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Jane Ng

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Jane Ng
Born
Jane Ng
Alma materSwarthmore College
Notable work
Websitejaneng.com

Jane Ng is a Chinese-American[1] 3D environment artist, best known for her work on Firewatch, The Cave, and Brütal Legend. She previously worked at Campo Santo, a game studio that is part of Valve, as a Senior Environment Artist. Other notable works include Stacking, Costume Quest, Spore, and The Godfather.

She graduated from Swarthmore College in 2001 having studied Studio Arts and Engineering.[2]

Career

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Ng has worked in the video game industry for more than 10 years. She started her journey into the video game industry through a summer internship position at Ronin Studios.

After Ronin went out of business, she moved on to working at Electronic Arts and began work on Return of the King.[3]

After three years of working at Electronic Arts, she moved to Double Fine Productions where she worked on titles such as Stacking, Costume Quest, and Brutal Legend.

After 6 years of employment, she moved on to her most notable role as the lead environment artist at Campo Santo as they made their flagship title Firewatch.

Development for Firewatch began with a painting by Campo Santo co-founder Olly Moss.[4] Ng adapted the painting's aesthetic style into a 3D environment[4] with the color and inspiration drawn from both New Deal advertisements and icons from the National Park Service[5] as well as a camping trip in Yellowstone National Park in which the team visited a preserved fire lookout tower two miles (3.2 km) from the campsite.[5] Ng hand-modeled 23 unique tree models to be placed throughout the game 4,600 times.[6][7] A custom shader was also employed to produce more stylized and simplified foliage.[6] The in-game fire lookout towers were built in accordance with government specifications, utilizing standard lumber size, after Ng's first attempt was unsatisfactory.[8] She later spoke on the need of "feeling real" rather than producing overly realistic or detailed game assets.[7]

For the studio's unreleased title, In the Valley of Gods, Ng has written on the significance of accurately designing Black hair for one of the game's protagonists, a Black woman named Zora.[9][10]

References

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  1. ↑ "How Jane Ng turned the real world into Firewatch - Kill Screen". Kill Screen. 2016-06-22. Retrieved 2017-05-08.
  2. ↑ "Making the World of Firewatch". Retrieved 2017-05-08.
  3. ↑ "Jane Ng on the Art of Firewatch - The Wayfaring Dreamer". The Wayfaring Dreamer. 2015-06-03. Retrieved 2017-05-08.
  4. 1 2 Tach, Dave (March 12, 2015). "Before Firewatch was a 3D world, it was a painting". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 15, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  5. 1 2 Ng, Jane (October 22, 2014). "Jane Ng Q&A Part 2". Campo Santo. Archived from the original on August 1, 2020. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  6. 1 2 Clark, Tim (March 17, 2016). "Why less is more when it comes to Firewatch's beautiful trees". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on October 2, 2016. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  7. 1 2 "Environmental artist Jane Ng only made 23 unique trees for Firewatch". Game Developer. December 7, 2017. Retrieved 26 April 2026.
  8. ↑ Farokhmanesh, Megan (March 27, 2015). "What we learned about Firewatch: ghost stories, toilets and mental health". Polygon. Archived from the original on October 2, 2016. Retrieved September 30, 2016.
  9. ↑ Martineau, Paris (March 16, 2018). "The first game to actually give a damn about natural black hair". The Outline. Retrieved 26 April 2026.
  10. ↑ Chalk, Andy. "Firewatch fans are worried that In the Valley of Gods has been canceled". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on November 20, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2019.

Further reading

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  • Helper, Jennifer Brandes (2017). Women in game development : breaking the glass level-cap. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. pp. 59–66. ISBN 9781138947924.
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