Posts by Wunderboy

Quote from kleinluka

Yeah me too, .... every now and then I'll sign onto AIM and I used to see him on there all the time. Now it just says "engineer is offline"

Yeah I can't bring myself to delete him from my contact list.

Man ages since I've been here. Just too busy...

As mentioned previously, Engineer was part of the original Ham and Jam team (amongst over mods) and we wrote a little piece about him on our blog:

http://www.hamandjam.org/2011/09/in-mem ... er-keesee/

It's amazing when you do a bit of Googling just how many games he contributed to. I've found sound and weapon packs he's made for stuff as far back as Duke Nukem.

It's been a month since it happened and I'm still genuinely bummed out about it.

Quote from Skjalg

I think it has more to do with the fact that if they can actually play your levels, then they might consider you..

Well that's always a factor. Flat screenshots along wont sell your skills.

Personally, every interview I've had I've taken a laptop with HL2, 3DS Max, etc. and a copy of my mod and the source to my files so I can let them try it and inspect my work in detail. In many cases I've left a DVD with files on they can look at their leisure.

To be fair to Ginger's (and mine) WWII mod - it's been in development for 3 years of which the first 18 months were an abortion we had to write off due to various factors out of our control.

It is getting VERY close to a public release but we've been unable to thus far due to legal reasons. That said, it's effectively been a 4 man team putting in 8 hours a week to turn the game around which is pretty amazing when you consider just about all the art assets are totally original and weigh in at almost 1.5GB alone.

I've always had a bit of a problem with companies being so hung up on shipped titles - is it a art/dev guys problem if the game doesn't ship? Surely that's a contractual/managerial problem? I would of thought being able to turn up showing a diverse portfolio of different work demonstrating technique, understanding and creative ability was far more important than units shipped.

I've only got GCSE's but a wealth of practical experience in game development - just not the boilerplate "3 years commercial experience and/or 3 published AAA/NextGen/WTFBBQ titles" that they all seem to want.

I think I've been interviewed (sometimes more than once) by just about every game company in or around Stockholm and they've all turned me down for some bullshit reason. The classic was applying for one job, turning up and being interviewed for a different position and then turned down as being unsuitable - "err, but I was applying for as a junior environmental prop modeller? Not as a tool/engine developer?" ( I'm looking at you, GRIN )

I think I spent about 3 years trying to get a foot in the door and just gave up. I had/have other options so it wasn't a hassle.

So yes, you've got to be prepared to wait and wait and keep looking. Networking is the #1 thing though - get to know people, get to trade fairs, interface (yah) with people.

Getting it as soon as I get paid in two weeks. Yes, I'm that broke but I've waited too long for this

Quote from Lord Ned

They've switched to Maya. Now all of their DMX toolset is in Maya plugins, etc. And it's not a plaintext anymore so Wunderboy can't write an importer/exporter for DMX stuff until Valve gives him a few header files.

I've already got the headers, they're in the OB SDK.

And DMX is nothing special and not needed for modelling really. DMX is just a generic file format that Valve seem to be switching to. It's kinda like binary XML with specific datatypes for data. From a modelling point of view most of the data you get in a model DMX is in an SMD anyway, its just stored differently.

I'd probably play with making a DMX toolset if I had more free time and motivation.

Quote from Furyo

If those guys had been modders, people who had to struggle to make it in, they're inherently more suited for work and more qualified to work as part of a team, and to mind what everyone else is doing. Being a modder requires you to learn many different skills and techniques you may never even use in your professional life. But in the end that pays off by saving everyone time, and therefore money. And you get to, once in a while, actually help others from other departments simply because you have at least a modicum of knowledge on what you're talking about.

Interesting point you make there Fuyro, because my experience trying to get into the industry has been the complete opposite. In a few interviews I was told that my broad spectrum of knowledge was actually a bad thing and that modding was "essentially useless unless you have a released and popular mod". I got the distinct impression that, to them at least, unless your mod is out there, top ten and picked up/distributed through something like Steam it's not even worth putting on your CV. And these were with well known and established studios.

Probably out of line posting this here but I'm only thinking about the GRIN guys:

REQUIRED: Technical Director - Graphic Design, SWEDEN

This studio is a premier producer of games and interactive entertainment for the global market. The company was founded in 1997 and is located in Sweden. With over 120 passionate game developers, They are now continuing to expand to meet the demands of gamers worldwide.

They currently require an experienced Technical Director to work in a team which is focused on the multiplayer aspects of one of next year's most exciting titles for the Xbox360, PS3 and PC. Your tasks will be to actively refine the Modo and 3DSMax pipeline, ie early identify possible problems and proactive suggest improvements and be both hands on (for example scripting) and theoretical (for example take part in P4V integration). Besides this you will facilitate the communication between the art team and application and/or tools owners. You will assist the artists with any technical problems and facilitate their daily work and act as a bridge between artist and programmers. You will also research unexplored technologies and spread the knowledge within the team, staying up-to date with changes in tech and software.

