Exit Plan

The job i was to aim for when i leave university is an environment artist. i want to be an environment artist because its something that has always caught my eye and is something i have always wanted to do ever since doing my games design course at college, i am also trying to aim towards some prop artist work because it is more of an entry level job into the industry which i think best caters towards be at the current time.

When i leave university if my portfolio and showreel are good enough from the modules in the last term i am going to apply for some jobs that i think suit my specification. i will also try and share my portfolio with some contacts at events such as game city in Nottingham when they come around in the following years

For my show reel i plan on putting my best piece of work at the front of it. i plan on including smaller props or dioramas on turntables with wire frame views with also poly count and texture sheets detailed in the video with them. ill have my email address throughout the showreel in the bottom corner to make sure it is easy to see and contact me if people want to.

If i dont get a job soon after finishing university i plan on creating a game with a small group of friends that have finished similar courses from different universities, if they also dont get a job in the same time frame. we will probably work together on a game for 6 months to get a good chunk of it done and then i will continue to work on my portfolio after i apply for jobs when i create a game and include it in a portfolio, if no jobs come after i have made the game then i will have more work to put in my portfolio after working on it for another 6 months while having another job which is not related to the games industry. i will continue to update a profile on 3D design to get my work out on them and to also gain feedback to further increase my chances of getting employed.

My showreel

For my show reel i wanted to aim to get it to run for around 1:30 to 1:50. I created a cover screen to show my name contact information and what type of artist i am. this is what it looks like in my blockout form of the showreel. I let this run for 10 seconds before it transitioned into the next shot for my showreel. and i kept the email address in the corner along with my name.

For my first scene i plan this to be the best piece of my work. which will be from my dissertation. This will include a pan around of the scene along with smooth camera movements so that i will be able to show a good level of detail in my work.

For my next scene i plan this to be from a piece of concept art it will also use slow camera movements, and will zoom in on at certain sections to show detail. 

For my next scene i chose to include a turntable. this is just placeholder art at the moment but i plan on including some sort of vehicle but more based around for a prop. This will include wire frames of the model and examples of texture maps where the red square in the show reel shows up. 

For my final scene i plan on creating this from one of the polycount monthly challenges and trying to submit my work for the competition that is held for that. i plan on entering the January competition when it comes up and i am looking forward to doing it. 

I ended the showreel with the same screen that i started with showing my name and contact details and what artist i am. 

examples of showreels

Here are a few examples of showreels that i have looked at to give me some influence into the creation of my own showreel.

I really like the way this showreel was composed although it is bordering into the long side of showreels being at 2 and a half minutes long, there is a lot of work shown in it and the way that the small modular pieces are show is really nice specially how he has got it to transition into a wire frame of the models. the music is okay but its not a massive part of the video and how some scenes have small touches such as flickering lights and other parts. the poly count is also stated every time a piece of work is shown which is nice.

This is another showreel i looked at, i don't think this one is as good as the first but it was a lot better suited to our recommended time limit. the work in it is very nice and it uses a lot of slow panning shots to show off work and get a good look into detail of each model. this one also has music but i don't think it is really that much of a major point.

This is another example of a show reel, i like this one because a lot of the environments that he shows in the show reel are animated and have a nice feel to them because of the way the animations are included in it. although he doesn't show any wire frame shots in the animation at all so it doesn't feel as good as the others simply because of this. i will make sure to include wire frame shows in my show reel.

Interview part 2

For this interview we were asked to go away and prepare for this interview unlike the last time. I chose to apply for a job at Stainless games as an environment artist as this was an actual job advertised at the time by that company. this is what the job advertised.

Environment Artist

We’re looking to recruit a number of experienced artists with a wide range of skills at our studio on the South Coast of England to work on high-profile projects. We offer excellent conditions and a competitive package in a fun working environment.

As an artist at Stainless you will be working with a creative agile team to deliver high quality art assets in collaboration with designers and programmers. Successful candidates will be passionate about making the best games and making them look damn fine at the same time!

Essential Requirements:

• Passion for creating art for games
• Good sense of scale, composition and staging
• Professional attitude and work ethic
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• A desire to learn
• Self-motivated and organised

We require artists with experience including:

• 3D environment creation
• Racetrack / Level Design

The following are desirable but not essential…

• Experience working on games as an artist at any level
• Keen eye for detail and art style
• Strong traditional art skills
• Understanding of open world / driving games
• Formal qualifications in related fields
• Knowledge of additional software and plugins

If you’re interested and also brilliant, please email your CV tojobs@stainlessgames.com – and we’ll also be happy to answer any questions.

