Lacoste, Raphael (Electronic Arts Montreal)

Thema: "Environment Art Direction on AAA video games"

Raphael Lacoste is a Senior Art Director.

Raphael was the Art Director at Ubisoft on such titles as Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed, winning a VES Award in February 2006 for his work on the “Two Thrones” cut scene from Prince of Persia.

Wanting to challenge himself in the film industry, Raphael stepped away from the game industry to work as a Matte Painter and Senior Concept Artist on such feature films as: Terminator Salvation, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Death Race, and Repo Men.

As of 2009, Raphael has returned to the video game industry, working as a Senior Art Director for Electronic Arts and now Ubisoft.

Summary of presentation:

In the current generation of videogames, there is a lot of competition on visual quality and there is no room for below average graphics. We will focus on how to set up art direction in AAA games, gather inspiration and references to build an immersive universe within the gameplay contraints.

Working on Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Assassin's Creed, the environments were fully interactive so there was no room for improvisation. We will see how it was challenging as an art director to keep strong visuals in these cases. We will also have an overview of how classical art and other art forms can still be a great source of inspiration for next generation videogame art.