Speaking of other forms of internet communication, let’s talk about email.  Specifically, about emails you send to try and get a job.  There are a few things we’ve seen at the office recently that seem like they should be obvious, but apparently need to be repeated.

1.  When sending an email, spell your name correctly in the subject line.  I felt bad for this guy–he did everything else pretty right, but obviously was at the point where he’d typed the same thing so many times it didn’t look like a real word anymore.  He had spelled his name one way in his resume and the body of the email, but it was spelled wrong in the subject.  Typing fatigue for sure.

2.  When sending an email, try to spell things correctly. People in the industry do often have notoriously bad spelling, but when you’re applying you should make it as easy as possible for the person reading your email to understand it.  When we have to puzzle out spellings of words it doesn’t endear you to us.

3.  Don’t send out mass-emails. Yes, you’re applying to a lot of places.  We understand that.  But for the love of corndogs, don’t leave fifty emails in the “to” line on your application.  We can see those. When the “to” field of the email is longer than the email itself, it’s unprofessional.  It also makes us laugh a lot.  Do yourself a favor.  Email all those companies separately, and try to tailor your cover letter to each company.  It will make you look much more professional and appealing.

~~~~~~~~

In completely different news, I wrote my very first knitting pattern and published it online!  It’s for socks.  For all four of you people who read this and like knitting, here is the pattern.

TwinkleTwinkleLittleSocks

If you do knit it, please let me know!  I’d be excited to see it.

Also, here is some eye candy of yarn I dyed myself.

Purple hand-dyed yarn.

It was a lot of fun to do!

Now that that is out of the way…

On a previous post, Robert asked:

So, I have a question pertaining to 3-D modeling.  For the purposes of my portfolio, I’m wondering how high-res my pieces should be?  I frequently find myself creating models that are shaped very well, but they have a rather large poly count. So, I guess the underlying question here is whether it is more impressive in a portfolio to see very high poly count models with good texture or to see lower poly count models with textures that just give the appearance of higher resolution?  (Keeping in mind that my painting/drawing skills are rather poor at present so the textures are a definite weakness for me right now)

This is a good question, and the answer is almost always, “It depends.”  As a general guideline, you should never put more geometry into a model than is absolutely necessary to create the shape you want.  If you’re making a cube, that cube only needs to be 6 polygons.  A cube that is 600 polygons is ridiculous, because you really only need 6 in order to make the cube look like a cube.  The more complex the object you’re creating, the more polygons you’ll probably need to make it look right.  If you have a set budget for polygons, use them where you’ll get the most bang for your buck.  People won’t care if a door is made up of six polygons, but they’ll notice if the doorknob is blocky and unrealistic.  Have a look at the wireframe on one of my meshes:

This is a fairly high-poly mesh, but I spent those polys where it would show.  If those curves were choppy and blocky, the mesh would just look bad.  Since I spent the polygons on those important parts, the blocky headboard and footboard can be very simple.

Generally, it’s more impressive to see a lower-poly model that looks good than a ridiculously high-poly model.  Anyone can throw extra polygons at a mesh to make it look smoother, but it’s much harder to serve modeling steak on a hamburger budget and it shows more skill.  Texturing is also really important–if you model really well but you can’t texture for poo, you’ll probably have a very hard time getting hired.  There really aren’t separate modeling and texturing positions in most companies–3-D artists do both, so good skills in both areas are pretty necessary for the job.

Thanks for the question!  I hope this was helpful.

But mostly I’m excited about the new fridge.

Anyway, a few days ago commenter Chandler asked a couple of questions:

how much time would you say is spent testing the games you’re working on compared to actually working on modeling and stuff for them? What kinds of things do you look for specifically as a graphic designer when testing?

I’d also maybe like to hear more about the outsourcing of modeling you mentioned… how severe is it, and how do you feel about it?

How much time I end up testing really depends on how far along in the project we are.  If we’re still in full production, I don’t test really at all because I’m busy creating assets.  In the early stages, there’s not much point in playtesting because there are no completed levels.  The later it gets into production, the more levels there are to test and the more we’ll end up playtesting them.  Since the art tasks tend to be finished before the design tasks, it naturally falls to the art team to pick up more playtesting as the project progresses.

When I playtest, I’m actually not looking for things from an artist’s perspective!  I’m checking to make sure the game works.  We playtest to ensure the levels can be completed and that there are no major bugs that are either reeeaaally noticeable or stop the player from proceeding.  I’ll see a lot of art issues, of course, but that’s not the point of the playtest.  The point of playtesting is to make sure there are no places where the player gets stuck on collision, trapped in a wall or falls out of the world.

