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Aliginge posted:oh NO YOU DI'INT. Honestly, being able to work under arbitrary and seemingly pointless restrictions is an important skill to develop unless you want to work for yourself your entire life. Remember: It doesn't matter if it makes no sense. That's just the way they do things and you're easier to replace than corporate standards.
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Jun 21, 2011 03:46
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Terrible art you say? When I started school I wanted to be an animator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVNj9AFbe7w Decided that wasn't for me and focused on texturing and modelling instead. This was my -senior project-!  Image above helped me get my first job in the industry two weeks after graduating.  Honestly, it still amazes me that I ever got my foot in the door.
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Jun 21, 2011 03:48
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And Lo. The Chair was being created.
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Jun 21, 2011 04:47
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Oh boy... first projects time. This was from back in '97 or so from an intro to software engineering class. It was a 4 person project done over the course of 4-5 weeks in C++ and raw X drawing + OpenGL. I give you Racer-a-go-go!  It was a "kart" game in the loosest sense, but it was 4 player networked on Sun UltraSparcs, which could push a ton of triangles but had NO texture memory. Can I interest you in shaded polys? I bet I can!  Or if top-down is more your style:  Not only that, but there were weapons and damage "skins" to the vehicles. There was a fancy rigid body physics sim behind it. There was even a level editor so we didn't have to build these sweet tracks from scratch. But most importantly, there was the WEINER MOBILE. 
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Jun 21, 2011 12:03
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devilmouse posted:... drat, I wish I could find my old RPG from those days. Built out a tile-based RPG in the style of FFIV, and it was surprisingly cool.
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Jun 21, 2011 15:33
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Since we're on the subject of student work, here's some work from my students. All are from 3D modeling I except the Warrior on the first post he is from my character modeling class. http://game-teacher.blogspot.com/
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Jun 21, 2011 16:17
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Yaaay, they finally dropped the press release (LEGO Universe is going free-to-play): http://universe.lego.com/en-us/community/newsnetwork/story.aspx?id=329745 EDIT: VV Yeah. Should be pretty sweet. It'll get more kids (and adults) into the game, and be plenty of fun just as-is for many of them... but quite a few are, most likely, going to want to see what those other zones have to offer. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 00:53
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Shalinor posted:Yaaay, they finally dropped the press release (LEGO Universe is going free-to-play): http://universe.lego.com/en-us/community/newsnetwork/story.aspx?id=329745 More like free-to-make-gobs-of-money if history is any indicator! Money hats for all!
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Jun 22, 2011 01:07
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So, if the past couple of years are any indication, games that go from subscription to F2P didn't have enough subscriptions to sustain themselves. Let me be clear I'm not casting any aspersions on anyone's work or the quality of their game: But I'm curious, what's the motivation for going F2P? It's fine if you say, "Not telling!" 
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Jun 22, 2011 01:47
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Shalinor posted:Also proud of this: That Perlin noise cloud stuff looks pretty neat but usually that much noise is pretty expensive to generate. How'd you get it to run so smooth like that?
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Jun 22, 2011 01:54
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Chasiubao posted:So, if the past couple of years are any indication, games that go from subscription to F2P didn't have enough subscriptions to sustain themselves. "Free" is a very effective marketing tool.
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Jun 22, 2011 01:56
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Chasiubao posted:But I'm curious, what's the motivation for going F2P? "You make a shitton more money on F2P than you do on subs if your game is properly set up for it." edit: I say this having worked on sub-only, sub+F2P, and strictly F2P games. devilmouse fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 01:57
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Chasiubao posted:So, if the past couple of years are any indication, games that go from subscription to F2P didn't have enough subscriptions to sustain themselves. I don't have any firsthand experience, so don't take this as gospel. MMOs are extremely social games, in that if you know people playing one you're more likely to consider playing it with them, keep playing it for a longer time, etc. So switching to a F2P model isn't just a linear price vs demand kinda thing. There's an exponential return you get because your product looks better the bigger the community it has. Besides that, many people have an instinct to be hesitant to commit to subscriptions but will throw money around indiscriminately on spur-of-the moment purchases. For example, an isk seller in EVE got hacked, and the hackers released a list of the in-game names of the customers and how much they had spent. The highest I can remember was nearly $3000 in a single purchase, and the total list went over $100,000. Now EVE is an extreme example due to how uniquely competitive it is among MMOs, but 'That Retarded Horse' proved that casuals can be a pretty effective money faucet too. Finally, the most cynical reading is that MMO publishers are well aware of the worldwide economic troubles, and a cash shop model lets them tier their service without having to do so explicitly.
