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I'm studying and working on compilers because I find them interesting and I love to tinker with languages in my free time, but industrial applications of that sort of knowledge are (in my opinion) pretty depressing. Most people are not that interested in using new languages that express problems in new ways or leverage the capabilities of novel hardware, they want their shader languages and GPU programs to look like C, work like C and fit into a C toolchain. I'm not sure I want my legacy to be inventing some minor optimization techniques that allow 60 year old FORTRAN to be recompiled yet again and run efficiently on the many-core architectures that are on the horizon. I do love working on games, and I genuinely feel it would be more fulfilling in the long run. I have some ideas that incorporate programming languages (especially unusual models) into gameplay, and I think there's quite fertile ground for making games that are both fun and educational. I like the fact that games can be a creative outlet, and I like the fact that a new game can be a clean slate of code much more often than a compiler.
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Feb 14, 2012 05:33
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Internet Janitor posted:I'm studying and working on compilers because I find them interesting and I love to tinker with languages in my free time, but industrial applications of that sort of knowledge are (in my opinion) pretty depressing. Most people are not that interested in using new languages that express problems in new ways or leverage the capabilities of novel hardware, they want their shader languages and GPU programs to look like C, work like C and fit into a C toolchain. I'm not sure I want my legacy to be inventing some minor optimization techniques that allow 60 year old FORTRAN to be recompiled yet again and run efficiently on the many-core architectures that are on the horizon. Regardless, if you had a PhD in CS, regardless of the specialization, and backed that with a kick rear end portfolio? Odds are good you'd have no trouble getting a job in the industry. You'd probably be pretty well set up for a middlware studio or for working with one of the console manufacturers, actually. Would you find working on the toolchains and nitty gritty internals of the next Xbox or Playstation interesting?
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Feb 14, 2012 05:42
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A PhD isn't necessarily that expensive so much as it is time- and effort-consuming. I am a university employee and my tuition is covered as part of my paycheck. I may dislike the compilers industry, but I certainly don't loathe the field. My motivations for pursuing a PhD have more to do with improving my skills and learning than strictly increasing my earning potential. Perhaps that sounds naive. Regarding middleware and low-level console stuff, I think it could be a load of fun! Definitely something worth doing more research into. I appreciate the frank responses, folks. This has given me a lot to think about, and I generally find it encouraging that your feedback has suggested that language-specific credentials are less important than the job postings I've been looking at suggest.
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Feb 14, 2012 05:54
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Internet Janitor posted:Compilers and programming language design, mostly. If anybody wants to be cool like Naughty Dog I would be ecstatic to build a proprietary language and toolchain for your company. Oh god, you could get yourself scooped up so fast by a tools team at a company with a shared technology group. Don't worry about not knowing C++, if you can whore yourself into writing a better/faster/morefriendly version of uscript/kismet/whatever, you'll be loved so hard. At the last company, we had some crazy in-house ECMAScript-esque language used to abstract out cross-server object-handling in a multi-server environment and a visual scripting language that controlled nearly all the game logic, as well as visual and sound fx. Currently, cross-compiled languages along the lines of haxe are all the rage for target multi-platform releases, but they're still largely in their infancy and unadopted (could be because they don't have things like good "debuggers"). You'll be fine without C++, especially if you're EXCITED to be making pipeline/tools. If you want to get into engine/graphics programming for consoles on the other hand....
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Feb 14, 2012 12:20
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Hell get a job with one of the big 3 optimizing their compilers and SDK tooling 
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Feb 14, 2012 20:38
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Chasiubao posted:Hell get a job with one of the big 3 optimizing their compilers and SDK tooling Please write a better SDK for the PS4. Or better Visual Studio integration
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Feb 14, 2012 21:04
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Anyone complaining about the PS3 hasn't had to work with WiiU yet. 
