Hi All, I'm a junior artist acting as a lead for a serious games company. I've been in this position for 3 years now and wondering if I'm stuck career wise. I work as a generalist, but my formidable education (that I'm not using) is in physics simulation. What sort of demand is there in the game industry for artists who can produce great physics based animation? Thanks. -Mike

If you've got the chops, you really can blaze trails in this industry with a little get up and go. If you've got physics knowledge, don't wait for people to tell you what they need it for, find good ways to make your talents, ALL of your talents, work in the game. Start looking for ways that you can improve the game using what you know, and then spend a few days on the side making a good proof of concept. Show it to your leads, your producer, your engineers. They now know you have the motivation to take on more responsibility and care enough to do it well, and if your ideas are good, they'll being trusting you with bigger and better things.

Senior artists are junior artists that proved themselves willing and able to go that extra mile and take leadership of their tasks. Don't confuse this with time, anybody can sit in a chair for extra hours and collect overpay. What matters is that you're one of the guys making the real magic in the games, pushing your own envelope and coming up with ideas (and then implementing them) that make the rest of the team say "wow, that is totally awesome".

Just make sure that whatever you do, it's made of 100% pure distilled quality.

I think I know what to do now.

Thanks guys. -Mike