Interview with Women Artists at Presto Studios

Women Artists at Presto Studios

By Darcy Danielson and Jenny Guenther

While at the 2001 E3 in May, JA’s own Darcy and Jenny met up with two of the talented female artists from Presto Studios who worked on Myst III: Exile: Tracy Koering, who did modeling and 3D work on the game, and Kelly Standard, a texture artist. We were able to take a peek into the design of Myst III: Exile from the perspective of two of the women involved in the project.

Kelly and Tracy

We were interested in how these accomplished women became involved in doing computer graphics and game design for a living, a coup many of those aspiring to jobs in the game industry are certainly envious of. Tracy reports that she graduated from college and once out on the job market began to intern. She found that she learned the most from the intern work she did. Later, she applied to Presto and signed on there.

Kelly has been in the industry for four years, an old hand certainly in today’s mercurial gaming job market. With a degree and background in fine arts, she fell into the industry and said that she was very much taken in and helped along the way. She studied color and composition and finds that she uses what she learned every day.

Tracy told JA that she loved the original Myst, and she found that for the most part the artists at Presto liked Myst better than Riven. She explained that one of the interesting aspects to the creation of another Myst title by the Presto team was that the designers tried to take the parts of the earlier titles in the series that people loved and bring these aspects of the franchise in to the new title, in a new way. This gives the game not only a fresh look, but a comfortable feeling of familiarity at the same time.

Edanna, the “life age” as the Presto staff working on it called it during production, featured the clever and realistic natural textures of artist Kelly, who worked as part of the Edanna team under concept designer Ron Lemen. The age itself is designed to be a world as island, contained in a 400-foot-tall, 160-foot-wide garden, with ever-deepening paths, which Kelly was also involved in producing. Kelly tells us that it was thrilling to be able to work on the organic structure of Edanna, and she enjoyed the challenge of making everything in that age look alive.

During production, Kelly encountered a problem unique to Edanna, that of scale. Textures previously used would not work because of the sheer magnificent size of the organic “structures” in the age. Because of this, a texture that looked good up close would not have the right feel to it at a distance of 50 feet. To rectify ths problem, Kelly together with Ron began to gather and create new textures at a prodigious rate, using books and trips to local public gardens to get the correct impression of the natural textures. Kelly brought in and scanned at high resolution what was found, then painted on them using Photoshop.

Together with texture artist James Rochelle, Kelly developed a technique for the texture of the floor inside the buildings at J’Nanin, so that the texture would precisely follow the shape of the room, adding the touches that give this interior area the feeling for the player that he has stumbled into a lived-in yet old room, with dust near the cracks and scuff marks in heavy traffic areas. These delicate touches have given Myst III: Exile the immersive sensation that players have been looking forward to.

Kelly says, “Trying to use computer graphics to made believable plant life has been a huge challenge, but one I grew fond of instantly. I’m not much of a botanist, or even a gardener for that matter, but I feel at home in this age. I try to push things to give them believable variety–I want everything to feel alive.”

We queried both regarding their personal interests and favorites as far as gaming goes and found out that Kelly is not much of a gamer but does enjoy playing a good game of Spyro. Tracy, on the other hand, is more involved in gaming from a player’s point of view, in addition to design. She admits that her all-time favorite is Resident Evil 3, and she finds regular Mario Kart tournaments with her friends a lot of fun. She played Myst when it came out and told us of playing the game straight though one New Year’s Eve, with only a short break to ring in the new year, then back to the immersion in Myst. Tracy said that she found she was regarded with awe by other gamers when word got out that she had signed on to work on the third Myst game.

Each age in Exile was designed using its own set of artists, and so neither Kelly or Tracy had seen the entirety of Myst III upon its completion. As both had worked only in specific areas of the game, both said it was nice for them to be able to explore the other ages of the finished product and play them simply as another gamer experiencing the ages for the first time.

Tracy found that in addition to being on the front lines of a project with a very high profile such as Exile, she was, as a Presto staffer when Exile went gold, in the enviable position of being able to play Myst III with a friend to beta-test it, thereby becoming one of the very first people of the planet to get a taste of the new ages of Myst in their entirety (which certainly had to have elevated her status among her gamer friends, we suspect).

The conversation then turned to general Myst talk. Susan Weyer, Public Relations Manager for Presto Studios, told us that the Exile trailer was showing in UA movie theaters nationwide, in what must be a first in adventure game marketing.

And as a point of pride to the people that had put their all into this latest incarnation of Myst, Susan, Tracy, and Kelly told us that on receiving and playing the final product, the feedback they received from Cyan (original developers of Myst and Riven) was very positive–Cyan said they felt at home in the Myst worlds that Presto had created, which was the highest of compliments to the Presto team.

We found Kelly and Tracy to be extremely lively and fun, and their exuberance and style is certainly evident in the beautiful worlds they helped create.