which I\u2019m most thrilled for Star Citizen \u2013 the chance to connect with my own friends and build a family\u2026 IN SPACE!\n\nWhat are you playing right now?\nHahahahah. Playing\u2026 I\u2019ve had little time for playing games between spending time with my meat-space family, shooting short-form projects on the weekends, and helping keep Star Citizen backers informed about our herculean efforts at CIG. But, I look forward to the first time we get to test a build of the Hangar App and I get to walk around my Aurora for the first time. That will be a fine day.","de_DE":"Im Hangar von Wingman's letzte Woche trafen Sie den Mann hinter der Kamera, Michael Morlan. Michael wird diese Woche eine ganz neue Episode drehen und streamen, morgen senden.... und bis dahin, hier ist sein ausf\u00fchrliches Interview. Der Hangar wird morgen komplett neu sein, Chris Roberts beantwortet Ihre Fragen zum Feedback im Forum!\n\nWie bist du in der Spieleindustrie gestartet?\nIch habe die Spieleentwicklung unterst\u00fctzt. Verdammt, ich habe auch aus Versehen eine 3D-Animations- und Videoproduktionskarriere begonnen. Nun, vielleicht nicht ganz aus Versehen.\n\nEine der Erfahrungen, die mich zur Spieleentwicklung f\u00fchrten, war ein College-Kurs 1982 in Handzeichnung - yep - Bleistift, gerade Kanten, franz\u00f6sische Kurven und Papier. Das veranlasste mich sp\u00e4ter, mich an eine beil\u00e4ufig erworbene Kopie von AutoCAD - damals noch 2D - und sp\u00e4ter 2.5D - zu binden.\n\nIn den sp\u00e4ten 80er Jahren arbeitete ich als Programmierer\/Analytiker f\u00fcr CRSS, ein gro\u00dfes Architektur- und Ingenieurb\u00fcro in Houston, und nebenbei spielte ich mit den rohen 3D-Animationswerkzeugen, die durch die IT-Abteilung kamen. Ich kreierte spinnende Logos und spielte mit Materialien und Beleuchtung. Anscheinend blieb diese pers\u00f6nliche Erkundung nicht unbemerkt.\n\nEines Tages im Jahr 1990, als ich ein Pre-Internet-, Telefon-Line-Netzwerk, Macintosh-basiertes Verkaufsprognosesystem einrichtete, gab mir mein IT-Leiter einen Ordner und sagte mir, ich solle ihn lesen. Es stellte sich heraus, dass es sich um eine Beschreibung des Masterprogramms Advanced Visualization der Texas A&M School of Architecture handelte. Und CRSS kooperierte mit der Schule als Unternehmenspartner. Sie bauten ein Schwester-Visualisierungslabor und ich wurde gebeten, es zu leiten.\n\nInnerhalb weniger Wochen war ich tief im Wavefront Advanced Visualizer Training und half bei der Spezifikation einer Vielzahl von Silicon Graphics Workstations und einer kompletten Videobearbeitungsanlage. Das waren berauschende Zeiten - $100K Hardware und $50K Animationssoftware. Die Aufgabe des Visualisierungsteams bestand darin, Architekten und Ingenieure bei der Pr\u00fcfung und Kommunikation ihrer Entw\u00fcrfe an unsere Kunden zu unterst\u00fctzen. Wir haben alles ausprobiert - Fotokomposite, Sonnenlichtstudien, Massenstudien und vollst\u00e4ndig detaillierte Durchfl\u00fcge von fertigen Designs.\n\nIm Jahr 1992, als sich der Baumarkt vom Neubau zu Wiederverwendungsprojekten verlagerte, wurde CRSS von der Bargeldkasse \u00fcberrascht und ging hart zur\u00fcck. Da es sich bei unserer Abteilung im Wesentlichen um eine F&E- und Nicht-Ertragsma\u00dfnahme handelte, wurde ich entlassen. Es war ein ziemlicher Schock.\n\nAlso machte ich mich selbstst\u00e4ndig als freiberuflicher Animateur. Ich kaufte einen SGI Indigo und Macintosh IIe, erhielt eine kostenlose Kopie von Wavefront und fing an, Logos f\u00fcr Geld zu drehen.\n\n1995 \u00fcberlegte ich meine Richtung, als ich auf eine Suchanzeige f\u00fcr dieses Unternehmen, Origin Systems, stie\u00df. Anscheinend waren sie ein Spieleentwickler, der nach Animatoren suchte. Ich habe meine VHS-Demorolle \u00fcbernachtet und wurde am folgenden Nachmittag zu einem Interview eingeladen. Ich f\u00fchrte die \u00fcbliche Interviewrunde - von Experten als \"beauty parade\" bezeichnet - und sprach mit einer Vielzahl von Leuten aus den Teams von Chris Roberts und Warren Spector. Aber es war das Gespr\u00e4ch mit Richard Garriott und dem Art Director Beverly Garland, das am Nachmittag zu einem Angebot f\u00fchrte.\n\nAm 25. Februar 1995 begann ich meine Karriere in der Spieleindustrie.\n\nAn welchen Projekten hast du gearbeitet? Hast du schon mal mit Chris Roberts gearbeitet?