I then took the time to go and write out some short answers relating to some of the things stated in the job advertisement. 

Passion for creating games 

I love playing games, my love for playing games drives towards my love to want to create great awesome looking games, I don't necessarily have the experience to go along with myself but I hope that my passion to get into the games industry will lead towards me getting some amazing skills and experience

Good sense of scale 

I've work on different group projects while I was at derby university, we had to work to set scales and had to position our game level for key parts of gameplay and to make it work, look and play well. I worked well in the team and we finished by creating good looking games that were fun to play and also looked really nice at the same time.

desire to learn

 I want to join the industry because of my love for games and my want to create them, but also it would be a massive learning opportunity for me to get into the company and work with people that have worked on many games. this would help me develop my skills and help me get better at creating games.

in the teams I was in for group work we created environments for one of the games and another game we created a racing game. so I have experience creating environments in a game and creating assets for a racing game. 

When i had the interview this week it was a lot easier to answer the questions about the company that i had looked at because i had done some background research into them. also the questions that weren't related to the company were easier to answer because i had more time to think about what i could say this time. overall i think this helped me a lot again like the first time in preparation for a job interview.

Examples of portfolios

We were asked to look for different online portfolios of people that are either in the industry or looking for jobs in the industry. we had to find a few good portfolios and a few bad ones and why we thought certain ones were either good or bad. I found a few good ones and bad ones and have listed them below and why I think they are good and why I think they are bad.

Good 

http://www.tylerfermelis.com/

This is my fist example of a portfolio that I think is good.

This is Tyler Fermelis's Portfolio. He has worked on films such as Fantastic 4, Happy feet and Spider man 3. He has also worked on games such as marvel heroes and he shows all the work from them projects in his portfolio. It is very organised and it is easy to find a specific piece of work that you could be looking for and all the work shown is very big and up there in your face, which shows he is proud of his work and doesnt have anything to hide in it.

When you click on on of the titles at the top to find a certain area of his portfolio it is expanded from the side over the top of his work. This keeps the website consistent and also keeps it clear and easy to understand. When you click each section it also shows what his role was when he was working on the titles. Such as when you click on the film section is says he did film texture painting/modelling and when you click the thumbnail when he worked at gazillion is says he was lead character artist on marvel heroes. This is good because all information is clearly displayed and everything is very clear.

When you click on his portfolio section and click a piece of work you want to see it brings it up in full screen and says what the model is, it also shows multiple viewpoints of the model and some of them even show wire frames. When you want to navigate through the portfolio you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate them making it nice to use and it also runs very smoothly.

If you hover over the picture of the work in the portfolio it also brings up smaller thumbnails of the other work that he has worked on and you can click them if you wish to skip directly to them to have a look at  certain pieces of work.

I really like the way he has his contact page on his portfolio. It has his email there so you can contact him easily and also it has a telephone number on which you can reach him on. The bit I like a lot on this page is where you can leave your name and email and can post comments about his work or if you want to get in contact with him making it easier than having to open an email to email him, I would think this gets a lot more people leaving feedback and contact details on his portfolio than it would if he had just put his email because it is soo much faster and easier to get in contact with him.

http://www.nevillepage.com/portfolio.html

This is another portfolio which I think is also really good. 

This is Neville Page's Portfolio. He has worked on things such as Avatar, Star trek and Green Lantern. He has mostly worked on films but I think that his portfolio is still a good one to show and how the layout and the thumbnails of his work are clear and make the portfolio easy to navigate. 

This is what it looks like when you click to see what projects he has previously worked on. the thumbnails are big so you can see what each are at a glance.

When you click a film this page comes up with various screenshots that are examples of the work that he created for that specific area.

When you click a thumbnail it enlarges it to the size of the whole screen, some have alot more information in them other than just what the thumbnail actually shows.

The website also includes a show reel which is fairly long for a show reel because it is around 4 and a half minutes. Although his portfolio is showing off work for films so I guess that the longer show reel is good for that. The video automatically goes to full screen and loads for you when you click to see it.

