Posts by Hourences

Quote from sensee

I guess the best way is to become someone whose imput can't be replaced by a noob that easily. Maybe aim for leading design position?Of course that takes a lot of perseverance & talent and also hoping that the producer or director isn't just some dickhead who got his position by a stupid business school degree, but someone who really acknowledges your skills.

That would work but you cant become that lead guy as a student so youd still have to survive all those other jobs.

In general youre better off when youre specialized in something imo, while it may be a little harder to find work companies will need you more.

I agree with klein about people who give in too much but on the other hand you cant blame them. They just want to make their dream come true, I was like that too when I started but after a while you do change. Its not about having a gamejob anymore, its about having a good one. Just as companies can find a lot of new artists to hire if youre too demanding you as an artist can also find lots of new work if the company is too crappy, it goes in two ways.

Gameindustry is really frustrating tho. Since people put in so many time and effort it often becomes very passionate stuff. Whatever goes wrong will hit you twice as hard if youre passionate about something.

I dont think we will loose our job because of outsourcing, on the contrary. We still have a lot more know how and experience than those indian or chinese people. Thats still more valuable than other crap + it can get you a directing position.

Lots of companies and publishers are still afraid of outsourcing stuff, they all try to keeptheir stuff in house and thats not very handy. The unreal engine is currently by far the most used engine in the world yet its very hard for me to find some occasional offsite contract jobs which is basically outsourcing. If more companies were to outsource stuff or order content we as community people might get a lot more work and short time jobs. Outsourcing doesnt neccy have to be a bad thing for us or the avaiable jobs.

I would personally never want to work for the company of the interview. You get all kinds of boring jobs and zero satisfaction.

I completely agree with klein and the threadstarter. NDAs for mods are bullshit and nothing more than wannabe pro behavior.

What you going to do if someone breaks them ? The NDAs often arent legally correct + theres no way you are actualy going to sue the other person since most people are minor + it costs you a hell of a lot.

None of the mods that got released a few years ago used NDAs yet all we never experienced problems with people who tried to steal or release things. If it wasnt needed back then why would it be needed right now apart from trying to look interesting.

And its not about "more development time". For example we spend 2.5 years (thats more than most "next generation" mods you know) on a UT mod which turned out to be one of the biggest UT mods there were and we didnt had an NDA, we didnt had anything in fact (we didnt had leaks either!) apart from trust and skills and thats more important than a lame piece of paper.

its a nice model and render but I think the materials are missing a bit. Some parts can be more shiny + show some damage or have a slightly rougher surface in general. More subtle changes in the surface. It looks a bit simple Max color applied to mesh like right now.

White screen is a bit weird too.

I got extensive experience with Maya and max, both pro as amateur. Havent tried XSI yet, no interest in it either cause I can do anything I want already with the current programs I have

Max is far better than Maya for game modelling imo. Maya looks a lot simpler than Max on first sight but is in fact a lot more complex and unlogical. If you want to bend a mesh in Max you take the bend modifier, thats simple eh. In maya its in some obscure menu with an obscure name with obscure gizmos around it. Maya likes to put less tools on weirder places than Max. Max has more poly modelling tools too.

And Max doesnt need an unwrap modifier to store uv info, it is also saved directly on the face. The modifier system itself is great actualy. It allows you to mass copy certain effects from one mesh to another + make changes to for example the mesh without loosing the effect like Meshsmooth thats above it.

Quote from Zacker

Hourences, I think the point of the system would be that it would not require a lot of ram. As I read it it, the system would automaticly split it up and load the pieces in a dynamic way.

Im sure he can code his engine to do that as described in the article but I doubt Adobe are going to code in the same support for Photoshop.

Im not going to open and edit 32000*32000 images with multiple layers in PS..

Texture tiling isnt that bad if you do it correctly so imo there are more important things to improve than this. I also wonder who is going to be able of making a 32000 or even a 8192*8192 texture. Youll need lots of ram and lots of time. I dont think thats very efficient.

The filesize will also be huge.