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Jun 22, 2011 02:10
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Chasiubao posted:So, if the past couple of years are any indication, games that go from subscription to F2P didn't have enough subscriptions to sustain themselves. Take a step back and rethink the assumption of why subscriptions are necessary. Considering what the player actually wants to do (play a game), and the opportunity cost of choosing among a multitude of potentially great games with subscriptions, not counting the purchase price of the game itself, subscriptions are not necessarily the best business model anymore.
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Jun 22, 2011 02:15
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Chasiubao posted:So, if the past couple of years are any indication, games that go from subscription to F2P didn't have enough subscriptions to sustain themselves. My buddy who used to work for a company that did F2P games exclusively said their average take per unique account was $80 per account. As in, effectively every 3 'free' players, there was a $320 player balancing them out. Compare that to to $13 a month for 2-3 months (not counting the first 'free month' included in the box, which post distro and retail is probably closer to $20 in takeaway) and it looks really loving lucrative. I don't have it handy but there was a Game Developer article on LOTRO going F2P and doubling their monthly income in the first month and then increasing after that. The motivation towards going F2P is cash dollars. The motivation to do anything with a large project is the hope for more cash dollars.
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Jun 22, 2011 02:34
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Sigma-X posted:My buddy who used to work for a company that did F2P games exclusively said their average take per unique account was $80 per account. LOTRO F2P was also hot on the heels of DDO going F2P which tripled their revenue. Also, it doesn't often get talked about, but F2P games also have the benefit of greatly extended reach for in-game advertising.
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Jun 22, 2011 02:37
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As I'm pretty sure LEGO has a special hell for those that say much of anything without PR sign-off (and I bet that hell involves being barefoot in a room full of LEGOs... *shudder*), I am just going to quietly hum and point upwards at those many fine possible explanations. That's all the reasons that other MMOs have gone F2P, and now so are we.
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Jun 22, 2011 02:39
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Essentially what it boils down to is that in a subscription model, you have a fixed amount of income from every player. With a F2P model, everyone can pay exactly as much as they want for a game. If you think about it, the most you can LOSE from a player is the subscription cost which is usually about $10 a month. While the amount you can gain from a player is effectively infinite. In practice, it works out that the people who do choose to pay more for the game pay a LOT more, easily subsidizing players who play entirely for free. Even Blizzard has dipped into premium content despite sticking with the subscription model as their primary income. Now I'm going to stay away from the quagmire of the ethics involved in taking advantage of people with lots of money and poor impulse control, but in general, F2P is about allowing players that really WANT to give you more money to do that. Team Fortress 2 adopted a "Buy content you can get for free in-game" model not because they needed the money (because Valve is doing just fine already), but because players kept asking for it and it would have just been bad business sense for them to turn down a revenue stream that requires very little extra work on their part. I'm guessing the question was probably inspired by the announcement today that City of Heroes is switching to a free to play model, but if you look at their record with the booster packs and other paid "bonus" content, it's not really that surprising that they would choose to go all the way with it. They've been experimenting for a while and it's worked well enough that they feel confident in dropping mandatory subscriptions from their payment model. The Cheshire Cat fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 02:42
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Makes sense. Thanks for the educations 
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Jun 22, 2011 02:47
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Raph Koster has a blog post that essentially nails this concept. I've had it bookmarked since he wrote it, as it's generally the easiest way to explain the reasoning behind microtransactions. http://www.raphkoster.com/2009/03/16/arpu-vs-arppu/
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Jun 22, 2011 02:53
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Sigma-X posted:My buddy who used to work for a company that did F2P games exclusively said their average take per unique account was $80 per account. Those are astronomical numbers. What I've read is more like you're doing really well at $2/month/user. But still, F2P means a lot more users. Or like the article Diplomaticus linked says, those numbers sound like ARPPU, not ARPU.
