Posts by Minos

  • Calling those in the Industry

    Quote from kleinluka

    Unless your name is Mino..then you're just a natural....pro.....guy.

    lol as I said I won't do any programming but it's not a junior position either. There's also a big difference between being a technical artist in a next gen game and in a DS title.

    First, get a job in your own home country. It's easier since you don't have to apply for a visa, relocate to a new country and learn a new culture. Try to do some freelance work for outsourcing/indie studios in your area. You will get the chance to work on multiple titles in a short period of time learning many different skills and making important industry connections.

    Being sort of generalist is good when you are starting but don't lose focus. If you want a texture artist position it will help to have a few levels done all by yourself, even if they are made just for the eye candy and have no actual gameplay. That's a way to prove you are actually a GAME artist who understands working pipelines, limitations and so on and not some random CG guy who makes low poly stuff, makes fancy mental ray renders and claims to be a game artist (I see so many of those nowadays).

    Unless you have a strong portfolio with a few shipped titles your chances to get hired by any US companies are null.

  • [HL2DM] dm_arbogast

    The flow in this map is brilliant... I love how all the areas are neatly connected to each other and always offer multiple ways out. I know you won't work on it anymore but HDR and color correction could improve the graphics a lot. I'm also not too sure about the optimization, did you use a water_lod (or whatever its called) for the water?

    Anyway, congrats on releasing this after so much time

  • Buying Adobe CS4

    The good thing is that it's both a technical and design software. Writing HTML/CSS without it is extremely painful and slow. Trust me, even if you are only doing simple pages you are totally going to need DW and HTML as flash sites really suck.

    Sure you can look for free alternatives but DW is definitely the top software when it comes to designing sites.

  • Buying Adobe CS4

    There's no way you can survive without Dreamweaver If you are going to work with websites, it's worthy every penny

    As for an alternative for InDesign you can get Quark Xpress, but I have no idea on how costly it is and I wouldn't recommend any of them unless you are going to work with magazines, newspapers etc.. because they are very specific and costly software.

  • Congrats Mino!!!!

    Thanks guys!

    Quote from Warby

    awsomesauce ... do you already know if you are going to be working on a new IP or not ?

    Nop I don't really know any details about the game except that its a DS game targeted at "tweenies" (teenage girls/boys). It's a good project to start with as I said. They are not that complex and sell pretty well =)

    The good thing is that they are are investing heavily into training and human resources. There are a few guys coming from Montreal to work at the office and train less experienced people. I'm also pretty confident with the studio heads. The studio director (a french guy) has been working for Ubisoft for 14 years mind you. He's also been living in Brazil for quite a lot of time, is a citizen and knows the peculiarities of this country quite well. He was personally responsible for some successful DS franchises like imagine and petz, and was also the director for ubi's 3rd party games, including GRAW/GRAW 2 PC (the Grin dudes saw him a couple of times at their office ), Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Rayman Raving Rabbids. He really knows this business and seems to be a very nice and realistic guy so I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time till we move on to more exciting and complex projects.

    I was also looking forward to working on something more casual and relaxed for a while after having worked on hardcore shooters for 7 years. This is the perfect opportunity to learn new skills and work on something totally different than what I'm used to.

    By the way, the studio is located in one of the wealthiest areas of Latin America. It's a really kickass place:

    http://flickr.com/search/?q=avenida%20paulista&w=all

    And here are some photos I took when I was in Sao Paulo for those who have no idea how the city is like:

    http://flickr.com/photos/thiagoklafke/

    That is the area I'm gonna live in. It can be kind of ugly but it's a relatively safe place. There's a lot of cool architecture, museums, theatres and parks nearby, and the apartment is only 2 blocks away from the nearest subway station, what more can I ask?

  • Congrats Mino!!!!

    Quote

    ":2bitli6z]5000?! Jesus, there's that many artists out there?!

    Lots of people applied even though most of them had no game dev experience, it was big news here

    Quote

    Any idea what you're working on yet?

    Their first project is a DS title afaik. I'm actually quite glad with their decision. There are very talented people here in Brazil but most lack know-how and game dev experience... it would be quite a mistake to start working on a current gen game straight away. Basically we'll be working on this DS game initially and then move on to more complex systems gradually: DS > Wiii > Next Gen outsourcing > Our own next gen game.

    Thanks everyone for the kind words <3

  • Congrats Mino!!!!

    There's no rule for this HP, it varies from studio to studio. In some studios a Tech Artist is responsible for programming art tools and shaders and that's definitely not what I'm going to do. The thing is, they hired kickass artists but only a few has actual game dev experience. They needed an artist with a more technical mind and that's where I come in =)

    It's worth mentioning that they received over 5.000 applications so I'm quite glad I was one of the 15 that made it