Kedhrin

IllFonic is looking to hire a talented level designer to work off-site on a project we have in the works codenamed Project Advena. The game is a very atmospheric adventure experience. The artwork in it is fantastic. We really need someone to help us implement the play by play moments. We have not announced too many details about this project, but it is a great opportunity for level designers who love scripting.

This is all UE4 work, heavy knowledge of blueprint is required. 

Because the work is off-site, we request the candidate be able to work during the same time we are working here in the studio. This means people in very different time zones will need to adjust (we're in Denver)

Paid position, pay is negotiable and varies by candidates experience/skill level.  I will need to look at examples of blueprint knowledge.

please email me at kedhrin@illfonic.com if you are interested!

RIP Thrik i will cry on your tombstone 

Hey everyone,

IllFonic is looking to hire a contract based environment artist. This is for an Unreal Engine 4 project that focuses on urban post apocalyptic environments.

Relocation is not required for this project. We are looking for someone who has enough time and has the ability to manage themselves remotely. We desire someone who can be working on the same schedule (same hours) as the rest of the studio at IllFonic. That means it would be grave yard shifts if you are in Europe!

We pay competitively. You must have your own machine capable of running Unreal Engine 4. This is a contract gig and will only last for about 7 months but has the potential to grow into more.

Software skills required:

3D Studio Max

Photoshop

Technique skills desired:

PBR Materials

Complete set dressing abilities

High understanding of real time performance

IllFonic is a AAA studio based out of Denver, CO. We have 5 AAA projects in a studio that works with over 500 people internal and external. Some projects are our own, others are IPs we have partnered up with other studios to work on. Most notably, IllFonic has recently been working on Star Citizen, Revival, Evolve and Sonic Boom. There are many others that have not been revealed, including the one this position is for!

If interested, please send your information to jobs@illfonic.com - submissions without portfolios will be ignored.

Thanks!

I wanna meet up Mino but I have a dinner at 6... can I sext you for the final location???

I'm in the area.... naked

I frequent Pascha when i go to Cologne. Take her there!!!!!!!!!!! 60 euros all you can drink... and other things! 

Hey guys

we finally put up the Revival Website, right now were still developing the page and figuring out bugs/other improvements as more content comes online and gets live (its a 100% live dev environment from our game/social/web angles). I'd love it if any of you could help us test it and let me know if anything is messing up for you.

http://revivalgame.com/

thanks!

Job Description

Create and manage a massive amount of weapons, items, armors and more. This job will require an intense amount of focus on gameplay, economic, and balance. The project being worked on will require a very high attention to detail and an obsession with gameplay balance. The system designer must create a system that allows for flexibility as the game adapts and changes over time.

Project Description

An announced and highly anticipated FPS game that will require a lot of objects released over time. This game is Sci-Fi and could be described as a hardcore PC game.

About the studio

IllFonic, LLC is a Denver based AAA studio that has worked on many games. We're working with some really cool people in one of the best cities in the nation. The cost of living is great, the people are great, the weather is amazing and it's an all around great place to be. IllFonic believes in hiring aces only and having a bad ass team. We have a very laid back atmosphere and don't believe in internal politics or competition among employees.

Job Requirements

• 5+ Years working on professional FPS Games
• A disturbing obsession with FPS Metrics
• Relocation to Denver, CO
• Able to work really well under pressure
• Extensive knowledge of Excel

Desired skills

• Worked on FPS balance on shipped FPS titles
• System Design experience in an MMO setting
• Exceptional FPS gamer but able to understand 'noobs'

Pay is TBD

Full benefits and relocation assistance available

If interested, please contact us at jobs@illfonic.com

Can we do a mapcore meet up at Jumbo's Clown Room :D :D

i'm down for a mapcore skype group.  

add me on skype - Kedhrin - or if you're on there, let's start and invite our friends for all the lulz

a client side on a website generally sucks you can even get a web-site built in IRC but its not the same. the ability to share images etc. is just so much better on an actual client.  if someone is messaging me on a website based messaging system, i'll more than likely miss it. but thats just me.