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Jun 22, 2011 04:27
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http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd335/camjwalter/Chair.png So I made a chair, using what is probably the most roundabout method possible. Sure does take a while, that and it doesn't look great and I still need to put some form of texture on there.
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Jun 22, 2011 04:40
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Solus posted:http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd335/camjwalter/Chair.png Good start, as with learning anything it's important to take it slow and be thorough. Also read and post in the 3DCG thread in CC. More modellers there that'll be able to help you along the way.
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Jun 22, 2011 04:46
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Aliginge posted:Good start, as with learning anything it's important to take it slow and be thorough. Cheers mate. Didn't know that was floating around. Is it worth keeping going with Blender for game models or is it worth abusing my student priviledges and getting a free copy of 3DSmax?
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Jun 22, 2011 04:52
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Just a random OO programming question: why is it a bad idea to think of classes as functions of functions (i.e., functions in which there are more functions)?
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Jun 22, 2011 04:59
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Solus posted:is it worth abusing my student priviledges and getting a free copy of 3DSmax? poo poo yeah, get in there. The more packages you are proficient at the better. If given a choice between Blender and Max/Maya/Softimage though, I'd always go with one of the latter. Blender is cool and all but it's not one of the big three however you look at it.
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Jun 22, 2011 05:13
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Black Eagle posted:Just a random OO programming question: why is it a bad idea to think of classes as functions of functions (i.e., functions in which there are more functions)? Because they aren't. Programming questions are probably best directed towards this thread, where you'll get a better answer, but I'll do my best to give a quick one here. Essentially, classes should be thought of as descriptions of an entity of some kind. That particular entity needs members (variables and methods) which describe how it behaves and ONLY that. The difference really is that functions are generic input->output operations that can be applied to anything with the right data types, while class methods should only concern the operation of THAT particular class. Of course, classes do need to relate to each other so you shouldn't drive yourself insane trying to make every class an entirely self-sufficient entity, but in general the less interdependence you have between classes, the better. An OO program is kind of like a machine with replaceable parts: so long as each part reacts in the expected manner to stimuli, the exact nature of that part shouldn't matter. An magnetically driven piston or a hydraulic system both create pressure, but function very differently. In an OO-type machine, they would both be usable as the same part. In practice, you'll probably find yourself needing some function-like behaviour, which is what static classes (i.e. global classes, or classes with members that can be accessed without needing an instance of that class) can be used for. Things like the Math class that comes built in with most languages and such. What you might find while designing something using OO is that a lot of classes have similar methods that you feel would be more efficient as a generic function, but this is the wrong way to look at it. Instead, you should look at your classes and consider whether they're similar enough to be consolidated into a single class, or a hierarchy of classes. The end result of this latter approach is that you end up with a more efficient class structure, while in the former approach you still have the same mess of classes as the original as well as a function floating around that doesn't give any indication of the classes with which it's meant to be used. The Cheshire Cat fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 05:32
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I have a question for you producer-types out there. Recently on a project, I had a guy working for me on a feature basically since day one, but it involved some tricky programming and as other complications in the game showed up and had to be dealt with, I made the decision to cut the feature and put him on one of the programming teams that were struggling, saying "There's no way we're going to get this feature implemented and bugged out by the deadline, so I'm going to put you with these other guys to make sure that their features come out right." I think that's that, but the next morning the guy comes in way earlier than normal, when I'm usually the only one there, and he's just kind of in a daze, just, total thousand-yard stare. I kinda pop in like "Uh.. hey, what's going on, man? Everything okay?" He turns to me and asks with this semi-pained look on his face if he's done anything of any value for the team, since we're in the home stretch and there's not a single jot of his code in the program now that the feature he was working on got cut. He's having this entire existential crisis about the project being late and him feeling like he's been more or less dead weight. It's like, what do you say to that? I mean, he's been working pretty long days and doing hard work, but he's right- in terms of the finished product, by that point of 3/4ths through the project he'd done nothing that would be in the final product. For my part, I told him he'd done exactly what he should have been doing- his job. He came in, got his tasks, and did them. I said that his feature getting cut had nothing to do with him, it was a function of the planning of the management. If the schedule and the milestones say "This isn't going to work," then things need to be shuffled and scaled back to the point we can make deadline, and he needs to just keep doing his job coming in and doing his programming tasks each day. I mean, I'm sure that there's a skill level where he could have made it work in the time allotted, but the project was plagued with "Boy this sure turned out to be more complicated than we thought" from the word go more or less, and I don't think even if there was a skill threshold where we wouldn't have needed to cut the feature it wouldn't have accomplished anything to say it out loud. It was just weird for me, it was the first time I'd been with someone on a project and their motivation crashed that dramatically. I've had to deal with people who weren't very motivated, and people who went crazy and burned out, but the near-total daze with which he came into work that day was just kind of like "  what the gently caress do I do  "
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Jun 22, 2011 10:34
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I'm thinking about embarking on a Game Design course with Train2Game, and would be interested to hear if anyone in this thread has experience of them and thinks it is any good or not. I've had a chat with a guy from the course and it all sounds very interesting, and from what he said the job prospects for those graduating the course are pretty solid. On the other hand, I want to be sure it's worthwhile before dropping five grand and 18 months on it!
