R.I.P - Paul Steed

Ryan Hawkins

We are deeply saddened by the news that Paul Steed has passed away.

At this time, the details of his death remain unclear. Paul leaves behind a wife and children and our heart goes out to them during this difficult time.

yodude87

way to start the day

may his soul rest in peace, thoughts go to family and friends

glynnsmith

Very sad.

http://www.jacehallshow.com/blog/friend-jace-hall-show-paul-steed-passes/

mastershokhan

His character modeling book is what started it all for me. I am forever grateful.

blankslatejoe

mastershokhan wrote: »

His character modeling book is what started it all for me. I am forever grateful.

Same for me. Sad news indeed!

Torch

That majorly sucks, I remember starting off with his character modeling book as well and it gave me a lot of inspiration. I love the quote from his speech:

“The real trick is staying known, staying relevant and staying excited about what you do. Our little ‘game industry that could’ has become the juggernaut that won’t be stopped. Ambition, hard work, perseverance, luck and shameless self-promotion – it’s all part of the deal.”

If I can ever be half as good an artist as Paul, I will be over the frickin' moon.

R.I.P. bro

Conor

So sad to hear this. I've been trying to find the old Bad Girl contest that he ran back when Polycount was still hosted on Planetquake, but all the links to it seem to be dead. Anyone know of an archive?

bearkub

Wow. What a crazy way to start a Saturday. RIP, Paul. Thanks for all you did for polycount when we were starting up. You will be missed.

Mark Dygert

So so... sad...

Conor have you tried the way back machine? http://archive.org/web/web.php

Jhotun

Very sad news This guy was my spiritual mentor in my early 3d years and will always remain in my memory as the father of all I wanted to be in this life.

BoBo_the_seal

Very sad news. He was one of the first "names" I knew when getting into the industry.

- BoBo

rebb

This seriously sucks

Condolences to friends and family and everyone who knew him.

RIP

greuh

wow!!
I also am one of those that got into this industry looking up to his work and his "thinking outside the box" column articles.
very sad news indeed!

Steve Schulze

This is a bit of a shock.

Back when I was a student doing a video game art course, I met Mr Steed at the Australian GDC. My classmates and I had spent the previous six months or so putting together a game demo and we were showing it off to folks at the show and generally getting positive lip service. Someone managed to rope Paul, who was a guest lecturer, into playing our game. I asked him afterwards what he thought of our work and he said that it was "decidedly mediocre". He wasn't rude or anything he just told me the truth without any sugar coating and I have a lot of respect for the man for that. I think that encounter had no small impact on getting me to look at my own work critically and helped me along the path to where I am now.

Ave atque vale.

adam

Damn damn damn. His book and his name were firsts for me.

z0ltan

cep

Not good.

Gmanx

Goddamnit. Paul's writings and attitude were a real help to me in years gone by. He wasn't 'old' by any means - so sad that he's been taken so early. My sincere condolences to his family.

skankerzero

oh shit...

wow.

at a loss for words.

CrazyMatt

This a day in memory for the great man! Sad to hear for the family though

ALPHAwolf

R.I.P Mr steed.

see you in Valhalla.

ScoobyDoofus

I, also, loved his outside the box column, and learned a lot from his tutorials.
I'm really curious how he passed? He seemed like a healthy guy...

peanut™

Damn No ?!!

Paul thanks for the "polyselect" in 3dsmax neat trick that you gave me for unwrapping, i became the best at it.

All my blessing.

Malekyth

What shitty news. He was among the first development personalities I was aware of, back when the universe was made of Quake, and through his articles and participation in this community acted as a kind of spiritual focus for a lot of us. I can't say I wouldn't have gotten into the business if it weren't for Paul Steed but it would've happened differently, and maybe not as fun. The world makes more sense if he's out there somewhere, and the dude will definitely be missed.

Josh_Singh

I bought his book back in the day and I learned so much from it. Wow. I thought that one day our paths would cross. R.I.P Paul.

gauss

he posted here and shithead kids like me decried his beautiful big titty ladies. the last of the great outsized personalities at id. an important figure in 3d modeling for shooters. sorry Steed.

ScottP

I bought his book many years ago but never knew much about him untill now. I watched the Jace Hall interview just now and he got me at "what do you hate most about the game industry?" answer- "i hate pussies" haha.

R.I.P

Mike_Carlyle

Like most of the people here his books and seminars were the beginnings for what I wanted to do with my life. This is very sad news.. My thoughts and prayers are with this family.