\nIch habe von'95 bis'01 f\u00fcr Origin Systems gearbeitet. Ich hatte keine Gelegenheit, f\u00fcr Chris zu arbeiten, sondern half bei einer Reihe von Spielen aus. W\u00e4hrend ich angeblich f\u00fcr Ultima 9 herangezogen wurde, war mein erster wirklicher Beitrag das Schreiben, die Animation (mit dem ausgezeichneten Denis Loubet) und die Bearbeitung des Kreuzritter: No Remorse Intro Flic und Interstitial Flics. Das war eine interessante Herausforderung, denn das Team hatte bereits f\u00fcr die diesj\u00e4hrige E3 einen Schie\u00dfkampf zwischen einem bedrohlichen Mech und einigen gepanzerten Menschen entwickelt und war entschlossen, die Sch\u00fcsse f\u00fcr das fertige Intro zu verwenden. Also musste ich mich eigentlich mit dieser bestehenden Szene und den aktuellen Grenzen von 3DStudio R4 auseinandersetzen. Neun Entw\u00fcrfe sp\u00e4ter hatte ich ein Arbeitsdrehbuch und begann mit der Aufnahme von Voice-Overs, dem Aufbau eines Dopingbogens und dem Parsen von Aufnahmen mit Denis.\n\nDas war meine Einf\u00fchrung in die Spieleindustrie. In den folgenden sechs Jahren hatte ich das Gl\u00fcck, einen Kredit f\u00fcr eine Reihe von Spielen zu haben, darunter ein kleines Projekt namens Ultima Online:\n\nKreuzritter: Keine Reue - flic Schriftsteller\/Regisseur\/Animator Ultima IX: Aufstieg - Fliks, Partikelsystemprogrammierer, Designer, K\u00fcnstler, Animator Ultima Online (1997) - Intro flic, 3D-K\u00fcnstler Ultima Online: Third Dawn - Co-Art Director mit meinem guten Freund Scott Jones Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Rache - flic* Ultima Online: Age of Shadows - cloth map artist Nachdem CRSS puffte, schloss ich mich meinem langj\u00e4hrigen Freund Eric Peterson im Fever Pitch an. Wir litten unter einer Reihe von Studio- und Verlagsvertr\u00e4gen, wurden zweimal aufgekauft - Warthog, Gizmondo - bevor 2006 alles implodierte. Gl\u00fccklicherweise hatte ich nebenbei als freiberuflicher Kameramann gearbeitet und hatte eine ziemlich starke Demo-Rolle, also hing ich meine Schindel aus und machte bewegte Bilder zu meinem Vollzeitberuf.\n\nSechs Jahre sp\u00e4ter arbeitete Eric mit Chris an einer Spendenaktion f\u00fcr dieses Spiel namens Star Citizen.... oder Squadron 42. Ich war mir nicht sicher. Wie auch immer, ich habe den Fehler gemacht, Eric zu gratulieren, als sie sechs Millionen Dollar gesammelt haben, und seine sofortige Antwort war: \"Alter! Ich brauche dich!\"\n\nWas machst du f\u00fcr Cloud Imperium?\nIch habe angeblich als Projektmanager eingestellt und Eric bei dieser kleinen Webshow namens \"Wingman's Hangar\" unterst\u00fctzt. Anscheinend hatte er sich aus einem Shtick entwickelt, den er w\u00e4hrend der Spendensammlung gemacht hatte, wo er eine Webkamera im Flur weg vom Hauptkonferenzraum aufstellte und seine eigenen Kom\u00f6dienst\u00fccke machte. Eines der Versprechen der Spendenaktion war ein w\u00f6chentlicher Webcast \u00fcber die laufende Spieleentwicklung, und der Hanger war geboren.\n\nDa in den ersten Monaten des Teamaufbaus und des Hochfahrens von Design und Produktion nicht viel zu tun war, verbrachte ich meine ganze Zeit damit, die Qualit\u00e4t der Show zu verbessern, indem ich sie von zwei Deks vor einer Webcam mit kaum ein paar St\u00fchlen und einem Aktenschrank zwischen ihnen zu einem voll produzierten Talkshow-Format mit Motion Graphics, Musik, Interviews, Nachrichten und dem beliebtesten Segment, F-F-F-Forum Feedback, \u00fcberf\u00fchrte! Und die Produktion von \"Wingman's Hangar\" wurde zu meinem Vollzeitjob. Ich schreibe auch alle geskripteten Elemente und leite, drehe und bearbeite alles. Schlie\u00dflich streame ich die Sendung an den meisten Freitagmorgen.\n\nWas freut dich am meisten in Star Citizen\/Squadron 42 zu sehen?\nIch bin ein gro\u00dfer Fan von Weltraumromanen und Kurzgeschichten - Geschichten, die im Laufe des Universums und der \u00c4onen der Zeit gro\u00df geschrieben wurden. Zu meinen Lieblingswerken geh\u00f6ren Stephen Baxters Xeelee Sequence and Manifold Trilogie und Poul Anderson's Harvest of Stars Serie. Ich habe Star Trek TOS als Kind uners\u00e4ttlich beobachtet. Obwohl ich nie von der sp\u00e4teren Star Trek Serie gefangen genommen wurde - sie war zu steril, um emotional verbunden zu werden -, verliebte ich mich in Firefly. Ich liebe den famili\u00e4ren Kampf dieser Charaktere. Und genau dar\u00fcber freue ich mich am meisten f\u00fcr Star Citizen - die Chance, mich mit meinen eigenen Freunden zu treffen und eine Familie zu gr\u00fcnden.... IN SPACE!