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GeauxSteve posted:I've got a phone interview with Irrational Games today for a Senior QA Tester spot. Woo! This looks like one of those majorly juicy positions just because of the developer. Good loving luck dude. 
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Jun 28, 2011 20:21
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Odddzy posted:What would you define as too long?
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Jun 28, 2011 20:28
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Imajus posted:If they gave you a time limit, take all the time they gave you. Usually it's a week, but that one is a small environment so it's a bit more involved. Maybe two weeks? Provided you get a decent numbers of hours a day to work on it. They didn't give me any time limit, just tell us how long it took kind of deal.
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Jun 28, 2011 20:48
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GeauxSteve posted:I've got a phone interview with Irrational Games today for a Senior QA Tester spot. Woo! I saw that opening a bit ago and was super jealous, as I'm not able to move right now or else I totally would have applied. It's fairly rare for a company to have non-entry level testing positions available. Good luck, fellow senior QA!
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Jun 28, 2011 21:21
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Odddzy posted:Ground reflection: Partially transparent ground allows you to duplicate some objects in order to fake some reflections...Oh, do they mean duplicate a mesh, push it over the ''real'' mesh and lower it's opacity? Sounds to me like they're talking about making puddles, etc. actually transparent and then grabbing selected objects in the world (trees, walls), duping them, and flipping them on z to have a nice fake "reflection" seen through the ground without the extra cost for actual reflective water.
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Jun 28, 2011 21:36
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endlosnull posted:I am a DigiPen programmer graduate in the RTIS degree and DigiPen works you really hard, but that's how you have to get your mindset into. The biggest thing I always try to emphasize is self-motivation. Playing games and making games are very different. You can roll through the degree and work hard, but if you don't feel like wanting to make your own levels for a game or a new scripted AI or something on the side, then everything DigiPen or any other school offers won't help much. I've seen way too many dropouts because they loved games, but just didn't have the heart to make them. I don't think I would have went with design over programming had he not straight up recommended it to me with a warning. He basically told me that they kick your rear end to make sure you don't need to be put into a different major, and from his experience with me (I'm hell of a modest guy, so I'm not going into this like "MAN I'M GOING TO MAKE A GAME AND MAKE A GAME AND COMPLETELY IGNORE THE FACT THAT I HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO loving DO ALL THIS CRAP AND PROBABLY NEED HELP FROM OTHER PEOPLE FOR A COMPLETED PRODUCT", like most people who pursue that specific degree) he says I would be a very good fit for it if I can do the work, which I personally believe I am more than capable of.
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Jun 28, 2011 22:20
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Demitri Omni posted:I don't think I would have went with design over programming had he not straight up recommended it to me with a warning. He basically told me that they kick your rear end to make sure you don't need to be put into a different major, and from his experience with me (I'm hell of a modest guy, so I'm not going into this like "MAN I'M GOING TO MAKE A GAME AND MAKE A GAME AND COMPLETELY IGNORE THE FACT THAT I HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO loving DO ALL THIS CRAP AND PROBABLY NEED HELP FROM OTHER PEOPLE FOR A COMPLETED PRODUCT", like most people who pursue that specific degree) he says I would be a very good fit for it if I can do the work, which I personally believe I am more than capable of. To be a good designer, you really, really need to have the technical grounding, and the best way of getting that is to start in engineering. The pay is also better, and you'll have more employment prospects as a novice, AND the programming degree is just as likely to get you a design position (because the design position's likelihood will be based on the strength of your portfolio, which you'll build in both majors).
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Jun 28, 2011 23:22
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aas Bandit posted:Sounds to me like they're talking about making puddles, etc. actually transparent and then grabbing selected objects in the world (trees, walls), duping them, and flipping them on z to have a nice fake "reflection" seen through the ground without the extra cost for actual reflective water. How could I make the meshes appear through the ground if they have been duped?
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Jun 29, 2011 00:03
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Odddzy posted:How could I make the meshes appear through the ground if they have been duped? Make the puddles transparent/holes in the ground? That's really the only way I can think of.