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Feb 14, 2012 21:38
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Jan posted:Anyone complaining about the PS3 hasn't had to work with WiiU yet. Tell me that it's still Metrowerks 
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Feb 15, 2012 00:56
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Jan posted:Anyone complaining about the PS3 hasn't had to work with WiiU yet. Aw god, their API for integrating the tablet into games is awful, isn't it. Anyway, as a different sort of mental exercise, let me ask you lot something I've wondered for a little while now: how would you go about organizing a writer's/editor's portfolio? (Paging typhus to the thread  )Currently I've got three major projects under my belt, and by the end of the year that could be as many as five. Thing is, I have no idea how to organize any of these works into an easy-to-view portfolio for hiring purposes. Should I just include full games on demand (could be difficult in some cases)? Snippets from our raw TL files? Script snippets nicely formatted Hollywood-style? Video clips of particularly excellent sections? I'm kind of at a loss as to how a writer in the field I'm in would go about showing off their work. Note that this isn't any sign of doom and gloom on the part of CF If anything, 2012 is looking like it'll be A) quite excellent and B) really goddamn busy. I've just noticed at least one job opening up in the field (Atlus is screening applicants for an editor position that'll open up at a later date), and it occurred to me that, now that I actually have a resume and portfolio, I've little idea how to actually organize one as already large as mine is. It's a curiosity exercise more than anything.And yeah, Internet Janitor, if you actually enjoy building compilers and languages and whatnot and can actually make a workable cross-platform one? I think the CEO of Square Enix/Acti-Blizz/et al would actively scoop you up and hug you. You should not have trouble finding a job, especially once you get that PhD. EDIT: Well, I definitely didn't mean to kill the thread stone dead with my post. 
SpaceDrake fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Feb 15, 2012 |
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Feb 15, 2012 01:33
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EDIT: ^^^ Nah, you didn't kill the thread at all. Writing's one of those hot button fields that's hugely competitive, but where only a few posters in here can really offer useful advice. All the rest of us can say is "oh man it's totally hard to make a living doing that." Got a business'y question for folks: what's everyone's reads on the sorts of budgets that a non-Schafer/Gilbert startup can hit from Kickstarter, so long as they have a kickass prototype and some kickass video/art? Clearly, no one else is hitting 1.6mil, unless their name is Tim Schafer or Rob Gilbert. Or maybe Chris Avellone, we'll see shortly probably. But, I don't think regular AAA cast-off "hey we got laid off let's make a game!" indies are necessarily relegated to sub-$100k, either. I'm kind of thinking that $100k to $400k is within the doable range. Set a funding goal for $150k, hope for $200k+, etc. So long as the prototype / gameplay footage / art is clearly solid, it seems like that and the price-point would be enough to drive some decent notice from press. I don't know how high you'd necessarily hit, but $150k seems like an achievable goal in 30 days. That's also around the upper end of what Indie Fund covers, as it happens, so it seems to be kind of a sweet spot for bigger indie budgets in general. Am I being overly optimistic? Shalinor fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 01:22
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Shalinor posted:EDIT: ^^^ Nah, you didn't kill the thread at all. Writing's one of those hot button fields that's hugely competitive, but where only a few posters in here can really offer useful advice. All the rest of us can say is "oh man it's totally hard to make a living doing that." Depends on where you're from and what you can leverage, but I would think any random trio of folks from Blizzard, Valve, and Epic would be lucky to hit $200k on kickstarter with an awesome sizzle reel. I think literally 10% of what you're talking about sounds more doable for folks without star power or a brand. Flipping through the kickstarter successes seems to help confirm things: http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games/successful?ref=more#p1 I think $150k sounds wildly unachievable unless you have pre-existing names you can leverage somehow. e: as far as I know, this is a no-namer with some awesome stuff to show already. They got $15k. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/punyhuman/blade-symphony Sigma-X fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 01:38
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Shalinor posted:EDIT: ^^^ Nah, you didn't kill the thread at all. Writing's one of those hot button fields that's hugely competitive, but where only a few posters in here can really offer useful advice. All the rest of us can say is "oh man it's totally hard to make a living doing that." To me the most important thing you need to be able to prove with a Kickstarter for a game is that you will actually finish and release the game. Double Fine has put out quite a few games in the last few years, and I don't think there were any major delays, so it seems a given they will finish the product. Every title they've released has also been very solid, quality-wise, so there's no question there, either. Any startup or studio without good weight like that behind it, I think $50k is an optimistic high end, $10k is probably the most realistic. Looking at the "Most Funded" section for games on Kickstarter, http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/video%20games/most-funded?ref=more There is no video game besides Double Fine's over $100,000 (the only thing on that list is a website). There are two games over $50,000: Zombies, Run! and Grandroids. There are quite a few games that are over $10,000, though. On the other hand, board games seem to see a lot of success, and I imagine that there's very little risk for investors: It seems like for most board game kickstarters, the game itself is complete or nearly complete, and the kickstarter is largely set to fund a high quality print run.
