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Thanks for all the great insights on this. While I'd rather work on bigger projects On the subject of internships I'd like to do one over the summer but I'm unsure how to find studios that would be looking. The job boards in the OP don't seem to list internships and the gamedevmap site doesn't list any studios that are within reasonable commuting distance.
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Feb 17, 2013 04:47
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I find there's nothing wrong with having multiple disciplines within AAA, I'm surrounded by a lot of guys who've worn different hats at different times. What does really matter is how you sell yourself and how well your skills "mesh" in regards to each other. For example: An animator who also has some familiarity and skill with rigging/skinning can be a huge plus. A side order of modeling/texturing is good too. But it will never behoove you to sell yourself as a generalist or a character artist when your strongest work is animated. Likewise an animator/engineer is just a really odd combination and if you want to be a character animator you'll likely not be doing any kind of coding as part of your assignments. A tech artist though might find this skill set a large boon
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Feb 17, 2013 05:36
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That Gobbo posted:I recently watched a GDC presentation about getting into the industry and one question from the audience was about having experience in multiple fields of development, in this instance they mentioned programming and design, and the panel said they very much enjoy hiring people who have experience in multiple aspects of development. As it is right now by the time I graduate I should have experience in programming, game design, and 3D modeling. I suppose my question is rather simple: Should I consider focusing heavily in one of these aspects or do employers really appreciate having experience in a number of different fields within development? I think I missed this in my round up but be aware that in big or small studios, Tech Artists that can bridge the gap between coding and the art side are in supremely hot demand.
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Feb 17, 2013 11:43
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Aliginge posted:if they can get all those disciplines from one guy and be able to switch them onto different tasks without that person throwing up their hands and going "I'm not an animator" or "I don't DO UI" in a very Uni Student kind of way, that all works in the company's favour. 
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Feb 17, 2013 11:50
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Akuma posted:Or "I don't do design..."  Uni group projects traumatised me a bit :C
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Feb 17, 2013 12:33
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You should be careful though or you'll end up in my position where you're going CM, Support, Marketing, Video Production, Copy writing and Design for one Cms wage.
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Feb 17, 2013 12:42
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This is timely, I just finished my second stint helping out our UI team(I'm a character modeller normally, but I also know how to use the Pen tool in Photoshop which is apparently all the qualification you need to design UI elements and icons) and my managers have been so absurdly grateful that I was okay with doing something outside of my usual job description for a while. I kept messing up my keys between Photoshop and Maya though. It's not so bad when I'm doing texturing, but working with the Pen tool and editing shapes is just so similar to loving about with vertices that my Maya shortcut reflexes were kicking in
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Feb 17, 2013 13:57
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I know most of you are on the west coast, but are any of you on the east coast at IndieCade East this weekend? If you're here demoing a game I'll come say hi 
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Feb 17, 2013 18:53
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The big problem with being a generalist as someone trying to break into the industry is the fact that a person who is just ok at a lot of things is not very desirable as a candidate while someone who is very good at just one thing will have no trouble finding a job. Do you have the experience to tell the difference?
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Feb 18, 2013 01:47
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Jaytan posted:The big problem with being a generalist as someone trying to break into the industry is the fact that a person who is just ok at a lot of things is not very desirable as a candidate while someone who is very good at just one thing will have no trouble finding a job. People want to hire a specialist perfectly suited to precisely the listing they put out, and then 3 months later, as if by magic, find they actually hired a generalist. So be a generalist, but look like a specialist. ... also, unrelated: should I be holding off on doing a press/trailer/blah release tomorrow? I can't tell if President's Day is "important enough" for games press to take the day off or no. I was originally thinking Tuesday, but... President's Day... really?
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Feb 18, 2013 03:57
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I guess on the topic of generalist/specialist: I've had around 3.5 years in the industry as a social games artist (and maybe ~1 year doing console development internships) - I'm not particularly interested in working on huge AAA projects again; think it may just be mobile/social/start ups from here on. Since I have the experience to back me, is it still detrimental to put my portfolio together in a way that demonstrates both 2D and 3D aptitude? I feel like a lot of what has allowed me to excel in my current position is the willingness to pick up new skills - my first title at the company was in 2D (and I taught myself how to animate in Flash), and my second was in 3D (taught myself 3DS Max after being a Maya girl). But if I had to, you could lock me in a room with some blank geometry, and I would uv and texture the crap out of it.
