#MeetIronGalaxy – Tammy Dao

Animators move their art to breathe life into games. We enjoy their work in cinematics, combat interactions, or just by watching characters move through the world. Animation adds personality to games, as animators pay extreme mindfulness to the unique style of a game’s universe. We’re lucky to introduce Tammy Dao, a master of expressive, narrative-driven movement.

Iron Galaxy: Hey, Tammy. What’s your full name and your role at IG?

Tammy Dao: My name is Tammy Dao. I am a Lead Animator here at Iron Galaxy. My responsibilities are to plan and roadmap the work of the animation team on a given project and ensure any dependencies are addressed. I also create animations and explore processes and workflows to better support the needs of the project. On top of that, I have the honor to coach other animators to help them grow their skills, gain a sense of ownership over their work, and practice their aesthetic eye.

IG: If you could share one piece of advice with someone who wants to follow in your career’s footsteps, what would it be?

TD: The first thing you want to do is to figure out what you want out of your career. It’s easy to say “I want to work in video games,” but harder to imagine the path to doing so. Video games are a huge industry and have so many different ways you can participate and contribute. Do research, find which role suits your skills the best or even which role you want to start in. Then, put in the work to learn the skills necessary for your role and build a habit of learning. It can be hard to get into the industry, considering how volatile it can be. But the more prepared you are, the better you’ll be able to answer the opportunities that arise, be it an entry level job, or becoming more senior, or pivoting to a leadership or even another role.

IG: Strong advice for any aspiring professionals. What’s the best thing about working at a game development company?

TD: Honestly, I’d wanted to work in the video game industry for a while. Having spent much of my formative years playing games, evolving into playing D&D with my friends, and growing a deep appreciation for storytelling, I think making a career out of what you love is a great intersection of skill, fulfillment, and having fun. People who join the video game industry are usually of like mind as well: passionate, hard-working, and a genuine love for the craft. And the diverse nature of all the talents and disciplines that go into making a video game means that there is always more to learn, always more ways to grow your understanding.

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IG: Game dev hopefuls and current pros can all agree that the love for games runs deep. Aside from playing video games, what’s your favorite hobby?

TD: Over the pandemic, I joined the company of folks who got into bread baking, and it sort of just stuck since then. The quality of bread I can make a home with fewer ingredients just far surpasses what I can get at the store, not to mention I can control the nutrition of the bread myself by mixing in other grains and flours. Since then, I’ve learned how to make artisan loaves, corn bread, sandwich bread and even started my own sourdough! The first time I made it, I struggled to get it to produce anything. Once I tested a few tools, thanks to the support from my husband, I found a method that really works. My sourdough starter rests in the fridge and is several months old now. I’ve used it in bread, pancakes, okonomiyaki recipes and have started to appreciate the tang it adds. I’m by no means a professional baker, just an amateur enthusiast. But there is definitely something satisfying about making my own food.
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IG: What a rewarding hobby! What’s something you have always wanted to create?

TD: I’m a big fan of maker channels on YouTube. These are the guys that like to explore creating things, from crafts to games to various nerdy or not so nerdy projects. I have many ideas to document my passion for different hobbies, and I think that the community around these maker channels is incredibly supportive. It would be awesome to join them, and to share my passion for arts and crafts.

IG: Drop the link and IG would love to tune in. What’s your favorite travel destination that you’ve visited?

TD: A few years back, I went with my family to Yosemite National Park. For a few days, we lived in an Airbnb in the woods about an hour, maybe it was two, from the park itself. Every day, we drove in, parked, and hiked. Nothing serious, simple, flat, and easy hikes through the forests and mountains. I will always remember standing at the top of Taft Point. It was so high up and though I was far away from the edge, not far enough in many respects, I could still feel the dizzying height of the valleys around. It was literally breathtaking. I think I would love to go and visit that park as well as other parks again.

IG: With plenty of park left to explore. Let’s shift gears to the skate park. What was it like to direct a mocap shoot for THPS 3 + 4?

