My career story so far - Page 5 - Simply Maya User Community

# 61 07-07-2011 , 05:13 AM

Head of 3d Admedia
Join Date: May 2007

Location: nairobi , ken-ya

Posts: 1,340

Murambi: You have done some modelling for games?

Originally Posted by

Yup here is a screen grab of the main character and a link for the screen shots of the game (and yes it looks terrible)

Sorry Mike for Hijacking your thread

https://www.gamershell.com/pc/adventu...reenshots.html

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# 62 07-07-2011 , 01:39 PM

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Join Date: Jul 2008

Location: Chelmsford, Essex, UK

Posts: 1,162

That looks just fine Murambi. I wanna know more. Will pm you.

And yes, sorry Mike. That road trip sounds so great.I visited L.A last year, and drove up the Pacific Coast Highway. Did the first half one day, from the southern tip to Huntingdon Beach area, and then from there up through Malibu and up towards the hills the next. When it started going back inland, there were just fields all around and I felt like I was in a movie or something, wanted to do a Forest Gump and just keep on going.
Am jealous of your road trip. And with a job at the end of it. That's excellent user added image

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# 63 09-07-2011 , 03:39 AM

The Maya Mountain
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Posts: 8,245

Had my last day at Zombie Studios today. Next week: I start as a Content Creator for InfiniteZ!

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 64 18-07-2011 , 10:12 AM

To sleep, to dream, maybe... to???
Join Date: Dec 2009

Location: In my world

Posts: 24

Had my last day at Zombie Studios today. Next week: I start as a Content Creator for InfiniteZ!

Originally Posted by mtmckinley

How is the new job turning out? user added image

~MG~

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# 65 20-07-2011 , 09:26 PM

The Maya Mountain
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Posts: 8,245

So far so good, thanks. user added image

----------------------------------------------------------------

Year 7 2006 (continued)

Buzz Monkey was a great studio to work for. They took employee appreciation very seriously and made sure that everyone was well taken care of and that there were plenty of fun things to do on a regular basis. While it wasn't fun-fun-fun 24/7, they did enough that made it feel like a more close-knit team then it could have been with such a large number of people. For instance, they had a semi-regular outdoor fun day on a Saturday where they would team up and compete in a Nerd version of a Decathlon. Instead of crazy Olympic events, there'd be Frisbee golf or bowling. They also had a company-wide retro game tournament where the winners would get prizes. Things like that. Not to mention that with every shipped title, they held a Ship Party like I mentioned before. They'd give tokens of appreciation to all of the team members, and even better, with nearly every shipped title, you'd get a small salary increase. All sorts of things made Buzz Monkey a great studio to work in.

For NFL Street, after completing my warehouse "stadium" I was tasked with another stadium set in Alcatraz. However after a week or so, it was scrapped. I then got tasked with making another stadium set on the island of Catalina. It was actually going pretty well and I had it mostly completed when I got the news that instead of making the field for the PS2, it should be converted to the PSP. The PSP, at that time, wasn't as powerful as it is today as Sony had yet to "unlock" the system's capabilities. So I was forced to scrap a lot of the work on my Catalina field and it didn't really turn out that great.

That was the only real art I made for NFL Street 3, as the rest of the time, I was porting other people's fields from their PS2 versions to the PSP. As an artist, you might can understand that it's not very desirable to work on someone else's stuff, but it's often required. I eventually ported every field to the PSP!

Next: Tomb Raider!

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 66 15-08-2011 , 03:57 PM

The Maya Mountain
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Posts: 8,245

Year 7 2006 (Continued)

After NFL Street 3, I immediately got reassigned to the Tomb Raider Anniversary team. They had already been working on the game for a good 6-10 months, having started on it pretty soon after Tomb Raider Legend. Buzz Monkey was working with Crystal Dynamics to create the game, just as they had done with Legend. Crystal worked on the majority of the game design and characters, while we did most of the levels and all of the port work to other platforms, such as the... sigh.... PSP. I should also mention that we ported the game to the Wii and redid all of the characters ourselves to work with the Wii's much different graphics limitations. My buddy Jon Rush did a lot of that work.

As for me, I was 99% of the time porting the main PS2 levels to work with the PSP, much like I had done with Street 3. There's not a lot to say about it really. I pretty much ported about 50% of the game to the PSP. This isn't as easy as simply saving a file to another file format. I had to go through and decrease the polycounts of everything by a significant factor as well as create new, smaller textures to create the same effects as the larger game.

For the main game, I created myself 2 environments from scratch. A small underwater tunnel and a very large cave environment. I also created the art for a Challenge map that was eventually cut from the game. The cave and challenge map can be seen in my website portfolio for those interested.

It was during this time that I met my wife. user added image

We dated long-distance for over a year and eventually, I knew that my time at Buzz Monkey had to end. I started looking for a job closer to her and, one day, found one!

Year 8 2007

After about 8 months of working on Anniversary porting the game to the PSP, I sent in my two weeks notice and prepared to move to Washington, one state north of my location in Oregon. I had gotten a job at a small casual game startup. It was risky, but it got me to where I wanted to be... with my future wife!

NEXT: Casual games!?

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 67 15-08-2011 , 04:03 PM

The thin red line
Join Date: Aug 2009

Location: England

Posts: 4,472

You old romantic, that story nearly touched my blacken heart, nearly.........LOL.......dave

Avatar Challenge Winner 2010

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# 68 26-08-2011 , 12:17 PM

To sleep, to dream, maybe... to???
Join Date: Dec 2009

Location: In my world

Posts: 24

Alright! the man got his cake and eat it to! Way to go!

