"It's time we stopped encouraging indies" - John Warner, 'The Fall'
high dynamic range
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-10-02-its-time-we-stopped-encouraging-indies
Below I think is a snippet relevant to a lot of the beginning artists who wander through Polycount.
Below I think is a snippet relevant to a lot of the beginning artists who wander through Polycount.
#4 School is great, but be careful with generalist programs
This section is relevant to would be indies, but also anyone starting their career. Schools will happily prey off of your desire to avoid specialization and make your own games.
Let's say, for example, that a team of students in a game design program have gotten to the point that they're making their own thesis project and have an idea to make a complex game with a crazy neon art style. They begin working on the project, but it suffers from massive unit identification issues because the game's colors are psychotic. When mentors attempt to tell them this (and they do) the students are hesitant to take the advice because of their project goal to create a visual neon explosion of a game.
What's the problem with this picture? The problem is that the project is fundamentally flawed. Because of the high-level art direction failure, it's actually getting in the way of showcasing skills that the students might actually get hired for. The problem is that the students should never have been given high level autonomy in the first place. They have come here to learn, but the school knows that they can attract more students if the students know they'll get a chance to work on their own game. The school is preying on the students' desires to express their indie fantasies before they're ready, and frankly, they don't care. They know full well that they make more money that way, despite the students being worse off.
I part-time mentored for a short while in a game design program, and eventually left after becoming disenchanted with the program's structure. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus (because I know people who managed the programs there and they're great people) but I have some serious concerns about game design programs in general. I think they're sometimes horrific immoral meat grinders.
First of all, if you want to get a job in the games industry in any specialized role, like programming, or art, you should specialize as a programmer, or artist (I took VFS' 3D art program, and it was pretty damn good). The idea that it helps you to have some sort of general knowledge about game development is, in my opinion, horse shit. If I'm hiring a junior artist, I'm doing so because I have a pipeline established for that person to do very specific work under very specific supervision. I'm going to have training wheels for them anyway, so it's valuable to me to hire someone who can make well-constructed 3D art and train that person to use my highly rigid pipeline. It is less valuable to me to hire someone who's not quite as good at making art, but they know a little Unity. In my opinion, the clearer you are about your target job before going to school, the better off you'll be, and frankly, I don't buy this whole "we teach you a bit of everything so you can decide while taking the course" nonsense. In fact, that's one of the worst parts of this whole charade.
The worst part of my experience as a mentor was how many students entered the program without really knowing what they wanted and ended up as "team players" doing something that they didn't care much about because their project needed it. This is the most tragic waste of money I can imagine. If you're spending tens of thousands of dollars and end up making mediocre environment art (for a neon game that's hard to play) when you'd really rather be doing game design, but you didn't have the social skills to navigate your way into a position of social significance enough to choose your favourite role on a team, well, I'd say that the school has completely failed you. My school actually let kids sort themselves into groups. Have they not read Lord of the Flies? Do you have any idea how many Piggies I've seen get their head metaphysically smashed with a role that helps their career not at all?
Because NURBS are so hard to use, this is basically a masterpiece (Image credit: Chris Maraffi, Maya Character Creation: Modeling and Animation Controls)
Not that schools who offer specialization are always ethically clean. I know a girl who is two hundred thousand dollars in debt after a four-year course to help her get a job in the games industry as an artist. Do you know what was a part of that course to fill the space? NURBS modeling. Some of you who are already artists will realize how insane that is. For the rest of you, to describe this method of 3D modeling as archaic would be an understatement. It's so horrendously difficult to use this method and obtain anything approximating production quality that it might be literally impossible. Its only rightful place is in a museum. Teaching it to students to help them get an entry-level job in the games industry is absolute bare-faced predation. It's exploiting the ignorance of a young person to sell them useless junk for money they don't have.
This section is relevant to would be indies, but also anyone starting their career. Schools will happily prey off of your desire to avoid specialization and make your own games.
Let's say, for example, that a team of students in a game design program have gotten to the point that they're making their own thesis project and have an idea to make a complex game with a crazy neon art style. They begin working on the project, but it suffers from massive unit identification issues because the game's colors are psychotic. When mentors attempt to tell them this (and they do) the students are hesitant to take the advice because of their project goal to create a visual neon explosion of a game.
What's the problem with this picture? The problem is that the project is fundamentally flawed. Because of the high-level art direction failure, it's actually getting in the way of showcasing skills that the students might actually get hired for. The problem is that the students should never have been given high level autonomy in the first place. They have come here to learn, but the school knows that they can attract more students if the students know they'll get a chance to work on their own game. The school is preying on the students' desires to express their indie fantasies before they're ready, and frankly, they don't care. They know full well that they make more money that way, despite the students being worse off.
I part-time mentored for a short while in a game design program, and eventually left after becoming disenchanted with the program's structure. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus (because I know people who managed the programs there and they're great people) but I have some serious concerns about game design programs in general. I think they're sometimes horrific immoral meat grinders.