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Feb 16, 2012 01:41
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I think the +$100k range is pretty optimistic, unless the stuff is exciting enough to get places like Kotaku hyperventilating about it and spreading the word, or is fulfilling some sort of unique promise to a passionate/neglected audience. I don't think Hawken would have had trouble hitting $400k if they had taken it to Kickstarter, for example.
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Feb 16, 2012 01:48
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SpaceDrake posted:Aw god, their API for integrating the tablet into games is awful, isn't it. WHO DARES Dude, truthfully, I don't have a goddamned clue. I revamped my website late last year and I still haven't uploaded a proper portfolio, because every single studio/publisher on the planet wants to see something different out of a writing/editing applicant, both in terms of demonstrated capability as well as, I'm bummed to say, content. What I mean by that is that it's possible that someone will look at your portfolio and say "pssh what the gently caress is this sci-fi shooter stuff my game is all about hard-boiled detective fiction nnnnnnghhhh to hell with this guy". In light of this, I'd suggest two options: the first is a portfolio that demonstrates competency across multiple genres, highlighting published samples, and accompanied by big, screaming marquee text that if someone is looking for examples in a specific style or genre, they should get in touch with you and simply ask. The second is to not bother with a public portfolio at all, and instead keep a private catalog of work that you can select samples from yourself, sending along appropriate pieces for a given application. As for how to include that content, I'd say whatever works best in terms of what is most easily digestible by the recipient; I'd go with docs/screenshots as your primary resources, with links to where the games can be acquired/played as an added bonus, not a requirement to getting familiar with your work. If someone wants to go through an install to see more, that's their prerogative, but try to get as much content front, center and easily accessible as possible. One of these days I'm gonna sack up and propose a GDC talk called "how to hire writers", because this industry is so goddamned schizophrenic when it comes to that process -- particularly in emerging narrative design roles, which can mean anything from "programmer who writes" to "come poo poo out IPs that'll never be made". Edit: Oooooooooooooo I love Recettear~~~~ typhus fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 02:10
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Is there a GDC thread yet? Are there any must-see talks? Trying to decide when I want to go.
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Feb 16, 2012 20:25
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Comrade Flynn posted:Is there a GDC thread yet? Are there any must-see talks? Trying to decide when I want to go. There's the goonmeet thread, that's all I'm aware of: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3465825
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Feb 16, 2012 20:30
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I could use some advice on Design portfolios- After years and dozens of mod projects abandoned, I'm finally nearing a totally playable state on a Starcraft 2 mod that I've managed to put a significant amount of dedicated effort on. For an amateur its pretty neat, and I intend to do a lot of public testing and revision on it, but I'm terrified of the thought of trying to showcase it on a possible design portfolio (a theoretical portfolio I'd put together when a get a couple decent mods under my belt). Does anyone have any advice on what developers and designer looks at when they're looking at someone's portfolio? Is there a standard of quality I should be attempting to be meeting? Am I screwed unless I get a team of people together to super-polish the hell out of whatever I'm working on? Am I dumb for thinking that good Starcraft 2 mods could get me noticed for a level/mission design position? (I'm not doing SC2 exclusively though, I'm developing other skills as well). D1Sergo fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Feb 16, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 21:47
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I have a question for any current PS3 and 360 devs. Do they support C++11 yet? Hoping at least 360-side does? EDIT: VV Gotcha - thanks much Shalinor fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 16, 2012 21:55
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Shalinor posted:I have a question for any current PS3 and 360 devs. No on PS3, and I haven't heard 360 not supporting anything dev studio's compiler generates, but we're still on 2008.
