|
I get asked this from time to time. But I was(and still am) totally into theme hospital/parks, sims, sim citys, civ. A complete sucker for management sims basically. If I had to underline one in particularly. Sim city haaaaaaaands down.
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 17:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:18 |
|
|
mutata posted:After being taken a bit off guard during a phone interview, I'm compiling a list of artists, games, and other media that have been the main influences and inspirations that have contributed to the artist/person I am now, and it's been surprisingly eye opening. Anyone care to share some of theirs? Here's my list so far: Artists: Alphonse Mucha Barry “Baz” Reynolds (Secret of Kells) Charley Harper (Illustrator/Designer) Steve Purcell (Sam and Max) Chris Battle (PPG, etc) Cory Loftis (Carbine Artist) Phil Noto (Comics) Kevin Dart (Illustrator/Designer) Rad Sechrist Rob Laro (3d Artist) Tyson Murphy (Friend/Blizzard) Pior Oberson (Blizzard?) Joe Olson (Disney Interactive) Bruce Timm (90s superhero cartoons/Comics) Leyendecker Frazetta Games: Full Throttle Day of the Tentacle Sim City 2000/4 Half-Life/HL2 Portal 1/2 Team Fortress 2 (vanilla) Grand Theft Auto series Skyrim Mario64 Diablo II Zelda Ocarina Other Media: The Virgin Suicides (film) MST3k (tv) Air (music) Daft Punk (music) Jurassic Park (film) Star Wars (film) Lord of the Rings (film/books) Animaniacs/Pinky and the Brain (tv) Bourne Identity/Supremecy/Ultimatum (books/film) The Cannonball Run (event, NOT THE FILM) My art director at work told me a few months ago that he saw my art style and tastes as being retro. I've always identified most strongly with modern takes on 60s/70s/80s styles, and working on this list only reinforces that, it seems. It's that strange moment when your "artistic style" suddenly presents itself?
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 17:36
|
|
|
mutata posted:After being taken a bit off guard during a phone interview, I'm compiling a list of artists, games, and other media that have been the main influences and inspirations that have contributed to the artist/person I am now, and it's been surprisingly eye opening. Anyone care to share some of theirs? Richard Garriot - some people had sports heroes growing up, but I wanted to be like Richard Garriot. He had a giant awesome house (well, two, now), made awesome games, and got to wander around in a poet's shirt. Also it was like in his contract that any picture taken of him had to back him with an explosion, which was even cooler. I basically still want to be like the 90's Richard Garriot. It is (one of my) my life's goal(s) to eventually be on a magazine/major site cover and have an explosion behind me. (well, that, and to create a massive sprawling exploration-driven meta-verse that inspires future generations of game makers... but mostly the explosion picture) Sir William Blake - "Augeries of Innocence." One of my all-time favorite poetic works. Overly wordy, considering the focii of the whole piece are found in the first two stanzas, but poets will be poets / it performs well. Books, probably the most notable author would be Asimov (I, Robot / Foundation), followed closely by Heinlein (Stranger In A Strange Land / Job / Friday). Harry Harrison (Stainless Steel Rat) was a favorite growing up, though, and is probably responsible for my love of heist flicks/stories/etc and anti-heroes. Robert Jordan wrote some creative fantasy, too (Magic Kingdom of Landover). Growing up on Piers Anthony (Xanth) is probably why I'm such a horridly vicious punster. In terms of film, I'm a massive indie and mainstream film buff / sci-fi series geek / etc, so not entirely sure what I'd pick. "Vagabond" left a big impression, I suppose, as did "Wings of Desire" and "The Fountain." Indie films "Pi," "Primer," "Ink," and "Lo" are among my favorites. Etc. Lots and lots here. Sculpture, paintings, etc, I'm less versed in. Vincent van Goh is the only painter for whom I have any special affinity. Or Dalhi, I suppose, but it's less for his works and more for the man himself - he was a plain awesome creatively-minded person. "Atomicus" is my absolute favorite piece of photographic art, largely due to the story behind how it was taken. EDIT: Oh, right, games inspirations - Ultima 7, Super Metroid, Zelda (all of them), Deus Ex, Super Mario 3 / Super Mario World, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate 2, Monkey Island, Beneath A Steel Sky, King's / Space / Hero's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, The Longest Journey, Shadow Complex, Limbo, Super Meat Boy, EDIT: Master of Magic, and bunches of others I'm forgetting. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jan 20, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 17:41
|
|
|
