The CWB Association Welding Podcast
The CWB Association Welding Podcast
Skills Canada Series -Season 2- Episode 16 with Brooke Potiuk
The CWB Association has had the honor of working with Skills/Compétences Canada on a special Podcast Series interviewing WorldSkills Team Canada 2024 competitors and experts from across Canada to share their skills journey. Join us as we learn about their skills, celebrate their success, and cheer for our Team Canada as they compete on the world stage in Lyon, France on September 10-15, 2024.
Brooke Potiuk takes us through her mesmerizing journey from 2D illustrations to becoming a 3D Digital Game Art contender in Quebec and about the vital soft skills she's developed along the way which have been crucial in high-pressure competition environments. Brooke's story demonstrates the evolution of an artist's craft, through the intricate processes of creating visually stunning art for video games. You'll gain an inside look at what it takes to create compelling concept art and detailed 3D models that align with industry standards.
Follow Skills/Compétences Canada:
Website: https://www.skillscompetencescanada.com/en/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SkillsCanadaOfficial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skillscompetencescanada/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/skills_canada
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skillscanada
There is no better time to be a member! The CWB Association membership is new, improved, and focused on you. We offer a FREE membership with a full suite of benefits to build your career, stay informed, and support the Canadian welding industry. https://www.cwbgroup.org/association/become-a-member
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All right, I can check. Check, I'm good. So I'm Max Duran. I'm Max Duran, I'm the CWB Association Welding Podcast, pod pod podcast. Today we have a really cool guest welding podcast. The show is about to begin. Hello and welcome to another edition of the CWB Association podcast. In our special collaboration with Skills Canada Competencies, here on our podcast, what we have been doing is recording people from Team Canada throughout the weeks of Quebec Skills at the national conference there and competition, and now we are wrapping up, trying to round out the team and get everyone in. And today we have brooke pachuk coming to us from bc. She is part of the 3d digital gaming art category. Brooke, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing good, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good, so are you in in BC right now?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am.
Speaker 1:And where do you call home?
Speaker 2:Vancouver North Van.
Speaker 1:North Van. So have you lived in your whole life in North Van? How did you end up in North Van?
Speaker 2:I'm going to school here. I grew up in Alberta.
Speaker 1:Oh, in Alberta. Where'd you grow up, brooks?
Speaker 2:Is that why your name Brooke is it? I hope not. Did you ever ask anybody? Yeah, no, that's not why they named me that just a coincidence.
Speaker 1:So are you out in vancouver uh north van by yourself for school, or did you move out there like it's a permanent thing? Now not sure if it's permanent yet, I'm just here for post-secondary.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I didn't move out by myself. It's a permanent thing. Now not sure if it's permanent yet. I'm just here for post-secondary.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I didn't move out by myself okay, and did you compete for the, the 3d digital gaming art um, for bc or for alberta? For alberta you're the alberta winner then so yeah, let's, uh, let's explain to the people listening first of of all what it is that you do. What is the category of 3D digital game art?
Speaker 2:So 3D digital game art basically follows the pipeline of what it would be in the industry. So it's just creating art for games, the kind of stuff you would see in video games, so like characters, props, all that stuff. So it starts out. Do you want me to go through the modules?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm curious it starts out with concept art, so they'll give you a design brief of some sort and you have to create. It's been a character, it's been props, weapons, something like that. So you have to design it, um, like front, back view silhouette, just basically laying out what you're going to model, and then the next module will be 3d modeling.
Speaker 1:It's sometimes the same concepts that they use for module one sometimes they give you a fresh concept and you just have to model whatever they ask and then and then in the category, this is like, this is the competition, they're like, hey, this is this, make it happen. Um, or is this kind of like? How school works, too is kind of like along the same basis of what you take in school it's a little bit different um in school.
Speaker 2:I went to school to be a character artist, so I just focus on mostly sculpting and texturing that kind of stuff but yeah and then the competition.
Speaker 1:You don't know what you got to build, and then how much time they give you to build it um, I think in france each module is three hours or five hours, not quite sure maybe is that enough, or is that pretty rushed?
