Rowan Atalla

Rowan has worked in the video game industry for 15 years, and has substantial experience overseeing content production work for games.  He has worked in a variety of development environments, including a small independent development company, as an internal developer at a large publisher, and on a two-person development team.  Managerial responsibilities have included game planning, asset production for graphic and gameplay content, and staffing. In addition to years of experience working with on-site production staff, he also has substantial experience coordinating and supervising game assets produced by third party contractors.  He has done substantial work in the areas of pipeline troubleshooting, model and shader creation, special effects, lighting, and level design.  As artistic director for Big Rooster, Rowan supervised production of videogame assets for such other developers as Gearbox Software and Pi Studios, as well helping to create advertising videos for Codemasters’ Rise of the Argonauts and Warner Bros. Lego Batman.  Some of his other work include Prey, Blair Witch Project: Volume 2- The Legend of Coffin, Rune- Halls of Valhalla, Super Duelling Minivans, CarnEvil, • Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, and Xenophage.

Eric Weiss

Eric has more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of computer animation production and visual effects with expertise in artistic supervision, production management and client interaction. Eric has led production teams numbering in the hundreds of artists, supervised overseas animation productions and has extensive experience as a line artist in feature films, games and TV productions. Eric has worked on projects ranging from the Academy Award Nominated “Superman Returns,” to NASA space mission demonstrations. Eric started Calypso Animation Studios and co-founded 0Cog, an Iphone application development firm. He has worked as both an artist and supervisor at many firms including Electronic Arts, Sony Imageworks, Square USA and Human Head Studios. Eric has worked on many high profile titles in the film, TV and games industries including the hit TV show Back at the Barnyard for Nickelodeon, Godzilla for Tri Star Pictures, Polar Express and Superman Returns for Warner Brothers and Final Fantasy the Spirits Within for Columbia Pictures. Game titles include The Lord of the Rings, the Third Age and James Bond from Russia with Love for Electronic Arts and Prey for 3D Realms. Eric began his career in animation as an intern for NASA while studying Aerospace Engineering at the University of Arizona.  Asked to help create an animation for a future mission to Mars, Eric worked helped develop computer animation software on very early SGI computers using GL and Fortran. Wavefront’s Advanced Visualizer, the first commercial animation software for the film industry was introduced and Eric quickly became hooked on animation. Self taught, Eric worked his way from technical animations to a career in Hollywood as a character animator. If you were wondering, yes, Eric is a Rocket Scientist!  Currently, Eric is the Program Chair for the Game Art and Animation Program.