Sometimes my wife makes me stop cutting geometry and help her finish the dishes or fold laundry.
It sucks.
This.
I have hell getting work done at home, because if she isn't doing this, she's sat hovering over my shoulder either asking lots of inane, distracting questions, or blithering on about some random other person's (that I've never met) social life...
SVN. It took me ages to get my head around that when I started using it. Conflicts and needing to do "clean ups" all the time, deleting things but not actually "SVN deleting" things, and SVN renaming, etc... I'm fine with it now though but its was horrible in the begining.
I'm now using Bizarre for the indie stuff which seems a lot more user friendly.
I think I've finally trained my husband to leave me alone if I've got the door closed. Of course, with my back to the door when he wants to pester me he sneaks the cats in and lets them do his dirty work. (because really, how can you be mad at being interrupted by a cat?)
Started using my wacom exclusively for computer input. Only problem is I don't have one at my day job so I have to schlep mine back and forth between work and home. I kind of fear for cord integrity with all this travel, might get kinked and not work or something.
Having to make concepts for a pitch, or to show to an important publisher with only a couple of hrs notice is really annoying and stupid. Specially when you know that its your work being displayed and it might not be up to par because there was no time.
That, and also having a lot of reviews to get your work on track and being approved, only to be overlooked by a publisher last min to change the whole approach or look, just because they played a new game and they would like to see that better. haha
Artists need time to get something looking good... if its concepts at least 4 hrs... and not just a couple... a day is even better. Then you send work you are happy with that looks nice and you are not embarrassed to say you worked on that. :P
Having the boss/client standing over your shoulder all day, often going into over time making you do tiny/stupid little aterations. Saying things like:
"oh that pink is a little too pink"
"can you make that building have more oomph"
"the lighting isn't quite right. Can you add more somberness"
5 minutes before the boss/client needs to go somewhere the work is magically "perfect"..."Ship it".
EDIT: more annoying ending.
"you know how we had it this morning. Just revert it back to that..."
Models being approved then after everything is rigged and partially animated someone in marketing or higher up the food chain (who approved the model), wants to make some changes...
As far as workflow goes the more maxscript I learn, the less those annoying headaches bother me. Most of the headaches that still haunt me are hard coded into max.
But, having to wait 1.5 minutes for Maya to launch/be ready to use. Then part of that time, after loading, it has an error, crashes, and I have to wait another 1.5 again. So I usually waste at least 10-15 min. a day just loading Maya.
Because of that, got rid of Maya, and wasted good 3k for a license. Good max:D
So I usually waste at least 10-15 min. a day just loading Maya.
Read: Two hours. It crashes less for me now than it did when I first started here though at least. I think that's because I've learned its nuances. I swear Maya is female.
But, having to wait 1.5 minutes for Maya to launch/be ready to use. Then part of that time, after loading, it has an error, crashes, and I have to wait another 1.5 again. So I usually waste at least 10-15 min. a day just loading Maya.
I have some bad memories of that as well...
But if I remember correctly maya gives you the options of not loading a couple of modules such as hair/fur or physics or whatever which you probably won't need most of the time; disabling them might save quite some of the loading time.
Models being approved then after everything is rigged and partially animated someone in marketing or higher up the food chain (who approved the model), wants to make some changes..
This. I worked on a model for over 2 months off and on. Kept getting approved and then minds would change every few days. Went on forever it seemed, heh. Also, developing for PS3. :P
Guys, I figure it out. OP makes games for the TI-84.
LOL that must be it!
It's funny how people mind things like SVN, scrum and JIRA. I really don't find them so bad. Especially SVN, i find it essential and useful. But hey, a small part of a tech artist's job here is to help other people out with SVN issues, so I can see where it's coming from ;p
^^^ oh, I agree SVN (or similar) is essential. It's just that when I started at my first studio it wasn't explained and I wasn't shown how to use it properly. Took me a while to get my head around the fact that you can't "break it". Caused me many a headache in the early days. I have no trouble with it these days.
