Meet Hung Chi ( Cyan) Hsu | 3D Environment Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Hung Chi ( Cyan) Hsu and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hung Chi ( Cyan), we’d love to hear more about your end-goal, professionally.
By the end of my career I want to be a creative leader who bridges architecture, film, and games. I apply architectural thinking—spatial logic, materiality, and human scale—to make virtual worlds feel lived-in and meaningful. I build environments that support narrative and invite users to take part, not just watch. My goal is to design systems where the space itself helps tell the story and guides user behavior and emotion.

I believe the next wave of tools will make those worlds deeply personal. AI will allow environments to respond to each user’s mood, history, and play style, so spaces become individualized experiences rather than one-size-fits-all sets. At the same time, AR and VR will enable real-time storytelling: narratives that change with user choices. Environment artists will shift from creating static scenes to designing dynamic narrative systems. AI will also become a co-creative partner—suggesting layouts, textures, and animations—so our role moves from hand-crafting every asset to guiding and curating generative outputs.

Finally, the discipline itself will become cross-disciplinary. The line between architect, UX designer, and technical artist will blur, and environment artists will need fluency in interaction design, AI behavior, and systems thinking. I want to lead projects and teams that expand the 3D internet, give people real agency inside virtual spaces, and make environment design a core part of how we live, work, and connect online.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I found the biggest challenge wasn’t the tools or the art — it was learning how to talk about my work. As a 3D artist most freelance projects come through personal connections, so you have to go to events, meet people, and explain clearly what you do. Compared to being an employee, the responsibility multiplies: I still have to deliver work on time, but I also need to find the next project. Sales, quotations, project management, client meetings, and technical problem-solving all fall on your shoulders.

What helped me push through was learning to build a team. At the beginning of this year my partners and I launched an LLC called Z Axis Studio. We chose the name because our work is about 3D worlds—where X and Y exist, and Z adds depth, time, and interaction. Our studio covers film set design, 3D production and animation, commercial VFX, character animation for games, and environment design. Running a business taught me how to balance creative work with the practical systems that let projects scale: dividing responsibilities, communicating clearly with clients, and leaning on partners who fill gaps in skills and time.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
It’s LA—so definitely along the beach. While many cities sit by the ocean, LA is special: it’s a car city, but along the coast it belongs to pedestrians. Entertainment venues, gyms, vendors, shops, and bars all cluster as close to the water as they can, creating a lively, walkable shoreline.

I also love flea markets—I’m a vintage fan and I always find something interesting sifting through the stalls. My favorite is the Melrose flea market.

Finally, I’d bring my friend to Joshua Tree National Park. Desert landscapes aren’t common where I’m from, and the Joshua trees give the place an otherworldly, almost alien vibe. At sunset the colors—orange sun, warm sand reflections, gray stones, purple sky, and green trees—feel cinematic, like a Wes Anderson film.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to credit my tutor, Chih Yin Chien, who opened my eyes to a different way of thinking about architecture. For a studio project we were asked to treat space as the present moment — a concept that felt liberating and new. Under Chien’s guidance I used light as a theatrical path: by choreographing light and circulation, visitors walk a route and encounter scenes in sequence, so distance becomes time (distance = velocity × time).

That experience taught me that architecture isn’t just static form or shelter; it can unfold like a story and invite people to participate in narrative. It’s the moment that pushed me from designing buildings to designing worlds, and it still shapes how I approach immersive environments today.

Website: https://cyanhsu.com/cyan-hsu

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cyan_hsu.11/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyan-hsu-11×6/

Other: https://www.artstation.com/cyanhsu_x

Image Credits
image: illusion_001 worked by Z Axis Studio