IRC room is pretty much dead. I haven't been in there in years.... i know some of you still go in there... but maybe we could start using something more 'cutting edge' and 'hip' to chat casually throughout the day.  

i'm sure someone has tried to do this before. but maybe we can have an official stance on it (like X place is the official room of Mapcore).

personally - i fucking love Skype's chat rooms. It's the closest thing you can get to IRC and pretty much everyone has a skype account.... but i know some companies put blockers on Skype.

thoughts? or am i just dumb?

yeah unfortunately i just can't answer to all emails, not even a 2 second thing, i'll usually only check for job applicants once a week - that's when there is a massive flood of emails.  our inbox at jobs@illfonic.com has an auto responder setup that even highlights that.  It's not the time that's spent its the extra task and focus that's required. It's unfortunate, but the way it is.  i know it's hard to understand, but if you were in my shoes i think you'd get it more. If i see someone i think is really impressive or something, i definitely reply.  Other than that, there's just too much going on.   

I know it's annoying, i know what it was like when i was applying for months to pretty much every company on the planet and only got a handful of responses.  Now i understand why that was happening.

I would say that people who do apply multiple times, or re-ping for an email response, generally do get a response (that doesnt mean spam). So if getting a response is that important to you, i would recommend doing that.

I'd love to give responses to everyone. But like i said, being on both sides of giving and receiving, I see a different light now with that. A lot of companies have Job Recruiters on staff that deal with that, unfortunately i'm in the position at IllFonic where i'm doing CD on 4 AAA projects at once, while having a 35 (internal) person team - while doing hiring.  So even copy+pasting a generic message to the stream of applications i get daily is too much.  We just hired an HR person which certainly could paste and respond to all of them, but even then it can get hairy if its lost in my inbox. One day i may hire a recruiter, but for now that's what it is.  We do use a recruitment firm and have hired a few people through them, and it is nice if all i have to say to the recruiter is 'nah' and he writes the applicant a message for me. But recruitment firms have their serious down falls. Feedback is nice, but if the person hiring at the studio is at a high level position with a constant heavy work load... it's kind of a good luck on getting a response situation.  I really need an art director so he could handle that

there are lots of directions i can go as far as giving feedback... i'll iron out the process over time. 

For now though, i'm focused on - when i do respond, how to tell someone they're not good enough,  ill focus on creating a generic copy paste message then, so when i do respond... its you know, something like "Sorry brah, better luck next yarrrr! dont kill yourself!" and include a picture of myself in tight underwear....

usually i list jr. mid. sr. and those should be a given, if i don't, i always put what skill level i'm looking for in specialists.  regardless, some guys apply, pretty much damn well knowing they aren't good enough

Huge problems i have is when it's a veteran who sucks (and even more so when he's referred by a friend).  

I feel like a dick if i say something like "I don't feel your skill is high enough for this position". haha

So over the past 8 years in my career i've been put in the position to hire people and get them in the door. There are definitely things i do that, when i was on the receiving end, i hated when employers did it - the main one is not replying back or giving me bullshit answers.

Since I've been seasoned more in the area of hiring, i know now why people don't respond. The flat out answer is there's just too many applicants and I'm not a hiring manager, so I can't respond to everyone. Like a dating web-site, i'm in and out of a portfolio within 2 seconds - purely based off looks - and i'll decide to respond or just ignore the email.

In rare cases, i find that I see someones portfolio that really impresses me, but it isn't exactly what i'm looking for, so i want to give the person a response.  Usually, i say something like "I really like your work" followed up with "it's not the style i'm looking for" or the bullshit answer of "i need someone with more experience for this right now" etc....

What i'd like to know, not only from people who have hired/fired but also people who are on the receiving end, what is the best way to just flat out tell someone they just aren't good enough?  

Sometimes, this is what needs to be said the most to people.  I can't give feedback to everyone that applies as to why its not good enough, but i want to tell them that's why they aren't being considered (so at least they know a real reason).

what are your thoughts on this?

The world needs another one of these:

Bring the arena like fast paced FPS back!! Would be also awesome to see the same game integrated with a SP campaign like Quake 1 and 2! Wtf happened to these games? 