I hate having to tweak outsourced assets. Sometimes those things are WHACK.
I strongly maintain that (with a few specific exceptions) anybody who endlessly sings the praises and advantages of outsourced art... has never had to clean up outsourced art.
But if I remember correctly maya gives you the options of not loading a couple of modules such as hair/fur or physics or whatever which you probably won't need most of the time; disabling them might save quite some of the loading time.
Unfortunately mlichy's complaints are related to the custom tools here that load with Maya... the upside is that the tools save me an extraordinary amount of time, so while Maya takes longer to load, it's a net positive in the long run (for my workflow, anyway). But it is annoying when you find a crucial issue and crash repeatedly all afternoon .
I work in retail, this thread is about as first world problems as can be. You have to use a somewhat inefficient workflow? Oh dear. What a terribly hard time you have, making your respectable wages working in an (easy) field which you love.
Usage of the "first world problems" meme is only useful when a discussion loses perspective and those involved are so emotionally invested in something relatively trivial that they need to be reminded of bigger global problems. Otherwise it ends up being a barrier to discussion; we can all come up with reasons why no one should be bitching about anything.
I don't see anyone in this thread becoming extremely overwrought over these workflow issues... just casual venting of frustrations which is completely valid, especially when inefficient workflows drastically increase the amount of time you have to spend at work. No one wants to work crazy crunch hours all the time, whether you work in games or retail.
I work in retail, this thread is about as first world problems as can be. You have to use a somewhat inefficient workflow? Oh dear. What a terribly hard time you have, making your respectable wages working in an (easy) field which you love.
People can only have the perspective they have in the environment they're in. Any other considerations are projections based on what can be communicated. At the end of the day, no matter how conscious you are of kids starving in Africa, your problems are still your problems.
I would hardly call the Game-art field an easy job. I know a lot of people who struggle getting into said field. If it's so easy why do you work in retail... :P
BTW I work at a local shop called BumperWorld cleaning cars at 8 bucks an hour....What I'd kill for to earn respectable wages in an easy job such as retail....
Ok going back to my original job story because xoliul wants it.
So i was in uni one day and a friend asks me if i want a casual job making games for an entrepreneur, i was like that sounds awesome and so i got an interview there.
So i go for the interview, and it ends up being this tiny one room office, but it was full of school kids jerking around on computers, with this tiny dev team in the corner trying to make the worst dota clone I've ever seen in my life. It turns out that the studios was based around making this guys dream game, which is goddamn retarded, and is funding it by lying to the government that his studio is training place for highschool students to learn how to make games, and that they were supposed to be contributing to the "game". Somehow the government bought it and paid him money per student he "trained".
The dev team was consisting of uni students that had never shipped anything in their lives, and the 3d modellers had no idea what they were doing. The environment artist didnt even know about keeping a mesh to tris and quads, and had giant booleans in things that weren't cleaned up, and was sticking non power of two giant textures on everything.
Also the animation exporter was so fucked that it would work at random I'd say 1/20 times. I wasted entire days re-exporting the same model tweaking little things until it worked. Half the time i was there was spent fixing terrible models and the other half was trying to actually make good art, when i really didn't have the experience myself. One of those jobs was the said task of concepting and then modelling my boss as a dante wannabe, with a giant gun rifle retardo-blade.
Oh and i shouldn't forget having to clean up the high school students work and having to put it in game. That was a barrel of laughs.
I lasted a few months there before i quit and joined a real games company.
EDIT: Another gripe. Being asked for screenshots larger than the game res. What the fuck phone has a resolution of 1280x800
Replies
... we went with Ogre3d... XD
This.
I have hell getting work done at home, because if she isn't doing this, she's sat hovering over my shoulder either asking lots of inane, distracting questions, or blithering on about some random other person's (that I've never met) social life...
amen man. SVN ruins lives.
Started using my wacom exclusively for computer input. Only problem is I don't have one at my day job so I have to schlep mine back and forth between work and home. I kind of fear for cord integrity with all this travel, might get kinked and not work or something.