One time I was told that my style looked like the Monty Python animations but I just don't see it. I don't really think I have a style, I like to experiment too much. Artists: Tex Avery Chuck Jones Richard Williams Francis Bacon Hokusai Mark Rothko J.M.W Turner Pollock My art teacher when I was a teen  Games: Super Mario Galaxy 1-2 Eternal Darkness Dota/HoN Bioshock Half Life Portal Other stuff: Neil Gaiman Mike Patton Penn and Teller Brad Bird Christopher Nolan Chernabog fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jan 20, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 17:50
|
|
|
Attorneys/Jurists: Clarence Darrow Thurgood Marshall Louis Brandeis John Adams William Brennan Oliver Wendell Holmes Karl Llewellyn Billings Learned Hand, one of the most fascinating jurists of all time. Peter Jaszi (former professor) Victoria Phillips (former professor) Christopher Langdell Games: Protostar Daggerfall Super Mario World Planescape Torment All of the Sierra Adventure Games by Roberta Williams The Police Quest SWAT series, yes, including 1 and 2. Half-life Quake II Escape Velocity Master of Orion 2 Command & Conquer
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 19:18
|
|
|
Backov, that email is not working for me
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 20:29
|
|
|
mega man 2 zelda: lttp final fantasy 3 fallout the only games that matter.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 22:19
|
|
|
Waterbed posted:Backov, that email is not working for me Doh! Sorted.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 22:23
|
|
|
djkillingspree posted:mega man 2 I believe you forgot the design masterpiece known as "Irritating Stick".
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 23:08
|
|
|
Waterbed posted:I believe you forgot the design masterpiece known as "Irritating Stick". that and sumotori dreams.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2012 23:30
|
|
|
Robot unicorn attack is the pinnacle of game design.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2012 01:09
|
|
|
djkillingspree posted:mega man 2
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2012 01:48
|
|
|
I learned everything I needed to know about game design from Dolphin Dash.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2012 01:56
|
|
|
Orzo posted:The games I like: aka the only games that matter. I was being facetious, if that wasn't clear! Though, you'd have a hard time pointing to a modern game that doesn't trace back to some element of those. I really should have added Starcraft and Doom, though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2012 02:16
|
|
|
This is kind of out of nowhere, but a friend of a friend recently asked me some questions about the game industry and this was my e-mail reply. I thought it might be interesting for some people in this thread to read. So here it is. (Also I like run on sentences, forgive me?) Starting at the bottom: Skills I needed to enter into making video games for big companies. Well I guess the first one, that applies universally to all fields is a passion for games. Yes, I know, it's cliche, don't put it on your resume, but seriously, you need to be able to talk critically about games and you need to have experience with games both current and past. Know the industry, it's very small, find out who is who and what they worked on. Be able to talk confidently about video games. Beyond that it gets more specific. If I recall correctly you are coming from the artist angle, so I can't be too specific with my advice, I you are looking for which skills to develop, that will depend on what you want to do in games. There are a wide range of art positions. I think a classical art education is probably very valuable for all of them though. If you think you might want to make games, then start making games, make a game, any game, a board game, join a mod team, do something that gets you experience creating a game. If you're still having fun after some of that, then you may have what it takes to be in the industry. From there, it's all about two things: Being a loving badass rockstar (talent) and networking. Question 2: (tired of reading yet? :-p ) What do I do? Well, I'm a designer, I design systems and levels and then I implement the assets others have created to create a fun game. Titles in the industry can mean a lot of different things, but I think level designer would describe the majority of my work day. How I got in... I started in QA. I got my foot in the door. Most important lesson learned here was to have my resume (and portfolio if you have one) ready. If you are looking for work you have to have that stuff ready to go before you even start browsing for jobs. Keep it up to date and apply for everything in the industry you might be able to suffer through. If you can get a job in your field, Intern Artists, Junior programmer, etc. Then great! Ideally you work for a developer instead of a publisher, but early on, getting your foot in the door is important, because it will allow you to start networking and learning how