well guys it did n't work out at real time worlds. finished early. the work was just excessively technical and fiddly( for me at least).
I figured that going freelance would be easier , but in a way its a lot harder going.
Some of the fixes I had a to do were a bit silly , but yeah i prefer to actually do artwork , not spend 3 months exporting files without a batch exporter.
Suppose I take some of the blame , but without going in to too much detail I will say that I did my best and could n't really have put more effort in.
TBH making lods for six months was n't very appealing, but I needed the money at the time and took it, but in hindsight I knew it would be a real pig and I was proved right in the end.
I feel a bit down about it as they were a nice bunch of people, but I do have other plans and along with disappointment there is relief

Yeah, sounds like working at a company Ruz! Good luck onwards man

Good luck in the future Ruz, sorry you had to back out. Even though LOD's aren't fun, they're an inevitable part of gaming art. Someone's got to do it :P

Were you working on APB at Realtime Worlds? Crackdown was an insanely fun game, so I can't wait to see what they do with that. Hopefully we'll see your creds in the game? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Working at a studio might have it's downers, but I prefer it's stability over contract work (even if that stability is just an illusion). With contract work, I always found it a drag to be setting up additional gigs for down the road. I'm also nowhere NEAR as efficient working from home than I am in-office. Far too many distractions.

cheers Per - I have some plans anyway
actually I was was working freelance for them with occasional visits.
I find with me I have a more misses than hits in terms of companies I work for, but I am a bit weird anyway
TBH I did n't want the contract , but was a bit skint at christmas and had no other offers

Working on APB was fun , but I am not really in to hip hop and stuff and would probably rather work on tombraider

Yeah Vassago LOD's are 'fun' unless they have 20 morph targets also

wish i had your guts, ruz! backing out of a project when the art direction doesn't suit me. :-) the technical stuff is also a burn...you should think about getting the poor 3D artists in malaysia to the LOD's for you!

best of luck man!

not really guts,snowfly I Just know what I lke and what I don't.
I would n't wish lods's on anyone really, they are painful

Try hand unwrapping UVs for lightmaps by hand for entire environments :P Now that is something I wouldn't wish on anyone!
Good luck, Ruz.

-caseyjones

cheers caseyjones -can't you just use the autounwrap for the lightmaps?
Thats what we used to do on stadiums

when i was at liquid in portland we got a deal to do all the lods for sims 2,, the announcement came with "oh we are starting tommorow and we have to use maya, so everyone warez maya and learn how to use it tonite! that sucked

I don't mind doing them too much, if its just for one character at a time but when it gets to be hundreds, it becomes too hard to keep track.

Rhonokey - that sounds about typical of the organisation for a typical games dev here in the uk

the other year i resized, entirely manually and one-by-one, about 1600 textures. I won't go into the details of why it had to be done that way, but it did, and it was very important, hence i did it myself

i quite enjoyed it. It was like being on drugs

danr that sounds like fun. silly question though, why did n't you use a pshop action to do it?
as you mentioned I am sure there was a reason for that.

mm I would actually prefer to take drugs than do that.

Its odd though I have been doing illustration for years and I keep getting hired to do drudge/ non artistic work. I wonder why this is.

I am lousy at technical stuff. all i want to do is make nice pretty zbrush models with textures.

Perhaps I am in the wrong line of work

I have pretty much decided not to ever work in a studio again.
I find myself getting bored and frustrated almost straight away.
In some studios you can make suggestions or ask questions , but some places you have to sit there and be a good boy, do as you are told , never look up.
I hate that - control freak shit you know the stuff - passive aggressive types.

[ QUOTE ]

all i want to do is make nice pretty zbrush models with textures.

[/ QUOTE ]

i might get to do that one day. For now though, i make games. Games require a hell of a lot more than prettiness.

Ask yourself what you want to make - do you want to make art, do you want to make cg graphics, or do you want to make games. If you're not fussed about the latter, there's other job opportunities out there that will keep you more than happy with the first two.

If games is what you want to make, then welcome to the occupation

well I think theres a balance. It seems to have become so rigid and techincal these days, it can take longer to get the stuff in game than to actually make it.
I think its cause I got stuck working on mmo stuff

I came from an art background and enjoyed making nice looking stuff, but the tech side bores me a little.

I may enjoy working on more creative stuff in the future, just got to sit down and figure out what I want.