\n\nWas spielst du gerade?\nHahahahahahahahahahah. Spielen.... Ich hatte wenig Zeit f\u00fcr Spiele zwischen dem Verbringen von Zeit mit meiner Fleischraumfamilie, dem Schie\u00dfen von Kurzformprojekten an den Wochenenden und dem Helfen, die Star Citizen-Geber \u00fcber unsere herkulischen Bem\u00fchungen bei der CIG zu informieren. Aber ich freue mich auf das erste Mal, wenn wir einen Build der Hangar-App testen d\u00fcrfen und ich zum ersten Mal um meine Aurora herumlaufen kann. Das wird ein sch\u00f6ner Tag.","zh_CN":"On last week\u2019s Wingman\u2019s Hangar, you met the man behind the camera, Michael Morlan. Michael will be shooting and streaming an all new episode this week, airing tomorrow\u2026 and until then, here\u2019s his in-depth interview. The Hangar will be all-new tomorrow, with Chris Roberts answering your forum feedback questions!\n\nHow did you get started in the game industry?\nI backed into game development. Heck, I backed into a 3D animation and video production career quite by mistake as well. Well, perhaps not entirely by mistake.\n\nOne of the chain of experiences that lead me towards game development was a 1982 college course in hand drafting \u2013 yep \u2013 pencil, straight edges, French curves, and paper. That led me, later, to latch onto a casually-acquired copy of AutoCAD \u2013 back when it was 2D \u2013 and later 2.5D.\n\nIn the late 80\u2019s, I was working as a programmer\/analyst for CRSS, a large architecture and engineering firm in Houston and, on the side, playing with the crude 3D animation tools that came through the IT department. I\u2019d create spinning logos and play with materials and lighting. Apparently, that personal exploration didn\u2019t go unnoticed.\n\nOne day in 1990, as I was wrapping up a pre-Internet, phone-line-networked, Macintosh-based sales forecasting system, my director of IT handed me a folder and told me to read it. It turned out to be a description of the Texas A&M School of Architecture\u2019s Advanced Visualization master\u2019s program. And, CRSS was teaming with the school as a corporate partner. They were creating a sister visualization lab and I was being asked to lead it.\n\nWithin a couple weeks I was arms deep in Wavefront Advanced Visualizer training and helping specify a variety of Silicon Graphics workstations and a full video editing suite. Those were heady times \u2013 $100K hardware and $50K animation software. The job of the visualization team was to help architects and engineers examine and communicate their designs to our clients. We were trying everything \u2013 photo composites, sunlight studies, massing studies, and fully-detailed fly-throughs of finished designs.\n\nIn 1992, when the construction market shifted from new construction to re-use projects, CRSS got caught cash short and went down hard. Since our department was essentially an R&D and non-revenue effort, I was laid off. It was quite the shock.\n\nSo, I set out on my own as a freelance animator. I bought an SGI Indigo and Macintosh IIe, scored a gratis copy of Wavefront, and started spinning logos for money.\n\nIn 1995, I was reconsidering my direction when I ran across a want-ad for this company, Origin Systems. Apparently, they were a game developer seeking animators. I overnighted my VHS demo reel and was called to interview the following afternoon. I did the usual round of interviews \u2013 called the \u201cbeauty parade\u201d by interviewing experts \u2013 and talked shop with a variety of people from Chris Roberts\u2019 and Warren Spector\u2019s teams. But, it was the lunch-time chat with Richard Garriott and art director, Beverly Garland, that led to an offer that afternoon.\n\nOn Febuary 25, 1995, I began my career in the game industry.\n\nWhat projects have you worked on? Have you worked with Chris Roberts before?