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Feb 18, 2013 04:16
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I would personally highlight both. Small/indie/social shops are often actively looking for people with multiple proficiencies, and I've actually seen job listings for generalist artists at such shops. But even if you go for AAA again, demonstrating multiple proficiencies in your portfolio is fine so long as you still successfully make the case for competency in the area for which you're applying.
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Feb 18, 2013 04:40
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waffledoodle posted:I would personally highlight both. Small/indie/social shops are often actively looking for people with multiple proficiencies, and I've actually seen job listings for generalist artists at such shops. But even if you go for AAA again, demonstrating multiple proficiencies in your portfolio is fine so long as you still successfully make the case for competency in the area for which you're applying. I've never heard a lead or manager say "well he's too good at too many things...can't hire him!" but again, emphasize and apply as your strength. I draw parallels between my character animation and my figure drawing. My traditional art examples demonstrate an artistic eye and strong ability with charcoal and figures. This can help sell me as an artist as well as someone with good observational skills, however I'm applying as an animator so that's what really counts, the rest is (naked) gravy. Apply as appropriate to any skills you might have in addition to the position you're applying for.
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Feb 18, 2013 05:09
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The amount of mobile artist jobs I see now that have things like 'must have extensive knowledge of [3d package], [sculpting package], maxscript/melscript, animation, UI design and 2d sprite creation, Flash and Actionscript, 5 AAA console games and a preferable knowledge of 13th century basket weaving. I think for mobile jobs which are becoming increasingly more common, you kind of have to know a bit of everything right now.
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Feb 18, 2013 09:57
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The specialty gets you the job, the skill range makes it last longer.
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Feb 18, 2013 10:08
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floofyscorp posted:I kept messing up my keys between Photoshop and Maya though. It's not so bad when I'm doing texturing, but working with the Pen tool and editing shapes is just so similar to loving about with vertices that my Maya shortcut reflexes were kicking in Different control schemes are a personal nightmare of mine, if I switch between Zbrush and Max my brain fries.
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Feb 18, 2013 10:45
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Chernabog posted:The specialty gets you the job, the skill range makes it last longer. This.
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Feb 18, 2013 17:52
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Is this kind of thing as impressive to artists as it is to we programmers? Would it make for a good artist portfolio? ... because drat. EDIT: VV Yeah, I decided to hold today. Thanks to the wonders of Google draft saving, though, I'm pretending it's press day, and saving a metric ton of drafts. Tomorrow morning, I press send a billion times, and my news goes out at 9 sharp instead of dribbling out over the following 3 hours, woo. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Feb 18, 2013 |
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Feb 18, 2013 18:46
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Shalinor posted:Frankly, selling yourself as a generalist when breaking in is often a flat out bad idea. Nothing is more irritating than the programmer who takes the tools job but gives the impression they ACTUALLY want to move into design, or the QA'er bucking to move to dev, or - etc - and that's the impression you give if you sell your generalist skills. Hey man, sorry I didn't see this before. From my perspective I always try and hold release information to press on Holidays. I do this primarily because even if the holiday isn't use a lot of people use it as an excuse to take a long weekend. Unless you're up against a timeline I'd hold it.
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Feb 18, 2013 19:11
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Shalinor posted:Is this kind of thing as impressive to artists as it is to we programmers? Would it make for a good artist portfolio? Eeh. Not to sound snooty but this particular artist isn't super impressed. Being super high-res and nicely-lit is kinda neat I guess, but he hasn't exactly used all those extra pixels to great effect. The demon and the player face look cool, but the lack of material definition on the environment - seriously, the wall panels look like padded leather and the bands on the barrels are bizarrely round and soft-looking - kinda bugs me. I have zero fond nostalgic memories of playing Doom though so maybe that would help?
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Feb 18, 2013 20:04
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Having skills in two fairly closely related areas can be an asset. If you're a gameplay programmer, then having some game design skill is useful as the areas bleed into one another a little. Generally speaking though, just taking a couple of classes in something like 3D modelling isn't going to take your skill in that area up to a hireable level. It'll give you understanding of what that discipline does, but not give you the ability to do it for a living. Generally I'd focus strongly on on area, and market other skills as passing knowledge of that area, unless you really are good enough at both things to be realistically have your choice of being hired doing either. Very few people fall into that category though.