Thank you for everything Steed.. RIP Bro

D4V1DC

He ripped me a new one from the bad girls with big weapons contest (wayyy back in the day), lol I was so young and he didn't seem to think about the age of the person Entering. I was in shock that my entry was even mentioned but hey I got better.
It's fine but It's always lingered in my mind, I guess It was his way of saying quit or to get better, then he would forgive me!

I got better, thanks for the push Steed, R.I.P.
Condolences to friends and family who knew him at his best.

Xenobond

Joe March

Condolences to Paul Steel's family, RIP.

JonMurphy

So sad to see this news. Steed was a great inspiration to so many of us. I know he was to me.

RIP, and my thoughts go to his family and those close to him.

Hazardous

Yeah like many others have said, I got the modelling book too. His quest for the ladies was very inspiring to me

Lee3dee

I met Paul first in 2005 at GDC and then again last year when he moved his team from Florida to Austin, which became UTV Ignition Austin.

I was already working as FX Artist in the Austin studio on Faxion Online. Paul's team needed some help with their prototype console game and since i'd used UE3 before the creative director "leased me" to Paul's project for a expensive bottle of Bourbon. At the Faxion Online office launch party I finally saw the bottle, but it had already been consumed.

RIP Paul, it was great working with ya!

oXYnary

His 3D Max book gave so many helpful ways to create back in the day. I would have been lost without.

Also met him once at a IGDA meeting here in Seattle when he was a Microsoft for a bit. So at least I got to thank him in person for the book.

He also was a straggler in Sub-D, liked to use splines sometimes.

My condolences go out to his family and friends.

I'm not sure they can share it but at least 1 PC knew him back in the ID days.. there was this one incident about a fight. I just bring it up to show he didn't back down. Maybe the entire story can be told?

Phukyumoto

A sad day indeed. I think I still have some of his thinking outside the box stuff archived on my hard drive somewhere. He helped me so much starting out.

low odor

leilei

R.I.P. Paul Steed

Jinxter

Daaark

RIP.

ElysiumGX

I knew of his name since the early years of Polycount and the Bad Girl contest. He was in some ways an inspiration for my decision to seek a career in games. Last year I was given the opportunity to work with his team. The project ended soon after, along with one of the highlights of my career.

RIP, sir.

Parnell

*sigh* this was a rough week for me and hearing about this doesn't make me any happier. I bought the book and re-read that thing so many times. I think people need to realize there were so few decent tutorials on how to character model. I'm talking step-by-step. No youtube, no online tutor sites, and real classes were $$$$$. When I found his book I was amazed it was really my first real steps into learning game art in a way that I understood. I even bought his animation book and I STILL have it.
Man I'm bummed.
Hopefully tomorrow brings better news.
peace
B

Wendy de Boer

Oh man, this sucks.

He was my modeling idol when I was just a little noobling at Polycount. I learned how to do lowpoly modeling and animation by picking apart his character models for Quake 3: Arena, as well as reading his blog.

This is a sad day indeed.

pestibug

Agh, a great loss indeed. And so young too. Like many I owe so much to his book and his out of the box column. A pioneer in his days, a man we all owe much too.
May he rest in peace.

Now, I have an idea sort of, to celebrate this man, why not hold a competition (no prizes, just honors) in his name? Making a crackwhore, or a quake 3 spec character would seem like a proper way to pay respect and tribute to this man.

visualrift

Paul, brother, you will be missed. Post-E3 bar brawls won't be the same without you. Thank you for everything you gave our industry, and for the standards you set. Go easy, brother. My deepest condolences to mama and the kids.

Nilium

pestibug wrote: »

Now, I have an idea sort of, to celebrate this man, why not hold a competition (no prizes, just honors) in his name? Making a crackwhore, or a quake 3 spec character would seem like a proper way to pay respect and tribute to this man.

I'll second this idea. I wouldn't have improved as much as I did without studying his work years ago, especially all of Quake 3's art, so it'd be nice to do that sort of stuff again. Plus it'd give newcomers an idea of what it's like to work with those constraints, so that's always fun.

RIP, Steed.

EmAr

RIP and thanks for releasing the Quake 3 animation files.

rooster

he was one of my inspirations for getting into the games industry. I haven't thought about him in years, I'm a bit taken by surprise how gutted the news makes me feel. RIP

thomasp

sad news indeed. paul was an inspiration of mine with the thinking outside the box columns. not to mention one of the celebrity posters on polycount back in the day. RIP.

do we know what happened?

SuperOstrich

This sucks. My thoughts go out to his wife and kids.

Karmageddon

Very sad to hear. Such an inspiring guy.