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Put me in the "know a bunch of great designers from Full Sail" camp.
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Dec 8, 2011 08:11
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If your friend will be paying for Full Sail on their own (i.e. loans), they can do far better elsewhere. It's not that Full Sail is necessarily a bad school, but they are a for profit institution, and their goal is to keep you engaged until your final payments are made, at which point they (as a whole) no longer care. None of the coursework there will transfer for credit to any other schools. If they get in and decide that this isn't actually their dream after six months, they're completely hosed. Also, Orlando sucks like Megamaid. Full Sail talks a lot about their industry connections and their industry ties and all that, but they graduate a new batch of students every month. They graduate more people than there are entry-level jobs opening up. As you've seen, there isn't necessarily a disadvantage to the degree, but if your portfolio's equal there isn't an advantage to the degree either. My advice for people wanting to get into this industry is always to find a local or state college where they can get a well-rounded general education, experience all of the awesome parts of college, AND learn the fundamentals that let them build the really important thing - a portfolio. They won't be six figures in the hole, either. At a regular college it's still possible to work part time and mitigate the amount of money you need to borrow. It's tough, but it's not tougher than it is to work in this industry. All that said, it can work. It (eventually) worked for me. But it's by no means a guarantee.
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Dec 8, 2011 08:33
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basically if you want to be a programmer in games, even if you don't have a 4 year degree, it's so stupidly easy to put together a demo that if you don't I'd kind of question how much you really want to do it if you just say "hey yeah I want to be a programmer and I can totally do it" without a portfolio, demo, or some other kind of tangible evidence that you actually know how to program. When I interview a designer I pretty much spend a couple seconds looking at their education and then move on to what actually matters. If I'm interviewing you for a jr. position and you have no experience in the industry, I want to know that you can work in a team, have some ability to critically analyze games, and some basic understanding of a technical aspect of game design. On the other hand, since I'm at Obsidian our designers tend to do different stuff than they would at other companies. We have level designers but not all of our designers do levels, and it's pretty hard to develop a system design/dialog portfolio in my experience. By the way we currently have one person from Digipen and a couple from the Guildhall. They are programmers (we have a couple artists from the Art Institutes and other game related programs, as well). We haven't hired anyone from Full Sail and I've never heard anything positive about the school or candidates from it. To be entirely honest though the best designers I've worked with all have liberal arts degrees in subjects completely unrelated or only tangentially related to game design. Josh Sawyer and myself, the last two lead designers at Obsidian, have degrees in History. Greg Street, the Lead System Designer on WoW, had a phd in Marine Science before he became a game designer. Critical thinking is very important in design so if you can learn to think critically at Full Sail, awesome, but the liberal arts and hard sciences are focused on training you for critical thinking, so I'd still recommend that over any specific design courses. djkillingspree fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Dec 8, 2011 |
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Dec 8, 2011 08:36
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Shalinor posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxmmdYuyFeU Needs way more art for a demo and I hate the way your character moves hope this helps  Also never use demo footage that involves missing jumps or loving up. When the character misses the early jump I assumed you were going to show off some awesome mechanic like that thing GWG was demoing a while back where you can snapshot the level geo to screenspace and move it around to make your jumps. Way too dark, I hate your main character, and it doesn't mesh well with the 3d look of everything else - either shade everything with a comic-book style shader or make her a real 3d model already, you're wildly inconsistent. Also, this is something that happens with all demos, but you don't have enough actual art in any of the environments. You need a bunch of rocks, grass, etc, and then use the foliage system in UE3 to place this stuff quickly and avoid the flat heightmap + 4 boxes thing going on right now.
