Meet a Liquid Swords Technical Artist

Tech and art may paint a picture of different worlds, but thanks to people like Elias Wickmark, they create one beautiful landscape. We sat down with our resident Technical Artist to talk about tools, teamwork, and taking the time to teach yourself new skills.

I've been working as a technical artist for about eight years now in total, and I've been modding games since I was twelve, everything from The Sims, Minecraft, a bit of Fortnite, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, and Skyrim. So I've been poking and prodding at games for about 17 years now.

It’s a bit of an umbrella term, but one way to look at is by comparing it to the term “doctor”. You might be working in a medicinal lab, or as a surgeon or a dentist, or you could be prescribing medication. Technical artists also have a wide range; the term combines a lot of jobs under one title. You can work with anything from animation and rigging on a more technical level, to visual effects, shaders, tools, content management, and procedural content creation. I also think AI is going to be a big part of our work in the future, adding another role to the list.

The work I do at Liquid Swords mainly involves tools. I create scripts and automation systems for artists that help them do less monotonous work. They can focus on all the fun stuff when they have tools that speed up their workflow.

Very much so. Modding is the reason I started working as a technical artist. It’s a great way to start because modding usually requires tools that are made by other people and not a studio. There's a lot of tweaking and figuring out how things work for each individual game because each game is unique in and of itself. That's very much the way technical artists work. They need to figure out good ways of working, which could involve making your own tools, just like in modding.

A little bit of both. I have a lot of ideas that generate tools, but the artists at Liquid Swords have come up with so much great input and requests. There are a lot of veterans at the studio, so most people have experience outside of their roles. The wider perspective they come with has allowed us to create some really useful tools together.

Usually, you have a backlog of tasks, and typically, new things and problems will arise during the course of the day that force you to deviate from that backlog. This could involve fixing something or getting tricky content into the game. Say you need to replace some content that’s already in the game. You’ll want to do that quickly and preferably avoid selecting each individual mesh you want to replace. You need a small tool for that, which is where I come in.

I’ve worked at larger studios that publish their own games and work in their own engine, which will require a much bigger team. Working as a technical artist on a proprietary engine is vastly different from working in Unreal, mainly because of the access to information. There are so many resources for Unreal available online, which saves you the time you would spend searching through source code.

It's very different from company to company. At Liquid Swords, we work as an intricate team. If issues arise or feedback is needed, we usually walk over to someone's desk and talk about what the problems are and how we can solve them. The work is very interactive when a lot of people work so closely together, but at some companies, you could be working alone for months. I prefer being very involved and having a direct dialogue and open communication with the rest of the studio, it’s the best way for me to understand and get feedback on my own work.

The scale of the studio will impact your experience and the knowledge you gain. Some teams will be more independent, and others completely integrated. If you’re interested in a career in technical art, you need to figure out which way of working you prefer. Do you work better with others or on your own? Smaller teams tend to need a more versatile technical artist who can be closely involved in various projects. If you work in a larger team, then you might focus on the one and only thing, like fixing hair in the game for three years and making sure it looks impeccable.

Ask a lot of questions. It was one of the first things I learned. Riot Games put out a video about technical arts a few years ago. In it, they state that the best question to ask an artist is, “What are you trying to do?” This generates a lot more answers than trying to find a solution to a specific problem. In the video, they use the example of an artist working on a fish game. That artist approaches you and asks you how to remove the water. I could remove the water, but if I ask them what they’re trying to do I’ll discover that they want to count all the fish, which is something I could solve by creating a tool and save the artist the time of counting each individual fish.

In turn, not asking any questions. And on that same theme, being clear in your communication is key. Technical art lives between programming and art, so you need to be clear with your managers about what you can and cannot do since you might be handed work that leans too much into either area. Being vocal about your boundaries and restrictions still allows you to say that you can take a look at something, but with a set expectation that it will take longer than if an artist or programmer takes on the task.

It’s a very complex topic. AI can already write code, and now it can also create art, but it’s not really there yet when it comes to making 3d models. In the work I do, I use AI to write up documentation but mainly to help with code. As a technical artist, you’re always poking around in different types of code, it could be C#, C++, Java, or Python – whatever it is, each code language has its own requirements and functions. I used to go through different websites to find good code practices, but now AI helps me switch between them by generating code for each specific language.

It won’t change very drastically. We’ll always have a backlog of stuff we want to do so that part will stay the same. Some of the tools I’m making right now could be used in other games that we might make in the future. Others will need to be refurbished or adapted to different situations.

Start learning. Teaching yourself new skills shows both the world and yourself that you’re a disciplined person. One way to do this is by modding other games. If you have Steam, look through your game library for your favorites and then go to the Workshop page to see if there are any mods available. If there are, there’s a high chance that there are tools available for you to make your own mods for that game. Keep in mind that some games are easier to mod than others. The more mods a game has, there’s a higher chance that it’s easy to mod. Skyrim is a good place to start, Fortnite is very accessible as well, Counter-Strike has a lot more level art, and look to Minecraft and The Sims for a more technical challenge.

You don’t need to learn everything, but pick one or two that you’re proficient in, like Tools and Shaders or VFX and procedural content. This is a great place to start if you want to get into the gaming industry. If you’ve modded Minecraft, you’ve learned how to program in Java. If you’ve modded The Sims, you’ve learned how to use Blender. There are plenty of tutorials online for both programs, and it might not be very easy, but it is doable. Reaching these goals means you’ve created your content as well as integrated it, which means you’ve covered both the art and technical areas of the role. Keep track of your ideas for how to improve the tools you’re working with, and then expand upon that.

Thank you, Elias, for sharing your experience as a Technical Artist!

In an already creative industry, modding takes it to a whole new level. The next time you’re playing a game, take a moment to think about how you would alter it. And maybe, you’ll even draw inspiration from Elias and give the practice of it a whirl.

If you want to learn more about the work Liquid Swords is doing, read our interview with the Audio Team and the reasons behind working in Unreal Engine 5!