First of all, if you want to get a job in the games industry in any specialized role, like programming, or art, you should specialize as a programmer, or artist (I took VFS' 3D art program, and it was pretty damn good). The idea that it helps you to have some sort of general knowledge about game development is, in my opinion, horse shit. If I'm hiring a junior artist, I'm doing so because I have a pipeline established for that person to do very specific work under very specific supervision. I'm going to have training wheels for them anyway, so it's valuable to me to hire someone who can make well-constructed 3D art and train that person to use my highly rigid pipeline. It is less valuable to me to hire someone who's not quite as good at making art, but they know a little Unity. In my opinion, the clearer you are about your target job before going to school, the better off you'll be, and frankly, I don't buy this whole "we teach you a bit of everything so you can decide while taking the course" nonsense. In fact, that's one of the worst parts of this whole charade.
The worst part of my experience as a mentor was how many students entered the program without really knowing what they wanted and ended up as "team players" doing something that they didn't care much about because their project needed it. This is the most tragic waste of money I can imagine. If you're spending tens of thousands of dollars and end up making mediocre environment art (for a neon game that's hard to play) when you'd really rather be doing game design, but you didn't have the social skills to navigate your way into a position of social significance enough to choose your favourite role on a team, well, I'd say that the school has completely failed you. My school actually let kids sort themselves into groups. Have they not read Lord of the Flies? Do you have any idea how many Piggies I've seen get their head metaphysically smashed with a role that helps their career not at all?
Because NURBS are so hard to use, this is basically a masterpiece (Image credit: Chris Maraffi, Maya Character Creation: Modeling and Animation Controls)
Not that schools who offer specialization are always ethically clean. I know a girl who is two hundred thousand dollars in debt after a four-year course to help her get a job in the games industry as an artist. Do you know what was a part of that course to fill the space? NURBS modeling. Some of you who are already artists will realize how insane that is. For the rest of you, to describe this method of 3D modeling as archaic would be an understatement. It's so horrendously difficult to use this method and obtain anything approximating production quality that it might be literally impossible. Its only rightful place is in a museum. Teaching it to students to help them get an entry-level job in the games industry is absolute bare-faced predation. It's exploiting the ignorance of a young person to sell them useless junk for money they don't have.
Indie game development is hard ya'll. Don't just wander into it.
Replies
If you are young and lack confidence, prioritize building that by broadening your experience, looking at everything critically, and being curious (maybe even suspicious) about everything. Place no head above your own, and vice versa don't fall into the trap of thinking you got anything all figured out.
Thanks for the share.
From my experience, regardless of how structured/non structured my program was let alone the quality of the teaching received, most students who got work got it for a variety of reasons and I can't say that it all came down to their specialisation or portfolio in every case.
I still fell like the strongest students were the ones that tried to do something different and took risks, they would be a far greater asset to a company than an employee that only does what they are told and contributes little else.
Of course they also need the right company to shine.
The skill to do good game art/programming takes time, and I don't believe the two years in school is sufficient for everyone.
Absolutly makes my blood boil quite apart from the victim's obvious naivety for having placed herself in such an untenable position most likely lasting a lifetime paying off the debt if bereft of other ancillary sources of financial support.
FFS, I'd thought by now anyone thinking of pursuing a career in the entainment industry nowadays would be at least tentatively aware of exploiting other cost effective avenues too learn the trade.
Many established games industry artists I've followed for years were self taught and started out freelancing to boot. Anyway seems to me an extraordinarily high price to pay in more ways than one for a piece of paper.
1. Don't go to an expensive school.
2. Don't try to make an indie game.
I feel if you divorce the ideas. What would really be the bad thing of trying to make an indie game and failing.
The problem with some of his arguments is that the older you get the less risks you can take. Imagine you wasted two years making an indie game and your 20-30 year old with no kids. What is the real damage done, I guess you might struggle to get a job for a few months and your overall earning would be lower than it should be assuming you did not take the risk. The problem is so what your not exactly going to starve to death assuming you live in the west.
In most cases failure isn't even that bad.
The problem with the article is if you go into massive amounts of debt, then that is bad. If the women in the article was 5K in debt and after 4 years had no art skills that wouldn't be so bad. The no art skills isn't the problem its the 200k debt.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/295688
I think doing them gave me a well rounded education that I feel was important from the stand point of becoming a well rounded individual.
Like sure theres all the stuff you need to get a job, but if that's all there is to life, I don't think you're really living to the full of it.
But I've always been a bit more entrepreneurial in the way I carry myself, so its important for me to have those experiences.
At the school I went to, I wanted to study games art, but the first year was a generalist games development course. It covered some solid fundamentals in art and animation. But then it was padded with a LOT of stupid stuff. Animators were only taught 3DS Max Biped, designers were only taught on Gamemaker. And then we were taught "the history of games", which entailed playing shittily emulated versions of classic games.. For two hours each week. A colossal sham.
And on top of that, the school offered a generalist "indie games" course. Which, as the article points out, pretty much just preyed on 18 year old's desires to make indie games. But just left the students in a space where they weren't good enough at anything when it came to any of the team assignments, and they were pretty much filling in blank spaces.
Ironically, the university had a lot of support for indie studios. But the teams were pretty much just the people on the specialised courses. Or indie students who did a lot of their own legwork to specialize despite the course they were on.
My favorite that I overheard when I used to be at Uni was "we're trying to find students who want to make Dark Souls, but with Hyperlight Drifter's art style.. Over the summer break. We could probably try and get it greenlit on steam and sell it".
Okay guys. You want to make a shippable product in 3 months with 10 people with half a clue of what they're doing.