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Jun 22, 2011 12:21
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sebzilla posted:I'm thinking about embarking on a Game Design course with Train2Game, and would be interested to hear if anyone in this thread has experience of them and thinks it is any good or not. I've had a chat with a guy from the course and it all sounds very interesting, and from what he said the job prospects for those graduating the course are pretty solid. On the other hand, I want to be sure it's worthwhile before dropping five grand and 18 months on it! Is this a troll? Short answer: No. It's not. Spend those 18 months doing some actual work if you want to be in games. Read the thread.
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Jun 22, 2011 12:28
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sebzilla posted:from what he said the job prospects for those graduating the course are pretty solid Go to a real university! The consensus in this thread seems to be that even specialised university courses aren't worth the time, but I disagree - it depends on the course. My university ran two courses - Games Development and Games Design - and both courses produced people (like me!) that went on to get, and keep, jobs in the industry. Or learn in your spare time using books and the internet. All Train2Game will do is give you lovely materials to use and lovely assignments to carry out; you can find better materials and give yourself better assignments for a fraction of the cost.
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Jun 22, 2011 13:00
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So much of my actual learning about the finer points of 3d modelling came way after I graduated university. I'd say self study is the way to go, though I certainly don't regret my time at uni at all.
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Jun 22, 2011 13:11
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If we're talking education (that's not an 18 month scam course), then I agree. Get a degree in Comp Sci (if you want to be an engineer), or fine art or business if you want to be somewhere else. Whatever you do, don't take anything with "games" in the degree name or from a games-specific trade school. While they can theoretically produce good employees, they limit your options and the mainstream degrees don't.
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Jun 22, 2011 13:14
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Akuma posted:This is bullshit, unfortunately. I have firsthand knowledge of this - we've had two people come to our office for interviews after graduating Train2Game (according to one of the course instructors they were at the top of the pile) and they were completely useless. Good to know, thanks. I'm glad I asked, looks like I may be dodging a bullet. quote:Go to a real university! The consensus in this thread seems to be that even specialised university courses aren't worth the time, but I disagree - it depends on the course. My university ran two courses - Games Development and Games Design - and both courses produced people (like me!) that went on to get, and keep, jobs in the industry. I already have a degree in an unrelated subject, and don't really fancy diving back into full-time academia right now. The home-based nature of the course appealed to me. Plus, tuition fees just tripled (thanks, Tories) so gently caress that. quote:Or learn in your spare time using books and the internet. All Train2Game will do is give you lovely materials to use and lovely assignments to carry out; you can find better materials and give yourself better assignments for a fraction of the cost I think this will be my best option. Or just sack it all off and keep looking for jobs in my current field. Working in games is a nice dream, but I am probably too lazy to get anywhere by self-teaching so I guess I just don't want it hard enough. I'll stick to writing books and leave the games to other people.