things work. From QA I moved on to Design at Disney, and from there I got my current job making murder simulators. Love hate you say... Well you certainly don't get into games for the pay... :-) You really have to like the work you are doing. There are massive perks, super laid back work environment, you're making freakin' video games, you get to be creative and especially smaller studios will allow you to really have an impact on the project. On the downside, there is the whole pay thing, (which isn't terrible, but it's not great either) and the crunch thing. Unfortunately crunch is fairly common, some studios more than others. If you are hourly then yay money but you'll have no life outside work, if you are salary then... then you get to work a lot for free. Working your way into the industry can be kind of a process as well. Plus the nature of the project to project work cycle means you'll probably spend time looking for work after almost every project. There's some uncertainty that comes with it, it's not always a steady job. Then again, you make video games for a living, so that's awesome. (Game developers love to complain) Almost done! (Am I getting less coherent?) Experience in the industry... Hmmm, that's tough to answer, it's been a couple things. First off, a learning experience, I learned a lot about the industry that you just don't learn from outside. I learned about being paid too little and about working too much. I learned about getting laid off. I learned more than I ever did in school. I learned the industry is a small community. I learned that hard work will get you noticed, speak up, but then back that noise up with something awesome, but it won't keep you from getting laid off. I learned that I love the work I do and I doubt I would trade it for anything else. I don't think I could ever work a job that's not game development. I learned that it's easy to be fat and unhealthy during crunch. I learned that the game journalism industry is just a marketing branch of the games industry. It's been fun and it's been stressful.
|
|
#
?
Jan 21, 2012 04:52
|
|
|
So I'm interested in getting into the art side of game design. I had attended school as a BFA with a concentration in drawing and painting. I dropped out since it felt like a dead end in Pennsylvania, and moved to SF. I have little experience with digital art, it seems like that's a major prerequisite here. I plan on going back to school here to finish my degree, I've been looking into other BFA programs. The SF academy of art offers one in game design. At a glance, not much will transfer over credit wise. I guess my question here is this. Is it worth my time (potentially another 4 years of school) to learn to do my work in a digital spectrum? It seems potentially worth it in the aspect of connections and opportunities to be made, also how does the SF academy of art stack up? Alternately, if I teach myself how to work digitally, how much greater is the challenge to get into the industry?
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 00:59
|
|
|
dog nougat posted:So I'm interested in getting into the art side of game design. I had attended school as a BFA with a concentration in drawing and painting. I dropped out since it felt like a dead end in Pennsylvania, and moved to SF. If you have a BFA I believe that makes it easier to move countries, which is the most useful aspect of a degree for breaking into the industry. You live or die by your portfolio, so getting a degree from Bovine University in something isn't going to help you any. You will make connections in school that could prove useful...but in general I think networking is way over-emphasized, as you'll need the quality of work to get anywhere, especially starting out. Networking, like a resume, is gravy on top of the portfolio, nothing more. I think your biggest issue in teaching yourself is going to be figuring out what you want to do, and getting exposed to the various disciplines. Are you interested in animation? The technical side of art, like rigging? 3d modeling characters, or environments, or something else? Are you looking to just do concept art? Having a fine arts foundation is a pretty good start to getting into digital art, and many educational programs will pay that lip service or gloss over the importance and instead largely teach you software via tutorials. Personally, my path into the industry involved getting a largely unrelated bachelors degree while teaching myself on the side, and a lot of the folks I know in the industry either self-taught or wound up in a field tangential to their initial studies (tech art). Everyone, without exception, has to do a lot of work outside of the standard degree curriculum in order to build up strong enough skills and a portfolio that will actually get them hired.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 01:14
|
|
|
djkillingspree posted:I was being facetious, if that wasn't clear!