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Dec 8, 2011 14:11
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Sigma-X posted:Needs way more art for a demo and I hate the way your character moves hope this helps  . The missed jump was an attempt at showing ability unlocks, which are stupidly hard to demonstrate in video form (without finalized "ability unlocked!" art sequences et al).That said, I am curious whether folks think I should be passing this around to press. One school of thought says that indies should be loud from the beginning, never hold their game back. The other, AAA-borne thinking is that a year from now, when we release, people would still think of The Savage Garden as looking like it does in that trailer, rather than however polished it looks by release. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Dec 8, 2011 |
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Dec 8, 2011 14:38
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If you're proud of the way this trailer shows off the features your final game will have and tout, then by all means shout about it. A video can't serve two purposes, though, and it seems this one might be trying to both show a stage of development and highlight the game features. I would release to press two videos. First, make a more direct trailer that highlights the features that make your game unique and awesome, and shows them clearly. Then, later, release one that shows where you are in development right now, and how far along you are in making each of those features, as well as all of the other stuff that goes into the game (character art/animations, environments, enemies, etc.). At the very least, I would cut some of the platforming scenes (especially the earlier ones, where without powers it is just super-basic running and jumping, e.g. boring poo poo I've seen a hundred times that does not pique my interest in your game) and fill the time with some concept art, so we know what it will look like when it's done.
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Dec 8, 2011 15:12
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Star Warrior X posted:If you're proud of the way this trailer shows off the features your final game will have and tout, then by all means shout about it. A video can't serve two purposes, though, and it seems this one might be trying to both show a stage of development and highlight the game features. Star Warrior X posted:I would release to press two videos. First, make a more direct trailer that highlights the features that make your game unique and awesome, and shows them clearly. Then, later, release one that shows where you are in development right now, and how far along you are in making each of those features, as well as all of the other stuff that goes into the game (character art/animations, environments, enemies, etc.). [...] fill the time with some concept art, so we know what it will look like when it's done. Basically, I think if we were going to do the constant-releases thing, it would need to be something other than this that we'd release. It would need to be more obviously dev-focused. Dwelling on specific features, fewer cuts, show rough edges off instead of trying to half-hide them, etc. For this, I think I'll re-upload without the audio overlay to clarify it a bit, and then keep it as a dev video for IGF only / skip any kind of press attempt. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Dec 8, 2011 |
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Dec 8, 2011 15:28
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Shalinor posted:There is no such concept art, because we're an indie studio - there is no big concept art team with the time to fill walls full of paint-overs. Instead, we iterate in-engine (UDK is pretty flexible), and we're still doing that. Even for an indie, concept art is important, and you should spend some time now, early in the development process, to make some. Even if your final game doesn't look anything like the concept art, it's still important to have that vision to drive toward. The idea of 'iterate on the prototype until it's a fun, complete game' is really hard to pull off, and impossible to do as fast as you could if you ad a clear end goal. I went through it myself. The process of making concept art will ensure that you have a clear vision for what you want your game to become as you iterate on the prototype, and ensure that that vision is shared throughout your team.
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Dec 8, 2011 15:36
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Shalinor posted:Pre-alpha IGF trailer, dude. Every entry needs a trailer to go with the submission, this is just our updated one. Yes, we are aware we need way better art before we release No I meant release as in "release [this] to the public." Never show assets that are intended to be replaced. This is one of the reasons vertical slice is so important, because it gives you a "final" piece of the game that you can advertise from in the beginning. I'm not saying everything needs to be 100%, but everything should be to the quality that if you shipped the game with it you'd have zero regrets. This is what every other "pre alpha footage" style release trailer a major game does, and you should do it no differently. What I would do is backburner this trailer and then once you've gotten a vertical slice build that demos all the same stuff (which should be your next goal because it will allow you to identify weaknesses in the development pipeline and the game itself, like the hodgepodge art direction at the moment, as well as giving a strong estimate of how long it will take to finish) you can release that, and then have this on your site as a comparison ("look how far we've come in X Months!") You also didn't show off the coolest bit of what you've got going on in the game, imho, but I'll talk about that over AIM.
