Exhausting repetative tasks

elec²ron

So game art and environment art in particular is filled with mind numbing repetitive tasks. I'm sure most entry level guys have had to do their fair share of crappy tasks and I'm wondering how people deal with it.

I currently have a task that i'm finding mentally exhausting. I dont mean a hard unwrap of anything like that, in fact i don't really find any work in 3d software tedious. I guess its more specific to level editors as 3d apps are usually flexible enough to allow me to speed up my work flow if necessary.

I find myself zoning out listening to music a lot of the time but because of the nature of the task a mistake can mean hours of wasted work. I sure get funny looks when i start swearing at my computer :poly127:

This certainly isn't a dig at the engine programmers or anything like that (all though i could kill someone for hardcoding an important shortcut to ctrl-u). They are crazy smart guys and I have used a few editors and have many of the same criticisms.

Any advice? I guess what keeps me sane is knowing that however annoying the task, its important for the final product. And hell, im still getting paid for it.

leleuxart

What exactly is the task? Most programs nowadays give you the option to create/modify key shortcuts(or mouse shortcuts if you have one with multiple buttons). If the engine doesn't support it, there's always those programs that run in the background that let you create the shortcuts. Not sure how effective they'd be in an engine though.

Some things just take a large amount of tedious work because there probably isn't a shortcut. If it's a serious matter, I wouldn't really want to take any shortcuts. I understand your pain though, a lot of game design in general is repetitive. That's usually when breaks come in handy. Or try watching something instead of listening to music. Music doesn't do much for me anymore(except get me pumped to work). If I'm watching some tv shows or movies, I'm more likely to sit there longer.

elec²ron

leleuxart wrote: »

If the engine doesn't support it, there's always those programs that run in the background that let you create the shortcuts. Not sure how effective they'd be in an engine though.

I made a few simple scripts with autohotkey that help. I rapid fire some key strokes but unfortunately it lags like hell in big levels.

Eric Chadwick

My advice... see if you have any Technical Artists in your company, and talk with them about the workflow.

If you don't have one of those, talk to the tool programmer who maintains the editor. Once you explain how mind-numbingly repetitive your process is, they'll probably add a feature out of pity.

If the programmer doesn't want to make a change, explain your process to your Lead, and explain how much time you'll save with a tool to help you automate the process. They're likely to have a bit more pull, because this is schedule issue... your time is valuable, and could be better spent on other, more creative things.

Good luck!

chrisradsby

It's always good to be friends with the tool-team, just saying. If you try to understand their type of work they'll probably make an effort trying to understand yours.

ZacD

my advice is if you think there should be a faster way to do something, there probably is.

3DKnight

these type of tasks are part of the job. Tech has made things faster, but you still have a ton of monotonous tasks that need to get done, that usually get put onto the cheaper Junior level people to do. You wouldn't pay a lead or senior to do these easy tasks (though they have equally boring stuff to do as well that involves planning, excel and meetings) it's a waste of money and skill.

That being said, def talk to tech artists or your lead and explain what you need to speed up the process.

My first job in the industry, I unwrapped and baked for a year solid. Very little art creation. I got damn good at unwrapping, knew how to bake like a pro and got to understand the process of game productions. Sometimes it's just about doing your trial by fire and earning your stripes. Try to take a positive side to it and learn something new with every task. What i did was make a competition with myself about setting a time completion goals and beating it, and then trying to be faster and faster. Your managers will notice and it will only improve your skills.

Flynny

Like everyone else says, see if there is a Tech artist to help you, be gentle on how you broach the subject as these people usually have a crapload of work on making tools for other team members or fixes.

Youl often get better results if you try and figure out or research a quicker/easier way to possibly do what you need but you need someone to do the technical side.

The flip side is also that these tasks still exist for a reason, at least thats my current predicament. Best of luck.

Mark Dygert

I hear ya... Doing repetitive tasks like that is what drove me to dive into maxscript and it has helped me in so many ways above and beyond getting rid of annoying roadblocks like this. I see a few suggestions to buddy up to a tech artist, but honestly its better if you dive into it yourself. People really aren't interested in spending a lot of time helping other people get around their problems unless it also benefits them or others in some way. It just eats up a bunch of time if you do something like that for someone else and then you're on the hook for changes and fixes which they will no doubt want to make or have fixed.

So instead of constantly straining ties with your buddies you should dig in and do it yourself, what you find is that tricks that work on one thing help speed up all kinds of things you didn't even think about and most of the time they are specific to you and what you're working on.

I'm not sure what your problem is or even what application you're using but if it's max and you're interested in maxscript, start here, and hit me up with any questions you have, if I don't know the answer I probably know someone who does.

You shouldn't have to suffer through repetitive tasks and personally I don't think you should have to rely on other people when you really need to bust up some roadblocks.

elec²ron

cheers guys.

Its an in-house editor im working with so cant get my hands dirty like i could with max script. Also we are close to the end of development so i wouldn't feel comfortable bring up these issues at this stage. Its a small team and a relaxed atmosphere so i would be fine to talk to the tools programmer or lead artist about this stuff, just has to be the right time. I'll probably go for it during pre-production of the next project.

My main point really is how much more exhausting it is doing tasks like these, rather than doing something creative like texture painting or something that involves problems solving where your brain is working.

I dont want to go into detail about the task itself but because of the time it takes and the difficulty visualizing the end result i actually get a strong feeling of dread if i think iv made a mistake or if something doesn't make my eyes happy. In general i like to work in iterations, constantly making changes and trying out different ideas with tools that give fast visual feedback.

I cant complain too much. I get my fair share of good tasks and plenty opportunity to develop my core skills of modeling, texturing and animation. Management is good, i have the option to take a break from it and go texture a creature if i want but i rarely do as i hate having the nasty job looming over me.

Snader

Also, ask around. Do your fellow artists have the same niggles? Do they have their tricks? Is everyone (combined) losing so much time it's worth writing a script or maybe even a small application?

Eric Chadwick

It's totally your call of course, but IMHO it's better to talk with the tools programmer now, instead of later. Highly repetitive tasks tend to add more human errors to the game, and it discourages iteration. Besides, this is part of a tool programmer's job... solving repetitive tasks.

I worked with an in-house editor recently, and we got new tools late in the project, partly to solve repetitive tasks. Never too late to save time and effort.

Kurt Russell Fan Club

And you'd be surprised how quickly programmers can sometimes hack in small fixes to speed up or eliminate some of the stuff that is repetitive. And we love a challenge

You know the problem better than any of us and it's hard to know entirely whether a computer could easily fix it without more info, but anything that gives reason to post a thread like this can generally be made much easier with a bit of computing. That's why we have the computers, anyway - to do the monotonous, repetitive tasks for us.