\nI worked for Origin Systems from \u201995 to \u201901. I didn\u2019t have the opportunity to work for Chris but helped out on a number of games. While I was brought on, ostensibly, for Ultima 9, my first real contribution was the writing, animating (with the excellent Denis Loubet) and editing of the Crusader: No Remorse intro flic and interstitial flics. That was an interesting challenge because the team had already created a gunfight between a menacing mech and some armored humans for that year\u2019s E3 and were committed to using the shots for the finished intro. So, I actually had to write around that existing scene and the current limits of 3DStudio R4. Nine drafts later, I had a working script and set to recording voice-overs, building a dope sheet, and parsing out shots with Denis.\n\nThat was my intro do the game industry. In the ensuing six years, I was fortunate to have a credit on a number of games including a little project called Ultima Online:\n\nCrusader: No Remorse \u2013 flic writer\/director\/animator\n\nUltima IX: Ascension \u2013 flics, particle system programmer, designer, artist, animator\n\nUltima Online (1997) \u2013 intro flic, 3D artist\n\nUltima Online: Third Dawn \u2013 co-art director with my good friend, Scott Jones\n\nUltima Online: Lord Blackthorn\u2019s Revenge \u2013 flic* Ultima Online: Age of Shadows \u2013 cloth map artist\n\nAfter CRSS went poof, I joined my long-time friend, Eric Peterson, at Fever Pitch. We suffered through a number of studio\/publisher contracts, got bought out twice \u2013 Warthog, Gizmondo \u2013 before it all imploded in 2006. Fortunately, I had been working on the side as a freelance cinematographer and had a fairly strong demo reel so I hung out my shingle and made moving pictures my full-time profession.\n\nSix years later, Eric was working with Chris on a fund-raiser for this game called Star Citizen\u2026 or Squadron 42. I wasn\u2019t sure. Anyway, I made the mistake of congratulating Eric when they raise of six-million bucks and his immediate response was, \u201cDude! I need you!\u201d\n\nWhat are you doing for Cloud Imperium?\nI hired on, ostensibly, to be a project manager and help Eric with this little web show called \u201cWingman\u2019s Hangar.\u201d Apparently, it had evolved from a shtick he had done during the fund-raiser where he set up a web camera in the hallway away from the main conference room and did his own comedy bits. One of the promises of the fund-raiser was a weekly webcast about the ongoing game development, and the Hanger was born.\n\nSince there wasn\u2019t much to do in the first few months of building the team and ramping up design and production, I spent all my time improving the quality of the show, taking it from two dorks in front of a web-cam with barely a couple chairs and a file cabinet between them to a fully-produced talk-show format with motion graphics, music, interviews, news, and the most favorite segment, F-F-F-Forum Feedback! And, producing \u201cWingman\u2019s Hangar\u201d became my full-time job. I also write all the scripted elements, and direct, shoot, and edit everything. Finally, I stream the show most Friday mornings.\n\nWhat are you most excited to see in Star Citizen\/Squadron 42?\nI am a huge fan of space novels and short stories \u2013stories writ large over the span of the universe and eons of time. Some of my favorite works include Stephen Baxter\u2019s Xeelee Sequence and Manifold trilogy, and Poul Anderson\u2019s Harvest of Stars series. I watched Star Trek TOS voraciously as a kid. Although I was never captured by the later Star Trek series \u2013 they were too sterile to become emotionally attached \u2013 I fell in love with Firefly. I love the familial struggle of those characters. And it is that about which I\u2019m most thrilled for Star Citizen \u2013 the chance to connect with my own friends and build a family\u2026 IN SPACE!\n\nWhat are you playing right now?\nHahahahah. Playing\u2026 I\u2019ve had little time for playing games between spending time with my meat-space family, shooting short-form projects on the weekends, and helping keep Star Citizen backers informed about our herculean efforts at CIG. But, I look forward to the first time we get to test a build of the Hangar App and I get to walk around my Aurora for the first time. That will be a fine day."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":45,"created_at":"2013-07-11T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"12 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-09 09:21:06","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":13137,"next_id":13141}}