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Dec 8, 2011 15:39
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Sigma-X posted:You also didn't show off the coolest bit of what you've got going on in the game, imho, but I'll talk about that over AIM. ... but yeah, we need to concept. A lot. We need to figure out if the paperdoll look can be made to mesh with the world convincingly, and we need to figure out all the gee-whiz ways our plane-switching tech can be used. Then we need to build the level and features that really show all those off, and fill it with the concept-improved art, and THAT should be our first trailer of note. Regardless, this trailer still served its purpose. It goes us useful feedback, and will probably continue to do so EDIT: and by all means, keep the feedback coming. This has already sparked off what should be a great discussion for the team. If you hate the visual style, if you've got ideas for how to improve it, if you think the warped plane pathing stuff is cool or not, if you want to see more melee combat, whatever, shoot. Feedback is welcome. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Dec 8, 2011 |
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Dec 8, 2011 15:58
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I used to get pissy and argue until I was blue in the face about Full Sail. That was many moons ago and I'll say it like this: If you're not willing to hire someone specifically because of their school then you're an idiot. I can say that without a single hesitation because as someone who has input into hiring you had better be looking for the best candidates. Full Sail has tons of turds just like it has many good graduates, this is the same for every other school. Undeniable facts about Full Sail 1) It costs a lot, more than just about any other school 2) Full Sail is Nationally accredited not Regionally accredited, meaning you most likely won't transfer credit to anywhere else Regardless of those facts, I can tell you that I mentored the crap out of Comp Sci students from USF, UCF, FSU, UF and some other universities from other states and I met MANY who couldn't hold a candle to some of the worst programmers I met at Full Sail. The classes were incredibly difficult and I didn't know a thing about programming before I go there. People I graduated with are Software Leads or Design Leads in many places and of course every position underneath there as well. So, sure, please inform people about the fact that Full Sail is expensive and the credits don't transfer. But there are many great Grads in the industry from Design to Production to Programming and acting like the quality of a Full Sail grad is somehow different is being blind to your own graduating classes (if you went to a school).
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Dec 8, 2011 16:28
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Senso posted:That's why I'm a bit depressed when I think of my future. I've been a sysadmin for 4-5 years now but I'd like to eventually move to programming. I don't have a degree but I'm pretty good with Python and a few other languages. I know that even if I get offered a coding job, it would be a junior position and I'm not really ready to take a $20k salary drop (family to support and all)... I'll just re-iterate what I said last page... I started in an ops type position (ESM) and now make FPSes all day. If it's what you want there are avenues. Particularly if you get into an MMO company. I took a 5% salary drop going from being a Tech Architect at EA in Redwood Shores to a Sr. Software Engineer at Westwood in Vegas, the cost of living change alone made up for that.  So don't think you'll be losing a poo poo ton of money as well.
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Dec 8, 2011 16:37
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Mega Shark posted:Regardless of those facts, I can tell you that I mentored the crap out of Comp Sci students from USF, UCF, FSU, UF and some other universities from other states and I met MANY who couldn't hold a candle to some of the worst programmers I met at Full Sail. The classes were incredibly difficult and I didn't know a thing about programming before I go there. People I graduated with are Software Leads or Design Leads in many places and of course every position underneath there as well. I taught game design at Fullsail in the late 90s, early 2000s. Unless things have drastically changed, you are being a bit hyperbolic in your statement that the worst programmers at FullSail were still competitive. Every tract at that school had absolute dregs enrolled in the classes.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:01
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synthetik posted:I taught game design at Fullsail in the late 90s, early 2000s. Unless things have drastically changed, you are being a bit hyperbolic in your statement that the worst programmers at FullSail were still competitive. Every tract at that school had absolute dregs enrolled in the classes. I'm not being hyperbolic at all and you definitely misread my statement. I didn't say they were competitive. I'm saying that the very worst state university comp sci students couldn't program as well to SOME of the worst programmers at Full Sail. I didn't say there were worse computer scientists, I said programmers. Regardless, the difference between the late 90s and early 2000s of Full Sail and now is huge. The program grew up a lot and even then three programmers (including one Lead) in my current company graduated in 2001 in the Associates program. Broad generalizations make anyone sound ignorant, you included.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:07