TD: It was a fascinating experience. I did a video call into the mocap studio from my home along with my Art Director over the course of two days. The hours were in the late evening since we were operating on LA times and I lived on the east coast at the time. Watching these talented performers and stunt actors perform NPC moves in real time as if they were video game characters was a lot of fun. The mocap director on site had a great amount of experience in this field, offering suggestions for different takes and acting choices, coaching and guiding the movements and checking in with me and the Art Director for accuracy. We recorded a lot of footage and continued to draw from that well of mocap animations throughout the rest of the project. It was used to inform NPC movements, player bails and reactions, and character frontend animations.

IG: Thanks for the BTS story of what that experience was like. You worked on both Killer Instinct and Rumbleverse, both combat intense games. What would your advice be to someone looking to add that extra oomph behind fighting animations?

TD: Oh, you should absolutely indulge in all kinds of action media. Look at Japanese anime from prominent animation studios (Madhouse, Studio Ghibli, etc.). Look at other fighting games that give you a sense of excitement or energy when you watch or play them. Pay attention to the camera angles and the main poses that stand out, especially if it’s gameplay animation and the only thing to support legibility of those animations is the strength of the posing. Always, always exaggerate the pose, push it beyond what you have it at currently. Despite common suggestions of “you can always add more later,” when it comes to animation, going as far as you can at the forefront will always help you hit your mark in 2 iterations vs 4-5.

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IG: Informative knowledge, thanks for sharing. Which keyframe animations are you most proud of and why?

‍TD: Ah, yes, all those animations I included in my portfolio reel were all ones I did over the course of my career and I’m proud of every one that I did. Saying that is a bit of a cop out admittedly, but genuinely each of those animations I worked on gave me precious insight into the energy of movement, ranging from combat to dances all the way to telling stories. The intro cinematic for Gargos, for instance, centered around creating an ominous aura for this end level boss like creature, looming over these two minions, not unlike Hades’ minions from Hercules. Articulating all these varying personalities in just a few seconds was challenging and fun. On Rumbleverse, and this wasn’t shown in the reel, I had the pleasure of creating a looping dance emote by hand. Thanks to our resident dancer, Keenan. [Editor’s Note: Hey, that’s me!] I had excellent reference footage and had the pleasure of hand keying a motion that was more art than function. It was a dance meant to entertain, not an attack that served a specific function. For THPS 3+4, creating animations for a sport that requires incredible finesse and dexterity, to the point where I don’t fully understand the physics and body tension needed to pull off some of these moves, was a unique challenge. Those cinematics were a lot of fun: quirky, silly, over the top in its own way, what’s not to love?

IG: All wonderful slices of an impressive career in animation. Thanks for the shout out! It was a bucket list worthy accomplishment watching you animate dance choreography into an emote. Watching each of the six Rumbler body types perform the same animation, all with a unique twist of their own, was super cool. Which characters from the games you’ve worked on have been your favorite to bring to life?

TD: I think I will always look back on Hisako from Killer Instinct Season 2 as a singular experience. She was the first character to reach drastically outside my comfort zone of funny, quirky characters or serious and bad ass warriors. I was not a fan of horror movies but dove into the Ring and the Grudge for reference and started to intentionally break bones and put the human body into disturbing shapes to hit that mark. Her haunting backstory kept bringing me back to the macabre and I’m quite a big fan of horror movies now thanks to her.

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IG: Hisako’s inclusion in KI most certainly helped leave Iron Galaxy’s stamp on the KI universe. How has IG’s animation team evolved over the years?

TD: The animation team at IG has fluctuated a lot over my career. We had a lot of talented animators join us and then move on to other studios, each one bringing with them their own talents and skills, ranging from the immensely creative traditional 2D animators, to the technically minded and engine experienced animators, to even those that have a mind for business. We are now a solid team of three animators here at IG who complement each other in interesting ways. Our animation director is an excellent coach and mentor, and our junior animator has such an incredible thirst for knowledge. And then there’s me! I’m honored to be a part of the IG animation team’s journey.

