Animation Relaxation 

 

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Brian Coyle – setting up Masters Course for Game Design.

Friday 2nd November 2018 – Games Industry Portfolio – Question and Answers

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Games he has worked on:

Grave matters : http://gravematters.ideonic.com/  

Beat Your Meat : http://beatyourmeatgame.com/

Radical Forge : http://www.home.radicalforge.com/

Hayes Davidson : https://www.hayesdavidson.com/

Cool Blue : 

Bigbite: https://twitter.com/bigbitegames?lang=en

Attended Teaside University :  http://www.tees.ac.uk/undergraduate_courses/Computer_Games/BA_(Hons)_Computer_Games_Design.cfm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What is the games industry looking for ? 

This depends on your discipline and what your are aiming to do or targeting within your work displaying only your best work.

Game engines used in the industry : Big Companies use in-house software or specialist programs to their IPO but smaller

Companies tend to use unreal or unity and look for extra help and people to work either freelance or the studio.

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3D Art and Games Design modelling Tips:

Don’t include bad images only use high resolution picture or renders of your best work so it stands out – quality over quantity.

Communication  is key to everything and will make or break a project.

Team work sites for organising and communicating professionally in the industry  – Google drive, Slack, Discord and do not  use messenger. 

Communication is the most important aspect of the industry along with networking and creating and maintaining contacts. This is done in any form of teamwork or any form of life in which the work involves working in close proximity with others and  relies on one ability to talk and convey and relay information and instructions and being able to relay and convey information and tasks and being able to listen and act upon this to it's specifications.

When presenting or showcasing a scene clearly label the scene and even broken-down the scene into listing  for everything you have done or worked on along with what other people have done and sort it into the outliner or write it up in a blog or under your posts or portfolio or showreel in the form of notes that will appear onscreen when it is playing.

Perfect the Pipe line process – get involved and start to learn other software and skills like Zbrush for sculpting, Photoshop for digital art, Maya for 3D workflow.

Try putting a final outcome into Unreal Engine or Unity and explore the different possibilities and familiarise yourself with the software.  It is important to identity problems and your process on how they were resolved and your understanding along with what you learnt from it and how it has helped you to develop. What would you have done differently if you had the chance.

Produce High poly to Low poly assets and integrate different workflows. Use Photoshop integration, animations, and create scripts and upload them as well if your are wanting to show your knowledge and initiative and you complete processes.

Not all work should be based on university or coursework you have to find time and work on your own personal projects these help define you as as artist  and help you to develop your knowledge and skills and help you become better and faster improving you effectiveness for working and applying for jobs. Bulk up your portfolio with personal projects and self-directed  tasks and test work with experimentation and try to create or make something unique and different or something new.

Specifically tailor your CV for specific jobs or specialism and only apply for one job don't apply for many as it reflects badly on you as it seems like you don't know what you want to do. Create a new CV for each job you are applying for and do your research and create it accordingly for the position/ role.

Get involved in the industry attend events and competitions like NI Screen's – Game Jam – to get involved in the community and network and get to know people and develop your understanding and gain an insight into the industry and overall participate and be friendly.

For Post placement work – ask employer's about their NDA agreements for uploading your work/ files and contributions to projects on your site.

 

Advice for different areas:

3D artists: The character should be visually appealing showing off technical aspects and skills and should be presented as a finished product and wire frame. You should create it from scratch and have made every aspect of it otherwise you would be just animating it. Try to Ground the character in a scene, with interesting posing positions with some animations or elements of animation with a discreet signature at the side or near your work for copyright purposes.

Have  your textures been applied and laid out the UV's in a logical and organised manner, keep the models relatively simple and straight forward but make them effective and make the aesthetics the best they can be don't sell yourself short.

 

Dressing artist – should create environmental assets showing  an in depth grasp of the fundamentals of world and scene building along with creating your own textures and being able to UV proficiently and model effectively. 

 

Animation roles – this field requires you to be very adaptability with a main focus on bring characters to life and conveying movement and emotion as well as rigging and revolve around these.

Characters should have a full animation set including, walk, run, action, attack and fall cycles with a style and a personality given to the animations.

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For most if not any role you will be expected to have knowledge in other areas of the field if if it is basic and you may be asked to work in them so you will have to teach yourself new skills while on the job to work on something else.

You have to be adaptable and must be be able to work in different environments / situations, be pliable when it comes to finding and working in a job.

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For games development try putting some of your animations into games engines and incorporate them into the games work flow and create a world around them grounding them in a scene by using free software like using Unreal engine or Unity and utilise and familiarise your self with the layout and the different functions within each and try using some scripts.

Familiarise yourself with with the stages on how to develop and the instructions / plan for making a game.

Look at perspective for the animation and ask yourself who it was intended for and why and what purpose does it sever and how could it be improved upon. Do animation for the game and not the character.

 

Game designer: Get to know and understand the User interface and the play-ability of games on the platforms you will be working on before jumping in to see other work and it's capabilities within the game engine. When creating a game  providing clear instructions is crucial and testing is a must. Try to create aspects in game like working o developing replay-ability in your game so that is not just won and done, make the game adaptable and unpredictable using AI’s and coding so it is never the same experience which is what most games are doing now days and using random encounter and events that happen without any warning making it unpredictable and exciting.

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Industry trends: Follow artist on social media and create a presence for yourself and your work keeping it separate from your social life if you have a tendency to post inappropriate material only post stuff you want people to see. Go above and beyond be better be different. Don't follow the game bible as it is wrong and no one is ever going to read it all from start to finish they will skim it looking at specific areas like your process of inception and then how you came to the final finished product. But that being said include some testing, balancing, any re-engineering that was required, and any flaws that will cause a critical breakdown of the system. You can also try to do other things like breakdown scenes or environments or game levels and how they where designed and the mechanics they employed to build up the same game from scratch so it is not simply just fan art.

