Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Interview

MMORPG.com has conducted an interview with Funcom’s Didrik Tollefsen to learn more about the art director’s role on Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

Q: What is your job at Funcom? How did you get your foot in the door?

A: My first assignment for Funcom was back in 1993, I think. Funcom had just gotten started and I was doing freelance work for them. I did acrylics on paperboards that they scanned and used as splash pages between levels in an action RPG for one of the first 3D consoles. The no short of stunning, 3DO! The project they where currently working on had obvious similarities to the Conan universe, except the hero was swapped for a strong blond, kindhearted, Norwegian Viking with an itch for high adventure. The game director of that project, Gaute Godager (who is now the game director on Age of Conan — only some 12 years later) liked my paintings, and they hired me a few months later. Not as a painter, though. Gaute asked me if I could do 3D animation, and I had actually done some brief tinkering in 3D Studio version 1.0, but was far from professional. But I kept going at it, and went completely wild with the 60-80 polygons we could spend on each character. Need I add that the project was canned? That cruel faith that strikes at least 50% of all projects in this industry, I guess. Valuable experience, though, every time. As the years and projects went by I had done everything from concept work to 3D modeling, texturing and more animation. I had seen some strange production pipelines, and really felt we could do better, so when the position for Art Director was announced, I took a shot at it and I’ve done that since 96.