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IG: We’re honored to have you. What’s your favorite book or series?

TD: Hands down, the Discworld series by Terry Prattchett. The series is simultaneously thought-provoking, clever, and hilarious, all bundled in an absurd little fantasy world that reflects our world and mind, just as much as it invents new and silly alternatives. I’ve fallen in love with the Death arcs, Captain Vimes and the Night Watch arcs, and the three witches, which is probably all of the reoccurring characters. I’ve also found some of the one-off character stories to be truly engrossing. I will go back and reread this series over and over just for the comfort of it all. The series gives me hope and escape all in one neat little easy to read bundle!

IG: What game have you spent the most time playing?

TD: According to Steam, it’s Helldivers 2 at over four hundred hours. Frankly, I’m surprised by this statistic. I picked this game up to play with some online friends. I was skeptical about it because I’m not typically a big fan of shooters or sci-fi, but the premise was really funny. Especially in the context of our current, extreme nationalistic political climate, the little quips and in-world news announcements helped me laugh and cope with some of our real-life problems. And what’s not to like about rushing towards a mob of monsters, guns blazing, shouting “FOR LIBERTY!” and immediately being flung halfway across the map because an ally of yours had called in a 500K bomb on said crowd?

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IG: What has been your favorite series to binge?

TD: I think I’ve rewatched Rick and Morty from start to finish three times now. It’s my latest comfort rewatch (the former being Parks and Rec), and I still find myself laughing and crying at all the same points. Its such a weird mash of the slice of life, mundane suburban sitcom with the crazy sci-fi adventures of Doctor Who, featuring a brutally cruel and rude scientist and his timid and uncertain grandson. The writing for my favorite episodes are so good that they are worth a full rewatch every year or so.

IG: As Morty has so brilliantly stated, "Nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody's gonna die. Come watch TV?" What’s the top two superpowers that you’d like to have?

TD: Hm. Teleportation, whether instantaneous or via portals. Portal (the game) and Rick and Morty have shown such cool ways to use spatial manipulation. Much in the same way that the internet connected us as humans worldwide, what would teleportation unlock for us? A very strong second contender would be Matter Creation, in the style of Atom Eve from Invincible, and I think that show really demonstrates just how powerful and useful that can be.

IG: Eve’s OP, Kirkman has said it himself. Great choices. What fictional universe would you choose over our own? What if there was no coming back?

TD: I recently watched Frieren and thought it was an excellent story of what a long-lived person might experience in the world. There’s a part of me that would want to live in a world with magic and monsters like Frieren, even if that meant being scared of the monsters. If travelling the world and meeting people and spending time together (adventuring really) was a possibility, I would want that for myself. To live a life so long lived, to treat the people around you with reverence, the time you’re able to spend with them would be a true gift. Unfortunately, if there were no coming back to this world, then I wouldn’t want to go. Abandoning my current life with all that I’ve built and worked towards is a difficult decision to make, and one that I wouldn’t want to go through with. I’d have too many regrets.

IG: Which historical figure would you want to show the modern world? What do you think they’d say?

TD: I’d be curious to know what Alan Watts thinks of our current world situation, or even Fred Rogers. Alan Watts would probably find it much the same as he did back when he was alive, especially with the rise of AI. A lot of his teachings continue to resonate now because they were relevant back then. Maybe a sign of the human condition. I imagine Mr. Rogers would have more convictions to do good for young children, especially since so many are being taught through screens and are being influenced by social media, and I imagine he’d be able to set an example of how children can grow even in this climate. Two voices I very much wish I could have been alive to hear myself.

Thoughtful response to end it on. Your leadership qualities shined in your responses, in and out of the Q&A related to your work responsibilities. We appreciate you sharing about yourself and the animation team. Hearing stories through an animator’s lens, from different moments of IG’s history really captured the variety of projects IG has worked on. It’s been a pleasure meeting you and your twin on the IG Blog. We hope to hear about your maker channel soon!