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Jun 29, 2011 00:08
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Very similar to this: http://jimleggitt.typepad.com/jim-leggitt-drawing-shortcuts/2011/02/creating-water-reflections-in-sketchup-models.html
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Jun 29, 2011 00:19
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Lurking Haro posted:Make the puddles transparent/holes in the ground? That's really the only way I can think of. Ah! I think I get it. But let's say I have a very large terrain, How could I place the puddles at spots that will turn out nice without having a repeating texture everywhere? I know it might turn out hard to explain so If you guy's have a tutorial or something I would really appreceate it
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Jun 29, 2011 00:19
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Shalinor posted:I would still recommend the programming degree. Looking at the actual course requirement list (and suggested course sequence), there don't appear to be any less core programming or math classes than the design degree, it just seems like the design degree has a lot more required courses other than those (only 2-3 electives), whereas the programming degree has a ton of electives towards the end of the curriculum, instead of the design-oriented classes the other degree has. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but it doesn't look like I would be going through any less programming than I would be in the actual programming degree.
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Jun 29, 2011 00:24
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Odddzy posted:Ah! I think I get it. But let's say I have a very large terrain, How could I place the puddles at spots that will turn out nice without having a repeating texture everywhere? I think you actually have to model the holes if you don't want to have a giant texture with transparent puddles.
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Jun 29, 2011 00:26
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Demitri Omni posted:Looking at the actual course requirement list (and suggested course sequence), there don't appear to be any less core programming or math classes than the design degree, it just seems like the design degree has a lot more required courses other than those (only 2-3 electives), whereas the programming degree has a ton of electives towards the end of the curriculum, instead of the design-oriented classes the other degree has. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but it doesn't look like I would be going through any less programming than I would be in the actual programming degree. Umm, looking at the current recommended course sequence for the game design degree, I can handily tell you that you will be going through way less programming in the game design degree. Most of the programming if at all you will learn is scripting, but I think even then learning a programming language like C/C++ first then moving into scripting is miles and miles better. As someone who went through the programming degree, I think the game design courses look really meh but maybe it's just my bitterness having to write my own physics engine, graphics engine (both OpenGL and DirectX), AI, math libraries, etc etc from scratch. However, if you look at the courses and you are really excited for it, maybe check it out. I think you can always switch to the programmer or art degree if you want to but it's expensive. If you're a programmer you're not pigeon holed into a programmer position, you just need to get some experience on your own.
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Jun 29, 2011 00:37
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Lurking Haro posted:I think you actually have to model the holes if you don't want to have a giant texture with transparent puddles. Wouldn't there be a way to use a composite mask or something?
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Jun 29, 2011 00:55
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Odddzy posted:Wouldn't there be a way to use a composite mask or something? I can't do any modelling, so I don't know what methods there are. The concept is easy enough, so shouldn't you be able to do it yourself now? Model the scene, make a few puddles that are either holes in the mesh or transparent and than copy and flip the whole scene. If the puddles are at different levels you have to split the mirrored model up and adjust the parts to avoid gaps between both sides of the puddles. Lurking Haro fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jun 29, 2011 |
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Jun 29, 2011 00:59
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Lurking Haro posted:I can't do any modelling, so I don't know what methods there are. The concept is easy enough, so shouldn't you be able to do it yourself now? Don't worry, I got the part about modeling the holes I was wondering though if there was a way to create transparent holes with the help of a decal or something, I don't know if it would be possible inside Max.
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Jun 29, 2011 01:10
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endlosnull posted:Umm, looking at the current recommended course sequence for the game design degree, I can handily tell you that you will be going through way less programming in the game design degree. Most of the programming if at all you will learn is scripting, but I think even then learning a programming language like C/C++ first then moving into scripting is miles and miles better. Okay, I went through and actually wrote the differences out so I could see, and yeah, it does seem to cut off the last two semesters of programming courses that RTIS students take. I suppose I could take the RTIS degree, and any other things I'd want to learn I could take as electives borrowed from the BSGD path. I appreciate you guys' help, hopefully this next year I'll either be on my way to DigiPen or to another accredited university. I'm looking into moving towards Massachusetts sometime before then, so I may look into other universities in that area instead, depending on how everything goes. I'm open to suggestions.
