Posts by mjens

  • Eric Lancon - Level Artist

    I wouldn't place architecture/design with game levels. That's totally different thing when it comes to job seeking. If you're looking for a job in a game industry it's good to have an architecture knowledge but I think that presenting it on one page isn't a good idea. How about making tabs for each "job"? Also I didn't like the B&W thumbs at the first look on the page, that gives minus points for the first impression. B&W palette in the website design is elegant but too simple.

    As you asked about your chance in the industry, in my opinion there are studios that can hire you, but of course these are non-AAA companies. You could get into small company and get experience there. I see lack of new, lets say "next-gen" technology in your folio. How about making stuff in Sandbox or UDK?

  • Your beginnings

    Editor was a pain in the ass, it was not hard to learn but hard to keep it stable. Some editors crashes when doing specific steps. Our editor crashed randomly on scaling objects or changing vars. I was the youngest guy in the studio, I felt like a kid there and people used to treat me like a rookie Actually I was a begginer...

  • Pachter stirred up quite the shitstorm

    Actually this guy is trying to sell a perfect world with bad things that suck after all. The truth is in the middle of that.

    1) When a game sells well there will be profits and bonuses but you'll never know if you'll get any. In crunch time you need to use your time for making effective work, make your stuff seen by people - then you might get some bonuses for getting your job well done. Don't forget that you'll never know if you'll get any bonus, don't count on it, it won't hurt when your teammates will get bonuses and you'll get only some game gadgets (typical for young workers with no experience/titles done). If that Team Bondi leader is such a hardcore employer then I wouldn't count on any bonuses without claiming to get some...

    2) When some people can't work overtime they should say "No" and go to their families or any other stuff like relaxing, hobbies - anything... The sad thing is that they could be great employees but they can miss the bonuses just because they didn't crunch. I've heard a lot of such situations, that's sad but it's up to team leader to think who actually deserves to get a bonus. Laying of such guys is really bad, such studios should be on a some kind of black list...

    3) I wouldn't say that 6 months is a normal crunch. It depends how many time you're working but after half an year of no weekends or one day weekend most of the workers that actually work will be burned as hell. That 40 hours per week work time isn't taken from ass, when working more and more you'll need more time to rest and relax, when working 55-60 hours for few months you'll spent half of the weekend in bed...

    4) When you're good, you can get money, but you have to be smart, know when to say you want more, create your "brand" labeled by your name. You need skills to build such a position and it will take time.

    I try to say that in game dev there might be some unlucky guys, non-skilled but really dedicated that still think that it's a party to make a game, somehow yes but there's a ton of conditions that will make it better or worse: your bosses are dicks of maybe like angels, if the game is good and will get proper sales, if you're good and you're educating yourself, helping each other and so on or just a worker that is moving vertices and actually hates his job...

    I know lots of people that always complain about non-payed crunch, they're doing their job done but not excellent, when talking trash they'll never get any bonus. That guys wanna sit at work for only 8 hours, working for 5 hours actually and the rest is Facebook/Youtube. There's also few guys that almost live in the office like in home, you'll see them when entering and leaving company. They try to make something but they don't have skills, normal guy can finish it in normal time, without crunch. You need to check who you are in team hierarchy and if everything is cool.

    Crunch is a part of each employee, not only in game dev. I know construction workers and web apps developers that crunch so... you need to love your work, know your limits and have passion injected into head. If you don't like your job or people there - crunch will be awful. you will decide how your career will look like, think who you wanna be in next 5-10 years and plan it, make a brand at start (and this will be a crazy painful ride), get bonuses later (when all the conditions are fine and you did your job well).

    BTW I had a few crunches behind, lost 2 girlfriends because that and I'm not sad actually. I was a rebel once but I realized how it can work and what kind of people deal with that and what are just not into it...

  • Call of Juarez: The Cartel

    The reviews are really harsh, I think that the game deserves for 65/100. We had a hardcore deadline, so massive crunch of course... I'm glad that some reviews point my levels as "the better one", that's egoistic but still it makes me feel that I did my best to pull up the title I don't think about any bonuses

  • terror hits norway in 2 places

    This guy was just a few streets near the explosion:

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  • The random model thread!

    Nice work koko! How about making the floor tiles with different colors (additional mask or vertex painting) so when making the long street sidewalk it won't be burning with repetitive tiling. The metal plates looks very small when comparing to lets say road cone. I think this should be bigger, you'll get less poly and it will be still fine Some ideas: maybe some missing flagstone (my dictionary named that part like that, I'm not sure is it correct ), some grass in the apertures?