Speaker 1:it's a little bit tight, but so for you know gaming has come along a long way and there's a huge industry behind the gaming world. I'm a I'm a gamer myself. I game every day. It's part of my life since I was a kid. I love hearing people be like don't play video games, it'll ruin your life. I've played video games my whole life. I'm awesome, and all the people that I know in the industry are doing really, really well. I have a friend of mine who just won um an award for sound engineering for the calisto project video game that was released last year, and he's one of the head audio ums for video games. He worked for Blizzard and the EA. Now he's down in the States and making crazy money doing awesome stuff, which I'm super jelly of. Is that kind of where you hope your career goes? You're looking to get on with a team and do the mainstream video games, or are you doing the indie scene, because there's a lot of great indie games out there too that have some great developers behind them?
Speaker 2:I would hope to get on a team eventually. Um, maybe like riot, or I've been looking at larian studios the creators of balder's gate. I think that's really cool as well. But yeah, I think any sort of studio I would have a blast at what's your?
Speaker 1:what's your favorite type of genre of game like? When you're sitting around doodling in your head or trying to, you know, come up with characters and what they look like. Because it's video games you, the world is your oyster, you can build whatever you want. What's the kind of stuff you usually gravitate towards?
Speaker 2:I really like stylized to begin with um something like arcane, have you seen? That league of legends uh, valorant, dishonored. I really love the sort of like stylized look um, I don't play a ton of video games myself, but stuff like that maybe like survival games, sort of like last of us, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:So if you don't play a lot of video games, how did you end up in this field, like, just as an artist? Just you're looking for a way to express art, or yeah, I started in high school.
Speaker 2:I ended up in a um, an options class, or I started out doing 2d art and then we had a presentation one day from Noman, which is a 3d art school down in the States, and I decided I wanted to switch to 3d and I just the pipeline ended up. Learning was the games pipeline and I don't know I just think game art is really cool. It's really nice to get something like game ready and actually see it like you know move and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm move and stuff like that. So, yeah, now I'm old, all right. So in back in the day when I took a coding for for for computers to do game art, you had to individually draw every frame of every perspective that you wanted it to be shown in. So if you're going 3d and you'd have to come up with probably at least 16 angles of it top, bottom side, front, back and then the intermediates so that it had some semblance of rotation when the character was moving around, so it didn't look too blocky, just like front side, front side. You know, now in the world of gaming it's not like that anymore, is it?
Speaker 1:no how do you let's say you wanted to make a toaster? How do you make a toaster like? How many versions of that toaster need to exist, or is it just one fully modeled toaster thing?
Speaker 2:um, for most it would just be well. For, yeah, it would be just one. You just model it in like a 3d space, like a maya blender, something like that yeah and then you would um like unwrap it, texture it, stuff like that, and then what happens to it?
Speaker 1:how does it get into a game? How can the other characters interact with it or know that it's there like?
Speaker 2:um, I'm not too big on the actual like game design part, but it would go into an engine like unreal or unity and it's just placed in there as a 3d object. You would turn on collision, I believe, so they could interact with it. Um, yeah, I don't know the game designs. Yeah, so for you.
Speaker 1:You know when you're in school. You said you started with 2d art in high school you decide to get into the 3d art, you go down to the states, you come back and you're like I'm inspired to do this. Uh, how did you did? Was there a program you had to sign up for in school? How did you follow that? How did you start pursuing that dream?
Speaker 2:um, I stayed in the options class I was in. I had a really amazing high school teacher who I'm still in contact with him. He's my trainer for skills now, but I was in his class and he's created a program that is kind of like a mini version of what I'm doing in post-secondary now. So he taught us 3D game art and then I ended up enrolling in Think Tank Training Center, which is where I'm going now.
Speaker 1:And what is the Think Tank Training Center?
Speaker 2:tank training center, which is where I'm going now. And what is the think tank training center? That's the just the name of the school, but it's a uh 3d art school. Basically they teach the pipeline for uh games and film animation, um rigging, character art, environment art.
Speaker 1:You know all of it that's a pretty cool name, think tank.
Speaker 2:It is yeah.
Speaker 1:Do people question you when you're like I go to Think Tank school and they're like yeah, yeah right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, always.
Speaker 1:So for you to get into this program now you're at Think Tank. How long is your course there? Do you come up with a degree or a certificate? How does it work?
Speaker 2:It's 16 months, so I started in October and I go straight through till February and I'll have a diploma once I'm done and a demo reel, which is what we need to get a job mostly start getting those portfolios built up for.
Speaker 1:For looking for work, is there like a co-op program or anything where you can go like work for a developer for a little bit and get some experience, or anything like that uh, not that I know of no no. So now in the skills world. You know, did you get into skills in high school when with that first instructor, or is it something that came up to you like post-secondary wise?