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Jun 29, 2011 01:21
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Demitri Omni posted:Looking at the actual course requirement list (and suggested course sequence), there don't appear to be any less core programming or math classes than the design degree, it just seems like the design degree has a lot more required courses other than those (only 2-3 electives), whereas the programming degree has a ton of electives towards the end of the curriculum, instead of the design-oriented classes the other degree has. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but it doesn't look like I would be going through any less programming than I would be in the actual programming degree. Disclaimer: my opinion does not reflect the entire industry obviously, but does apply to myself and everyone else at my company involved in hiring, as well as friends at other studios. When reviewing a resume from Full Sail, you would get the following reaction from us: - Programming major: Well, Full Sail is kinda meh, but maybe he can at least code. - Design major: Next! I view Game Design degrees as a VERY dangerous path because it pigeonholes you into a career that doesn't particularly give a poo poo if you got a degree in Game Design in the first place (or it might actually hurt more than it helps in some cases). I know we'd look a lot more favorably on an applicant with ZERO college experience who showed us a really cool game they collaborated on or coded than someone with a Full Sail design degree and an average portfolio. I'm not saying that's fair, just the reality at some studios. That doesn't mean you should force coding on yourself just because we are doom and glooming design. Technical designers who come from a coding background can be SUPER valuable, but you can also make enemies trying to force yourself into design from code side.
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Jun 29, 2011 01:31
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Demitri Omni posted:Okay, I went through and actually wrote the differences out so I could see, and yeah, it does seem to cut off the last two semesters of programming courses that RTIS students take. I suppose I could take the RTIS degree, and any other things I'd want to learn I could take as electives borrowed from the BSGD path. I appreciate you guys' help, hopefully this next year I'll either be on my way to DigiPen or to another accredited university. I'm looking into moving towards Massachusetts sometime before then, so I may look into other universities in that area instead, depending on how everything goes. I'm open to suggestions. Your portfolio. That is it. That's all the game design side gets you, and the coursework itself isn't very good at producing good portfolio pieces. So if you go DigiPen, just go programming, get your degree, and spend whatever time you would have spent taking extra electives and instead just work on your portfolio - it'll improve your odds of success far, far more than a couple of classes covering material of dubious worth.
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Jun 29, 2011 01:36
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Shalinor posted:You don't need anything from the design side, period. The programming degree is at least something useful - the design degree is mostly bullshit. No one cares about a design degree, or coursework toward or from a design degree, they care about what games you've made that you can show them and talk about. Well, most of the stuff I was thinking of in that regard wasn't theory classes or anything, but maybe some modeling, art design, or just something else to dabble and give myself some extra skills that I could have to help me be more generally proficient. I won't say I'm completely non-artistic, I just sort of fit into the 'ideas' category in that area, where I have a lot of things I WANT to make, but no basis in technique.
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Jun 29, 2011 01:40
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Shalinor posted:It is indeed frustrating. At least core gaming has the occasional developer that opens up about sales figures, but googling even something like "did this developer consider this game a success" turns up nothing in casual. Maybe the contracts are more severe about sales data leaks, maybe it's just that casual devs don't bother with engaging fans so never release that data in the first place, who knows My first job out of college was doing art at a casual dev. Everyone who actually contributed was nuts about games, but the people who paid the bills and ran the company were completely old-fashioned, corporate and straight-laced. We were never informed of anything about our games' sales. We were laborers and there was no need for us to be privy to that information. I think much of the lack of audience interaction comes with the assumption that you're making games for a very broad audience, and specifically for those who don't consider games very important, even if they spend hours a day with them. If you aren't a studio that makes huge waves(Zynga, Popcap), nobody really cares to even ask how your stuff is doing. Really, though, unless you're doing market research and have a vested interest, as you do, would you really care about the profitability of random casual studio title #205,201? I think this trend has changed a bunch since the explosion of modern mobile gaming. You're seeing a greater amount of traditional devs getting involved and indies who actually care about making something interesting. They're more likely to personally jump in and engage with audience and fans since so much of creating buzz is starting viral or organic popularity. Desktop casual devs seem to be more about cash-grab than passion. DefMech fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Jun 29, 2011 |
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Jun 29, 2011 04:11
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DefMech posted:I think this trend has changed a bunch since the explosion of modern mobile gaming. You're seeing a greater amount of traditional devs getting involved and indies who actually care about making something interesting. They're more likely to personally jump in and engage with audience and fans since so much of creating buzz is starting viral or organic popularity. Desktop casual devs seem to be more about cash-grab than passion. Simple example, the guys behind the Drawn games. They've gotten my notice, and that of a lot of devs and players, simply by being open and talkative about what they do. The pieces they've had on Gamasutra have made me, though not typically a casual games person, a huge fan. EDIT: Drawn: The Painted Tower is probably, what, my second most played iPad app thus far. Great adventure game, that 
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Jun 29, 2011 |
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Jun 29, 2011 05:00
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Ramen Ocelot posted:I saw that opening a bit ago and was super jealous, as I'm not able to move right now or else I totally would have applied. It's fairly rare for a company to have non-entry level testing positions available. Good luck, fellow senior QA! I think the interview went fairly well, but that I may be over qualified for it. In my current position, I'm working at a test lead/almost project lead level, but my job title is only QA Tester. This would be a jump up to Senior QA Tester, but I'd actually only be doing that. So I'd be getting paid way more for doing way less. Edit: Also add me to the OP as QA for EA GeauxSteve fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jun 29, 2011 |
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Jun 29, 2011 05:50
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Akuma posted:We've got two new guys coming in for a trial week on Monday. Finally, someone that seems capable! I won't name any names (because they'd have done it by now if they wanted to, I figure) but they both came from this thread. From a while back, but I was one of the two new guys, and I start full-time next month. Cheers, Akuma! Time to start looking for flats in/around Leamington! (And despairing at how much more expensive they are than Dundee.)
