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.

If you manage to get an interview and they mention that 12-hour-days are mandatory, run. You do not want to work for a company that will throw you into extended crunch time right from the beginning.  This is a sign of a company that does not care about its employees and they will throw you to the wolves (or the unemployment line) if it becomes more profitable for them to do that then keep you employed.  Many people think that 12-hour-days are just a part of the industry and it’s to be expected.  They think that if they don’t work 12-hour-days they won’t get hired, or be able to do what they love.  This attitude is what allows companies to get away with this kind of bullshit.  If everyone at a studio stood up and said, “We are not working these inhumane hours any longer,” the studio would have to budge.  Yes, there are people waiting in the wings who would take those jobs in an instant, but then the studio would lose tons of time and money trying to get the entirely new team up to speed.  That’s not profitable.

Work should not be abusive or take advantage of the employee.  There are studios that care about their employees and try to keep them from having to crunch on projects.  Sometimes long hours are inevitable–something went wrong with this build and it needs to go out tomorrow, so people are going to stay late to make sure that gets done.  Expecting to work long hours every once in a while is completely different from being forced to work long hours every day, for weeks and months and years.  That is the kind of working environment that causes people to burn out after a short time in the industry, people who might have been able to make great contributions if their hours hadn’t nearly killed them.

Remember, you want a job that you’ll like.  Just because it’s in the industry doesn’t make it a good job.  You can’t afford to be picky about things like art style or the game you’re working on, but you can’t afford not to be picky about things that are going to seriously effect your mental and physical health.  Work should not be an abusive relationship.

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!

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.

2.  Apply.

Oh, wait, that’s advice everyone has probably heard before, and it’s not advice that’s terribly useful, is it?  Well, the actual, useful advice I have takes a lot longer.  It’s not two steps.  It’s not even five steps.  In fact, I’m not even sure how many steps it is.  It’ll probably take more than one blog post.  Maybe more than two.  Let’s find out together!

How To Get Into The Video Game Industry For Normal People

1.  Figure out what part of the industry you’re interested in.  Getting into programming is different from getting into art.  Getting into design is completely different.  Don’t forget the other aspects of the job!  Studios need marketing, producers, office managers, quality assurance testers, and all kinds of other unsung employees.  If you don’t want to program, have no art skills and can’t design, there are still jobs in the industry for you.  They just won’t be in programming, art or design.

2.  Once you know what you’re interested in, DEVELOP A PORTFOLIO.  Yes, that did require caps and bold.  No one will hire you without a portfolio.  You can’t just show up at a studio and say, “Hey, I promise I’m really awesome!” and expect to get a job.  You will need to demonstrate that you will be a useful employee and that you have the skills required of the position.

3.  That portfolio I mentioned?  Put it online.  Paper portfolios can be useful in person, when one is discussing things in an interview setting.  But to get to that interview, your portfolio needs to be available immediately when you apply to a studio.  There’s usually more than one person who will evaluate your work before deciding to bring you in for an interview, and if only one person can view your portfolio at a time…  That will be a problem.  It can be a problem that will keep you from getting an interview–remember, this studio doesn’t need you.  You want to make yourself as attractive and enticing to them as possible, and making your portfolio easily accessible is part of that.

4.  Only put your best work in your portfolio.  It is better to have a small but solid collection of work than to have some great stuff, some good stuff and some “meh” stuff.  Putting in one subpar piece of work can bring the entire impression of your application down a few notches.  Which would you rather be remembered as?  “That was the one with the five really good meshes,” or “That was the one with the five good meshes and then that kinda ugly frog thing.”  You want to show that you can do good work, not that you can do a lot of work.  In the industry, someone who does a lot of subpar work quickly means that the other employees will spend a lot of time cleaning up after that person.  Don’t be that person.

5.  Start applying.

This is just the beginning, the basics, of how to get a job in the industry.  Stay tuned for Part Two, where I will discuss some techniques for artists in particular!