Next Generation Game Developers

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Next Generation Game Developers

• Michael Capps, Ph.D.
• President, Epic Games, Inc.

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Overview

• Epic and the Unreal Engine
• Merging into the fast moving industry
• Everything I know about how to get a job
• General thoughts that didnt fit
• Lots of Q A time

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Disclaimer I am not an artist
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but I can hire them!
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Epic Games

• Founded 16 years ago by CEO Tim Sweeney
• About 85 employees
• Early success with Jill of the Jungle and Epic
  Pinball
• Multiple hits in the Unreal and Unreal Tournament
  series
• Recently shipped Gears of War, the fastest and
  highest selling 360 title

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Epics Games
Unreal Tournament 3PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Gears of WarXbox 360
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What is the Unreal Engine?

• runtime and tools for making and shipping a game
• World building tools
• Particles, terrain, animation, physics, etc.
• UnrealScript and compiler
• Visual programming language
• Lip synching, voice recognition, etc.

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UE3 Games in Development

• A few licensees
• Activision
• Atari
• Bethesda Softworks
• Bioware
• Capcom
• Disney Interactive
• Electronic Arts
• EIDOS
• Gearbox Software
• Microsoft Game Studios
• Midway

• NC Soft
• Real Time Worlds
• Sony Online
• Square Enix
• Take Two
• THQ
• Ubisoft
• US Army
• Vivendi
• Webzen

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Cool video of the Unreal Engine

• Goes here.
• (Please work.)

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Overview

• Epic and the Unreal Engine
• Merging into the fast moving industry
• Everything I know about how to get a job
• General thoughts that didnt fit
• Lots of Q A time

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The industry moves fast
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The industry moves fast
2,000,000 polys 12,000 base 2x 2048 textures
560 polygons 4x 256 textures
2,500 polygons 2x 1024 textures
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The industry moves fast

• Tools evolve just as quickly
• So build your traditional art toolset too
• Lighting, anatomy, color
• Game cinematics started out very gamey
• Now apply traditional film techniques throughout
  production
• Century of perfectly good ideas on how to evoke
  audience response
• Show videos

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The industry moves fast

• Be prepared to evolve
• Its easy to get stuck in your ways
• Remember 2D RTS games?
• Some artists refused to learn 3D
• Theyre out of the industry
• Or worse, making mobile phone games -(
• High poly / normal maps were scary too
• Dont be that guy who refuses to learn ZBrush

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The industry moves fast

• Epics engineers used to make sexy graphics
• Now they make tools so artists can make sexy
  graphics
• We expect artists to co-design these tools
• And co-design tools like 3DS max

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Artists must be technical

• Max normal maps and pelt mapping came from
  collaboration with our artists / coders

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Artists must be technical

• Everyone on the team must understand performance
• and shaders, lighting tradeoffs, platform
  specifics, etc.
• Even concept artists use max
• and think about what will work in a normal map,
  and perform well, and animate cleanly
• If you dont understand specular power, you cant
  be a game texture artist

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Epics Hiring Process

• Resume review by HR
• Resume review by experts
• HR phone call
• Skills Test
• Experts phone call(s)
• Reference checking
• On-site interview
• Background investigation

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Before you apply

• Consider picking a field thats needed
• Epic has 1 character modeler for every 8
  environment modelers
• and 1 concept artist for every 20 artists
• Its a good time to consider environment art!
• OMFG dont apply as art director right out of
  school

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But I only want to draw manga!

• Being specialized is important
• But overspecializing is dangerous
• (so is having an attitude about it)
• Games are cyclic, and our team is small
• If you are a one-trick pony you might be useless
  a few months out of the year

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Demonstrate Passion

• You wont succeed without passion
• So we look for this first and foremost
• Game focused extracurriculars / internships
• Make sure to take the game development course!
• Best examples are outside of the classroom
• Hobby projects are king
• Write a mod!