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Feb 17, 2012 01:03
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I'm on my annual internship-application frenzy and, for the first time, am putting together a writing portfolio, with questlines, treatments, and some character stuff. My question is - I've drawn a lot of illustrations to accompany my work, would it be weird to include them with my writing?
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Feb 17, 2012 14:14
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I'm going to post this here because i'm not sure where else to post it and I don't want to make a thread. I've got an idea for a game (yes, I know, the dreaded "IDEA HURR!") and I want to try develop it using either Game Maker or RPG Maker VX because, to put it plainly, I absolutely suck at drawing but could probably handle making tiles n stuff easy enough. I was wondering if anyone could lend some insight into which toolkit is the best, or if they are both good? My aim is to make an RPG that is sci-fi oriented, so I need a toolkit that is happy to let me add in custom scripts and tile sets.
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Feb 17, 2012 14:23
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So I'm a lost and confused soul. I've been going to an educational psychologist to figure out what the gently caress i should actually take in university. The top careers listed on the various tests she gave me were: - Graphic designer - Software engineer - Corporate trainer - Teacher - Technical writer I'm a fairly well rounded individual (I have programmed things in C, Java, C# and I know scripting languages like Lua, I have made many 3d models, I have made levels in Hammer, I enjoy drawing things, etc). I really don't think that i'd make a good technical writer or corporate trainer. I can't stand jobs that I get no mental stimulation from. From all of my testing i've done it would seem that getting a job in the Bideo Game Industry is the way to go. What is the best degree to aim for if you want to get a job in the industry? I assume art degrees and comp sci degrees are the ones to shoot for... Which schools would be the best for that? I'm Canadian if that makes a difference. Any help is appreciated. twoski fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 15:46
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Its not so much about degrees as it is your portfolio. If you can make cool poo poo and release cool poo poo, you'll get a job. Just figure out which path you want to go and only focus on that. Don't be a jack of all trades.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:24
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D1Sergo posted:I could use some advice on Design portfolios- Smart people will look at the design quality of whatever you're doing. It is most important that 1) it works and 2) it is cool, fun or impressive in some other way. If it's kind of ugly but fun and functional, no company that you would want to work for would complain.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:52
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twoski posted:So I'm a lost and confused soul. I've been going to an educational psychologist to figure out what the gently caress i should actually take in university. I'd recommend studying something you enjoy, and find intellectually stimulating, but will leave you enough time to work on game-related side projects that you can use in your portfolio. Speaking from someone on the design track, I will say that a lot of "useless" liberal art skills (e.g. critical theory, historiography, etc.) are actually pretty nice to have as a game designer. They provide a foundation of critical thinking that you end up using almost every day when making design decisions.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:54
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djkillingspree posted:I'd recommend studying something you enjoy, and find intellectually stimulating, but will leave you enough time to work on game-related side projects that you can use in your portfolio. This, all of this. It's great that you're passionate, now focus on something and make a great portfolio.
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Feb 17, 2012 17:05
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twoski posted:I really don't think that i'd make a good technical writer or corporate trainer. I can't stand jobs that I get no mental stimulation from. I do corporate training for the power industry, and it really doesn't get much less like video games than talking about power plants. Despite what you say, you still get to exercise the skills of storytelling, information gathering and distribution, and teaching. As long as you like learning, tech writing can be intellectually stimulating, if boring. Don't knock a paying gig. Good tech writers can get essentially permanent contract (i.e. overtime paying) work once you've "broken in" and done a few contract jobs. DCS and logic guys are the most likely to never want for work as I have seen. That said I'm not really in writing, I'm doing animation & e-learning stuff to support their writing. but I work with them daily.
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Feb 17, 2012 19:11
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twoski posted:...what the gently caress i should actually take in university... Son of a bitch, I didn't even know what the gently caress I wanted to do before I spent two years in uni failing my animation degree. 