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 01:19
|
|
|
Sigma-X posted:I think your biggest issue in teaching yourself is going to be figuring out what you want to do, and getting exposed to the various disciplines. Are you interested in animation? The technical side of art, like rigging? 3d modeling characters, or environments, or something else? Are you looking to just do concept art? I guess that's really the issue, I genuinely have an interest in doing every one of them. As it stands now, I'd say my skills are prob best suited to concept art. It seems like I should look further into schools. While learning digital on the side.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 01:31
|
|
|
dog nougat posted:I guess that's really the issue, I genuinely have an interest in doing every one of them. As it stands now, I'd say my skills are prob best suited to concept art. It seems like I should look further into schools. While learning digital on the side. To break out of that, you need digital art skills, especially 3D arts skills.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 02:06
|
|
|
Yeah, I kinda figured that was the case. It looks like I'll need to get a new computer in the future for 3d work. I'm currently running a 4-5 year old macbook pro, I have the CS3 suite with flash illustrator PhotoShop and a few other things. Should these be a sufficient platform to start dabbling in digital? I'm assuming I'll need to get a tablet. As for 3d I'm pretty much in the dark, I know Maya exists and there are several other programs out there, but that's about all I know about it. What's a good resource for 3d stuff. dog nougat fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Jan 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 02:33
|
|
|
dog nougat posted:I guess that's really the issue, I genuinely have an interest in doing every one of them. As it stands now, I'd say my skills are prob best suited to concept art. It seems like I should look further into schools. While learning digital on the side. Do you have a professional, 40+ hour a week interest in all of those, though? Have you done them enough to realize your strengths and weaknesses? I'm 'interested' in all those aspects as well, but what I find most interesting is hard surface vehicles, guns, robots, etc. I'm not very good at timing, so while animation interests me, it's not a proficiency and not something I'd want to pursue professionally (instead I make things with lots of moving parts and hand them off to the animators  )
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 02:58
|
|
|
Point taken. Time to peruse through more of the OP.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 04:50
|
|
|
So my university teaches us that we should learn both, because we have a 50/50 chance of applying for a job with a studio that uses either, but I just want to settle an argument with my classmates. Max or Maya?
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 05:23
|
|
|
Whichever. If you learn to use one the other isn't -that- different.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 06:05
|
|
|
Yeah, in my experience once you know one program really well it's easy to transition to others. Tools are mostly the same, just different button locations. I've worked at 3 studios and they all used different programs. Lightwave, Maya, and now Max. And I use Softimage at home. I didn't know any of them when I started with those companies, not really that hard to transition. Just learn one really well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 06:12
|
|
|
Both software are fully capable, but I find each trumps over the other on certain features. It comes down to preference, really. Most people I know tend to prefer the software they start off with when they learn. I find it a little unusual that your school is encouraging you to learn both at the same time. I guess it can't hurt, and sometimes companies do prefer hiring people with specific software knowledge to prevent training them, but ultimately it might distract you from learning the principals and building your skills, which may be more important.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 06:25
|
|
|
Category Fun! posted:So my university teaches us that we should learn both, because we have a 50/50 chance of applying for a job with a studio that uses either, but I just want to settle an argument with my classmates. ... everyone else is right, it depends on studio, but - Maya. If only because 3DS Max is an absolute pain to write plugins for.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 06:47
|
|
|
