Computer Animation graduate David Finlay has always had a passion for cars – long before he could drive, and even longer before he started his career as a 3D Vehicle Artist on the Midnight Club racing series at Rockstar Games.

“I was raised around hot rods, and I always saw them as pieces of art,” he says. “So once I learned how to model at Full Sail, I would go home and put that to use modeling cars on my own time. Halfway through the program I was like ‘Man, I just love making these,’ and I thought if I kept practicing at it I could do it as a career. I modeled cars over and over, and those samples were what got me hired at Rockstar.”

Graduating in 2003, David immediately started posting the car models he made during the Computer Animation program on various graphic design forums. Three months later he got a call from Rockstar, who saw his work on CGChannel.com, and brought him out to California for an interview.

He’s now coming up on his sixth year at the company.

“It’s crazy to think I’ve worked at Rockstar for that long, but it’s gone by so quick because I just love what I do,” he says. “Some people work because it’s a job, but I do it because I love it – I’ll even come home and work on more models just for myself. It’s so bad that I’ll be driving down the road and look over at a car, and just see a wire frame on it.”

During his time at the studio David has been through two console cycles, and the current generation has allowed him to push the realism of the series to new levels. The roster of cars in their latest game, Midnight Club: Los Angeles, features exceptional detail for a racing sim – with the driver leaning from side to side during turns, and the glare of the street lights reflecting off the body paint.

“There’s been a lot of advancements with these consoles,” David says. “For example on Midnight Club 3 for the Xbox and PS2, the polygon count was about 4500 total, but now with the next generation you can throw a lot more at them – so we’re able to put 35,000 polygons for just the outside of the car, then 50,000 for the interior, and then another 20,000 for just the wheels. It’s given us the opportunity to add the detail where we always wanted to.”

Studios are still finding new ways to optimize their graphics code for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and that added freedom for artists like David has seen Midnight Club: Los Angeles grab some of the best reviews of the series. And as modest as he is about his craft, David even admits that the attention from fans has been one of the most rewarding parts of his time as a 3D artist at Rockstar.

“It’s really cool to put out a game and go into a GameStop and hear kids say ‘Do you have the new Midnight Club yet,” David says. “That’s really the best part, to see kids enjoying your work, because I remember being a kid and playing games and thinking it was the best experience ever. That’s what made me want to go into videogames, and hopefully that can happen with a kid playing my games.”