BUT I do actually enjoy making games , I just am not very good at the IT side ie exporting 2 billion files without making mistakes.
My mind tends to wander and I think about anything apart from the stuff I am doing

Ruz, I'm feeling you, man! I've been doing nothing but technical stuff on my current project (thus the hand unwraps for lightmaps - auto unwrap wasn't giving us the result we were after). I've been working closely with the lead programmer basically creating tools and refining the pipeline for the artists. Because we are dealing with a new engine, I've been the R&D guy to see what it can and cannot do, and for the things it cannot do, I have to come up with a way to do it.
After about 7 months of being on the project, I'm finally making charaters, while still doing some of the technical shit on the side. It has pissed me off to some degree, because I'm an artist and my role is to make art. But it was a good experience and even enjoyed doing some of it because I got to learn a whole bunch from it.
I'm probably more of a technical artist than I am a creative one, but I enjoy making games that much that I'm willing to put up with the shitty jobs as long as I get to do my share of the enjoyable ones. But there have been times where I've considered looking for work at another studio (and may yet after this project is through), but some of the rad people there are what keep me around. Plus I'm working my way up the ranks, and doubt I'd get the opportunity anywhere else so soon.

-caseyjones

I hear you too Ruz. I find it increasingly curious how it comes to be that the creatively inept find their way to being the creative, or not so, drive. I`ve worked with ONE Art Director that could actually DRAW in 8 years. Depressing.
Myself, I`ve been forced down the management path, which is frankly a bit of a joke as by nature I`m about as politic as Mike Tyson in a hissy fit.
It`s all a bit upside down.
Hope you manage to find your way up [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Pleased to hear its not just me then
caseyjones - I did the same thing for 8 months on football superstars. I was never a tech guy and for 8 long months I had to work with the lead programmer and sort out this character customization system with him. It was very painful, but finally got it working which was good, but the system was so hard to work with it made me depressed to work on it
Thats why I left.
Its a shame because just as I was leaving they hired a top notch character dude who was really easy to work with.

firestarter - I could n't go that route, unless I was doing the artwork too, sitting in meetings all day and sorting out schedules in excel, could n't handle that he he. I am sooo undiplomatic.

With me 1 of two things normally happen. I get in a team where people respect me cause I am ok at doing 'nice' artwork , OR I get caught in a team where the guy in charge is the type who does n't want any input whatsoever and furthermore doesn't seem to trust me to do the job i was hired for even though they themselves are lousy at explaining things/drawing/managing etc.

Another thing that happens is that sometimes you get the 'nitpick' brigade who seem to delight in being anal for the sake of it.
ie move that vert 1 mm and ... no ok I have changed my mind again, move it back.
I am sitting getting to the point where the little veins in my head are starting to pop
I don't mind if people, are thorough, but sometimes it can be a bit unnecessary if this is not actually improving anything visually ( diminishing returns).

common sense seems to have deserted some people these days.

I don't want to be totally negative here, but it seems that the bigger the company I work for the less fun I will have.

There must be a some kind of equation for this.

I have helped shipped two successful titles in my career and they were quite rewarding to work on, but I think in future I will be going down the indie game route or in to another branch of CG.

I have agreed to finish up the block of work I was doing for RTW then its upwards and onwards hopefully.

Oddly enough I have only been in the industry for 3 years and already i am sick of it ha ha.

Another question I have is, why do some game devs start companies in the middle of nowhere?
If it was me I would be starting out in camden high street or oxford circus, not on craggy island which has no tesco , no pubs and no fun

That last question is easy Ruz! Cost effectiveness requires setting up in Cragsville farm. It gives you a better wage, by contrast Sony (SoHo) are in Great Marlborough Street, and thus pay there is diabolical. You can underscore and make bold the `diabolical` [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

yeah i can see that , but industrial estates are a bit grim usually.
Surpised they don't just buy a building in a town and rent part of it out to other companies. least they would have some money coming in whilst making the game [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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yeah i can see that , but industrial estates are a bit grim usually.
Surpised they don't just buy a building in a town and rent part of it out to other companies. least they would have some money coming in whilst making the game [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Where are they going to get that starting capital? A building in town big enough to also rent out isn't cheap.

same place as any other start up gets capital from venture capitalists
it was n't really a serious proposal rick, my tongue was firmly in my cheek

just wondering why you started that thread here and advertise your services over in the freelancer-section?
after reading all this complaining - valid or not - in the case an AD approached me asking if i knew someone to offload work to, you'd not make it onto the list by a long stretch man, no matter how good your output was.

with that attitude towards doing only the cool bits of the work, you'll have one hell of a time in any project-driven industry. the jobs out there are for people who manage to finish their stuff not run away as soon as the revisions and technical issues are kicking in.

seems like you'd have to start your very own thing where only you get to have the final say on things.

Didn`t realise you meant a setup on an industrial estate Ruz. That`s off the scale of cheap assed.

Sounds like it's time for you start selling models on Turbosquid full-time. :-P

How about the concept/pre-viz side? Ever thought about going that route?

thomasp - I have done thousands of revisions in my time without complaint - but sometimes you just wanna be an artist again and thats the way I am going. if you don't like my attitude its fine mate
its good that you made a judgment like that without knowing the full facts on any of the points I have made.

Snowfly - thats the way I am thinking now. just do the stuff and sell it.
Other people can mess around and butcher it if they want.

concepting is not my scene, but my wife is a cool concept artist, and I am working up some of her stuff right now.