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Jun 22, 2011 14:28
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Solus posted:Cheers mate. Didn't know that was floating around. Is it worth keeping going with Blender for game models or is it worth abusing my student priviledges and getting a free copy of 3DSmax? Don't listen to Aliginge. Blender is fine. Once you learn one 3d package and how to model, you can jump to different packages easily. The only thing you really need to learn is a new interface. I learned on Max, but I also know Maya, and I taught myself how to use blender in about a month in my free time. The principles of modeling are the same. The benefit if Blender is it actually has some stuff that Max doesn't really have like sculpting in program and their own game engine built into the program. The other benefit is, if you get good at it and you want to make money off of what you make, you can since its free. If you use a student copy of 3ds max, you can get sued. For your chair, did you look at a real life reference to make it or did you make it out of your head?
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Jun 22, 2011 14:34
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^^^ Blender is fine, sure, but when you can get Max and Maya for free with an @.edu email, why not just learn one of those?Aliginge posted:So much of my actual learning about the finer points of 3d modelling came way after I graduated university. I'd say self study is the way to go, though I certainly don't regret my time at uni at all. A word of caution on this, however. Many people are NOT self-learners in any way. This doesn't mean they're lazy or whatever, they are just unlikely to force themselves into to learn and make any meaningful progress. For these types, a good school is a fantastic place for them to learn how to self-learn because it can help adjust their priorities. I was this way and I'm glad I went through the program I did because it taught me how to learn and how to work. Also, I've had 2 internships now, and I got both positions because my portfolio had good work in it, but I got both of the interviews because the companies had worked with my uni's program before. Again, the benefit of a good school comes in more forms than a good education. However, if it was between going to a bad school that the industry laughs at and teaching myself, I would teach myself all the way. There are better tech and graduate schools than the one you mentioned, though. I've heard bunches of good stuff about Guild Hall, for example. mutata fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 14:50
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sebzilla posted:I'm thinking about embarking on a Game Design course with Train2Game, and would be interested to hear if anyone in this thread has experience of them and thinks it is any good or not. I've had a chat with a guy from the course and it all sounds very interesting, and from what he said the job prospects for those graduating the course are pretty solid. On the other hand, I want to be sure it's worthwhile before dropping five grand and 18 months on it!  he is outright lying to you do not attend Train2Game for any reason they are the bottom of the loving barrel and you'll be lucky to qualify for a tester position Solus, I haven't used Blender and am a 3ds Max guy all the way, so I might be biased, but if you have the opportunity for Free 3ds Max (or any other software) take it! The worst case scenario is that you don't use it. The best case scenario is that you prefer it, learn faster in it, etc. It is a terrible idea to focus on 'learning' a bunch of 3d programs rather than getting balls deep in one - once you're really, really deep in one of them learning the others is relatively quick, because you know all of the available processes to a 3d modeler, and its just a matter of learning that Maya calls chamfering edges beveling edges, etc etc. It's worthwhile to fart around a couple of different programs early on to figure out which has the most intuitive interface (protip: none of them, from what I've seen) and then stick with that one.
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Jun 22, 2011 14:58
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Alterian posted:
A chair thats in the garden at the famlies beach house so i was going off basic woodwork knowledge (things need supports) and memory. Sigma-X posted:
....Yes  I currently have 36 month licences for Mudbox and 3DS Max, haven't activated the 3DS Max key yet, still downloading. Solus fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 15:14
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Solus posted:A chair thats in the garden at the famlies beach house so i was going off basic woodwork knowledge (things need supports) and memory. I'm guessing that means you did it out of your head. You should always have a reference image in front of you, especially if you're just starting out. Hell, I never model anything without looking at reference images first. Its just like when you learn how to draw. You don't try to draw without having the object or an image in front of you. Edit: Looking at that list just so you know 3ds max design and 3ds max are two differen't programs.
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Jun 22, 2011 15:24
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Alterian posted:I'm guessing that means you did it out of your head. You should always have a reference image in front of you, especially if you're just starting out. Hell, I never model anything without looking at reference images first. Its just like when you learn how to draw. You don't try to draw without having the object or an image in front of you. I shall find things a bit more on hand next time. I unforutnately spent all my blender time today diseccting tf2 models to make a hat edit - It doesn't show up on that list because I've claimed it... for some reason mudbox is there...meh. It's not Max Design. Solus fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Jun 22, 2011 |
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Jun 22, 2011 15:26
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