Speaker 2:I got into it in high school with that teacher.
Speaker 1:Grade 12 in grade 12? And how did you do brook from brooks alberta in your first year?
Speaker 2:uh, competing for alberta uh, good, well, that's the only year that I was competing, so we did go to provincials and I got first, and then we went to nationals, um, where I did not place first but the place third, but because of, like, the age category and stuff, I got selected so you're the.
Speaker 1:You're the right age for world. Everyone was too old, yeah so okay, then I'll take it yeah, I don't know for sure, man, the rules are the rules, and you know, and last year it was in winnipeg right?
Speaker 1:so you were. You were in winnipeg and you get third. Okay, so that means that two people get up on that stage in front of you. Did you think at that point like, yeah, I got third at the end of my travel, I'm done, I I'm. You know, you're proud of yourself. Third's not easy. And or did you think, hmm, I wonder if I'll still get to Leon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I did not expect it at all. Second place was originally supposed to go, but I'm not entirely sure what happened. But I got a call like a month later saying that I was going to be on Team Canada, so that was a huge surprise.
Speaker 1:Wow, how did you feel about that?
Speaker 2:I couldn't believe it, but my family and my teacher had known before I did so. I was getting like congratulation messages before I knew what was happening how did your parents know, how'd your family know before you?
Speaker 1:my teacher texted them, I'm assuming oh, just letting the beans out of the bag yep so now you find out that you're going to worlds in lyon, france, for your category to represent the country. How did you feel as soon as you found out? Uh, stressed honestly I was just thinking about all the work ahead of you yeah, I was very anxious at the time.
Speaker 1:I hadn't done a lot of travel at that point either, so but yeah, well, you went to China, didn't you a part as a part of a mini competition yes, I did and how'd you do there?
Speaker 1:um, I didn't place, but I got a certificate of excellence something like that, yeah, so it was really amazing there how did you feel, going on to the global scale like that for the first time, to see like that competition from you know, across the pond and in other places, you know? Were you really nervous? Do you feel like you could have done better? Or or were you like, wow, this is just, this is nuts um, I definitely could have done better.
Speaker 2:There was some issues that I encountered during the competition which I think really set me back, but, um, I'm pretty happy with how I did and, yeah, they did a really good job at not making it too stressful. We got to like hang out with the other competitors beforehand.
Speaker 1:They took us like sightseeing and stuff like that, so it was ended up being really nice and what are the couple things that really do set you back in this competition, like, as a judge, what are the pieces that make it or break it for a piece of art that gets turned in?
Speaker 2:um, well, there's a lot of different like measurement points and stuff like that, so it's just some small things that I had missed. Like I don't know, maybe in concept art you have to like add a height reference, something like that. I think what had happened in that competition is, during the animation module, you have to rig the character which is where you basically put bones in it so that you can move it when it goes into the game engine and we were using a new version of Blender that.
Speaker 2:I hadn't used yet, and there was a bug in it that I didn't know about, so I couldn't get the rig to work and I had to switch over to Maya, which I wasn't entirely sure how to rig in, and I just had to like figure it out as I went.
Speaker 1:But did you submit a character that had no bones and it was all just like jelly on the floor? No, I did get the animation done, yeah now, when you, you, when you go to this competition, you know you're getting ready now for worlds. And well, how do you prepare for that? What's the process for you now for the next? You know, six months as you get ready to leave, and well, not even one time. We're in june, july, oh, you're like three months away, man what do?
Speaker 2:you do for the next three months to get ready for for the competition well, a lot of what I learned in school um is like directly transferable to skills so I have a lot of school work also, so I'm doing that most of the time.
Speaker 2:But, um, if I ever need help with anything like animation, I'm not an animator, but if I ever want to know animation, you know, for skills, I have lots of people at school that will help me with that, and we've created a checklist of everything left that I want to work on before then. So I'm just going through that on my days off and making sure I got everything covered and are you practicing like on your own time?
Speaker 1:Do you have sponsors? Like does someone buy your computer for you? Like how does any of this work for a competitor? Because you know some of the trades and skills that go to competitions require a significant investment of tools and stuff. Are you in that same category? Do you get like a really hopped up computer or is there like a standard system you have to use for for the competition?
Speaker 2:uh, I'm just using my own computer here, but, um, we do have a skills budget, I think, if I needed anything.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I've just been using my home computer and when you get to the competition, is that how it works for everybody? Everybody just has their own computer. They walk in, unplug it in and give her uh no, they'll have computers there for us oh so. So there'll also be a little bit of a curve as to that computer. Do you get time?