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Jun 29, 2011 12:08
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SnafuAl posted:From a while back, but I was one of the two new guys, and I start full-time next month. Cheers, Akuma! Time to start looking for flats in/around Leamington! (And despairing at how much more expensive they are than Dundee.) Out of interest, what company in Leamington Spa? Interested to see what games companies are located there.
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Jun 29, 2011 14:06
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Codies is the big one.
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Jun 29, 2011 14:20
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Andio posted:Out of interest, what company in Leamington Spa? Interested to see what games companies are located there. Codemaster's main place, Blitz, I thin Freestyle may still be open, Full Fat used to be there but moved to Coventry, but agencies still seem to list them there. I've been talking to a Senior Technical Artist who thinks my background makes me suitable to be a TA, does anyone here have experience of that and what it involves?
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Jun 29, 2011 15:02
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Attn journos: Rock Paper Shotgun is hiring writers.
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Jun 29, 2011 15:08
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Does anyone do Video work at their studio for trailers and that sort of thing? Or have a co-worker who could spend a little bit of time talking to me over IM or something? I'm starting to get in to the big leagues of trailers that will appear places other than on YouTube, and some of the high end production software and formats is very confusing. I'd really like to talk to someone who has delivered some video content to a major publisher that wasn't in h.264/wmv/avi format. Like Cineform/Avid/DVCProHD or something.
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Jun 29, 2011 17:13
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SnafuAl posted:From a while back, but I was one of the two new guys, and I start full-time next month. Cheers, Akuma! Time to start looking for flats in/around Leamington! (And despairing at how much more expensive they are than Dundee.) Andio posted:Out of interest, what company in Leamington Spa? Interested to see what games companies are located there.
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Jun 29, 2011 17:45
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Akuma posted:DNA Studios, formerly Slam Productions. I think this was in the last thread, but are you the guys I forwarded a coder/electrician friend to?  He's a bit ecstatic to be living the dream now and I was wondering how it was going with him
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Jun 29, 2011 17:56
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Aliginge posted:I think this was in the last thread, but are you the guys I forwarded a coder/electrician friend to? Does Drew have a forums account? Both the guys did really well, it wasn't a hard decision. We've seen some other good people since, too. Our little company is growing so fast. Edit: No PMs, eh... Expect an email! Akuma fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jun 29, 2011 |
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Jun 29, 2011 18:00
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Anyone here working at Turbine? I've been applying to a bunch of positions over there and haven't heard a word back despite multiple e-mails. Was curious if the positions had been filled.
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Jun 29, 2011 21:04
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Shalinor posted:This is probably a fair analysis, yeah. I mean would I even be considering making desktop casual games if there wasn't good money there that might fund our other projects? No, probably not. But I figure, if you're there anyways, why be a grumpy silent dev about it. There's fun to be had in making the games, fun and engagement can be infectious if you write about it, and who knows, maybe the fan base you engage with business chatter or design talk doesn't play those casual games... but drawing them in with your various postings results in more customers for your core games, or a better network with other developers, or other useful things. I think you're making the right kind of desktop casual game(from what you've revealed so far) and not the kind of dreck that flooded the portals a few years ago. People saw easy money with low cost, quick turnaround, formulaic games and threw as much against the wall as possible. It wasn't really about making quality products, it was a commodity to be churned. Just by pure chance, my daughter was sitting on the floor next to me playing Drawn on my iPad as I wrote this. I really appreciated that the people behind the biggest vector for the stuff mentioned above made what they did. Leading by example to show how casual doesn't have to mean cheap and shallow. It also makes me disappointed that there is such a dearth of good adventure on that platform. I'm not much into the Telltale games and much of the rest is too hidden-object for my tastes.
