Posts by ginsengavenger

  • dod_salerno

    what they said, it's a nice map.

    to me the thing that is jarring about it is the way you've handled the broken buildings; it's like you just threw in some holes in random walls without considering how those holes would be made and the kinds of damage you'd see in the surrounding structure. think about how the buildings are built and how they would actually fall apart. what blew those holes in the wall, artillery? how come most of the walls and the lower floors are undamaged? was it a grenade? how come there's so little damage to the interiors? where did the rubble go? there are some displacements on the roof but it's kind of lame-duck rubble.

    anyway lookin good, let's see it wrapped up ^^

  • Hard times ahead?

    Well, don't blame me for being a bit jaded after my last job, where a big publisher did lay off its internal development staff

    I just really, really want people to know what they're getting into here. There are sweet deals and great jobs to be had, no doubt - most of the time most of the people are doing pretty well, and the work is awesome. But everything is always at the whim of that faceless guy writing the checks, and he doesn't care about you, he cares about his bottom line. And you're right, studios can usually stay afloat even when times are rough - but when money dries up it's management who stays and the staff who go.

    It's not every day but these things do happen, it's endemic to the industry and has been for years. It seems like every few weeks I read about another studio closing or cutting way back.

    You're right, I may overstate the instability but I do think that if you are in the industry, odds are it is going to happen to you. The industry is built on young men who can move anywhere, anytime to take a job.

    In response to the topic I don't think the times ahead are any harder than what has come before, in fact I do think things are getting better as companies are developing intelligent strategies like keeping 2-3 projects in the works at any time so if something gets canceled people can be moved to another project instead of being laid off - it's just that working in games is not like working at Procter & Gamble or GM. Of course they don't get to make games for a living, but nobody in games has a pension plan either

  • Hard times ahead?

    Quote from FrieChamp

    At times you guys bash EA a little bit too much, as if Satan himself was running the corporation, with the goal to destroy all games.You all played BF2, maybe battle for middle earth or c&c generals, black & white 2 just came oiut, the new bond game, nfs most wanted also looks fun...

    And where are the guys who made BF2 now? They're looking for jobs.

    The guys making Project Offset, who is paying them? Nobody. They don't have jobs, they have a project.

    The industry is very young and constantly in flux. When you hire to a company you are hiring for the term of the project, after which the company will be out of money and you can bet you will have to find a new job (at this point the publisher begins to rake in the dough and recoup their expenses, including paying you to make the game).

    The state of the industry is constantly and rapidly changing compared to traditional industries. Hopefully we will move toward a better state of stability for the people actually producing these games but it will take time.

    On the other hand, a lot of the artists at my current work have been in film, tv, commercial CG - they think games are stable.

    Let's just say I won't be having kids until I have a stable job, and at this point that means not working in games.

  • WIP Helicopter

    oh hell i'm installing maya right now so i can point you in the right direction. basically it's about hard and soft edges, not smoothing groups of faces. come to think of it you might even be accessing it through the same dialog but you should be selecting edges instead of faces because it's sooo much easier

    *ed: fkn, main machine bombed.... anyway the process as i recall is that you select a mesh in object mode, and i don't remember the menus exactly but it's something like like Edit Polygons - Normals - Soften/Harden [] where you can set a hardness angle threshold for the entire object. then you can tweak it by selecting individual edges and going back to that same option box and hit all hard/all soft. best to put a shortcut to that option box on one of your shelves with a ctrl+shift-click ~

  • WIP Helicopter

    Quote from von*ferret

    this is halfway done with the texture, still working on the smoothing groups. I have to say that maya has the worst way of doing smoothing groups I have ever seen, PLEASE I want my 1-32 numbers back.

    are you serious? are you sure you're doing it right? lookin good anyway.

  • Put your money where your mouth is (by Ben Mathis)

    Quote from kleinluka

    I think you can't really generalize it like that. It really depends on the job you are looking for. For art positions the most important thing is your portfolio. Design positions are different because they don't require or require only very little art skills these days.

    fair enough. i'm definitely more design-skewed but being able to demonstrate game art skills has helped me a lot. for designers you need to be able to demonstrate your ability to think critically above all else.