Speaker 2:to set it up before the competition starts yeah, I believe so.
Speaker 1:What's the thing you're dreading most in Leon? What's the thing that you're like? Oh man, I hope this doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:Hope it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:Doesn't happen.
Speaker 2:Technical issues.
Speaker 1:Like your computer, just blowing up yeah. I had a couple crashes in china, so that was stressful oh, man, yeah, and, and you hope that if there is a bug, to be fair, everyone has the same bug. You hope it's not just you being like. Why am I the one having this issue?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'll be bad.
Speaker 1:What about, in terms of the travel and the relationships and the time and the jet lag, all those other accommodation related things? Are you good with that? Are you good with the travel? Are you good with the time differences?
Speaker 2:I think so. Yeah, it didn't bother me at all when we got to China, which was quite strange, but I'm not sure what the time?
Speaker 1:difference is in France, but I think we do get a day or two to adjust before the competition starts, so it should be good who are your best friends on the team, who are the people in the in your team canada group, because you've, guys, gotten to meet a few times now and and you know there's always like people that you start becoming like, like comrades with right. Who's rooting for you on your side of the fence there for Team Canada?
Speaker 2:Angie in fashion technology. If you've interviewed her, yet I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, yeah. So you got her behind you, being like you're good, you're good.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah we're all pretty much friends. It's a really good team.
Speaker 1:It did seem like a good team and everyone's young. Like you know, when you get in provincials and nationals it's like a lot of age differences because there's not as many age restrictions with the, with the, with the groups, until you get to worlds, and I heard some of the world's pieces or competitions even have adjusted their ages in different directions for you in your group. Is it 21 or 23? What's the max age out?
Speaker 2:uh, I think it's 23 and how old are you?
Speaker 1:sure 19 so technically you could go to worlds twice. Are you allowed to?
Speaker 2:no, you're only allowed to attend once. Like you got lots of time, you could go to worlds twice are you allowed to.
Speaker 1:No, you're only allowed to attend once. Like you got lots of time, you could do this again. Yeah, sadly no and you know, after your trip to china and after you know this work and you're still going to school full-time like you still got like full-time course load doing this off the side of your desk, which the countries out there that are really kicking butt, they don't do that.
Speaker 1:They like just practice skills for like a year. Do you feel like you got a pretty good chance? Like are you? Are you aiming for a top three? Are you aiming for number one? Like, don't be shy. Like what do you? What do you think you got?
Speaker 2:uh, I'm aiming for. I forget what it's called, but if you score over a certain amount of points, it's like a medal of excellence. Yes, yes, that I'm aiming for, for sure. I'm not sure if I'll place. Like you said, I'm doing a lot of school at the moment, so I wish I had more time to focus on skills, and there's some countries that are just crazy about it. So, yeah, we'll place where we place.
Speaker 1:I guess, how's your school supporting you in this? Are they pretty cool with you having to set a time aside for this, are they like doesn't matter if you're going for skills or not?
Speaker 2:schools, school yeah, no, they're super understanding about it. I got um excused from assignments when I went to china. Um, they know about it. They've said that if I ever need anyone to help me with anything, they can set me up with mentors that will teach me anything I need, so they're super cool about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hopefully that type of networking you have really supports you to succeed, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Now, because this is a skills, you know, competition we got to discuss, like how the skills aspect of it has changed your life right. So for you, as a young person coming up who probably was always very artistic, what are some of the skills that you had to really start to develop in order to do like the competitions, in order to, you know, think about it in this format where you're competing with other people in other provinces now around the world. What skills did you really have to pick up that you may not have had before?
Speaker 2:time management, for sure, is a huge one when it comes to making art, you know you just want to continue working on it forever and there's a million things you want to fix.
Speaker 2:But um I definitely struggle with that at uh, provincials and nationals, but I'm getting better at. You know, sometimes you just you just got to move on and that's something that's really hard for me. And, um, stress management as well. It's a pretty stressful environment. You know you're working, there's people walking around, they're watching what you're doing, it's loud, you're on an unfamiliar computer. You don't know what you're making until you get there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, strangers with cell phones like right in your face recording you. That bother you or can you tune it out?
Speaker 2:a little bit. Um, I try to tune it out, though, yeah it's got to be hard.