How to notify people of your work: Using a Showreel is not the best method anymore it can be seen as unnecessary and outdated for the games industry. Utilise 3d renders and images of your work and create a digital portfolio of 3d artist work like models and other pieces of your work using still images or upload scenes files or models to marmoset or sketchfab. Create a trailer using Vimeo as it is more professional than YouTube.

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Website: Your website should be professional and neat and easy to navigate being consistent  throughout and based on a specific theme. It should be organised so it is easy to find work in as few clicks as possible. Anymore than this and people will get lost or lose interest as it is to time consuming as these people are very busy and they don't have the time to scour your website to track and find a piece of work.

 

Art Station: Is the best place to showcase your work and have the best presence and have the biggest online community and have the latest job postings with notifications as well. This is the industry standard for networking and showcasing your work and getting feedback and linking your your 3d scenes from Sketchfab or marmoset will help drastically.

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Job roles

Social media: Start to follow industry members and artists on Twitter, Linked in, Instagram and Facebook on any platform they have a presence.

Keep personal image on these sites as they are for professional work only and don’t post anything controversial or be a dick online.

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Game platforms: Steam has a bad atmosphere as it is consumed with negative reviews for indie games bad  feedback

Itchio: Has a better community that will encourage and help you to develop and increase your productivity without hurting your feelings in the form of better feedback in house web browser.

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Only show your best work every time and  choose a specialise as this is very important for applying for jobs as you need to focus on certain areas and have experience in those areas. Decide on a certain discipline if that's what you want to work in showcasing work specific to that area and you have the opportunity to change you just might need to revamp some of your work or create a new portfolio and this is okay you might want to try something new or find your calling in a different discipline . 

 

Ways the industry communicate professionally use Slack , Trello and Discord make sure to talk about teamwork and involvement in group projects and the communication skills you developed as a result and also the presentations and showcasing your work in class. 

In your CV discuss the pipeline processes of animation that you have worked in and the software you are fluent in or use on a daily basis. Embellish yourself abit but don't out right lie to employers claim you can do things you can't.

Talk about the possible issue you face in your work and display your solutions to these with fixes and your own breakdown of the process or create tutorials that can be shared to help others using using specific software. Make sure not all the work in your portfolio is uni work do some personal projects and try to dabble in different fields.

 

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Final notes:

Display your work in an appealing way , showcase models and the detail that went into it and convey the technical aspects of your work looking at poly count etc and wireframe view of the model. Create full in depth immersive environments with animations and textures applied and try to tell a story with your work or in  project so it has purpose and flows.

Animators:

Characters, and VFX when animating for a game  should be done in the game engine it was designed for.

Games designers: Need to display qualities like time management and organisational skills and must be adaptable and work differently from other games. You need to keep up to date and ontop of industry trends and where the industry may go or lead in the future and plan accordingly and if you are making a game create a game design bible .

Website keep it professional and all work visible and reachable within two clicks.

Create a presence: 

Artstation 

Social Media

Game Platforms: to use to showcase your work:

Steam and itchio 

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/events/evt20181016125002440

 

Contact info:

Email: B Coyle @ulster.ac.uk

https://twitter.com/dargamedev?lang=en

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Reflection:

I found this talk was very interesting as it provided me with the different options and methods one would use to showcase their work if they where working in specific fields and how the same method should not be used for all and each has a preferred platform for which to showcase your work depending on your discipline. It also showed me that you can transfer to and from games design to animation as many of the skills and software overlap and are transferable and can be applied to one and other.

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Brian explained what employers are looking for and provided an in depth analysis quick tips and pointers for our current projects as to make them better or the best ways to exhibit the work and suggested taking it into a games engine or uploading a scene to sketchfab or marmoset. 

He also taught us how to bridge the gap if you where wanting to cross over into the games industry from animation and how to do this.

Before this lecture i had only a very basic insight into the field and how it worked along with the mechanics and software that was used to produce work. The lecture helped me to feel more comfortable in my work and has helped motivate me to get the project to a higher standard and going one step further and stat to look at unity and unreal for future projects. It also helped me with pointers for interviews and my professional practice work for preparing myself for placement next year. Brian also taught me that they don't want to see just university work they want to see different personal projects that vary in what methods and techniques you can work in and they like to see you challenge your self and not just shooting out work. It has also helped my process of learning and the development of my creative and technical skills and helped my research. This will all contribute to me being hired down the road as i have created my own personal mantra and way of working and routes for undertaking and accomplishing tasks. 

Your work should show your potential  and what you could contribute to a company if they where to hire you. I intent to show this in several of my own personal projects which i intend to work on in my spare time over the remainder of the year and over the summer break. Employers want to be intrigued and taught  and like to learn from your thought process and your way of working and what your workflow is like , along with a breakdown of how you did it. This will help the company decide whether or not that they will want to hire you or not or if you could bring something new to the table or work differently to solve problems and provide alternative solutions to solve them. 

Through this semester i keep getting worked up and really stressed and anxious about what i need to know and  how i need to learn every aspect and segments of animation and the processes in each sector. Still i feel like i do not have enough of an insight into the many different aspects of Animation as of yet and i need to learn and develop my skills to a professional standard while looking into other areas. I need to start to use more alternative software for similar process before going into the industry like working and familiarising myself with unity and unreal  or trying to create my own games engine if i can. I should use these to create real time renders which i would like to do but simple don't have the time as of late and am struggling to keep on to of things as it is and would save the render long render times in Maya and using Arnold.

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