Robots and Plasticslappers

[greatbigphil]

Any ideas on what /when the next is going to be? Id' love to have some sort of themed comp where we do animals or robots. I really like robots. Like, I though Mecha was cool and a competition like that would be neat.

I had a teacher tell me that robots (and large breasted plasticslappers) are done so much that I shouldn't put any on my reel, unless they're really - that is to say exceptionally - good. Anyone concur?

Big Phil

[kuman]

sup phil

robots are cool dude. but personally i do agree with your teacher. too many robots, not enough good ones.

personally i like to cut my teeth against things that are really tough to model which usually ends up being something organic (though not always, but mostly). but i'm up for any interesting competition. for me it usually depends on how much time i have and how interesting the topic seems. i work 9 hours a day and have to commute 3 hours as well (no car). so it doesn't leave me a lot of spare time and these competitions usually mean a month of not sleeping a lot ;).

-k

[greatbigphil]

Thanks James.

How long have you been working in 3D? I finished school in Sept 2003 and just finished a 6 month internship at a small animation studio working on a pilot for a kids show. Now I'm in the market for a job, so your advice is helpful. I hope to have my demo reel done by April at which point I plan to put it online. I'll let you see it when I'm done if you're into it. Have you noticed that there's been stiff competition for animation jobs recently? If the competition is fierce, I'm not sure how I'll fare.


Take it easy bro,
Big Phil

[kuman]

np phil,

i've been doing 3d for 7 years now. though 4 of those years i was in college, i was studying biology and it was really hard so i hardly got anytime to do 3d. now i work in the industry and i live and breathe 3d every day, its so rewarding to finally be able to concentrate on what i love.

you mentioned that you have an internship, that's great. any sort of experience in the industry is gonna be a big help to your resume.

as for competition. well i think its always fierce. in the game studio that i interned at every week or two all the artists would get tired of workin and for lunch watch demo reels. now this table was a conference room table like ten feet by 4 feet. and i swear that this thing would get filled with a stack of demos that was like 1.5 feet high every two weeks. and it was really harsh man. i'll tell you about how it was, now please keep in mind, this is NOT true for everywhere but this was how it was at this place where i interned and sat in on the demo veiwings.

basically everyone would sit around and pop in these tapes or cd's, they had a computer and vcr wired to a projector and everyone would watch. no one would even look at any paperwork, resume or letters or whatever unless the reel was good. now your reel is only as good as its weakest point. the artist would see your weak spot in an instant, whether is poor animation, bad or no textures or bad modeling and they would rip on it mercilessly. like i really didn't like it but there was a lot of smack talking, it was like either they are better than you or they have to talk smack to make people think they were better. it was really harsh and really eye opening man. the best demos were usually greeted by silence and then a few seconds later it was like that was pretty cool. that was the best you could hope for. there were people who put space animations first and the moment they saw a star system, like 1.5 secs into the demo it was like eject and into the garbage. that artist could have had the awesomest work in the world but he put a space animation first and the reel got thrown out instantly basically. another thing is that its a crap shoot sometimes. sometimes i saw mediocre work that was kept for a call back on a day when everyone else's reel sucked, while some days there were 4-5 great reels and only one of them got a call back. that part you have no control over. but that's my experience and it taught me a lot about what i had to do with a reel.

so to recap, here's my some things to remember:

-you're gonna be judged by people who are better than you or think they are
-your reel is gonna be on top of a pile of about 50 other reels so that work on it better stand out
-your reel is only as good as its weakest point
-don't even think about putting a space animation anywhere in there
-make sure you catch people's attention with the first animation, your best first
-remember you have to demonstrate skills they are looking for, ie good textures, texture unwrapping, and texture layout and intelligent distribution of polygons and good animation for a job in the gaming industry.
-its good to be strong at what you're applying for, ie modeling skills for a modeling job, or texture artist position or what not, but where i interned they had guys who did modeling, texturing and animation for the units and it seemed to me that a well rounded artist was better than one who could only do one thing.

wow that was long. i hope it'll help you get some perspective man. its a very competitive market man, but once you get in the door i really do think it gets easier, just think how many studios there are and how many people wanna work in games. plus every studio would rather hire someone with experience.

good luck dude. you got my email, keep me updated on how things go for you.

-k

[greatbigphil]

James, you're a fountain of knowledge. Thanks for your insight.

If you're interested in seeing some work I've done there's a link below.

One of my teachers has an in with Alias|Wavefront, which is in Toronto, which is where Humber College is, which is where I went to school. So on their customer gallery page is a link to some of the work I did in school. So on the "Humber College Student Reel" is some of my work. There's work from a bunch of other people on there too. The stuff i did is a ball animation where a metal spere rolls out and end up being a barbarian, a walk cycle of a big eyed kid, and a demon head turn.

Please don't check out Kuruma's dagger, unless of course you can't help it. It's pretty embarassing. It was a class project, and a lot of the people just didn't put any effort into it. You might notice my style in some of the models. It's seriously bad. kinda sad too. the concept was mine and I was seeing stars, but it ended up being pretty crappy.

The other one "Monster Hunters" was done by another class of 3D students. It's pretty cute.

Anyway, let me know what you think.


http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/products/maya/customerwork/gallery.shtml

[Goj]

Hey, I would love a mech comp, but it would have to be specialized ....Ex..Design a robot to do _________.

PHil--WHich one is yours, I mean what did you do?

[greatbigphil]

Goj,

Do you mean whas mine of the stuff from the Alias|Wavefront Site?

Ihere are 3 items from Humbber College on the Customer Gallery page. One's called "Humber Student Reel" the other two are called "Kuruma's Dagger" and "Monster Hunters"

In the "Humber student Reel, I did 3 things. The stuff i did is a ball animation where a metal spere rolls out and end up being a barbarian, a walk cycle of a big eyed kid, and a demon head turn.
In the above mentioned material, i did everything from concept to rendering.

In "Kuruma's Dagger" I came up with the concept and story. The story was chaged a bit as the project continued. I did the desigen for Kuruma, and Amatsumara. My design for Amatsumara was changed a bit and someone else modeled it. I modeled Kuruma and rigged him, although I didn't do his phonemes. I also did some layout, lighting, rendering and animation. I'm not really happy with the overall project, nor with the work I did myself.

For "Monster Hunters" I didn't do anything. It was the project of a different class.

Did you check it out? What do you think?

Big Phil

[kuman]

checked out your work phil. pretty good man i dig it. i especially like the demon's facial stuff with that ball. the cartoony kid walking around is pretty good. i like the model and the style but i think the cycle was a bit stiff. good stuff dude. i like the cartoony style you work with. its wierd i really do dig the cartoony style but i just can't see my work going in that direction. anyhow like i said good stuff, i'm looking forward to following your work in the future. you should get some chat client so we can chat sometime. take care.

didn't look at the kuruma's dagger though, i heeded your warning ;)

-k

oh yeah, as another note. if you're thinking about trying to get into the games industry i suggest you try to concentrate more on textures. its an area that's really tough for me, since i started working, i've started to really work with textures much more. its hard and frustrating for me, as i feel that i'm much more inclined to building geometry, but its a huge part of real time production. alright man, take it easy.