Like the other portfolio this one also has the option to send messages and contact the owner strait from their contact page. although he doesn't include an email so this is the only way you can contact them through their portfolio.

Bad

http://brandonnobbs.blogspot.co.uk/

This is an example of a portfolio which I think is bad and I will explain why I think this portfolio is bad compared to other portfolio's that I have looked at. 

This is the main page of the portfolio. It is done is Blogger, which I personally think is quite a bad decision to make when you want to create a portfolio and show it off to people.because it is done in Blogger it makes you just scroll down to look at the other work he has done, you can click the titles at the top but it basically just shortens the portfolio to that specific area and makes it look quite empty. There is only one page of work that you can scroll down also which makes the whole portfolio look really empty. He doesnt include any links to other sites such as deviant art. The only link he has is to his linkedin profile. 

There is also no pages on his portfolio where you can contact him to ask him about his work or try to get into contact with him again after looking at his portfolio if it was sent to you. This is a major thing because you need to be able to be easily contacted because that will bring up more job opportunities. the fact he has work from games such as fear 2 shows that he has worked in the industry. so he may not have any contact information up because he might already have a job, but even if he does this should be cleared up in his portfolio saying that he already has a job. 

Showreels

When looking for a job in the games industry you need a portfolio to help you get a job. your portfolio needs to be quite specialized depending on what sector you want to work in such as the games industry, films or other things such as architecture firms. deciding what to include in your portfolio most of the time consists of what do the company your aiming for need from you? things such as this

• what do they want from you?
• What kind of games do they make?
• Who works there? what are their portfolios like?

when creating work for portfolio it helps by creating a list of tasks that can be carried out to help you identify time needed to complete such tasks. When creating a portfolio it is also important that you include a show reel and there are many do's and dont's for creating a show reel. 

Do's 

• Make a showreel that works without any sound
• Make sure everything in a scene is there for a reason
• shots should include slow and smooth camera movements 
• showing work in game engines helps demonstrate real time credentials
• Adding subtle animation in environment work helps sell the shot
• Show variety in visual style
• panning shots across models work well to demonstrate detail in particular areas
• objects and characters should be posed.
• contacts details should be clear and simple at beginning and end of showreel
• develop a consist style know as "house style"
• focus on timing
• only show work you created and be clear what you created
• start with the best piece
• should be around 1.5-2 minutes long
• demonstrate passes of shots such as wirefames and textured ect
• show only your best work

Dont's

• don't show models that are not textured
• dot have irrelevant information or long title sequences
• do not over use stills
• don't try to focus on every single role, focus on 1 or 2

Interviews part 1

This week at university we were all given the chance to take part in a mock interview. however these interviews were a surprise so that no one had time to prepare for the interview by looking up what questions they could be asked or preparing by thinking up answers before hand to specific questions. The company that we were given in the mock interviews was mind candy, the company that created moshi monsters.

Mind candy are based in shoreditch and is a major player in the silicon roundabout community. their main brand is moshi monsters which is one of the worlds fastest growing games online for kids with over 75 million sign-ups and counting. Although moshi monsters is a game they also focus on distributing music, mobile, videos, toys, films, cartoons, books and many others

This company to me was quite hard because i know pretty much next to nothing with the moshi monsters franchise. I've heard of it before but have not done any research or looked into the game myself. Although after being asked about different questions that i could come into when i go for an interview myself i now know how to prepare and to do background research into companies. I will use this to my advantage when we plan on having interviews in the future.

job role requirements

• Ambitious
• Creative
• Quirky edge 
• Positive attitude
• driving passion

How we presented ourselves

After the mock interviews we got together and discussed how well we presented ourselves in these situations, here is a list of some of the ways people presented themselves.

• passionate
• confident
• calm
• eye contact was good
• friendly
• assertive
• nervous
• quiet
• eye contact was bad
• talked quickly
• froze
• often repeated

people generally had good all round knowledge of the game industry itself but people lacked when it came to information about the companies and their products, this was probably because the interview was quite spontaneous therefore not giving people the chance to research the company. A lot of peoples expectation for salary was also extremely high or other people just generalized by saying a "fair" amount which isn't really that good an answer. 

From my interview i think i handled the questions asked at me quite well and i'm quite proud of my answers as they were fast and didn't require too much thinking time. although i was bad at the company questions that is something that i know i will be able to prepare for in the future.