Still if it works its nice and its always good to have as many methods supported as possible so you can choose the thing that suits your specific situation best but to use this technique all over the place? I dont see that happening right now.

Quote from cdxx

More encouraging stuff. How long have you been doing LD Hourences?

Started late 99 with Unreal 1 and UT1, got my first albeit crap job at the start of 2003.

Time flies. I always have a lot of projects going, which is a more important factor than the time Ive been doing this I think. One could just as well spend 6 years doing nothing while a guy with 3 years experience might be better than the 6 year dude cause he works 24/7 on it.

I used to do it 24/7 but real life starts to demand more time. Currently doing this 10-12 hours a day, 6.25 days a week.

Singleplay work is definalty under estimated. Not a lot of people seem to bother learning or creating singleplay gameplay which is a shame. Singleplay gameplay does sell better because its easier to understand (player wise, not design). Really, if you are not applying to some of the bigger multiplayer games studios like iD, Valve, Epic, and so on the guy looking at your work will prolly not understand what multiplayer gameplay is about. There really are a lot of people who got no idea what mp gp is about. Hell I once worked with a whole team of 2d arcade gameplay designers who suddenly tried to make the switch to an action 3d game.

So in that light, a text explaining why you did things may help for that. As discussed in the other thread.

Why not listen to me ?

My portfolio is actualy twice as big as the portfolio on my site. A couple of NDA's and wips withold me from adding all the news stuff. Content should be doubled by the end of the year. When I started in the industry I only had my UT1 levels and 1 UT2003 map.

reply day, got to do something when working late.

cdxx -> The ten was an example, it was for me anyway. Ofcourse the more good levels the better but I dont think anyone is going to die if you only included 6 good levels..Thatll do it as well.

And 8 bad ones and 2 good ones? As long as they are good its all fine, good doesnt mean awesome but just solid (of course awesome is better). Look at it this way, if you are still a learning and starting level designer show them you are improving and learning fast. Let your last level be better than your first. Show an evolution.

Dont read that in the other way around. It doesnt mean you should include your very first level on your resume for the sake of "showing evolution"

There is another reason why more levels are better than just a few. Everyone likes different things. Ive had it that half the people liked my level X a LOT while the other grouped really didnt like it at all. The more levels you got the more you can fall back on other levels in case someone doesnt like one of your levels. If they dont like level A or B they might still like C and D and you are saved. If you only have a few and the person recruiting you just doesnt like those...

I dont like mod teams. You get more attention with releasing maps on your own and you got more control

Skjalg make a thread and post your resume in it so people can help ?

You asked if writing a five page text explaining your design decisions was good or not. What I meant with my reply was "If I were the one to hire you I would find it a positive point to see a text along with the design explaining your decisions"

Now that I read it again I notice you can indeed read it in two ways

But hey if you do want to apply, be my guest

Id find it a positive point if you would apply to my company. I always like it when people show me they understand what they do rather than do something but dont know why they do.

Gameplay is something that is hard to sell tho. I made a lot of hardcore UT floorplans and gameplay designs, well it didnt help me when I was applying (and hired tho) to a big studio 2-3 years ago. They simply didnt understand what hardcore multi gameplay is about...not that many people do understand that..

So writing it down may help.

Quote from sensee

I think it's going to be more and more difficult for a mapper to create a greater amout of impressive maps.

To create an stunning map you need at least some custom content, because nobody gets excited by a city17-looking map, no matter how well it's done. And that's the big problem, because current gen (HL2, Doom3) mapping plus the creation of custom textures and props is extremely time consuming.

There are very few HL2 (or CSS) maps with custom content. Maybe the best of them is de_corse by hessi and the guy worked as far as I know over 1 year on it.

There will be less good maps in the future yeah but its still possible as discussed before.

Certainly for HL2 its possible. I can understand that for UT2007 and HL3 or whatever there will be less content but that shouldnt be the case for the current generation of games. UT2004 is in a lot of ways similar to HL2. HL2 uses even more bsp thus relying less on meshes yet there are hundreds of UT2004 maps with a lot or nearly only custom content which results in a lot of themes.