Category Fun! posted:So my university teaches us that we should learn both, because we have a 50/50 chance of applying for a job with a studio that uses either, but I just want to settle an argument with my classmates. It used to be that Max had better poly modeling tools but I don't know if this is true any more. AFAIK Modo beats Max anyways and probably beats Maya. The important thing, in my opinion, is that its absolutely vital that you avoid the 'learn both' mentality, because learning both means you get about 60% into the power of the software in both cases, which means that whichever software you wind up needing, you're behind the guy that knows that tool exclusively 70%. Additionally, it's a lot easier to learn new software by asking someone "Max has this function that does X, What does Maya call it?" - you're unlikely to learn what wire parameters are if you're learning both pieces of software, but once you learn one of them you can figure out very quickly what they're called in the other one. Ironically I learned the Maya version of wire parameters in a maya animation class (the only 3d class I ever took in school, as an aside and related to my previous posts) and then figured out what they were in Max, and can no longer remember what the Maya term is Back when I was learning in the mid-2000s, Max was the clear choice both because more game studios used it ("Maya is for film and animation" was the idea at the time) and also because the number of tutorials for it far exceeded Maya's. Nowadays I'm unsure if that's true or not.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 08:40
|
|
|
I learned max in depth and maya kinda on the side but now I feel like I don't know maya at all since I haven't used it in more than 3 years. I remember the curve editor being better in maya, but getting frustrated at not being able to shift+click and drag keyframes and having to copy paste them. I also don't think it had anything like CAT/biped, which I like. Or if it does, I never learned that. Chernabog fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Jan 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 08:54
|
|
|
Category Fun! posted:So my university teaches us that we should learn both, because we have a 50/50 chance of applying for a job with a studio that uses either, but I just want to settle an argument with my classmates.
|
|
#
?
Jan 22, 2012 11:58
|
|
|
At Trion we're Maya users. I still think Max has better hard surface modeling tools. Maya's tools are clunky as gently caress until you master the marking menu and pivot/snap hotkeys.
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2012 04:08
|
|
|
dog nougat posted:As for 3d I'm pretty much in the dark, I know Maya exists and there are several other programs out there, but that's about all I know about it. What's a good resource for 3d stuff. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2877226
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2012 13:42
|
|
|
If any of you are at Carbine, now would be a good time to put in a good word for me in the props department!
https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2012 22:59
|
|
|
x
anime was right fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Apr 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2012 00:01
|
|
|
Job search has officially entered week three. I've had a few phone screenings and emails back and forth but nothing solid. I hate how long everything takes in between steps. One company I talked to Thursday the 12th, and they said they were "excited" and would move on this "quickly" and of course I haven't heard back. This is the longest I have been without work since I was 16, so I'm not even sure what to do with myself.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2012 23:50
|
|
|
Job processes always suck. My rule is give it like a month before giving a friendly email back to see if anything has happened. I mean yeah I"ve applied to 10 companies, and I"ve only gotten one back in response. It's the usual you don't meet the requirements but we'll keep your file blah blah. Wouldn't be hard to meet the requirements if, ya know I got accepted. But eh dem's the breaks
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2012 23:52
|
|
|
dunkman posted:Job search has officially entered week three. I've had a few phone screenings and emails back and forth but nothing solid. I hate how long everything takes in between steps. One company I talked to Thursday the 12th, and they said they were "excited" and would move on this "quickly" and of course I haven't heard back. Don't feel too broken up about it. I'm entering month 6 as an unemployed Designer. It could be worse!  I definitely hear you about the general slowness of any given HR department. theysayheygreg fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jan 25, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2012 23:55
|
|
|
I have also been job hunting for about 3 weeks and still sending applications but so far all I have gotten is the "we have already filled this position" e-mail. At least that's better than nothing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 02:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:18 |
|
|
Chernabog posted:I have also been job hunting for about 3 weeks and still sending applications but so far all I have gotten is the "we have already filled this position" e-mail. At least that's better than nothing. I like those ones better than the "we regret to inform you that we have not selected you..." ones.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2012 06:48
|
|