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Feb 17, 2012 19:43
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twoski posted:So I'm a lost and confused soul. I've been going to an educational psychologist to figure out what the gently caress i should actually take in university. Do you want to do art or programming or design? Where do your aptitudes lie? You need to do some soul searching about what you're good at, what you want to be good at, what you could potentially be good at, and what you want to do, and find the path that best exercises those. It will help to have a 10-year plan - what is your ultimate goal? Where do you want to be in 10 years? I've always wanted full creative control of a huge (AAA) project (ideas guy  ). That's what I wanted to do at the 10 year level.There's a mix of art and design at the creative level, and I figured it would be easier to get in via art, because at the time design had literally zero schooling available and art is easy to evaluate and in a bit higher demand. That's the path to work towards. I also knew that while I enjoyed the empowerment that programming gave me, once I get too deep (like, deeper than Pong-style stuff - the largest programming project I've ever taken on was a simple sidescroller with Abuse-style keyboard/mouse controls with a very simple randomly generated level and enemies and it was a nightmare) I lack the foundational math understanding and organizational skills to properly manage to get anywhere with programming. Meanwhile, I have literally surrounded every piece of homework since I was 8 or so with doodles of robots and guns and tanks and poo poo. I had been messing around with graphics forever - I had been making HL1 skins and was at one point about 50% complete with a total conversion of Command and Conquer: Red Alert. This and the above were me realizing my aptitudes. With this in mind, I figured I'd get into environment and prop art, as those avoid my weaknesses (character poo poo) and play to my strengths and interests (robots and guns and tanks and poo poo). I made these realizations halfway through a New Media Publishing degree, and realized that I was learning a lot on my own, so I continued to teach myself the art stuff while shifting gears away from the New Media Publishing (whose coursework had moved away from digital and towards putting ink on substrates) into business and leadership courses because I knew I would never crack a book on management but I would gladly pull an all nighter making spaceships in 3DS Max. With this in mind, I think it's important to note that the decision you make right now about schooling is not one you are locked into forever! You're not deciding the rest of your life, you're deciding the next step you take. What you need to do is stop looking for an answer externally and start asking more questions of yourself - What can I do, What do I like to do, etc, and ask you answer those questions yourself a path will help open up. If, along the way, you have a bunch of questions about the industry or the various paths, we can answer those, but we can't answer "what path is right for me?" because that's a deeply personal question.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:00
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Anyone know anything about how Maxis is doing these days? I hear they'll be announcing something at GDC this year. Anyone work there or know someone who does?
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Feb 17, 2012 22:24
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Sigma-X posted:WORDS Thanks for the replies, y'all. To be honest, I'm actually a dropout currently. I spent a year doing a Computer Science degree and ended up bailing because of my lovely marks (mainly my Calc 2/Stats For Comp Sci marks). I spent this last year working a dead end job and generally just doing nothing productive in the buttfuck nowhere town i was raised in. I want to get out of here asap. My art skills probably are my least honed (to be clear, i struggle more with implementation than actually designing things - I can picture exactly how i want to create something in my head, but i have a hard time drawing it out perfectly). In highschool i never really took much art classes, something i really regret. I passed my programming courses in university with relative ease. I also have calc 1 under my belt (mostly because it was still fresh in my head from high school calc). I cannot for the life of me get around this roadblock in my head that is calc 2. I know that if i were to somehow pass it, i'd be able to easily ace the rest of my university courses. Kind of funny that someone like me who struggles with something as fundamental as calc 2 wants to become a programmer!
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Feb 18, 2012 04:37
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twoski posted:Thanks for the replies, y'all. Twice. And I'm a certified Mathematician (BS in Mathematics), with a graphics programmer credit on a AAA game. So seriously, gently caress Calc 2. Here's the trick. Usually, you don't fail it because you magically don't "get it", but because when you take it at a big university, the class is usually one of the Freshman washout courses. It'll usually be in a huge group with a professor that can't possibly help everyone, and unless you're lucky, a terrible grad student covering the recitals. Retake it, but at a community college. Smaller class sizes, and if you show you care about the material, professors that would dearly love to make a difference / are tired of dealing with people schlepping through community college for Associates of Nothings. (EDIT: And most importantly, go to your professor's office hours. Every single day. Ask him or her questions until you are blue in the face. Do not silently struggle, ask for help. Back when I was failing Calc 2, I was largely ignoring homework and playing HL1 Counter-Strike on my laptop in a cafe. I got really good at Counter-Strike, but I didn't get very good at Calc 2, and then I dropped out for a dot-com job. Guess what I did differently when I went back and tried again? )
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Feb 18, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 06:22
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My college math placement exam put me straight into calculus, despite never having taken pre-calc / trig in high school. I was worried at first, but then calc I was a breeze. Everything seemed to click. Math was sort of fun even! Then came calc II 
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Feb 18, 2012 06:41
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I have never taken a math class higher than Algebra II (high school), unless you count Accounting (which is just more organized math). 
