Start: Martin Hebert

Studio: Exient Entertainment
College: Palacky University Olomouc, Faculty of Education

My name is Martin Hebert.  Currently, I’m working as lead animator for Exient Entertainment in Brno, Czech Republic.  I have also served as Lead Animator for Vatra Games (Silent Hill Downpour, Rush’n Attack), 2K Czech/Illusion Softworks (Moscow Rhapsody) and Pterodon (Vietcong 2).

I came into the game industry ten years ago in a rather unconventional way.  My education isn’t art-related at all.  My schooling, which focused mostly on math and engineering with Faculty of Education, didn’t give me much useful art knowledge, except self-management skills.

I have always played video games, but I never knew how they were actually created.  I accidentally stumbled across some information on a 3D artist forum, read a few tutorials (despite suffering from poor English skills), and once I had created something in CG, I became very interested in the whole process.  Since that moment, 3D modeling became my hobby.

The 3D artist community in my area used to hold regular meetings and conferences, and I decided to start attending some of them.  The very first one I attended was the reason I became an animator.  Most of the attendees were amateurs like myself, but one in particular was just an old dreamer who didn’t know anything about 3D; he simply had a dream to create a short 3D movie.  As there were only a few good artists available at that time, he offered to pay for courses for a few of us who were just 3D fans, so that we could create that short for him.  Good opportunity, so why not take it?

Now, I can tell you that creating a short film using only beginner artists was a very naïve idea.  However, while that guy lost a good sum of money and we didn’t actually create anything worth watching, he did give rise to a generation of great artists, many of whom are successful in the film and game industries.

I don’t know why but this visionary told me: “you are going to be an animator,” without knowing anything about me.  I agreed, and it was the most important decision of my professional life.

At that time, I had been working as a lead lift engineer for a small company, and I probably would have continued on with them if our boss had been better and the company had not gone bankrupt.  I was desperate to find a new job, so I was looking for any available opportunity.  It so happened that Pterodon (Vietcong) was looking for animators.

There was only one school for animators in the Czech Republic.  Because our education system is very conservative, the school only taught traditional 2D animation at the time, therefore 3D animators were very rare, which increased my chances to succeed.

Thanks to that old guy who decided I’d be an animator, I have successfully entered the game industry.  At that time, Pterodon was working on Vietcong 2.  I was involved in every facet of the game’s animation, working under Petr Mores, a great animator most recently working for Crytek.  It was he who taught me most of what I know about animating, and of managing people.  It was also he who decided I would be a lead animator for the next project, even though I didn’t have the experience for such a job.  “Throw the man into the water and let him learn how to swim,” we often say, and even though it’s a difficult way to learn, I think it was the best.

I’m grateful that I met the right people; people who pointed me in the right direction so that I can be a part of this fantastic industry.

One word of advice for future animators:

Try everything; you don’t know what your destiny is.