The Hauntingly Beautiful UI of D-PARC
8 Circuit Studios Developer Journal — Oct 25, 2017
This week we’re giving you a sneak peek at the user interface (UI) that has been designed for our game, D-PARC, by the talented Bruno William. D-PARC, a game about deep space survival, is the first game from 8 Circuit Studios. Currently in pre-alpha development, D-PARC features the first Smart Game Objects providing true ownership for to players for the first time.
The team of 8 Circuit Studios emulates the blockchain in that we are a distributed team, even if we don’t all have the same information. Most of the team resides in the United States, but we have several team members outside the country. Having a team that operates around the world is just one of the reasons the blockchain and cryptocurrencies resonate so strongly with us. Anything that makes it easier to collaborate and interact with talented people anywhere in the world is likely to help bring out the best.
Bruno, our UI artist, lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Bruno is a native of Brazil and works in graphic design for movies, television and video games.
Bruno answered a few questions about himself so that we could all have the opportunity to get to know more about him while we enjoy browsing his work.
8 Circuit Studios: How would you describe your style?
Bruno William: I really don’t know if I have a style, when I was just getting started I was looking for my UI heroes like Jayse Hansen, Ash Thorp, Alan Torres, Nicolas Lopardo, Davison Carvalho and many many many others, but those are people that inspired me on the very beginning and still inspiring me to keep going. I’ve was always been influenced by music as well as the horror and sci-fi genres. Consequently films like Alien by Ridley Scott, Terminator, etc., really impacted me. I try to absorb as much as I can and at the end of the day everything mixes.
8CS: Did you make a decision to start designing UI or did it find you?
BW: I’ve always been a curious kid. At some point of my life, like 5 years ago, I was trying to find my place on that universe ( cue dramatic violin ). So my main source of ‘’education’’ and learning was the internet. I was experimenting with a lot of things like 3D, digital sculpting, animation, design, etc. I found some UI work for film, and it progressed from there.
8CS: What are some of the benefits and challenges of working remote?
BW: The benefits of working remotely is you can make your schedule based on the time of the day or night you are at your most productive. The challenge is to keeping the pace and discipline. It is very easy to get distracted and, depending on the project or product that you are working on, the distance and the communication can be a little complicated. But if we keep focused and disciplined this is not a problem.
8CS: Do you have any advice for anyone who’s interested in doing this type of work? How to get started, find work, etc?
BW: When I was just getting started, it was not easy at all, in Brazil a lot of things are very expensive, so my main resources was the Internet, free tutorials.
I was very criticized on the past; I heard a lot that this wasn’t a job, because it is very specific role and people didn’t understand it. If you are going through a rough time and if you want to pursue a career, believe in what you are doing, don’t let people discourage you. Find people from the industry as an example and motivation to reach your goals, dedicate yourself to it, work hard and things will happen.
People who want to pursuit a career in UI for film or games. Do your own thing, be surrounded by people that want the same thing and have more experience doing that.
- Have a solid understanding of graphic design fundamentals.
- Focus on personal projects, think about a theme or story and build your work based on that. Do the type work you would love to do for a client.
- Practice, fail, practice fail, practice… and fail again. Learn the ‘’art of dying’’, we just grow at these moments, keep working.
- Do it, share on internet and repeat.
- Try new things, study, explore, stay curious and be patient, it take some time. Try to avoid to ‘’mimic’’ the trending UI work from other artists.
- Your portfolio is your main weapon to get opportunities, keep it up to date and dont hesitate to delete old stuff, this need to reflect your actual skill set. 3 good pieces is better than 10 bad pieces.
- Keep in touch, talk to people on the industry, network is important.
- Be passionate, be nice, always learn and stay humble.
We have a amazing resources to people who wants to know more about this type of work and I highly recommend:
• Jayse Hansen (Iron Man, Star Wars and etc), have a newsletter on his website where they share a lot of behind the scenes and hot tips about UI and Fictional UI.
• Learn Squared, a online platform with a bunch of courses from the top artists in the industry.
• FUI Book from Jono Yuen it’s a very good resource to have a overall idea of the process and ‘’How To’’ with a lot of insights from people of the industry. ( And his blog HUDS + GUIS, a place where you can find the most creative and interesting examples of UI design).
• Cineversity ( FUI Series from Perception team).
If you search for UI for film / games or FUI on google, we can find a lot of tips and resources as well.
And of course, people can drop me a line on my email and I will do my best to help them, always learning and trying new things.
To see more of Bruno’s work you can check out his portfolio at http://bruwilliam.com. And you can follow Bruno on Twitter @_bruwilliam.
As always, we want you to join in the fun. We love our fans and people who are passionate about the game industry. Follow along with 8 Circuit Studios in all the following ways.
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Join Our Development Community Discussion
Join our Developer Community on Slack. Here we will be discussing the creation of Smart Game Objects, partnering with other game developers, and extending the platform to create a new gaming ecosystems.
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