Requirements

- Experience from console development (XBOX, PS, Wii etc)

- Scripting/programming

- Ability to work with minimum supervision

- Ability to anticipate the needs of artists

- Profound knowledge of one or several 3D packages

- Ability to think creatively to resolve technical challenges

- Excellent social skills

- Excellent English (oral and written) communication skills

Please contact [email protected] to apply or for further information.

Quote from Buddy

And they propably pay well enough to motivate these guys to produce even more awesome content, its a cheap way to make content and save time after all

ROFL. Well you won't have much change left once you've bought and iPod with your earnings.

Wow. Just. Wow.

Well, I tried several times to get a job at Grin and no matter how many times I got knocked back, the guys at Grin encouraged me to keep on applying. So in that respect, if there's anything I can do to help any of you lot out I figure I owe you a favour.

Do you mean through a linked chain when animating or just when working interactively?

I would suggest you look in the 3DS Max User Reference under "Sliding and Rotational Joints" which will explain how to deactivate/limit a joint rotation. Keep in mind it only really works for linked objects.

As for a stand alone solution, select your object, go to the hierarchy tab, look under Link Info and apply a lock to the rotation axis you want to disable.

You shouldn't have to worry about collapsing XForms and stuff in Max. The IGame/3DXI interface my exporter uses "sees-thru" all the modifiers and gets the vertex positions, etc based on all the transforms applied.

That said, for simple props, I usually collapse/convert meshes to Editable Poly after I've done any LOD modelling.

That said you mentioned error (9)

Quote

Unknown replace model 'C:\Steam\steamapps\seldoon182\sourcesdk_content\pdark\modelsrc\pdark\sewers\gasdrum_reference'

Usually that means your LOD command is trying to replace SMD mesh A with mesh B but the compiler knows nothing of mesh A. Usually mesh A is the name of the smd you gave as the $body or $model command at the top of your QC. e.g.

$body studio "gasdrum_reference.smd"


$sequence idle "gasdrum_idle.smd"




$lod 20


{


   replacemodel "gasdrum_reference.smd" "gassdrum_reference_lod1.smd"


}






$lod 40


{


   replacemodel "gasdrum_reference.smd" "gassdrum_reference_lod2.smd"


}

Note in each case you are ALWAYS replacing the body smd, not the lod level before it.

I wrote a shed load of information on LOD techniques on the Valve wiki. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/LOD_Models

Better update my tools to support this too then.

Wish Valve would keep everything in the same structure though instead of hopping about all over the place though.

Quote from SpicyTanuki

The mod I'm currently working on had a bigass update showing off our new player models. I specifically worked on getting the #$#@$ing thing working well in the source engine as well as about 40-50 w_models so far (3 LOD's for each weapon we have and we have about 30+ weapons).

It's been really fun learning all the ins and outs of character animation/rigging and the way the source engine handles it but I cant wait to get back to environment stuff.

Also if I ever have to do another set of w_models again I'm gonna go nuts

I feel you pain. I have to do all the character model + weapon stuff for Ham and Jam and it takes forever to rig everything.

Player models look nice although the eyes make them look like they're getting buttsech.

Quote from Furyo

MS wanted the DLC to be 10 bucks to compensate for the extra bandwidth used.

These clowns ever heard of P2P?

Well if you end up going back to Zee Motherland we should have a big p1ss-up to see you off

http://www.busdrivergame.com/download.php

Seeing how many of us have been laid off recently maybe this is a chance to train for a new career.

I hear SL are hiring in Stockholm

Well I thought I'd explain just in case you didn't know why. I know a lot of people who have come from abroad to work in Sweden and never had the LAS law explained when they're fired.

Actually the LAS law can be got around if your company is of a certain type and part of a Union. When I was fired I was actually the most senior and experienced person in our team (and still no-one, not even my boss, knows why I was chosen to be fired but the guys "upstairs") and they kept the no-brainer who'd been there 6 months and turned everything he touched to shit Of course they had to give me 3 months notice and a nice payoff but still...

Anyway, good luck whatever you end up doing.

Stepp,

Try not to take it too personally mate. One thing you may not know about Swedish employment law but they have something called "LAS" which basically means "last in, first out". It's pretty retarded to be honest because you might be the best guy in the room but if you've worked there the shortest time, you're first to go regardless. It's actually a hot political topic at the moment and several MP's are trying to abolish it because it's counter intuitive to growth.

Just move on while you're young and be glad you didn't have any "roots" here - it always makes leaving easier.

Best of luck, I know how you feel - I got made unemployed recently too.