JeffUnay.com

Images on this page are © 2005 Id Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Published and distributed by Activision Publishing, Inc. under license. Developed by Raven Software Corporation. QUAKE and ID are registered trademarks of Id Software, Inc. in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and/or some other countries.

Working at Raven Software on "Quake IV" was my first professional full-time job as a 3d Artist. Before this, I was a computer animation student at Full Sail in Orlando, FL. And before that, I was designing lottery tickets, bus wraps and billboard ads for the Louisiana Lottery. Needless to say, landing a job working on Quake IV was a big deal for me. Raven flew me up for an interview, and all it took for me was to see the designs of Q4 on the walls. "Holy Sh*%!"...I said something like that out loud. They were some of the most detailed characters designs I had ever seen. The bulk of the designs were done by Kevin Long (Art Director) and Mark Nelson (Sr. Concept Artist), and to think I could work with these guys everyday, I just knew they'd teach me a thing or two. I then met Djordje Cakovan. I think Djordje is one of those artist phenomenons. He was previously a concept artist and cell animator and wanted to "try" his hand at modeling. He showed me his very first character that he'd EVER done. I was absolutely blown away...the thing was rediculously beautiful and still holds its own to this very day. You gotta remember, this was before the Zbrush and Mudbox days where everything was done by splitting polygons. Have a look at Dj's site, www.cakovan.com and you'll know what I'm talkin' about.

The best thing about working at Raven was you were viewed as an Artist/3d Modeler....Artist first. So when it came time to create the characters from a concept design, you could work closely with the concept artist and add details where/when necessary. So, in the end, the final characters were designed by both the modeler and the concept artist. Looking back, that was such an awesome working relationship and overall experience...I think I was too green to appreciate it back then.

Some of the characters that I worked on got into the final game while others didn't. And some had a few redesigns after I left. To be completely honest, I'm not exactly sure what percentage of my work ended up in the game. I guess the only way to find out is for me to actually finish playing it :). Hey, it's not easy!