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Moral of the story: People who work hard get good and people who are good get jobs and HR and other hiring types make up arbitrary "rules" in order to cull the tidal wave of applicants and then they convince themselves that those "rules" actually have meaning instead of just being arbitrary and made up. Basically, all is as it has always been.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:09
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mutata posted:Moral of the story: People who work hard get good and people who are good get jobs and HR and other hiring types make up arbitrary "rules" in order to cull the tidal wave of applicants and then they convince themselves that those "rules" actually have meaning instead of just being arbitrary and made up. It's why I only hire members of the Harvard crew team! As a bonus, they can reach things on the top shelves! Gotta keep the old boy network going (even if I didn't actually go to Harvard.) But Mutata's pretty much right - I'm not saying I don't hire people from Full Sail (one of my favorite junior dudes here came from there last year), but if I've got a stack of resumes in front of me, seeing Full Sail (or really any "game design" program) skews you towards the bottom of the pile, just like if someone had a 10 page resume, had a poorly laid out resume, or other simple thing I can use to burn through the pile as fast as I can. I like well-rounded liberal arts majors, I like graduates with technical majors, I like animators with minors in literature, and math majors who knit. I like attention to detail and simple, clear writing. I don't like rambling GDDs that somehow get included in someone's resume. Vocational schools often turn out very singular focused specialized people and while I can slot them into a very concrete task, I find they don't flourish as well as those with broad sets of interests and skills. In my personal experience, I've had far more negative impressions of those sorts of people than the ones I've come to prefer.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:25
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devilmouse posted:I like well-rounded liberal arts majors, I like graduates with technical majors, I like animators with minors in literature, and math majors who knit. I like attention to detail and simple, clear writing. I don't like rambling GDDs that somehow get included in someone's resume. So what you're saying is my Animation/Russian Language double degree is to my advantage? 
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Dec 8, 2011 17:36
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Hi. I work in games as an animator. I work on contract. It sucks dicks.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:36
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Mega Shark posted:I'm not being hyperbolic at all and you definitely misread my statement. I didn't say they were competitive. I'm saying that the very worst state university comp sci students couldn't program as well to SOME of the worst programmers at Full Sail. I didn't say there were worse computer scientists, I said programmers. I didn't think I mad any broad generalizations, but I apologize if I did. When I taught there, we are pushed to pass as many people as possible, regardless of their actual skill or talent. I personally witnessed students being passed that had not learned a thing in the class they were in, and it directly led to my decision to no longer work at the school. Again, this was 10 years ago. There were some very bright people, but there were also the exact opposite. This was apparent in my game design classes as well as the Pro Tools classes that I was involved in. I still have friends that work at Fullsail, one is the IT director, another is a scholarship manager, testing supervisors, music teachers, etc... Each one will say that many of the students there, even to this day, have no right having the accreditations that they are awarded. Note that I am not saying it is a bad school. You get out what you put into the classes and work - there has been some amazing talent that comes out of there, but hiring based solely on the name of the college on a degree is frankly shortsighted.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:38
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Porksword posted:Hi. I work in games as an animator. I work on contract. It sucks dicks.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:43
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Yeah.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:46
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Porksword posted:Yeah.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:47
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Ok I'll elaborate. I'm in the UK and its gone contract crazy over the past few years. I've hopped around 6 studios this year which is rather mental and I worked a 2 week contract last month, nice pay but absolutely silly. I worry about my future intensely, so much so that I'm thinking of installing a caravan in my face so I can travel and work easily. Anyway I'm working in films later this month for 3 months. Long contract how nice.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:50
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Do you guys browse SA during work hours? This thread feels a lot more active during the (western time) day.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:51
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Chernabog posted:Do you guys browse SA during work hours? This thread feels a lot more active during the (western time) day. My job is the internet so yes. Porksword posted:Ok I'll elaborate. I'm in the UK and its gone contract crazy over the past few years. I've hopped around 6 studios this year which is rather mental and I worked a 2 week contract last month, nice pay but absolutely silly. I worry about my future intensely, so much so that I'm thinking of installing a caravan in my face so I can travel and work easily. Where are you atm? Are you 2d or 3d? Would you move to Scotland?