~MG~

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# 69 26-08-2011 , 05:53 PM

The Maya Mountain
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Posts: 8,245

Year 8 (continued) 2007

In July of 2007, I bid adieu to Buzz Monkey Software and started the process of moving to the Seattle area. I began working for iWin, Division 90. iWin is a casual games hub, similar to Big Fish Games. Division 90 was a new content team they started. It was a small team, composed of 6 people including myself. I was to be the Senior Artist and would be creating the brunt of the 3D work. Not too long after I was hired, we hired a bunch of interns to do the "grunt work."

Div90's game was Garden Defense, a tower defense game for the casual games market. An army of insects were swarming gardens all over the neighborhood and it was up to you to place an array of insect-eating plants as well as repelling gadgets to stop them. Such gadgets included the bazooka-toting garden gnome and the quicksand-creating cherub statue fountain.

It was a fun little game and I enjoyed my time working on it. I created all of the insects, plants, and gadgets in the game. The other artist on the team (my art director) created all of the background gardens. We managed to get it done in about 6 months.

(You can play it free if you want, from iWin's site.)

Around late November, we started brainstorming new ideas for our next project. I was enjoying the camaraderie of a small team again and actually creating art, even though the art wasn't super complicated or at all pertinent to the hardcore market. After a week or so of thinking up ideas, in early December, we got the news.

We were all laid off.

To put it mildly, this was a shock. It was the first time I was laid off with no warning or even any thought of the possibility. I was getting married in two months! I had just bought a house a few months ago! Christmas is coming! What am I going to do?

NEXT: Zombies! No foolin'!

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 70 31-08-2011 , 12:48 AM

To sleep, to dream, maybe... to???
Join Date: Dec 2009

Location: In my world

Posts: 24

Bring it on man, A zombie invasion is a reason for me to put on my shades. user added image

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# 71 31-08-2011 , 05:03 PM

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Join Date: May 2011

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Just a quick question, extending on the Age factor,

I'm at Glyndwr University, Wales (UK) in my third year of a degree in Sound Recording and Live Performance Technology, which including college makes this my 5th year studying audio 'sciences'. Each summer I've been dipping my toe into different areas I find interesting, for example the summer between College and University I taught myself some basic electronics and began to build and sell my own effects pedals, and last summer I learned Kontakt Scripting and started selling my own sample-based instruments for Kontakt 4 from my blog.

As you may be able to guess this summer it's learning 'how to make games'. A bit broad? Hells yes! I started at Source SDK, just terrible, then UDK, watched something like 60 tutorials on how to use that, and now I'm pretty fluent with it. Then I realised I needed to start creating my own stuff. UnrealScript? Sounded too advanced for me, so I did some (very) basic C++, and I didn't like it very much at all. I then moved onto UnrealScript to see if I was any better with that. I managed to make my own gametypes and pawns etc in UDK, but progress was slow, perhaps just not a coding kinda guy?

So I started on learning to create good quality assets for games, and it's this that I enjoy the most out of the process. In fact, after having been practicing for a couple of months I can see myself doing this as a job, I really enjoy it, and at the risk of sounding like a cocky teenager, I think I'm rather good at it!

The problem is I'm educated in audio, and I'm 22! And so the spectacularly long-winded question I put to you is; have I started too late?

Martin.

(PS. Got your 'Game Environments and Props' book Mike, absolutely brilliant! The CV Curve tool thing you show right at the start has come in handy more times than I can count!)

(PPS. Here's my model for Chapter 3. Thought you might be interested user added image

)

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# 72 01-09-2011 , 06:33 PM

The Maya Mountain
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Posts: 8,245

Nice job!

22 is definitely not too late. If you are able to create a portfolio that is good quality, a school degree isn't even required. The vast majority of employers only care about the quality of work you can produce. If you can produce quality, who cares if you have a sound degree? That just means they can come to you for sound as well, which just makes you that much more useful.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 73 01-09-2011 , 11:22 PM

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Location: New Orleans, LA.

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Wanted to take a moment and thank you for the time you spent detailing your journey. Great read, and quite inspiring. I am just getting my feet wet in all of this, and I would have to think my situation is a bit "un-common"- I was hooked, like yourself, after seeing the premiere of Jurassic Park. (I am 34). Thing is, while I am , by most accounts, "too old" to start in on this as anything other than a hobby, my current occupation affords be TONS of time at home to study, practice, read, etc... (I am a professional musician, and my schedule only has me, 90% of the time, out on the weekends.) So I began, about a year ago, logging hundreds of hours in Cinema 4D, and eventually, Maya. (as well as learning to do post work in AE, PS, etc...)

I don't want to bore anyone, (or hijack your thread user added image

)- just wanted to say "thanks", and please do update as your career progresses. Nothing like doing what you love (and making a living doing it!) Cheers!

MBR

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# 74 01-09-2011 , 11:35 PM

Lead Modeler - Framestore
Join Date: Feb 2003

Location: UK

Posts: 6,287

MBR77

never to late mate...to put it into perspective....I recently had a Junior texture guy on my team....he was 40 years old

J

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# 75 01-09-2011 , 11:38 PM

SM Tea Boy
Join Date: Apr 2002

Location: Prague

Posts: 3,228

@MBR777 jays right, I'm just slightly older than you and I still don't know what I want to be when i grow up user added image

Dave

From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

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