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Feb 18, 2013 20:38
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Shalinor posted:Is this kind of thing as impressive to artists as it is to we programmers? Would it make for a good artist portfolio? The original actually looks better and well crafted in comparison. The other one just looks like he went apeshit with color dodge/burn and mushy highlights on everything that so many professional artists hate. The original Doom 2 they actually sculpted the characters in real life for reference for the pixel art.
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Feb 18, 2013 20:43
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floofyscorp posted:Eeh. Not to sound snooty but this particular artist isn't super impressed. Being super high-res and nicely-lit is kinda neat I guess, but he hasn't exactly used all those extra pixels to great effect. The demon and the player face look cool, but the lack of material definition on the environment - seriously, the wall panels look like padded leather and the bands on the barrels are bizarrely round and soft-looking - kinda bugs me. Chernabog fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Feb 18, 2013 |
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Feb 18, 2013 20:45
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The pinky demon was the only thing showing promise like maybe he knew what he was ding and then he screwed it up. There is a tremendous over-reliance on dodge and burn lighting which is basically there because the artist can't paint. The entire thing being a combination of photo sourcing textures and then blanket lighting them with dodge/burn layers in lieu of painting is a pretty damning indication of the artists actual ability as an artist. They're relying on the strength of their tools without bringing much to the equation. I've worked with a lot of concept artists who photo source heavily, but they also can paint. This trust is unable to do so. This is the artist equivalent of throwing together a demo game from the XNA training materials and then implementing every shiny effect in a GPU gems book. Very little substance and at no time was the creator making decisions on their own and developing something. The pinky demon starts construction in such a heavily "collaged" process that it is the most technically difficult, but the underlying anatomy is taken from the screenshot still, and the artist demonstrates an inability to paint forms and winds up flattening the whole thing into looking even more like a sprite overlay than the original screenshot.
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Feb 18, 2013 21:02
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Shalinor posted:Is this kind of thing as impressive to artists as it is to we programmers? Maybe it's my (misspent ) formation in visual arts speaking, but that doesn't impress me that much as a programmer either. It really is spending inordinate amounts of time brushing over and then adding tiny detail that doesn't matter much in the end result. Sure, the result is higher resolution and more detailed, but it's not relevant detail. That's a gift that precious few artists have, and the very thing I decided to quit art over. Given 40 hours on a piece, I could come up with some very detailed art, but the lighting was never natural, and I pretty much always had to do post-filtering to make the final composition look okay. If you zoomed in real close, you could even see the skin texture and individual hair strands on my characters! But they still looked flat and undefined.
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Feb 18, 2013 21:15
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Chernabog posted:I think you meant "impressive"
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Feb 18, 2013 21:28
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Oh, that makes sense. I thought she was talking about the artist who made the picture. 
Chernabog fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 18, 2013 |
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Feb 18, 2013 21:46
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Jan posted:Maybe it's my (misspent I am a terrible 2D artist, so it's impressive to me, but as expected, actual artists are picking it apart. I thought the 2D collage thing was kind of cool, but apparently, I find that cool because it's how I would attack the problem too
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Feb 18, 2013 21:55
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Akuma posted:floofyscorp was saying that floofyscorp the artist was not super impressed. Yes, thank you. I realised it wasn't very clear after I posted and I was a bit awkward about correcting Chernabog over it But I will correct Chernabog on my gender because I am a lady :IAaaaanyway... It's a bit of a thing for people(non-artists and artists alike tbh) to go nuts over SUPER HIGH RESOLUTION WOOOW but unless you are printing that poo poo out to go on a wall that amount of fine detail is just pointless, and no matter how amazing your 4k texture maps look in Maya once we export and stick them in the engine, someone playing on default quality with 1k maps is only seeing 1/16th of that ~incredible detail~ you slaved over in Mudbox :I Rant over. This has nothing to do with my employer, of course.
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Feb 18, 2013 21:56
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floofyscorp posted:Yes, thank you. I realised it wasn't very clear after I posted and I was a bit awkward about correcting Chernabog over it Oh, sorry. I fixed it. And now I'm done derailing. Please, everyone, carry on.