That, and also having a lot of reviews to get your work on track and being approved, only to be overlooked by a publisher last min to change the whole approach or look, just because they played a new game and they would like to see that better. haha
Artists need time to get something looking good... if its concepts at least 4 hrs... and not just a couple... a day is even better. Then you send work you are happy with that looks nice and you are not embarrassed to say you worked on that. :P
"oh that pink is a little too pink"
"can you make that building have more oomph"
"the lighting isn't quite right. Can you add more somberness"
5 minutes before the boss/client needs to go somewhere the work is magically "perfect"..."Ship it".
EDIT: more annoying ending.
"you know how we had it this morning. Just revert it back to that..."
As far as workflow goes the more maxscript I learn, the less those annoying headaches bother me. Most of the headaches that still haunt me are hard coded into max.
Because of that, got rid of Maya, and wasted good 3k for a license. Good max:D
I have some bad memories of that as well...
But if I remember correctly maya gives you the options of not loading a couple of modules such as hair/fur or physics or whatever which you probably won't need most of the time; disabling them might save quite some of the loading time.
This. I worked on a model for over 2 months off and on. Kept getting approved and then minds would change every few days. Went on forever it seemed, heh. Also, developing for PS3. :P
You're scaring me.
Screeeeeeeeeew yooooooooooooou
I hate having to tweak outsourced assets. Sometimes those things are WHACK.
I work for a company that recently sold for an 11 figure sum.
im pretty sure it's not the cost that's the issue
LOL that must be it!
It's funny how people mind things like SVN, scrum and JIRA. I really don't find them so bad. Especially SVN, i find it essential and useful. But hey, a small part of a tech artist's job here is to help other people out with SVN issues, so I can see where it's coming from ;p
I strongly maintain that (with a few specific exceptions) anybody who endlessly sings the praises and advantages of outsourced art... has never had to clean up outsourced art.
Hahaha.
LOL! instant memories.
I don't see anyone in this thread becoming extremely overwrought over these workflow issues... just casual venting of frustrations which is completely valid, especially when inefficient workflows drastically increase the amount of time you have to spend at work. No one wants to work crazy crunch hours all the time, whether you work in games or retail.
People can only have the perspective they have in the environment they're in. Any other considerations are projections based on what can be communicated. At the end of the day, no matter how conscious you are of kids starving in Africa, your problems are still your problems.
BTW I work at a local shop called BumperWorld cleaning cars at 8 bucks an hour....What I'd kill for to earn respectable wages in an easy job such as retail....
See what I did there?
Hitler
/Godwin law complete
Anyone ??
So i was in uni one day and a friend asks me if i want a casual job making games for an entrepreneur, i was like that sounds awesome and so i got an interview there.
So i go for the interview, and it ends up being this tiny one room office, but it was full of school kids jerking around on computers, with this tiny dev team in the corner trying to make the worst dota clone I've ever seen in my life. It turns out that the studios was based around making this guys dream game, which is goddamn retarded, and is funding it by lying to the government that his studio is training place for highschool students to learn how to make games, and that they were supposed to be contributing to the "game". Somehow the government bought it and paid him money per student he "trained".
The dev team was consisting of uni students that had never shipped anything in their lives, and the 3d modellers had no idea what they were doing. The environment artist didnt even know about keeping a mesh to tris and quads, and had giant booleans in things that weren't cleaned up, and was sticking non power of two giant textures on everything.
Also the animation exporter was so fucked that it would work at random I'd say 1/20 times. I wasted entire days re-exporting the same model tweaking little things until it worked. Half the time i was there was spent fixing terrible models and the other half was trying to actually make good art, when i really didn't have the experience myself. One of those jobs was the said task of concepting and then modelling my boss as a dante wannabe, with a giant gun rifle retardo-blade.
Oh and i shouldn't forget having to clean up the high school students work and having to put it in game. That was a barrel of laughs.
I lasted a few months there before i quit and joined a real games company.
EDIT: Another gripe. Being asked for screenshots larger than the game res. What the fuck phone has a resolution of 1280x800