[Royalty] - IRONBELLY STUDIOS is a large experienced team searching for 3D artists
polycounter lvl 9
Hello and thanks for checking out the thread! We are a large, well managed team of passionate individuals who are setting out to start a new, great indie studio and we're looking looking for like-minded, dedicated and talented people to build this this vision with us. At this time we are particularly looking for 3D generalists and environmental texture artists but we certainly are open to new members in other fields if you are looking for a well organized, exciting group to join
Who are we?
Ironbelly Studios has traditionally been an Art House in the past. We created art assets for game studios and video game startups to be used for raising capital for project development. We've been together under the name Ironbelly Studios since 2009 but many of us that constitute the core of Ironbelly have been working together on similar projects since 2006. We are a group of passionate, dedicated and talented group of game developers who are serious about getting this project out the door and into digital distribution channels. We are extremely organized, and most of us have many years either running or working with remotely distributed teams.
What are we working on?
To give you a little idea of the current project it is a single player FPS heavily styled after Moon or 2001:The Space Odyssey in the beginning, very clean designs, and from there we lead the player away from that to a much more dark and sinister look and feel towards the end. It is a FPS Survival game that takes place on a space station and instead of hordes of zombies the player will be facing off against waves of robotic killing machines, some large and few, others small and many. The closest examples of gameplay style that comes to mind would be Black Ops Zombies with a dash of Dead Space. Our goals for this project are not overly ambitious, we have what we think is an exciting, attainable project that we can have up and running before the year is out. I personally have been working with collaborative teams for over 5 years and my experience working with teams(my own included) with giant ambitions for projects that never see the light of day has steered me towards more realistic and do-able goals.
Key Features:
- Engaging Single player campaign
- Survival FPS style gameplay, mixing the best of Killing Floor, L4D and Black Ops Zombies
- Stylized Sci-Fi environments
- Massive Robotic Combat
- Useable environments
What sets us apart?:
- Some of the most talented people around
- Department Leads to share the management workload
Our list of Leads includes:
Audio Lead: Nick Dixon - Output Audio
Programming Lead: Wizzard~Of~Ozz - UDK Vet, Genius UDK scripter
Animation Lead: Bhavesh Suthar - ASWA Force
We are definitely hunting for a 2D and 3D lead at the moment although we have very strong 2D and 3D departments.
- Experienced Dedicated Project Lead
- Communication and Organizational Infrastructure
Communication
We have multiple voice conferences each week to keep the team focused, galvanized and on track. Once a week we have a team wide asset review meeting going over key concepts and the weeks assets that were finished. First and foremost this is a collaborative project. While I may act as the engine and the helmsman, the team as a whole shapes the course of the project. All ideas are welcomed in our meetings and thoroughly considered. We have 4 other teamspeak meetings during the week to confer with department leads about department specific progress and workflow. Outside of that we manage communications through our internal forums, in prompto skype, msn, ICQ or gTalk chats as well as meetings in person with some of the crew. Our strongest point is our communication, the last thing we ever want is for team members to feel like they are working in a bubble separate from the rest of the team.
Project Management System
All tasks are scheduled, tracked and managed within a sophisticated server side Project Management site. Deadlines are set and agreed upon and the tasks are laid out in advance so that we can plan the project as a whole and then narrow down on a smaller scale once we figure out how best to fit the work together.
Content and Communication Management System(CMS)
Our custom built CMS allows us to keep all of our new content as organized as possible while allowing group discussions to spring naturally around the latest content being produced. I would be willing to wage that we are running the most robust open-sourced CMS every developed for Game Development(outside of the giant AAA studios of course). Within it's walls are our forums, our image/video/audio galleries, our wiki and documentation. All tied together so one system such as the forums can tie directly into another such as the images, enabling a level of communication which I've never seen in my 7 years of doing this. I have a few good friends running large professional studios and I can tell you our CMS is at least on par if not far ahead of what they use to manage their communications. Of course their teams are all located in a single building so the need for such a robust system isn't as critical ours but they are all blown away when they see how organized our teams are run.
Our Team so Far:
As mentioned we are currently looking for experienced UDK AI programmers but are certainly still open to talented individuals joining in most capacities, especially 3D. Here's a breakdown of our team right now so you know what you are getting into:
2D / Concept Artists: 8
3D and Texture Artists: 11
Animators: 2
VFX / Cacade Artists: 1
Level Designers: 3
Writers: 1
Audio Engineers: 2
Programmers: 2
If you're curious as to the standards we keep at Ironbelly you can head over to www.ironbellystudios.com to check out our portfolio, we pride ourselves on this very high standard of quality for all work we produce.
I'll throw in a few early concepts and models from our work so far and do my best to update this thread as more exciting stuff comes online.
I can be contacted via PM on the forums here or via email at ryan -at- ironbellystudios.com. Can't wait to speak with you soon!