Outsourcing can be an issue, but not always.  The thing about outsourcing is that it can be really helpful in dynamically scaling your art team size.  You don’t usually save money on a per-asset basis, but you can essentially hire 30 extra artists for a month to crank out a bunch of stuff for your project, and then not have to find the money to keep those 30 extra artists around for several years.  Outsourcing is really only useful for characters and non-essential props for the most part.  If you try and outsource things like a wall system or a catwalk system you’ll end up wasting loads and loads of time getting the outsourcing team to tweak those assets to your specifications.  It’s much more efficient to keep important assets like that inside the company, where the turnaround time is 15 minutes.  The further outside the company you go, the longer the turnaround time is.  A 12-hour turnaround time for revisions really adds up if an asset needs more than one tweak!

The other thing about outsourcing is it needn’t be outside the country.  There are outsourcing firms in the US.  We sometimes work with a Seattle outsourcing company.  Outsourcing companies can be a great way for artists to get experience, too!  You might not get a job with a game studio, but working as a 3-d artist at an outsourcing company will get you into the industry.  I personally don’t feel threatened by outsourcing, because a studio is always going to need some in-house artists to ensure quality and quick turn-around.

Thanks for the questions, Chandler!

I’m taking the day off from blogging.  I just shipped a game.  I’m totally allowed.

Saw will ship.  People will buy it, and play it, and hopefully like it.

This is my first shipped title.  It’s not the first title I’ve worked on, but the previous title didn’t ship.  (That happens surprisingly often.)  I’ve done everything on this from concept art to 3-d modeling to asset management to organizational duties to playtesting it until I wanted to cry.  This title went from having a new, inexperienced publisher that was viewed as completely incompetent, to having no publisher at all for several months when said incompetent publisher went bankrupt, to being published by Konami.  This title survived layoffs, rehires, and a shortened dev cycle.  We worked on it through the coldest, snowiest winter Seattle has seen in years and the hottest summer Seattle has seen in years.  We worked on it through crunch time and through the goddamn Swine Flu.

Tomorrow, it’s going to be real.  It’s going to be in stores.  I will have shipped a title, a title that has been demonized and ragged on since it was first announced.  People are going to buy it.  Reviewers will review it.  There’s even a strategy guide!  A real, official one!

Me, though?  I’m not going to believe it until I see it for myself.  I keep thinking all the copies are going to spontaneously combust or something, and all my work will be for naught.  Pretty sure that won’t happen, though.

Pretty sure…

That doesn’t really happen, right?

Right?

Don’t mind if I do!

There was no blog on Monday because my internet was down.  At home, anyway, and I make it a point not to blog from work because, well, they’re not paying me to blog.  They’re paying me to move a heck of a lot of old assets from old packages into new packages, renaming said assets as I go.  That’s what I’m getting paid to do at the moment, anyway.  I did get to do some 3-d modeling and texturing earlier this week, so that was a nice break.

The thing about the internet is that you don’t realize how much you use it until it’s gone.  I’m not an internet addict by any means, and I can function perfectly well without it when I’m camping, or at a beach house, or doing things that take me away from the computer and out into the world with the Daystar.  But when I’m at home, and the internet goes out, it throws everything out of whack.

“Well, I kinda wanted to go out to dinner, anyway.  I wonder if that cafe is open tonight.  I’ll check–dammit, no I won’t.  Maybe I’ll start on that new knitting project.  I just need to print out the pattern–shit.  I didn’t save that one.  Okay, I’ll do some yoga.  Pandora has a good yoga music channel–crapdamnfart!”  Everything that I would normally do, or look up, or check on without thinking about it becomes nigh impossible.

It’s like this at work, too.  Technically speaking, a 3-d artist doesn’t always need the internet, but when it goes down a great cry rings out around the office.  With no internet, we can’t find reference for meshes we need to model.  We can’t download texture references.  We can’t authoritatively win the argument over whether the 360 is better or the PS3 is better.  (Okay, we can’t do that even when we HAVE the internet.  But without the internet we can’t link to memes and pictures of LOLcats to support our point of view.)  We geeky types love us some internet, and it’s become such a ubiquitous part of our lives that when it’s suddenly gone, we feel the absence keenly.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to SexyManButts.com.  I haven’t been able to access it for DAYS.

2.  The second floor (also known as the Mezzanine) is really small because it was added after the studio bought the building.  It was previously two floors, with the bottom floor rather resembling a warehouse.

