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Jesus, just how many Teessiders are there in this thread already?!
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May 18, 2012 00:03
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Ninchilla posted:A) every job I see advertised wants experience/published product; and If you think you could do the job, apply.
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May 18, 2012 00:04
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SUPER HASSLER posted:If you can pay for my trip over there, sure Ha, sorry, I can barely afford to send myself there- I crash with a friend and take the bus. But if you know any others in your field who might be interested, here's the outline we've got together: =================== All Your Words Are Belong To Us: How Localization Works (And Why It Sometimes Doesn't) Ever wonder why some games come to your local retailer sounding as natural as your neighbor, while others read like bad kung-fu movies? Our panel of editors, translators, and programmers will pull back the wrapper of "localization" and show just how many different challenges there are to convert a game from one language to another. Panel Length: 90 Minutes Panel Breakdown: 10-15 minutes: Introductions- Each panelist will explain what they do and who they've done it for and so on. 45-60 minutes: Common problems and pitfalls- Each panelist will describe some of the common problems they run into when localizing a game that leads to the finished product not coming out quite right. Remaining time: Q&A ================ (Please note that this is about the only All Your Base joke I think would still be presentable in 2012 without getting flogged, simply because it speaks directly to the topic at hand.  )
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May 18, 2012 02:06
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GetWellGamers posted:Just emailed you (and you've responded). Hope we can win the game! together on this.
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May 18, 2012 02:55
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Is the only way to get into internship is by being in school or being a graduate? Being emailed that there is a position available for Environmental Art Intern and seeing, student required pisses me off. : (
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May 18, 2012 03:20
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Shindragon posted:Is the only way to get into internship is by being in school or being a graduate? Being emailed that there is a position available for Environmental Art Intern and seeing, student required pisses me off. : ( Depending on the area, the way a company gets away with an unpaid intern is to offer school credit. Thus the person has to be a student.
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May 18, 2012 03:26
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Shindragon posted:Is the only way to get into internship is by being in school or being a graduate? Being emailed that there is a position available for Environmental Art Intern and seeing, student required pisses me off. : ( My buddy just got a message about a UI Intern for Blizzard just now too. Except he's a UI artist with 8 years experience  e: you did not mention Blizzard but I'm assuming its for them.
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May 18, 2012 04:15
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Hahah good guess, it was the HR of Activision/Blizzard.
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May 18, 2012 04:24
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Carfax Report posted:Depending on the area, the way a company gets away with an unpaid intern is to offer school credit. Thus the person has to be a student. Most industry internships I've seen (and the 2 that I've had) have been paid. Most often they are student internships, yes. Believe it or not, some companies see value in giving students a leg up on the experience barrier. In fact, since we're talking Blizzard internships, I know for a fact those are for students only and are paid around $15/hr, at least for artists.
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May 18, 2012 07:39
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Ninchilla posted:My current stuff is at https://www.ninchilla.co.uk - are there any arty goons who can give me some kind of advice, or feedback on what I have already? All your 3d stuff seems to be in the same style as well, which I guess will be great if a company who wants stuff in that style is looking, but it doesn't give the impression you have any range.
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May 18, 2012 08:24
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I should be wrapping up my first video slots game up next week. Man I love this job.
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May 18, 2012 10:10
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Sweet, looks like I'm setting myself up for an interview at Team17 next week. Are people generally receptive when using tablets? I think this time I'm going to leave mine on the table, to remind myself to actually use the drat thing for some good talking points.