 

Many have tried, and failed, (looking at you UT3)

Arena FPS is dead.

in all the years of doing mass amounts of terrain work i've never found an easy solution to this. the biggest thing is focusing on creating a method to create quickly so re-creating when needed isn't that big of a deal - also, just force yourself to get used to remaking, replacing, polishing, etc.... cryengine and unreal engine both have their ups and downs when dealing with this....

i just recommend spending enough time in the beginning creating rules and restrictions for yourself, and sticking to a very extreme pipeline with layers (cryengine) and vegetation groups, and how your assets are authored.

if you're still taking terrain work one section at a time without any plan for how things are placed, grid snaps, spacing restrictions etc -> you're pushing yourself into a corner that can become really painful down the road.  

yeah i was really surprised my WiiU didn't come with a Wiimote or the pro controller.

i love nintendos games, but i do think  the hardware schemes are rough

The 3DS-XL is still, imo, the greatest console ever made.  

when it comes to level design i always start with paper

i have a weird 'artsy' way of doing things... its almost like i let the level dance in my head a bit.  That sounds really bizarre, but when i'm doing balance and layout it usually works out.

when doing game design, i'm stuck in a document for a long time. it may take me a day to write a single paragraph, because i always search for new ideas that are fun, realistic to make within the budget, and make sense to other people reading it.  I'll usually start with a table of contents so i know what bases i need to cover, then i'll branch from there.  I've written so many different game designs at this point that i couldn't even tell you how many... i've never once considered any to be bad (except for the ones i was doing when i was like 14 or 15), if they aren't being made, they are more or less sitting on the back burner.

Although i do recommend playing a game as quick as possible, i think if a designer is drastically changing the game non-stop from a document, they just aren't a document designer - which can be a really bad thing, depending on the situation.  I'll generally play the game i design in my mind enough times to know if it is good or not, and trust my gut instinct - it usually works out - there's definitely shifting around, but i think if you're completely rewriting or gutting entire systems you're not designing properly.  I generally design at a higher level, implement, then fill out the guts.  But i document enough to paint a picture and stick to it.  I'm not the type of person that makes my team prototype a million things, throwing them out the door and starting over before committing to something.

i really - really - really dislike vertical slices.  It can force people to rush for a hacky rush job like making an E3 Demo over and over.  It's can really be a stress fest and leaves people cleaning up the hacky mess after the vertical slice is achieved.  Some of the people we do work for hire work for do vertical slice work a lot, and it usually always ends up with people crunching at the end... especially because i can't seem to get away from projects that are always reinventing the wheel or dealing with some wrecked technology that causes headaches across the board.  Sure it can give you a preview of what the full game looks like, but usually at a steep cost.

Although i definitely use grey boxes for maps, i don't stay in that area too long.  Certain games require very precise levels, like counter-strike, which can tip the odds of gameplay dramatically real quickly. Other games have a lot less emphasis on the inch-by-inch game play.  It all varies.

While people may say don't do art during your blue room, i think it is only half true if you are making a game that heavily relies on reflexes (like counter-strike). You need to worry about the colors, lighting, and micro detail you are going to be using in your map. It can change everything.  A player blending in with the environment can radically alter the layout and experience a player will have in the level.  A layout is dictated by the speed players move through the flow.  I think it is important to get a good enough hint of those elements in your level before you move on from your grey room phase.

Thats just me and what i generally expect out of my guys here... it's really hard to describe, because there is no absolute "solution" and every project big or small has been different..

I finally got a Wii U only because of this! http://www.gamestop.com/wii-u/consoles/the-legend-of-zelda-wind-waker-hd-wii-u-limited-edition-bundle/111373

and i played this windwaker hd remake last night....

all holy ballz it is pretty as butt nuts!

While i was at it, i checked out other WiiU demos... the WiiU is actually pretty damn cool!!! i'd recommend it

add me on there if you have a WiiU  --- Kedhrin (and then of course, tell me yours so we can be friendz)

i hate videos and i hate cover letters

i care about these, in order

1. Portfolio

I don't read cover letters, and i definitely close videos unless someone is a VFX artist or an animator.

i usually don't even read emails.

If the portfolio impresses me, i'll read the email, then i'll read the resume just to see how long someone was at a company to see if they were bouncing around a lot* (lol multitasking)

that's just me though, but i wouldn't put it past other people in my position that feel the same way. If a studio is lucky enough to have a hiring manager, they can filter people for them. With how busy i am though, people are lucky enough to even get a response from me. I'm not trying to act like i'm on a high horse or anything, that's the brutal and unfortunate truth of the situation.  If i was responding to everyone and watching videos people submit me, it would seriously take me all day - every day.  We get flooded with entry level position applicants... and the only thing i have time for is the initial 5 seconds of looking at your portfolio to be impressed or not - then i'm out. better make sure that first image is a good one!

Short, blunt, simple, in-and-out - thats where you want to be.  

this is great