So who is this Jennifer Hoffman? Well, I’m not the actress, that’s for sure. And I’m certainly not the landscape painter, although I do enjoy dabbling with a brush and color. I’m Jennifer Hoffman the animator, a 3-faceted individual incomplete without any point of my triangle: art, storytelling, and logic.
Ever since I was a small child I’ve been obsessed with the illusion of motion. I’ll never forget when I watched the Lion King from beginning to end in slow motion. I was amazed and enthralled by the entirely not lion-like forms I saw on the screen: morphs and shapes too fast for the eye to catch but which were essential to the final perceived fluidity.
A whole new world opened before me, and it stuck with me. Later, when I decided a career in games is what I wanted, I didn’t go looking for a 3D art degree or one in game design, although they were tempting. Instead I stuck close to my roots and got a BA in Animation. But while most of my classmates dreamed of Pixar, I dreamed of BioWare and ArenaNet. Because while animation was my true love, it wasn’t my first.
You see, I had always been an inventor of stories, a spinner of yarns. I dreamed of worlds beyond our own, places of imagination and freedom. Since I was old enough to hold a pencil I had been creating interactive fiction with my friends. Only much later in high school would I learn that there was a name for such things: pen and paper RPGs.
It was only natural that from there I graduated on to the more “mature” form of RPGs, videogames. Unfortunately, for all that they gained in beauty and music and challenge, they also lost the freedom and creativity of their humble predecessors. They wouldn’t begin to find that again until much later, but when they did I took notice and the third point of my triangle began to blossom.
The open world of invention and storytelling returned for me for the first time in Neverwinter Nights. Only this time instead of pen and paper I came armed with C++ and the Aurora Toolset. It opened a door that could never again be closed.
After tasting the power that coding gifts us with, I’ve never been able to completely quit. Oh the aim and type of programming changes for me as frequently as the projects I’m engaged in. I’ve flirted with Javasript and Java and C++. I once had a doomed fling with Flash and Actionscript. Html is an old friend, and I have an on and off but lasting relationship with PHP and MySQL. But it is Python that currently lights my fire, especially when it takes off that mask of MEL and reveals the handsome PyMEL beneath. While its not exactly the world building that first drew me in, I find tools scripting irresistible.
So there you have it. I’m an animator with a coding habit that will write you out of ink and paper if given half a chance. I’m always on the search for a place where I can use all of my talents, so if you’re looking for a cross-disciplinary artist to add to your team, definitely shoot me an email! Otherwise, if you just want to chat it up over games, art, or the varied works that go into their production, I’d love to talk about that too.
Just make sure you remember your reading glasses.
And if that wasn't enough for you (you do like to torture yourself, don't you?), I also have a blog that does sometimes get updated: Jeno's Art and Musings