3.  I was the first female artist to work at the company in several years.  For about a year, I was the only female artist working at the company.

4.  This meant that the guys slightly resented me when I first showed up, because it meant they couldn’t use both downstairs bathrooms anymore.  (They got over it.)

5.  Because the building is old, the heating and cooling system leaves something to be desired.  I, for example, am always cold.  (The fact that I am the tiniest person in the office might have something to do with this.)  The people who sit near the windows are always warm.  The guy who is somehow magically protected from all the vents is a comfortable temperature.  I don’t bother complaining about it anymore.  I have a sweater that lives at work solely because it’s always so goddamn cold there.

6.  In the kitchens, we have microwaves, toaster ovens and a pannini press.  Probably once a week, people will apparently attempt to light things on fire in the toaster oven.  I suspect this is why we do not also have a hot plate.

7.  Also in the kitchens, we have water coolers.  It seems like I am always the one to change the jugs when they run empty.  These jugs weigh almost half as much as I do.  I think it is bitterly unfair that I end up changing them, but I also don’t want to be the inconsiderate bastard who leaves them there empty.  This is a source of internal struggle.

8.  There are no forks.  I have no idea where they have all gone.  Perhaps they are with my art pencils?  We used to have forks, I know, because I saw them.  I think that one of two things is occurring, here.  Either someone is hoarding all the forks and has a giant, jingly drawer full of them in his desk that we will discover only when he quits, or the forks are turning themselves into spoons overnight.  I suspect the latter, because we really have more spoons than is sane.

9.  If I turn around and crane my neck, I can kinda see a window.  This lack of windows means that I can get to work while it is sunny and leave to discover hail, with no freaking idea when the transition was.

10.  Being located in Downtown Seattle is really awesome because there are tons of delicious lunch options nearby.  It also means I can live in Seattle, which I love, without having a hellish commute across any kind of bridge.  I appreciate this about my studio very much.

Where should I go to school if I want to make video games?

In the US, there are pretty much two schools specifically for game design that are worth the money.  Digipen in Seattle, and the Guild Hall in Dallas.  If you graduate from one of these schools, you are pretty much guarateed a job.  Most of Digipen’s students are hired before they even graduate.  (The Portal team?  Poached wholesale by Valve from Digipen.)  That is, of course…  IF you graduate.  Both schools have a pretty hardcore schedule and will work you hard, harder than you will probably end up working in the industry.  Digipen has many students drop out in the first six months because they just can’t handle it.

What if you don’t live in Dallas or Seattle, though?  (Well, move.  You’re going to have to move to Dallas, Seattle or Southern California to get a job in the industry anyway, so keep that in mind.)  Maybe you have some kind of school near you that offers a game design course, of you’re looking at the Art Institute of Whatever City You Live In.  The first thing you want to look at is price. Many game design courses are expensive and you need to know if they’re worth the money beforehand.  Ask about how many graduates of the course have been hired, and where.  Post on a place like CGChat and see if anyone has heard of the program or attended it and what they thought.  These programs can be useful in teaching you new skills, or a total waste of money.

If you’re looking to be an artist, consider getting a traditional fine-arts degree and learning 3-d in your spare time or in continuing education classes.  A strong background in fine arts and 2-d work will translate to a stronger portfolio and better 3-d work.  One of the major benefits of this approach is you can go to school where ever is close, even start out at a community college, and spend a lot less money in the long run.

Want to be a programmer?  Find a college with a decent computer science program and take that.  You don’t need to learn game-specific programming, C++ will do.  Get your hands on the Unreal Editor or something similar and learn to work with it and modify it in your spare time.  If you have solid programming skills, a studio is likely to work with you to get you familiar with the engine they use and any specialized coding required.  Everyone has to start somewhere.

If you want to be a game designer?  Well, that one’s tricky.  There aren’t that many classes out there that teach you how to really design systems.  There’s a lot more to design than just having an awesome idea.  That idea needs to work properly, it needs to work with other ideas and it needs to have rules governing how it works.  There aren’t classes for that kind of thing, it’s something learned as you go.  The best advice I’ve heard on this one?  Design your own board game. Make a board, invent the rules, and then get your friends to play it and tell you what they think.  Get lots of people to play it.  Ask them if it’s fun, and specifically what makes it fun.  Ask them what problems they had with it.  After you get all their feedback, take it into consideration and change the game to make it better.  That’s what designers do.  They come up with ideas and then design systems to make the ideas work correctly.  Schools, sadly, lack good programs that teach these things, so if you want to learn them, you have to teach yourself.

Good luck, and where ever you end up going to school, remember to do your homework!

