Meet Michael Morlan! - [Comm-Links](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links) - Meet Michael Morlan! Meet Michael Morlan! ==================== Undefined Undefined Meet the team [Previous](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/13137) [Next](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/comm-links/13141) Content ------- English On last week’s Wingman’s Hangar, you met the man behind the camera, Michael Morlan. Michael will be shooting and streaming an all new episode this week, airing tomorrow… and until then, here’s his in-depth interview. The Hangar will be all-new tomorrow, with Chris Roberts answering your forum feedback questions! How did you get started in the game industry? I 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. One of the chain of experiences that lead me towards game development was a 1982 college course in hand drafting – yep – pencil, straight edges, French curves, and paper. That led me, later, to latch onto a casually-acquired copy of AutoCAD – back when it was 2D – and later 2.5D. In the late 80’s, 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’d create spinning logos and play with materials and lighting. Apparently, that personal exploration didn’t go unnoticed. One 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’s Advanced Visualization master’s 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. Within 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 – $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 – photo composites, sunlight studies, massing studies, and fully-detailed fly-throughs of finished designs. In 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. So, 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. In 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 – called the “beauty parade” by interviewing experts – and talked shop with a variety of people from Chris Roberts’ and Warren Spector’s teams. But, it was the lunch-time chat with Richard Garriott and art director, Beverly Garland, that led to an offer that afternoon. On Febuary 25, 1995, I began my career in the game industry. What projects have you worked on? Have you worked with Chris Roberts before? I worked for Origin Systems from ’95 to ’01. I didn’t 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’s 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. That 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: Crusader: No Remorse – flic writer/director/animator Ultima IX: Ascension – flics, particle system programmer, designer, artist, animator Ultima Online (1997) – intro flic, 3D artist Ultima Online: Third Dawn – co-art director with my good friend, Scott Jones Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge – flic* Ultima Online: Age of Shadows – cloth map artist After 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 – Warthog, Gizmondo – 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. Six years later, Eric was working with Chris on a fund-raiser for this game called Star Citizen… or Squadron 42. I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I made the mistake of congratulating Eric when they raise of six-million bucks and his immediate response was, “Dude! I need you!” What are you doing for Cloud Imperium? I hired on, ostensibly, to be a project manager and help Eric with this little web show called “Wingman’s Hangar.” 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. Since there wasn’t 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 “Wingman’s Hangar” 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. What are you most excited to see in Star Citizen/Squadron 42? I am a huge fan of space novels and short stories –stories writ large over the span of the universe and eons of time. Some of my favorite works include Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence and Manifold trilogy, and Poul Anderson’s Harvest of Stars series. I watched Star Trek TOS voraciously as a kid. Although I was never captured by the later Star Trek series – they were too sterile to become emotionally attached – I fell in love with Firefly. I love the familial struggle of those characters. And it is that about which I’m most thrilled for Star Citizen – the chance to connect with my own friends and build a family… IN SPACE! What are you playing right now? Hahahahah. Playing… I’ve 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. 