It is possible.

Im sure fewer maps will be more able to impress in the future but the point will still stand. You do not have a lot of experience if you only made one or two levels and I see that happen to a lot of people, they still face a lot of difficulties or trouble when they design a level after they are hired. Its not just the skill of making it, its also the skill of designing it and finishing it. Someone who made a lot of levels is very efficient at what he does because he knows exactly what steps to take because he has done it so many times before. And no matter how awesome and extensive that one level is the author still did everything just one time...

Quote

question: do you think they'd look at a demo reel even if they HR dept didn't qualify the resume?

No because it prolly wouldnt even be forwarded to the leads...

You just need a bit of luck for that kind of stuff. Applying at a large company might turn out well but in general most smaller companies are more likely to hire mod people to my experience.

I dont really like companies who have a HR department checking peoples work. Im sorry but if you know jack shit of the subject you shouldnt be making any decisions on it. And if that is the way to go in such companies I wonder what kind of other weird decisions/things they do...you might not want to work there in the first place.

Or you can ofcourse also continue modding and hope some lead or whatever notices your work

One good map = The author was lucky

Two good levels = Still lucky

10 good levels = Shows he knows exactly what to do to get a good result. Skill and not luck.

Your poll doesnt include enough options.

There are various of positions cool all with their own positive and negative things. I like a senior level artist position because it gives you control and influence yet you dont have to bear the full weight of tasks or responsibilities a lead has to.

On the other hand the lead ofcourse has more control which is good but often the leads have little time left to actualy make things themselves. All they are doing is sheduling, running around and looking at things. Thats not too fun when you like making a lot of stuff on your own.

I think the nice in between route would be something like an environmental art director. Gives you the ability to actualy work on things instead of spending all your time on sheduling and managing while you still have influence and control.

If you really care about your thing it will show. You can tell by the amount of time someone puts in, how much he makes, how polished it is, and so on..setting yourself apart from the mass isnt too hard

However getting noticed is. You can be awesome but if some randoom noob with his stupid cubic gimmick map manages to get more attention than you at a site he might actualy get hired and not you. And that does happen often.

Someones asked "how come someone who sucks so much manages to get trough the interviews and so on". The people on top and even a lot of lead artists and so on have zero idea of what level design is about and what is important. They cant judge them right OR there is such shortage of people they hire anyone (not true for large companies tho). Ive seen people getting hired simply because they had a map of the month (or the year) at planetunreal. They get hired because a manager or whoever sees it and says "fuck that guy has a map of the month, he must be good so hire him". While often the sole reason he has a month of the month is because there simply werent any other reviews in that period or the PU admins are so lazy they only update the thing once a year with some random map they come across.

Yet they are hired, and not the one who really tries.

Those people often arent ready yet. Situation: In week 1 random noob X releases map A, gets success in week 2 for various of reasons (like being one of the first to release a level), flames everyone who says something in week 3 (cause hey, if he has that much success all others suck), comes asking me a basic mapping question in week 4 (how do i move the pivot pivot) and then gets hired in week 5.

And that really happened. Thats just not right.

I like the looks of it

Streetlights do look weird but you really need the contrast they provide, however you can try to get that contrast from other things.

More windows with light inside or fires for example, like other people have said

Never use such special coronas, they always look strange. In this case it will prolly be ok if at least the inner ring/halo will be gone, the outer pikes are okish

Level design is really complex and there indeed arent that many people who do it. If you ask a beginner what he is going to try and learn its prolly programming or character modelling, other things are too strange apperantly.

We got trouble finding level designers too, or used to.

Problem too is that a character artist has only a few programs he has to know but the level design community is strongly split up in groups. If your game uses engine B you prolly want mappers with engine B experience and not A. You got that prob less with characters artists or coders.

The lack of people does has some bad effects tho. I have seen a lot of people being hired who really werent ready to be so yet.

Sounded real strange to me too on first sight but the more I read it the better it gets.

Its kinda cool and all this controverse over their name makes people talk about it

Three years something and five companies performed work for.