Speaker 1:You have all these people watching and they're like watching your screen as you're typing and doing things. Are you hoping you get one of the like little cubicles closer to the middle so you're not so close to the edge where people can poke around? Yeah, for sure and what about um like, is it a big, you know uh grouping that you're in? Is there lots of people that that compete in the gaming area or the 3d art?
Speaker 2:um, I don't think it's as popular as some of the other ones, but I'm not sure how many there will be, maybe like 20, something like that not entirely sure so in your, in your personal life.
Speaker 1:It's like you had to learn these things to help you with skills. Have these skills in in on the other side of it, looking the other way of the skills you picked up with this journey helped you in your personal life. You know what are the skills.
Speaker 2:Be a better brook uh, definitely like um, I think I'm way more able to adapt to stressful situations now, you know, going to well, an entire different continent. First of all, um, with people I don't really know. You know, meeting new people, I think I'm I'm definitely more outgoing because of skills. I would not be the person I was without it. Yeah, when we first went to Provincials, which is in Edmonton, I was terrified, and now I'm flying to China with no problem.
Speaker 1:So it's definitely made me and you're doing podcasts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:What's your family? Think about this whole journey. You know the people around you that care about you. You know were they supportive and you getting into the digital art in the first place yeah, definitely, they're very supportive.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, there's a lot of people. When I go back to brooks there's always people asking like how's it going, and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So everyone's super nice about it and your family was like cool with you following this trade and going down this whole journey. Because I think I think many people, if they're not educated in this world, are like well, how much gaming work is there? How much art work is there? You know? Are you sure you're making the right choice? People always think arts is like a risky endeavor. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think it's like that. I think the industry is a bit tough at the moment, but I think there's definitely jobs out there. And yeah, there's definitely people that think like, are you going to be able to get a job? I know my family's.
Speaker 1:I don don't. They're not really like that, but they're a little bit like are you going to be able to get a job? But I think it'll be okay. Yeah, yeah, I don't know anybody. My daughter's an art major, music major. She got a job right away, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that, um, people underestimate how much work there is for the art community people think of artists and they just think of, like someone on the corner trying to sell a painting or something to make like five bucks for the day. It's like that's also art. I'm not going to discount that at all. But there is an industry, a large industry, that requires art and I don't think people realize like even coffee, mugs and pens and all the things around us video games, tv TV shows, commercials, you know even the animations going in other segments, on, on, on things.
Speaker 1:there's so much around us all the time that could possibly be tapped into right yeah so as you lead in to you know the end of the uh into september, you're really on what are the last few things you got to button up. You know what are the last few things you got to button up. You know what are the last couple things you got to really work on that. You're like, okay, this is what I need to get.
Speaker 2:If I can do these couple things perfectly in Leon, it'll help my chances of winning um concept art, for sure, because that's not something I'm huge on because I am a 3d artist, but um so we gotta work on that a little bit and putting it into the game engine, because that's also not quite where I work in the pipeline, so we gotta work on some um game engine stuff and other than that. Uh, I think I think that's about it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome, awesome. Well, you know this has been a fantastic interview, brooke. I'm sure people got in questions about what gaming art is and what, how they can get involved, and you know, if you want to give a piece of advice for somebody that's just coming out of high school or thinking about you know how can they use their art, or they're really into gaming and want to combine the two, what a couple steps you could uh, give out of advice to someone trying to get into your field uh, find the right school for you first of all, definitely.
Speaker 2:And yeah, don't be afraid to start. Don't listen to the people that say you know there's no work in this industry and, yeah, just have fun with it. Follow all your dreams, I guess follow your heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome yeah, all right, and any shout outs you'd like to send out to anybody hellos or thank yous uh, my family definitely for being so supportive and for my uh teacher and my skills trainer is a big what's his name? David brown all right, good job, david. You're doing a good job yes all right.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, brooke, and thank you for for taking the time today to be on the show thank you so much awesome and for all the people that have been following and downloading and sharing, make sure you check out all the other interviews we did with skills canada team. I believe we did 16 podcasts in total, nine of them in French, so there's lots of content for everybody. They'll be released in batches, so if you caught this one, check it out, go online. There's lots of other ones that'll be coming out around the same time. And if you have any interest or desire to see what's going on with Skills, next year, skills Canada is going to be in regina, saskatchewan, and there's going to be lots of great things going on for that whole week. If you've never been to a skills competition, you gotta go to this one. They're always a blast. We'll see you there and thanks again, bro.
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