Posts by mjens

Quote from Castle

Your portfolio is impressive! When you compare environmental artists with level designers its like that scene from office space where the designer would be "Whats the matter with you people!? I have design skills!!"

I was Lead game designer for a bit near the end at Nerve software but otherwise I have been a senior level designer or lead level designer depending on the project. I guess I am all over the place. personal projects mixed in with proffessional doing random positions.. *sigh*

I'm currently lead env artist but my heart goes where level art & design is so I'm always writing "senior level designer & artist". Luckily I'm doing all the LD/LA stuff PLUS the leadership stuff.

Thanks for the kind words

Good luck with your folio and work seeking. I know it's hard, man!

The header - try something bigger and not Times New Roman-ish. I always use Verdana which is simple but yet not so "classic". Get out with that "-= =-" dude, how old you are? Just type who you are, a Level Designer or Level Artist/World Builder? I dunno...

Try to sort your personal works from professional experience. Check out my portfolio of some others to get the idea.

I couldn't find information about what kind of job you're doing (except from some descriptions under the pics which I don't know what pic you're referring to). Try creating a pattern of project presentation so: start with the name of the project and your role, provide additional details etc. You can describe that with few lines of text or table with text in cells which is more logical but also looks a bit to simple. I've picked the cells way because writing in English is not my best part

I can't see the links for your folio and stuff. I mean it's in the same style as your usual text so you need to move your mouse cursor over the text to "find" a link.

It would be awesome to see your email

Good luck, man!

Quote from e-freak

i guess an anonymous google survey would do better...

I was thinking about making such survey on Level-Design.org. I have a lot of LD visitors so this could actually be trustworthy.

SurveyMonkey is better IMO, you can't fill the survey few times.

So, stay tuned for survey update

Yep, lighting is quite flat. You can use it as an advantage but it doesn't work here

Quote from knj

WUT?

SRUT

Quote from Warby

nope just tax

+mandatory retirment fund

+mandatory unemployment fund

+madatory health insurance

That's crazy man, I know that it will make you a nice retirement but damn, it's like half of your cash!?

I won't talk about my salary cuz I'm from PL and I'm shy, salary here is silly but life is way more cheaper than in DE or UK so it's not that bad. Still I get twice more than average salary in PL so I can't complain. For instance - I started with about $800 "on hand" but it changed pretty fast

Nice!

Quote from Sjonsson

Does anyone know how much different a Game Designer's salary is compared to Level Design? I'm very curious about this and I don't know where to turn but the salary lists from Gamasutra.

Edit:

It just struck me: why would you want to put Game Design and Level Design in the same category for wages? Aren't there more Level Designers than Game Designers overall on companies?

LD and GD is pretty close when it comes to "making games" but not so close when comparing salaries. Check Glassdoor, you can see annual salaries for exact jobs. Here's some numbers:

Blizzard - Senior Level Designer ~$84,000 - http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Salary/Bliz…=level+designer

Ubisoft - Level Designer ~$58,000 - http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Salary/Ubis…=level+designer

Quote from Jord

What surprises me quite a lot is that people aren't willing to talk about what salary they earn. This rule really only benefits the company. We have to rely on the gamasutra surveys to find out what people are earning and no one ever has any idea what they're worth at their company.

It can get pretty unhealthy. As I already wrote, some guys are getting, lets say $7000, they are awesome so they earn a lot. Other guy with the same work time (work time is not experience!) can get even $2000 less because he's silent and with no giant success or just bad luck... You know what would happen if the second guy knows that he could get more $ just because showing his work a bit more (or stuff like this)? Madness. If industry would get a better classification for pay there would be no problem. Intern will get $A, Junior $B, Regular $C, Senior/Mentor $D, Team Lead $E and so on. The problem is that a lot of guys would be hurt by such classifications. Anyway, smart guys could get more classes like Senior Environment Artist, Team Leader and Mentor = $A+$B+$C.

I dunno, just thinking loud...

It was different in UK, not a rule but there was some info about the salary like pounds a day or annual salary. I think they're already in a better times, the crisis is gone and you can pick from decent candidates. Check some offers from UK. I remember that most of offers on OPM was with a value, now it's mostly a value to negotiate but no idea from what were starting.

I guess you should ask about $ before the art test. You won't waste your time. If you have a lot of experience and nice folio, forget about doing tests. It's better for you.

That's right, most of the companies pay for the trip/hotel. If they want to give you less money for first X months just make sure you'll get it on paper.

Quote from knj

Yes guys, great point by you, but still not exactly what i was hoping for.

For instance I'm making 3000$, and there is other company that I'm trying to be recruited by, with all that steps (art test, interview ect.). And at the end, lets say I got the job but they are willing to give me 2,500$. At this point, me and them lost about month of a time, right ? Is there a reasonable way, to avoid taht ?

First of all you need to be sure when this salary will be raised. It's usual to give lower salary for the first 3 months as for the test and if you'll pass it you'll get ~500 bucks more.

When you're switching jobs you need to be consistent, if you want to work in other city/country you'll need $800-1500 for apartment, and $2000-3000 for your stuff so you need like, lets say, 3500 bucks and if they can't pay you that it's not worth moving unless it's burning in your current job but it's not a good thing to look for a job desperately because you'll say that $2500 is fine, you'll pay for dept, apartment rent and you're out of cash...

If the new place is worth the effort and lower salary then there's a small conflict like "Come on, you're working at X now, it will be better in Y even with lover salary!". Actually you can land in way worse company so it's good to do some recognition. When it's OK then I guess it's worth to move to better company and do your best to get a pay rise in next few months by doing great job, not by just talking "I wanna $".

We should talk privately

That only shows how bad we are at recruitment (as leads trying to find an employee). In my opinion most art test just doesn't work and there's to many "he's/she's different/better so..." situations. We don't have any standards like in movie industry and it's particularly good. Good for guys that can create their image better than real and bad for guys that are good but shy and have no idea about how much they can get. About the art test: some companies are willing more to hire a senior guy when he refuses to do the test. It depends on the reason and there was a nice discussion about that on other dev forum. Anyway, it's not good but still hiring process is just bad.

Cool once again Thrik saved the day

Thrik, A lot of people are writing answers by answering the mail and it never gets to the recipient. Can we make something with that?

About the messages: damn, I had a lot of chats with Buddy

[Blocked Image: http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/awesome.gif]

I don't understand kids these days.

Quote from (HP)

http://www.p4rgaming.com/take-two-in-re…ly-unrealistic/

Their iteration process where ideas just come and go took them to a disaster. There's always a point with no return when the budget is too high and the game have to be shipped NOW and cancel/layoffs is not an option but it went way to far at IG. 5 years man, 5 years! Did they work without a vision and story?!

Quote from knj

sure, but I don't want to overdo the concept

True, it's good to show in your folio that you actually know how to create a scene as it is on the concept. I saw a lot of folios where guy shows concept and the final work is a bit similar, seriously. I know that concept is not always working in game but for a portfolio purposes pick one that will show your "reading" skill, not that "you know better and add some to the scene". In such cases why making concept if you would change whole shit out of it?

Nice!