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A good resume

• Plenty of resources for this
• Dont forget to spell check
• Programmers who dont spell check probably dont
  test their code
• Artists who dont spell check probably dont ask
  peers to review their work

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A good portfolio

• Make it easy for us to see your talent
• For example, submit electronically!
• We are lazy!
• I still get reels on VHS tapes?!?
• Do multiple resolutions of videos
• Skip the turntable video and give a few extra
  renders

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A good portfolio

• Include only your best work
• Bad stuff hides the good stuff
• especially if something is funny-bad
• and if you send something weak we assume you
  don't know the difference
• or you don't ask for advice from peers / mentors
• Your portfolios job is to grab our interest so
  that we test you
• Remember the plastic report cover from 1st grade
• Its nice to have clean video editing, website
  design, etc., just credit appropriately

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Advice for Modeler/Texturers

• Learn 3DS Max!
• Small, good sample is best
• But be careful to not typecast yourself
• For Epic, high poly work wins these days
• Low poly is still an important skill
• But we need fewer manweeks of it
• And all our vets can do it
• Dont forget to include wireframes

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Advice for Animators

• Best stuff first! We finish maybe 10 of videos
• avoid the look how I improved video
• Show a cool animation that shows skill and
  creativity, with weight and emotion
• Did you see that reel with the
• easy on the box moving, please!
• cycles are okay but not a lot of them

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The on-site interview

• Your skills are good -- now its time to judge
  team fit
• Dress to make us comfortable
• Dont dress up. Dont dress weird.
• Its okay to be nervous
• just dont be weird nervous
• Be ready to talk with all sorts of people
• Have questions.

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The on-site interview

• What are we afraid of?
• that you wont work hard
• or that you will bail on us
• or that you are a jerk
• or that you secretly want to be a designer

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Interview psychology

• If you are nice and friendly, we will like you
• If you are respectful of our work, we will think
  you have good taste
• If you show excitement about working here, we
  will like you
• I like a company full of people who feel lucky to
  be there

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Interview psychology

• Say how youd love to learn from this talented
  team
• Say that at every interview, your whole life
• If you cant say it, dont work there

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After the interview

• Will he call me in the morning?
• Email a nice note the next day
• Not do you love me? but I had a nice time!
• Id love to learn from this talented team
• If you dont hear from us, wait 1-2 weeks and
  write again
• Stalking is bad!
• Dont email again unless you have a job offer or
  change in status

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General thoughts that didnt fit

• This industry is soooo small
• We have two degrees of separation to every game
  company in the world
• Dont lie about job offers
• You dont get lots of chances to screw up, so use
  them wisely

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General thoughts that didnt fit

• school is great
• but theyre usually 1-2 years behind industry
• and game shops are developing new tech
• so they might be 1-2 years ahead
• So talk to game developers online
• cgtalk, polycount, conceptart.org
• Post cool stuff and theyll give feedback
• Weve mentored students and then hired them upon
  graduation

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Summary

• Working in games is hard but so rewarding!
• Only try it if you are serious
• Even artists can use spel checker
• Make a cool mod!
• Make environment art
• Pay attention in naked people drawing class
• Hells yes were hiring!

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Closing slide
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Horizon Concept
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Horizon BSP Geometry
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Horizon First Playable
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Horizon Meshed
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Horizon Lit (Final)
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The skill test

• we will give you feedback just to see how you
  handle it
• you had BETTER take it
• you had better be fast
• don't lie, but do work a lot of late nights
• we measure the time in days, mentally, even if
  you give us hours

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Education

• don't get a master's degree, waste of time unless
  you want to teach
• - sadly, i saw a lot of people get an MS rather
  than face that they're
• not in the right field
• - this is called 'spending good money after bad'

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It goes both ways..

• Coders must evolve as well
• Epic started as 100 coders
• Five years ago, Epic was 50 coders
• Today its 25 coders
• And Epic is a top technology provider
• Next-gen budgets are all about content
• So if you want to work in the industry
• You BETTER MAKE ARTISTS HAPPY

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But I only want to do 2D cell animation by hand!

• And what if your specialty disappears?
• If we do hire someone with only one skill, we
  make them learn another one
• They must do this on their own time
• Why not do it now, on university time?

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How do I get a job?

• Epics hiring process
• Before you apply
• A good resume
• A good portfolio
• The on-site interview
• After the interview