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Dec 8, 2011 17:55
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anime was right fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Apr 18, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2011 17:58
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I'm 3d. I'm in Scotland right now. If I were a few years younger I'd not have a big problem going everywhere but I would like to settle down soon.
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Dec 8, 2011 17:58
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Chernabog posted:Do you guys browse SA during work hours? This thread feels a lot more active during the (western time) day. I do when I'm pushing new builds, which today means most of the day so far thanks to weird crashing bugs.
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Dec 8, 2011 18:01
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Chernabog posted:Do you guys browse SA during work hours? This thread feels a lot more active during the (western time) day. Yup. Especially when I'm waiting for an engineer to do something, a new build to finish, or the game to load on our slow-rear end Internet connection (like right now).
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Dec 8, 2011 18:10
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I'm not sure what spurred me to read the last two pages of this thread as I have nothing to do with the gaming industry, but I am close personal friends with a guy going after a film degree at Full Sail and I have met a bunch of other people that go there. My roommate is doing digital media design stuff at UCF so I've had the chance to compare the two schools. When it comes to hand-on experience, UCF doesn't come close to Full Sail. My FS friend is constantly getting experience with various lighting equipment, editing software, camera equipment, etc. while my UCF friend has not had any experience of the sort. He has drawn some stuff and made one lovely 3d image of a dragon flying around a castle. On the other hand, almost every student I've met at Full Sail is either pretentious and stupid or just stupid. The only good thing I can say about the general student population is that they know how to party (though they listen to too much dubstep). I know this is unfair and chances are that my FS friend just hangs out with retards and the school actually does have intelligent students, but this has been my exposure to the school. A lot of the students also have delusions of grandeur related to their post-degree lives. Moving to California, instantly getting a job because their instructor knows a guy, etc. In regards to the portfolio, Full Sail does result in the kids having a lot of original material and credits in various projects. A lot more than UCF anyway. And (I'm not sure if this is due to his own motivation or the school's) my FS friend is constantly involved in extracurricular projects with other FS students while my UCF friend sits on his rear end and sleeps. I imagine, being at art school, FS is good at facilitating these relationships between its students. My UCF friend's group of people includes comp sci majors, english majors, engineers, whatever, and a handful of art students while my FS friend's social circle is 90% art students that he can collaborate with. The thing that pisses me off most about Full Sail is that they charge $40k a year or whatever and offer business degrees. I guess whoever takes a business degree from them has what's coming to them, though.
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Dec 8, 2011 18:14
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Porksword posted:I'm 3d. I'm in Scotland right now. If I were a few years younger I'd not have a big problem going everywhere but I would like to settle down soon. Show your reel! Are you moving around a lot in the same area or just literally moving? LA is also crazy contracts but they're usually 1+ years or from film to film. Everything is in the same area.