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Feb 18, 2012 06:46
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Hopping aboard the failed Calc II train  I failed it the first time too. I retook it that summer at a community college, and did well. Since then, I have never used it once on a single project. Linear Algebra is the one you are going to want to be good at, as you will use it constantly as a programmer, even if you are just doing gameplay stuff.
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Feb 18, 2012 06:54
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crazylakerfan posted:Hopping aboard the failed Calc II train ... and I'll be damned if I know what on earth you do with Calc 3. I barely even remember that class - I think I blocked it from my memory. I think we plotted vector fields, and there was this supremely confusing moment where I tried to visualize what you were modelling when you integrated a 3-dimensional equation, and... then my brain just kind of goes fuzzy. Now, Numerical Methods / Applied Mathematics - there is a course line worthy of kings and queens. That's where the fun stuff happens, like wave equations, and FFT, and monte carlo approximations. Heck, even History of Mathematics, where we derived the entirety of the theoretical basis leading up to Calculus, was way more useful than Calc 2/3. EDIT: I even enjoyed Diff Eq 
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Feb 18, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 07:07
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Shalinor posted:I was largely ignoring homework and playing HL1 Counter-Strike on my laptop in a cafe. I got really good at Counter-Strike, but I didn't get very good at Calc 2, and then I dropped out for a dot-com job. Guess what I did differently when I went back and tried again? Avoidance was my problem, plain and simple. Throughout highschool my mom was always there to yell at me to do my homework. Then as soon as university came around I became a totally different person. I was able to get B's and C's in most classes with very little effort while spending the rest of my time doing what i wanted (ie. playing video games and designing crap that, in the long run, probably won't do anything for me). I look back and think to myself, why am i wasting my time with my thumb up my rear end when i could be applying myself and getting A+ in everything. It was even my intention to buckle down and finish calc 2 since it was the only thing standing in my way. And i couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't know how to motivate myself enough to conquer it and i dread the next time i take it since I could just end up doing the same poo poo again.
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Feb 18, 2012 07:33
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twoski posted:I don't know how to motivate myself enough to conquer it and i dread the next time i take it since I could just end up doing the same poo poo again. If this is true, don't take it again until you know your goal and exactly how passing that class will help you get to that goal. It sounds like you need to decide on a destination before you can motivate yourself to clear your path to it. You really need to figure out what exactly it is that you enjoy. If you don't absolutely love what you're doing, you can't make it in games, because whatever it is you do, you'll be given more of it to do than you have time. If you can't get excited about spending a day writing code, tweaking a level, making glowy crystals, animating a walk cycle, balancing numbers in a spreadsheet, or writing a character's history, you might need to rethink your plan. The good news is that you've got a ton of time to try out all of that stuff and see what you like. If you can find something you love, pick that and go for it.
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Feb 18, 2012 08:14
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Nth-ing the dust yourself off and get back in the game suggestions. I was scared to pursue art as career, so I got a BS in math and comp sci 10 years ago. My heart wasn't in it though and I spent a year afterwards feeling lovely and working a crap job while I tried to figure out what I wanted. Facing my fears and going back to school for animation gave me a goal and studying something I cared about made a huge difference. State/community colleges are a good way to explore your options without going broke and often have transfer programs to universities (it's what I did). From my experience,the faculty are very interested in your success and will gladly help you if you ask. It's also great for meeting other like-minded students to work with and get some projects under your belt. No one is going to care that you stumbled a bit along the way if you show progress now and start making cool things. You just have to tell yourself to do it.
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Feb 18, 2012 08:30
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Joining on the advanced calc failure bandwagon. To this day, I'm still almost certain the only way I ever got past Calc III (needed for my graduation), was a pity D- from the professor.
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Feb 18, 2012 09:21
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