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Feb 18, 2013 22:04
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floofyscorp posted:Aaaaanyway... It's a bit of a thing for people(non-artists and artists alike tbh) to go nuts over SUPER HIGH RESOLUTION WOOOW but unless you are printing that poo poo out to go on a wall that amount of fine detail is just pointless, and no matter how amazing your 4k texture maps look in Maya once we export and stick them in the engine, someone playing on default quality with 1k maps is only seeing 1/16th of that ~incredible detail~ you slaved over in Mudbox :I I feel the same way - the pragmatist in me gets sad working at a resolution that 99% of the population doesn't have the specs to run.
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Feb 18, 2013 22:16
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Guys if you want to strengthen your portfolio, you really need to be learning from a master https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kw12eGCtjY
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Feb 18, 2013 22:51
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And start from a good base. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRNQODfpC4A
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Feb 18, 2013 23:49
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Shalinor posted:Frankly, selling yourself as a generalist when breaking in is often a flat out bad idea. Nothing is more irritating than the programmer who takes the tools job but gives the impression they ACTUALLY want to move into design, or the QA'er bucking to move to dev, or - etc - and that's the impression you give if you sell your generalist skills. All of the best QA testers I've worked with have wanted to get into development. I've found that wanting to break in makes them more motivated to figure out how the game works and report bugs in more detail. Obviously there are the ones who want to get in and can't hack it and suck, but there are all kinds of QA testers that suck, so...
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Feb 19, 2013 20:35
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djkillingspree posted:All of the best QA testers I've worked with have wanted to get into development. I've found that wanting to break in makes them more motivated to figure out how the game works and report bugs in more detail. ... also, our game releases Thursday, and I did up a fancy new trailer for it. We hit Kotaku again, so that was pretty neat, though I gather many are waiting to do a review story on release day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQlrH16WeJI EDiT: dammit, Apple skunked me in the 11th hour. Rejection due to an obscure, minor req that they usually don't care about. Should I try for another trailer-driven build next week? Or just call the current awareness "good enough," and count on normal release day announcements + reviews + trailer being enough buzz to catch Apple'a attention? Shalinor fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Feb 20, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 20:40
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Couple more job apps sent off today, including one for Fullfat in their new Warwick studio. One of my apps is to the devs of the Rail Simulator games, which would probably lead to some rad 3D work being done to bolster my credentials. 
GeeCee fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Feb 20, 2013 |
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Feb 20, 2013 13:41
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djkillingspree posted:All of the best QA testers I've worked with have wanted to get into development. I've found that wanting to break in makes them more motivated to figure out how the game works and report bugs in more detail. Man there is such a massive catch-22 right there. When I got shot down for a QA job and I asked my friend who works there for advice, it basically boiled down to them not wanting to hire people who desire to get into development, it's incredibly awkward to bullshit your way into the wrong job in the right industry.
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Feb 20, 2013 18:44
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we've actually got a QA tester who's just switched over full-time to helping with some animation work. no pressure.
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Feb 20, 2013 18:59
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Super Slash posted:Man there is such a massive catch-22 right there. When I got shot down for a QA job and I asked my friend who works there for advice, it basically boiled down to them not wanting to hire people who desire to get into development, it's incredibly awkward to bullshit your way into the wrong job in the right industry. I dunno. I think a lot of that depends on where you're applying and their impressions about QA and job mobility. How I've always put it when I've been applying for a job that isn't exactly what I want is to say "I'm excited to do (job I'm interviewing for) but in the longer term, I'm also interested in (job I actually want)" and that's tended to work well. Obviously don't do this if you don't actually want to do the job you're interviewing for, because it will suck.
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Feb 20, 2013 19:39
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Shalinor posted:EDiT: dammit, Apple skunked me in the 11th hour. Rejection due to an obscure, minor req that they usually don't care about. A big part of my job is submitting other people's iOS apps for them, so I see this all the time -- never, ever trust that your app will be accepted the first time. Apple's review process is largely arbitrary and changes in response to new policies almost every week. So it's probably a good idea to never bank on a release date if you're relying on Apple to review something sanely or in a timely manner.
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Feb 20, 2013 19:48
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