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Jun 29, 2011 22:45
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Oh god, right now I'm here to pimp some UK Jobs we have in London, Good place to work, pretty chill peeps. Looking for eager starters (like env artists) as well as grizzled juggernauts. I work as a Level designer at Splash Damage, got my pips doing a couple of levels for TF2. Been doing LD for as long as I can remember though. I'm pretty set on staying in that field only and not using it as some intermediate stepping stone. I give too many shits about flow and whatnot and want to make it my bitch. I'll throw down my dev story when I get the chance in the next few days.
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Jun 30, 2011 00:30
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Shalinor posted:It is indeed frustrating. At least core gaming has the occasional developer that opens up about sales figures, but googling even something like "did this developer consider this game a success" turns up nothing in casual. Maybe the contracts are more severe about sales data leaks, maybe it's just that casual devs don't bother with engaging fans so never release that data in the first place, who knows. As far as I can tell it's a mix of both. On one hand, there's definitely a community out there that the developers can interact with via the forums, but it's also a very, very minor and vocal part of the userbase that buys the games. And sometimes the general opinion of a game on those forums entirely clashes with its presumed sales numbers, so it doesn't surprise me that most developers have decided to ignore them. And the majority of the userbase doesn't care at all, so no reason to go out of your way trying to make public post mortems or anything of the sort. They're just not the type of people to be interested in that stuff it seems. Second, I recently got in touch with a programmer from a different HO studio, and he tells me that it's exactly the same situation, concerning sales data: no one knows anything save for management. Not even how much a game sells; you'd think that this would be a pretty cool way of motivating people who for the most part are not interested in the games they make. So yeah, my guess is that there's some directive from Big Fish/similar portals about making data public. As a note, I've more or less started blogging about my work on HO games, since it's nice to vent all my thoughts in one place. Coincidentally it's about the audience, and how annoying it can be. Shalinor posted:There's fun to be had in making the games, fun and engagement can be infectious if you write about it, and who knows, maybe the fan base you engage with business chatter or design talk doesn't play those casual games... but drawing them in with your various postings results in more customers for your core games, or a better network with other developers, or other useful things. I have not played the iPad version, but if it's the same as the PC one then it'd definitely a neat adventure game. Not quite as big a seller as an HO game though, so they don't show up very often. As for having fun making these games I'd point out Phantom of the Opera, which has some fairly ridiculous production values compared to the typical HO game. I'm sure everyone in the studio was able to get some enjoyment out of the development process since they were not bound by an ultra-packed six months schedule, and the end result is pretty beautiful. I honestly don't like HO games, but it managed to impress the hell out of me.
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Jun 30, 2011 00:42
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Fishbus posted:Oh god, right now I'm here to pimp some UK Jobs we have in London, Good place to work, pretty chill peeps. Looking for eager starters (like env artists) as well as grizzled juggernauts. Technical Artist entry 404ed on me. The blog entry there is a couple of weeks old, is it gone? Guy who interviewed me at Criterion (a Technical Artist himself) thought that I'm well positioned with my experience for that sort of work, which surprised me since I didn't think I was really qualified to do anything with "artist" in it professionally. Makes me optimistic that I might do well with my application there but I'd like to see what would be expected of me in the same role elsewhere.
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Jun 30, 2011 00:44
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It's either a few things: 1) We haven't fulfilled the role yet and are currently editing the requirements further. 2) We are looking at the currently applicants 3) (most likely) We've hosed up Tech artists are tricky beasts to tame from our experience. Sometimes they become tame and just help out with env art, but usually we'll try and actually get them doing the funky tech shader stuff and all that nonsense when the opportunity arises.
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Jun 30, 2011 00:50
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Mango Polo posted:As for having fun making these games I'd point out Phantom of the Opera, which has some fairly ridiculous production values compared to the typical HO game. I'm sure everyone in the studio was able to get some enjoyment out of the development process since they were not bound by an ultra-packed six months schedule, and the end result is pretty beautiful. I honestly don't like HO games, but it managed to impress the hell out of me. Yes, we sure did, but the ROI really necessitates avenues outside of BigFish's own site, like traditional retail and smartphones/tablets. Or you could be like ERS and do things very cheaply. And as long as I can pimp Phantom, use this link instead (it has extra goodies)!
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Jun 30, 2011 02:18
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