Video game artist Nate Davis specializes in special effects and has been in the designing industry for the past 12 years. Currently, Davis works for an independent studio called Play Mechanics, a studio owned by Raw Thrills.

Davis’ workshop consisted of visual demonstrations of video games he has created and worked on. First, he showed students a montage of cutscenes he created for video games. Throughout the years, Davis has had opportunities to work on recognizable games such as Angry Birds, MotoGP, Walking Dead and Ghostbusters.

Furthermore, Davis interacted with students by asking what they were interested in in their future careers. While some students found themselves not wanting to make a career out of hobbies, many were interested in a careers in game design and others held an interest in programming.

Davis also incorporated in his workshop how he develops ideas and images for each game.

“I use storyboards for my inspirations,” Davis said. “It’s made in a combination of 3D, photoshop and digital painting.”

Davis detailed the large amount of time required to dedicate to the creation of the video game. His process begins with storyboards for the entire game and once the whole team agreed on those, the project would move into production. Along with the creation of the game, the making of cutscenes and cutlines are also a timely process. Cutlines typically are not created until the game is close to done. It takes Davis almost five months to plan out cutscenes and about three years in total for an entire game. Then Davis showed students a video of the layers of what goes into effect.

Finally, Davis opened up the floor to a Q&A from the students. Davis brought his experience and knowledge of video games to the table for the students’ interests and questions.