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 ausführliches Interview. Der Hangar wird morgen komplett neu sein, Chris Roberts beantwortet Ihre Fragen zum Feedback im Forum! Wie bist du in der Spieleindustrie gestartet? Ich habe die Spieleentwicklung unterstützt. Verdammt, ich habe auch aus Versehen eine 3D-Animations- und Videoproduktionskarriere begonnen. Nun, vielleicht nicht ganz aus Versehen. Eine der Erfahrungen, die mich zur Spieleentwicklung führten, war ein College-Kurs 1982 in Handzeichnung - yep - Bleistift, gerade Kanten, französische Kurven und Papier. Das veranlasste mich später, mich an eine beiläufig erworbene Kopie von AutoCAD - damals noch 2D - und später 2.5D - zu binden. In den späten 80er Jahren arbeitete ich als Programmierer/Analytiker für CRSS, ein großes Architektur- und Ingenieurbüro 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 persönliche Erkundung nicht unbemerkt. Eines 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. Innerhalb 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 Prüfung und Kommunikation ihrer Entwürfe an unsere Kunden zu unterstützen. Wir haben alles ausprobiert - Fotokomposite, Sonnenlichtstudien, Massenstudien und vollständig detaillierte Durchflüge von fertigen Designs. Im Jahr 1992, als sich der Baumarkt vom Neubau zu Wiederverwendungsprojekten verlagerte, wurde CRSS von der Bargeldkasse überrascht und ging hart zurück. Da es sich bei unserer Abteilung im Wesentlichen um eine F&E- und Nicht-Ertragsmaßnahme handelte, wurde ich entlassen. Es war ein ziemlicher Schock. Also machte ich mich selbstständig als freiberuflicher Animateur. Ich kaufte einen SGI Indigo und Macintosh IIe, erhielt eine kostenlose Kopie von Wavefront und fing an, Logos für Geld zu drehen. 1995 überlegte ich meine Richtung, als ich auf eine Suchanzeige für dieses Unternehmen, Origin Systems, stieß. Anscheinend waren sie ein Spieleentwickler, der nach Animatoren suchte. Ich habe meine VHS-Demorolle übernachtet und wurde am folgenden Nachmittag zu einem Interview eingeladen. Ich führte die übliche 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 Gespräch mit Richard Garriott und dem Art Director Beverly Garland, das am Nachmittag zu einem Angebot führte. Am 25. Februar 1995 begann ich meine Karriere in der Spieleindustrie. An welchen Projekten hast du gearbeitet? Hast du schon mal mit Chris Roberts gearbeitet? Ich habe von'95 bis'01 für Origin Systems gearbeitet. Ich hatte keine Gelegenheit, für Chris zu arbeiten, sondern half bei einer Reihe von Spielen aus. Während ich angeblich für 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 für die diesjährige E3 einen Schießkampf zwischen einem bedrohlichen Mech und einigen gepanzerten Menschen entwickelt und war entschlossen, die Schüsse für das fertige Intro zu verwenden. Also musste ich mich eigentlich mit dieser bestehenden Szene und den aktuellen Grenzen von 3DStudio R4 auseinandersetzen. Neun Entwürfe später hatte ich ein Arbeitsdrehbuch und begann mit der Aufnahme von Voice-Overs, dem Aufbau eines Dopingbogens und dem Parsen von Aufnahmen mit Denis. Das war meine Einführung in die Spieleindustrie. In den folgenden sechs Jahren hatte ich das Glück, einen Kredit für eine Reihe von Spielen zu haben, darunter ein kleines Projekt namens Ultima Online: Kreuzritter: Keine Reue - flic Schriftsteller/Regisseur/Animator Ultima IX: Aufstieg - Fliks, Partikelsystemprogrammierer, Designer, Künstler, Animator Ultima Online (1997) - Intro flic, 3D-Künstler 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 langjährigen Freund Eric Peterson im Fever Pitch an. Wir litten unter einer Reihe von Studio- und Verlagsverträgen, wurden zweimal aufgekauft - Warthog, Gizmondo - bevor 2006 alles implodierte. Glücklicherweise 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. Sechs Jahre später arbeitete Eric mit Chris an einer Spendenaktion für 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!" Was machst du für Cloud Imperium? Ich habe angeblich als Projektmanager eingestellt und Eric bei dieser kleinen Webshow namens "Wingman's Hangar" unterstützt. Anscheinend hatte er sich aus einem Shtick entwickelt, den er während der Spendensammlung gemacht hatte, wo er eine Webkamera im Flur weg vom Hauptkonferenzraum aufstellte und seine eigenen Komödienstücke machte. Eines der Versprechen der Spendenaktion war ein wöchentlicher Webcast über die laufende Spieleentwicklung, und der Hanger war geboren. Da 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 Qualität der Show zu verbessern, indem ich sie von zwei Deks vor einer Webcam mit kaum ein paar Stühlen 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, überführte! Und die Produktion von "Wingman's Hangar" wurde zu meinem Vollzeitjob. Ich schreibe auch alle geskripteten Elemente und leite, drehe und bearbeite alles. Schließlich streame ich die Sendung an den meisten Freitagmorgen. Was freut dich am meisten in Star Citizen/Squadron 42 zu sehen? Ich bin ein großer Fan von Weltraumromanen und Kurzgeschichten - Geschichten, die im Laufe des Universums und der Äonen der Zeit groß geschrieben wurden. Zu meinen Lieblingswerken gehören Stephen Baxters Xeelee Sequence and Manifold Trilogie und Poul Anderson's Harvest of Stars Serie. Ich habe Star Trek TOS als Kind unersättlich beobachtet. Obwohl ich nie von der späteren Star Trek Serie gefangen genommen wurde - sie war zu steril, um emotional verbunden zu werden -, verliebte ich mich in Firefly. Ich liebe den familiären Kampf dieser Charaktere. Und genau darüber freue ich mich am meisten für Star Citizen - die Chance, mich mit meinen eigenen Freunden zu treffen und eine Familie zu gründen.... IN SPACE! Was spielst du gerade? Hahahahahahahahahahah. Spielen.... Ich hatte wenig Zeit für Spiele zwischen dem Verbringen von Zeit mit meiner Fleischraumfamilie, dem Schießen von Kurzformprojekten an den Wochenenden und dem Helfen, die Star Citizen-Geber über unsere herkulischen Bemühungen bei der CIG zu informieren. Aber ich freue mich auf das erste Mal, wenn wir einen Build der Hangar-App testen dürfen und ich zum ersten Mal um meine Aurora herumlaufen kann. Das wird ein schöner Tag. On last week’s Wingman’s Hangar, you met the man behind the camera, Michael Morlan. Michael will be shooting and streaming an all new episode this week, airing tomorrow… and until then, here’s his in-depth interview. The Hangar will be all-new tomorrow, with Chris Roberts answering your forum feedback questions! How did you get started in the game industry? I 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. One of the chain of experiences that lead me towards game development was a 1982 college course in hand drafting – yep – pencil, straight edges, French curves, and paper. That led me, later, to latch onto a casually-acquired copy of AutoCAD – back when it was 2D – and later 2.5D. In the late 80’s, 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’d create spinning logos and play with materials and lighting. Apparently, that personal exploration didn’t go unnoticed. One 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’s Advanced Visualization master’s 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. Within 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 – $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 – photo composites, sunlight studies, massing studies, and fully-detailed fly-throughs of finished designs. In 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. So, 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. In 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 – called the “beauty parade” by interviewing experts – and talked shop with a variety of people from Chris Roberts’ and Warren Spector’s teams. But, it was the lunch-time chat with Richard Garriott and art director, Beverly Garland, that led to an offer that afternoon. On Febuary 25, 1995, I began my career in the game industry. What projects have you worked on? Have you worked with Chris Roberts before? I worked for Origin Systems from ’95 to ’01. I didn’t 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’s 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. That 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: Crusader: No Remorse – flic writer/director/animator Ultima IX: Ascension – flics, particle system programmer, designer, artist, animator Ultima Online (1997) – intro flic, 3D artist Ultima Online: Third Dawn – co-art director with my good friend, Scott Jones Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge – flic* Ultima Online: Age of Shadows – cloth map artist After 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 – Warthog, Gizmondo – 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. Six years later, Eric was working with Chris on a fund-raiser for this game called Star Citizen… or Squadron 42. I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I made the mistake of congratulating Eric when they raise of six-million bucks and his immediate response was, “Dude! I need you!” What are you doing for Cloud Imperium? I hired on, ostensibly, to be a project manager and help Eric with this little web show called “Wingman’s Hangar.” 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. Since there wasn’t 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 “Wingman’s Hangar” 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. What are you most excited to see in Star Citizen/Squadron 42? I am a huge fan of space novels and short stories –stories writ large over the span of the universe and eons of time. Some of my favorite works include Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence and Manifold trilogy, and Poul Anderson’s Harvest of Stars series. I watched Star Trek TOS voraciously as a kid. Although I was never captured by the later Star Trek series – they were too sterile to become emotionally attached – I fell in love with Firefly. I love the familial struggle of those characters. And it is that about which I’m most thrilled for Star Citizen – the chance to connect with my own friends and build a family… IN SPACE! What are you playing right now? Hahahahah. Playing… I’ve 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 ----- No links available. Images ------ 0 No images available. Metadata -------- CIG ID 13139 Channel Undefined Category Undefined Series Meet the team Comments 45 Published 12 years ago (2013-07-11T00:00:00+00:00) [RSI Article](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13139-Meet-Michael-Morlan) [API](https://api.star-citizen.wiki/api/comm-links/13139)