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May 18, 2012 12:47
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Ninchilla posted:For the last 4-and-a-bit years, I've worked in the Customer Support department of a large game company, before recently being made redundant. I'm really keen to try and avoid re-entering the CS/QA side of things, and want to go somewhere creative. First, your site: Your thumbnails are too small and the work is too hidden. You really should try to have all of your stuff on the very first page. Post them as large thumbnails and allow the user to click on them for bigger/more views. As it is, your site doesn't take advantage of the amount of screen space you have access to (which is bad when trying to present art) and the first thing anyone sees is some cliche label-maker-font navigation, an unimpressive sketch, and a bio which no one reads or cares about. Put your work up front, center, first, and big. Second, your stuff: Your 2D work isn't doing you any favors at all. I'd get rid of all of it or if you've progressed since then, do some new stuff to replace it all. Your 3D work is much much nicer. If you can still paint to that level, you have a good foundation to continue onward. You're going to need to start presenting assets in a game engine, be it UDK, Unity, or even just the Marmoset Toolbag. Renders from a 3D package don't really cut it and it tends to be obvious when someone's posting renders versus in-game shots. It will be worth it to dive into UDK if only for taking screenshots of your models/textures. Your stuff feels nice and solid, and the textures are appealing. Your color theory could be better, things start to clash here and there, but it's not too bad. The worst offender is the hotel image, but I think that is by far your weakest piece and you should just take it out. The others could be unified in their texture work a bit more to make them feel like objects that live in the same world rather than a collection of models with their own textures. Design-wise, your subject matter and the way you have designed them are very generic and bland. Try to inject as much story as possible into these objects. When you're on a team working on a game, you might have to make "just a signpost" but for your portfolio, you should need to make each piece stand on its own as "A Cool Thing(tm)". You have some of this here and there, like the fish weather vain and the broken post on the sign, but by and large, you just have some items here, not portfolio pieces. Technically, you'll need to learn some more advanced material stuff like normal maps and such, but there's plenty of info out there on that stuff. Zbrush is a tool you'll want to be familiar with. I use it at work all the time as an environment artist to make textures. You are working in a very specific style so far, but it is a style that appeals to a lot of people, I've found. I could see you going somewhere Mobile with what you have here. If you want to pursue the handpainted route, I'd recommend researching out some professionals as targets to work towards. For example, here's a friend of mine: http://tysonmurphyart.blogspot.com/ Shoot for professional quality and go nuts.
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May 18, 2012 15:55
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Edit: I was beaten, listen to Mutata, it's much better critique than mine.Ninchilla posted:My current stuff is at https://www.ninchilla.co.uk - are there any arty goons who can give me some kind of advice, or feedback on what I have already? I like your 3D style, although technically speaking it isn't very impressive. Everything is very low poly. I think you should try to make more complicated things and push your boundaries. I don't mean to be a dick, but your 2D stuff is very weak. You have a long way to go. Practice, practice, practice. Make new drawings and paintings, post them online and get advice. Then repeat the process. This advice also goes for the 3D stuff. Chernabog fucked around with this message at 16:05 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 16:01
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Hey, 3D artists... Ninchilla included: Show me (us) your meshes on your portfolio.
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May 18, 2012 19:34
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I think the best piece of advice I heard on portfolio pieces for artists was to aim way above what would normally go into a game. Like, meet the tech requirements perfectly and be really efficient with textures and such, but do an ambitious and characterful piece above all else. Do that and generic pieces like lampposts will be easy. I should really get on to painting leisurely again, that said I'm gonna get more of an opportunity to now    the bosses are buying me a new graphics tablet Intuos 4M, perfect for me right now. Cintiq is next 
GeeCee fucked around with this message at 20:00 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 19:58
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Mega Shark posted:Hey, 3D artists... Ninchilla included: Show me (us) your meshes on your portfolio. If I show you my wireframe, you might steal it though!
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May 18, 2012 20:30
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mutata posted:For example, here's a friend of mine: http://tysonmurphyart.blogspot.com/ Shoot for professional quality and go nuts. He's awesome. Thanks for linking it! This was linked in our skype chat and I laughed pretty hard. 
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May 18, 2012 20:43
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hahahaha oh soo true. Everyone hates QA, and we hate them. (devs/producers) It's a hate/hate relationship. Even when I go into the industry as an artist, it's going to be like that one chart where the Artists thinks they are geniuses and I'll end up looking down on QA. 
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May 18, 2012 20:47
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You people are weird. I love our QA department and I happily put up with all of their myriad idiosyncrasies if it means I'm not the one who has to test every edge case for everything I make. Plus they are usually so desperate for approval that they will be your best friends and do lots of favors for you if you show them the slightest bit of kindness.
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May 18, 2012 21:08
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I like our QA. I mean, sometimes getting a reality check that my poo poo is broken is kind of tough, but it's important to have someone sperging out over a hosed up bounding box (because you know a user is going to be infinitely more offended by this if it ships).
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May 18, 2012 21:14
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Oh I'm just saying from a former QA perspective. The team I was in was kinda neck and neck with the developers. Sometimes it felt like they hated every bug we reported in.
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May 18, 2012 21:39
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At my last job, my team joked that one of the art designers would come in looking for blood after the twentieth time I got out of one of the game maps. Also, getting excited for a short QA contract at a dev in crunch time probably isn't much to be excited about, but that's how it is right now.
