Tech Artist Kaley Cho Offers 3D Creation Tool Advice from the Frontlines with WDI, Getty & Sony
“At the rapidly evolving intersection of entertainment, art and programming, teamwork and collaboration is key — as I believe that the biggest strength of humans is the ability to cooperate on a large scale.”
To introduce myself, Kaley Cho, I love working in the immersive world of entertainment as a Technical Artist, creating computer generated simulations, artist tools and real-time graphics for films, projection mapping, virtual reality, games and installations. It’s an incredibly exciting field where you have to stay updated with the latest trends and technologies in graphics and game engines to deliver next-gen graphics to customers. It’s also a field where cooperation between diversely skilled people is essential.
In the past, I’ve been fortunate to work my Technical Artist expertise for entertainment giants Walt Disney Imagineering and Sony, and also the eminent Getty Museum, applying 3D animation, projection mapping, and real-time technology to the projects. My background in 3D animation and programming contributed to these projects by assessing the quality of the 3D assets to prevent any future issues and creating complex animations and interactivity that can only be achieved with both scripting and artistic knowledge.
My unique skillset, which bridges technology and art, was forged by growing up with two seemingly diverse people: my mother became an art teacher/designer; while my father studied computer science. That combination of influences inspired me. Now, I see similarities. For example, art and science both require problem solving and also the creativity to come up with different solutions or techniques. You can see the power of the connection between art and science when you look at the work of artistic and scientific genius Leonardo da Vinci. He had great understanding in anatomy and engineering, which enabled him to design and draw wondrous inventions.
Since I work and create at the intersection of art and programming, under the flashing LED sign of “immersive entertainment,” this skillset is in demand because programmers usually don’t have much knowledge of how an art asset should react to player interaction. And, artists don’t have the technical knowledge to make their art assets interactable. So, this is where a tech artist like myself comes in to add interactivity and/or optimize art assets.
I was drawn into film and computer graphics after watching the award-winning and massively entertaining movie Avatar by innovative and cutting-edge director James Cameron. Now, along the way, I have earned recognition from the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. I have also been part of the VFX Design team that was honored with a “prestigious industry Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement — Attraction in 2024” for the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, a thrilling enclosed roller coaster ride at Walt Disney World. To underscore the importance of teamwork, we also earned a nomination for a VES Award for outstanding visual effects in a special venue project, for that project. And, even if I am nominated for the Forbes 30 under 30 in the next few years, it will be because of teamwork.
This recognition results from cooperation between different disciplines which is crucial to create new interactive and immersive experiences. In effect, professionals nowadays have very specialized knowledge but a single person can’t retain information of all disciplines due to the increasing complexity in technology. Innovation in interactive media wouldn’t be possible without the collaboration among the engineers, artists, designers, producers, and leadership.
Recently, I have been working with giant live entertainment companies, like Sphere Entertainment, a division of MSG, and which launched the Las Vegas Sphere. At Sphere, I was part of the department that focused on interactive experiences. Today, live entertainment companies like this feature mind-blowing and immersive experiences that blur the lines between reality and fantasy. As a result, I see how the whole universe of storytelling is being redefined.
One of the major tools we use today is “Unreal Engine,” an advanced real-time creation tool. We use this remarkably efficient tool to create interactive real-time experiences, which requires that unique combination of both programming and artistic knowledge.
Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability, and users have the ability to create virtual worlds, and do it across different platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows, PlayStation, and Xbox. UE comes with many frameworks that simplifies the process for creating next-gen computer graphics.
Unreal Engine is heavily used in the entertainment industry for interactive experiences nowadays. I would say it’s the most popular tool out there, and some notable games/entertainment created with UE include Fortnite, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Mandalorian, and Love, Death & Robots.
While Autodesk Maya and Blender are also commonly used 3D applications, UE is open source and free to use for businesses with under $1 million USD in revenue.
So, I have some basic suggestions and tips for new users of a wonderful creation tool like Unreal Engine: do take the time to familiarize yourself with UE’s core concepts such as Blueprints, C++, and the editor interface; do implement a version control system like Git or Perforce, which helps manage changes, collaboration with team members, and also safeguards your project against data loss; if working on a game, do start optimizing it early in development; do explore the Unreal Marketplace for assets, plugins, and tools; do make use of the extensive Unreal Engine community forums, as they are valuable resources for troubleshooting; do keep your engine version and plugins regularly updated.
To conclude, I’m passionate about real-time graphics and immersive media. And, problem-solving skills and innovative thinking is a must when it comes to creating interactive content. That’s one of my strengths — with my diverse arsenal of software skills (3D animation tools, game engines, Adobe products, etc.), give me a problem to solve, a challenge to overcome, and let’s create some interactive magic.
Drop in on Kaley Cho’s website and her demo reel, Also check out her LinkedIn, Vimeo and Instagram pages.