8:30AM Head to the bus stop.  Knit while waiting for and riding the bus.

9:00AM Arrive at work.  Clear out email from the week of being home sick with swine flu.

9:30AM Get started on a modeled floor system for use by the level designers.  This essentially requires the creation of a whole lot of flat planes in specific dimensions, with collision (so the player won’t fall through) and specific unwraps so the materials will tile properly.

10:30AM Team meeting about the current project.

11:00AM  Team meeting finished.  Back to work on that floor system.

12:00PM Go out for some “Hurrah!  I don’t have swine flu anymore!” ramen with a friend.

1:00PM Arrive back at the office.  Discuss the finer points of PAX with a co-worker.

1:30PM  Back to work on the floor system.  Duplicate, move points, unwrap, collapse, unwrap again, collapse again, repeat.

3:30PM A co-worker announces that a tour bus has managed to get itself stuck on the hill outside the office.  Head to the window to look.  Indeed it has, and now a tow truck is pulling it back up the hill, causing some very large gouges in the asphalt as it does so.  We hoped the bus would try to make the turn again after building up some steam this time, but no such luck.

3:45PM Back to work on the floor system.  Most people won’t tell you that this kind of modeling is probably 70% of a 3-D artist’s work.  Everyone likes to think they’ll get to model awesome steampunk shit, but that can be outsourced if it’s just decorative.  The actual, meat-and-potatoes pieces that make up the gameplay space are too important to be outsourced, though, so people like me get to do them.  And then the awesome steampunk stuff gets all the attention.

5:45PM Finish the first pass on the floor system.  Hurrah!  Shut things down and head home.

6:15PM  Arrive home.

7:00PM Make dinner.  Homemade mac and cheese, nom nom nom.

7:30PM  Blog.

8:00PM ???

8:30PM  Profit!

Damn my professionalism.

Anyway, let’s say that you’re an artist, and you’ve been applying to studios for a while but you haven’t heard anything back.  What are you doing wrong?  What can you do to improve your chances?

1.  Take a good, hard look at your portfolio.  Is it up to industry standards? If you can’t tell whether or not your portfolio is up to snuff, ask for advice and feedback from others online.  I have seen people apply and apply and apply with modeling skills that are poor and texturing skills that are nonexistent.  If your work isn’t good enough, you will just not be hired.  There is nothing wrong with admitting you’re bad at something and choosing to do something else.  I don’t mean give up, I mean know your limits.  I originally wanted to be an animator.  I wanted to work for Pixar!  I had grand dreams of bringing characters to life.  Then it turned out that I really, really suck at animating.  I didn’t like it, I didn’t find it rewarding and I was bad at it.  I decided then and there that animation wasn’t for me, and that I would focus on 3-d modeling instead.  I’ve never looked back.

2.  Start getting your name out there in places other than your application.  There are a lot of excellent forums for digital art.  Pick a distinctive username and start posting.  Give feedback on other posters’ work and seek feedback on your own.  Participate in contests.  Get your work associated with your username and use that username everywhere.  Industry professionals post on those boards, too, and there’s a possibility the next time you apply someone will say, “Hey, that’s FizzTheCarbonated’s work.  She’s always friendly and helpful on the CGChat forums.  We should bring her in.”

3.  Take another look at your website.  If it’s clunky, uses outdated technology and is hard to navigate, your work might be rejected before it’s even seen.  You might not be applying for a web design position, but your website is a reflection on your art.  It needs to be easy to navigate and attractive, or you might get rejected out of hand.

4.  Don’t be picky!  I know people who didn’t want to work for a studio where they wouldn’t get to do fantasy art, or people who only wanted to do character modeling.  When you’re just starting out, you really can’t be choosy about what jobs you want to take.  My philosophy was, “If I get a job modeling cardboard boxes, I will model the best damn cardboard boxes I can!”  (I have, to date, modeled over 15 different forms of cardboard boxes.)  Once you have some skills and experience under your belt, you’re going to be in a much better place when it comes to seeking your dream job.

5.  Type professionally on your website and resume, and in any professional emails to a studio.  Once you’re hired, you can pretty much throw grammar to the wind (but please…  Don’t.  Please.) but when you’re seeking an interview you need to be as easy to understand as possible.  You want these people to give you a job, so treat them with respect.  Once you know them you can be more informal, but leave the text abbreviations and l33tspeak out when you’re jobseeking.  This should go without saying, but some people still screw it up.

That’s it for today!  I can ignore the siren call of the 360 no longer.  I think I’ll call her Vera.