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May 18, 2012 21:45
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Embedded QA is awesome. I can walk over, say "Hey, Tommy, can you do this HORRIBLE TASK THAT WOULD MAKE ME WANT TO DIE? And tell me what you figure out about the bug? Awesome, thanks!" ... and he smiles, and just happily regresses that bug, and gives me a nice little report later in the day. Then I can make a change, commit, let him know, and he goes back and somehow doesn't kill himself while regressing it again. Technical QA? Where I can do the same thing, only with a more obscure bug like a memory leak? And they spend hours to find the lead that gets me on the right track? I buy them donuts and bow when passing them in the halls. EDIT: The only QA that is truly bad is outsourced QA. You get these hilarious reports that don't make any sense at all, and good luck tracking anyone down for clarification. Detached QA teams that sit elsewhere / report elsewhere are almost as bad, unless the managers and go-betweens are great at their jobs. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 22:06 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 22:03
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Also seriouspost for people wanting modelling/mod experience. Join the Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Jaykin Bacon mod team. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3485348 GeeCee fucked around with this message at 22:12 on May 18, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 22:09
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Frown Town posted:He's awesome. Thanks for linking it! I coworker sent me this yesterday and I thought it was great. Gumby-QA pride.
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May 18, 2012 22:20
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Shalinor posted:EDIT: The only QA that is truly bad is outsourced QA. You get these hilarious reports that don't make any sense at all, and good luck tracking anyone down for clarification. Detached QA teams that sit elsewhere / report elsewhere are almost as bad, unless the managers and go-betweens are great at their jobs. The worse to me is outsourced QA doing a pre-certification pass. I'm convinced they find more bugs than they report, and only report enough to ensure that there is another pre-certification pass where if they don't find enough new bugs to ensure a THIRD pre-certification pass they'll report some that were held back from the first to make up the difference... Then again, "Never attribute to malice..."
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May 18, 2012 22:54
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floofyscorp posted:Jesus, just how many Teessiders are there in this thread already?! Hughlander posted:The worse to me is outsourced QA doing a pre-certification pass. QA really can be the neutral voice of reason and sanity during development though. I recall one game (I don't want to name it) where the top two dev guys insisted that the 3D front end environment have a scrollable menu option selection via the thumbsticks and also the D-pad (i.e. you controlled the whole camera perspective, with each text selection appearing as you scrolled). Combined with a fast camera movement speed, it was a dizzying nightmare to use. It took the QA project lead, QA deputy manager and the main QA manager to all confirm that they all thought it was godawful. This eventually lead to a compromise where one thumbstick would instantly select options and the other thumbstick would freely move the camera perspective around.
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May 18, 2012 23:23
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Magic posted:There are hundreds of students coming out of the game-based courses, but few developers left in England, so where the hell else can they go? All projects need a skilled baby-killing squad.
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May 18, 2012 23:29
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One of these days I'm going to give my lead QA guy business cards that have "Infanticide" as his title, because it's very nearly his favorite thing. We already refer to him as "Dreamcrusher" in the halls, which just makes him cackle.
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May 19, 2012 01:50
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I wonder. Does focusing ill will toward QA improve their performance? I mean, if they're miserable, and misery loves company, then they'll want to make everyone else miserable, by finding bugs.
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May 19, 2012 02:08
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What makes QA motivated is seeing the results of their work. Regressing bugs and seeing textures re-aligned, props re-lit, AI behaviors modified to be sane, that's what helps. Seeing a difference makes QA motivated, because they want to keep making a difference, they want to be able to say to their friends after launch "Oh man, this area was all screwed up before I got to it, you shoulda seen it" and stuff.
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May 19, 2012 03:26
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GetWellGamers posted:What makes QA motivated is seeing the results of their work. Regressing bugs and seeing textures re-aligned, props re-lit, AI behaviors modified to be sane, that's what helps. Seeing a difference makes QA motivated, because they want to keep making a difference, they want to be able to say to their friends after launch "Oh man, this area was all screwed up before I got to it, you shoulda seen it" and stuff. No no no, the industry is a cesspool of hatred and evil and everyone hates every other person and the companies hate their employees and no one likes it the end.