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Dec 8, 2011 18:17
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The three biggest things I got out of Full Sail, that directly impact my work are: They had a heavy focus on cross discipline training. I had classes in Maya and Photoshop, and this was actually the reason I was hired where I am originally, I was a gameplay programmer who knew Maya enough to write some tools for it. This continues to benefit me, as a large part of my career has been devoted to pipeline and tools. I went in 2002, and there was a small focus on shaders then. It seeded an interest in them for me, and even though it's not something I've been able to act on until recently (not much to do with shaders on the DS). since starting iOS stuff, I've had a great many opportunities to work with shaders. Shaders are a very appropriate thing to learn in school, in that there is a pretty big learning curve in understanding them, a lot of terms to learn and understand, such as lighting models, but once you know them all you can pound out almost any shader request in half an hour. The accelerated schedule at Full Sail matched me very well. I was in the industry and working at age 20. I figure that's two more years of "real" experience I have instead of time spent in school, two years earlier starting my 401k, two years earlier paying off my student loans. I also had set myself up at the time with a number of backup options if Full Sail didn't work out. I enrolled into a community college to work towards a "regular" Associate's degree shortly after I graduated, with the intent to move onto a bachelor's degree at a local University. I also got a job working at UPS, which paid well for what it was, offered insurance, and had some great programs for helping pay for college. I would say the biggest problem I had with Full Sail was the location. I loved Florida's weather and stuff, but the job prospects are zero there, and most companies do not want to risk relocating someone with so little experience. Digipen, on the other hand, is located on the same road as a few game developers, and internships and jobs are super easy to get because of that. edit: And something I learned at Full Sail that works really well into a hobby of mine: I had a class on music production.
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Dec 8, 2011 18:22
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https://www.tofubun.com I'm moving back to London, hopefully can move around that area and stay put! I've got to say to those of you starting out or at at school, I don't envy you, its brutal at the moment for animators anyway, but just practice and the rest will follow. Just maybe install a caravan in your face.
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Dec 8, 2011 18:22
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Waterbed posted:Anyone over at Cryptic? I put in a job application a couple weeks back for Content Design and I'm actually pretty interested in the company :|
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Dec 8, 2011 18:23
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Fun Times! posted:I'm not sure what spurred me to read the last two pages of this thread as I have nothing to do with the gaming industry, but I am close personal friends with a guy going after a film degree at Full Sail and I have met a bunch of other people that go there. My roommate is doing digital media design stuff at UCF so I've had the chance to compare the two schools.
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Dec 8, 2011 18:27
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mutata posted:So what you're saying is my Animation/Russian Language double degree is to my advantage? You probably don't want to, but you could snag a job as an art outsource manager so fast! So so fast. (But yes, if you were talking to me about a design gig, I'd be like "Yo, let's talk about Father Zossima's parable in Brothers K." and there would be much  and then we'd try to make it into an MMO.)
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Dec 8, 2011 18:46
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Now that ARTI is gone, you really only have Fullsail and UCF in Orlando, unfortunately.
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Dec 8, 2011 18:48
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Shalinor posted:
Needs more Truly Madly Deeply  Got a real Shadow Complex vibe, but that may be just because I was recently playing that game ^  ^
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Dec 8, 2011 19:04
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Chasiubao posted:Needs more Truly Madly Deeply EDIT: VVV Chasiubao posted:Feedback / question. Is the main character intentionally a different art style than the rest of the game, or was that placeholder art? If the former, I have to say I'm not a fan: it's too jarring a difference for me. If there was an explanation of why it was different I might be swayed, but as it stands it just looks odd. I'll echo that the movement seemed a little jerky / fast to me, but I assume that it will be smoothed out and controlled during development Hence the pre-alpha thing. Visuals are no where near final. We might keep iterating on the sketches to make them look more like paper cut-outs, we might completely restyle the world to bring it more in-line with the sketches, we might play with some other things, who knows. That's one of the things we're focusing on now that we're past IGF, along with how to better exploit the warped plane pathing tech. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Dec 8, 2011 |
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Dec 8, 2011 19:15
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Shalinor posted:Thank goodness the band fizzled and died. I was originally worried that our name would collide with theirs, but turns out, almost no one even remembers them at this point Which is great because I got to be the one to bring it up  Feedback / question. Is the main character intentionally a different art style than the rest of the game, or was that placeholder art? If the former, I have to say I'm not a fan: it's too jarring a difference for me. If there was an explanation of why it was different I might be swayed, but as it stands it just looks odd. I'll echo that the movement seemed a little jerky / fast to me, but I assume that it will be smoothed out and controlled during development
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Dec 8, 2011 19:17
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