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May 19, 2012 07:07
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cgeq posted:I wonder. Does focusing ill will toward QA improve their performance? I mean, if they're miserable, and misery loves company, then they'll want to make everyone else miserable, by finding bugs. Ultimately, all QA have to do is log the bugs they find. It's entirely up to the dev whether to fix them or not. If they don't and the publisher later asks why because it impacted a title's sales, then QA have it on record, ergo it's not their fault. That means they don't have to harbour ill will about it. I think ill will is more of an individual characteristic of bitter people (and [possibly even from QA people who are stuck in the department after trying to get into a dev studio), but it can happen. It works the opposite way too: to give an example entirely at random, if an outsourced dev is skirting their contractual obligations and doesn't give a poo poo about the title, just that they technically do what's required of them, then both the publisher and QA will feel ill will. A game full of bugs is good in that it keeps QA busy, but if the dev doesn't give a poo poo about fixing them, lies to them, makes snide comments, takes relish in how cheaply they're making the game and so on, then that is all very demotivating.
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May 19, 2012 07:34
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GetWellGamers posted:What makes QA motivated is seeing the results of their work. Regressing bugs and seeing textures re-aligned, props re-lit, AI behaviors modified to be sane, that's what helps. Seeing a difference makes QA motivated, because they want to keep making a difference, they want to be able to say to their friends after launch "Oh man, this area was all screwed up before I got to it, you shoulda seen it" and stuff. This is 100% right. Having an actual visual impact makes a lot of difference. This is why it's so goddamn frustrating to see bugs closed WAD for no given reason. I always flipped out when this happened, and fortunately the superiors took notice and put the issue back into the pipeline. What was really awful though, was hearing about how one of the embed teams took credit for a massive exploit a couple of other people on my team found. Like, claim that they found it by themselves.  mutata posted:All projects need a skilled baby-killing squad. On this note, one of the best supervisors we had always told us "the unfortunate thing about QA is that it's your job to tell the designers their baby is ugly".
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May 19, 2012 12:38
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miscellaneous14 posted:On this note, one of the best supervisors we had always told us "the unfortunate thing about QA is that it's your job to tell the designers their baby is ugly". I always liked saying their baby was ugly. What I enjoyed in QA was making a difference, what I hated was the insults strictly based on the position, and backhanded compliments were annoying too. And every once in a while you get a really really bad developer that refuses to learn and blames his problems on the QA folks, usually when that happens the guy in QA he/she is calling out could do the job of the developer significantly better than the developer was currently doing it. Sort of funny and annoying at the same time.
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May 19, 2012 13:19
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And of course, it's always really easy to tell when QA isn't managed well/doesn't exist.
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May 19, 2012 21:07
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miscellaneous14 posted:And of course, it's always really easy to tell when QA isn't managed well/doesn't exist. Why do QA when YouTube will do it for you? We've been having a fuckload of office shuffle-rounds recently and I really have no idea why, but the latest move is that our QA team are coming round to sit right next to us character artists. They were setting their stuff up on Friday evening and their lead says over his monitor to me 'I apologise in advance for all the swearing you're going to hear from us, mostly from me.' My response was basically 'Dude, have you ever listened to me bitch about stuff? I swear like a loving sailor.' I may be the shortest person on the team by a margin of several inches and have a desk covered in ponies and Pokemon figures but I am not a delicate flower :l
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May 19, 2012 21:27
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floofyscorp posted:I may be the shortest person on the team by a margin of several inches and have a desk covered in ponies and Pokemon figures but I am not a delicate flower :l Speaking of desks: My goal for my cube is to be a TGI Fridays full of tacky crap. Got a bowling pin, a beer hat, a lava lamp, a beach ball, random CoD swag, a SMNC statue, a giant oreo cookie jar, a traffic cone, many hats, and a wolverine clawed foam finger. For april fool's day next year I'm gonna hang wallpaper, put down wood shelfpaper on my desk, get a nice small rug, and bring my office chair in from home. Gonna have an upscale cube for a bit. EDIT: Doh, should've linked these. Jeff and Dallas are both real cool dudes and I hope my cube gets to the same level theirs is at some day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XnEPjPGVlfM My cubes directly behind the camera. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c9nBXU_aT0&feature=relmfu Irish Taxi Driver fucked around with this message at 21:51 on May 19, 2012 |
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May 19, 2012 21:32
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We had some players visit recently, and during their grand tour of the office they were passing by my desk and freaked out over the ponies on my desk. They were so excited to see a MLP fan, it was adorable.
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May 19, 2012 21:46
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