GDC 2013 Spencer Curtis

Post date: Apr 01, 2013 1:16:51 PM

The GDC 2013 Highlights

Spencer Curtis

This year at GDC there was a lot of cool stuff to look forward to. There was the public unveiling of virtual reality’s first step: the Oculus Rift, another amazing Epic UE4 Demo that got us all excited for the new technology, some great talks revealing the process and decisions made in a few of last years most memorable games, the opportunity to see the public’s reaction towards this years’ work in the GAD department first hand, and of course a handful of great companies with job openings waiting for talent to step up to their booth on the Career Pavilion.

_____________________________________________Talks and Speakers_____________________________________________

This year followed suit of the usual GDC schedule and left me conflicted with which talks I would go to. There were a lot of great candidates and some I regret not making it to. Here are the ones I attended:

“Creating Amazing Characters” with Scott C.

“Sand Rendering in Journey” with John Edwards

“The Art Direction of DmC Devil May Cry” with Alessandro Taini

“Building the Touchy-Feely World of Tearaway”

“Killer Portfolio of Portfolio Killer” with 5 Lead Artists

“The Art of Journey” with Matt Nava

“Designing the 100+ Characters of Infinity Blade”

“Ten Principles for Good Level Design” with Dan Taylor

My favorite talks were “Creating Amazing Characters” with Scott C., “Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer,” and “Ten Principles of Good Level Design” with Dan Taylor. Something each of these talks had in common was how well the speakers communicated to the audience their ideas. Scott C. for example did a great job making the audience feel a part of something with the way he would constantly end his sentences with “you guys” and his relaxed and humorous method of speaking. He had some insightful thoughts about how characters are made and how it’s important to start out with drawings you don’t fear will be thrown away. He said that he’d usually go through thousands of iterations for just one character in some cases and that only once had he nailed the drawing right off the bat.

Wyeth, the Art Director from Epic, was one of the speakers on “Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer” who stood out the most with his level of excitement and passion. Every time he chimed in everyone in the audience would go still with hard-working ears to make sure that every drop of knowledge he had to offer was thoroughly listened to and catalogued in their minds. He mentioned that everyone who is at epic had to go through an art test whether they were a student or a veteran from Naughty Dog. That is their policy and they do it to make sure they know what kind of a worker you are, because while an image in a portfolio may be beautiful, it doesn’t tell you how long the person took to work on that image and that is key to separating out the artists that can work diligently and fast but maintain the necessary level of quality in their work.

The last talk had my attention the whole way through without a slight falter due to Dan Taylor’s astounding stage presence. Charming accent aside, Dan had an amazing way of presenting that came off as a Moses-loving man with ample amounts of knowledge to share from his many years in the industry. His 10 principles for what makes a good level design were thought provoking and entirely applicable to most games made in the past and being made in the present. These three speakers go down as my favorite that I had the pleasure of listening to this year. I’m definitely going to search around to see if I can find anything else they’ve written or lectured on.

_____________________________________________Our Booth_____________________________________________

        This GDC the Ringling booth made passerby’s stop and gawk at the work on the big screen. I am incredibly proud of all of the amazing work our major has produced this year. Time and time again while I was either volunteering at the booth or stopping by to visit there would come GDCers who would ask about the work being shown on the big screen (great investment by the way). They would second guess me when I told them it was student work or how many students worked on a single project, or even how long it took them.

One particular student I won’t forget came up to me and made me reiterate that yes, it was all student work and yes, even the animation seen was done by the students. I got a teacher from a college come up to me and ask me what our school does to produce this work so I told him and his response was to say “amazing,” leave, then come back with another teacher from the same school and proceed to stare at the TV for 10 more minutes. All in all I would say our school made a fairly large impact on the expo floor for being just a college booth.

_____________________________________________Career Pavilion_____________________________________________

This time around in the Career Pavilion was far more enjoyable than I remember last years being. Though there seemed to be a considerably less amount of companies to pick from this year, the feedback I received from them was all very positive, optimistic, and extremely helpful for moving forward with my portfolio and future projects. From what I could gather it sounded like I was in good standing to find a job by the time I’m ready to graduate next year. I could tell that the artists enjoyed my work with the majority of the critiques I got being fine tuning things like tweak the lighting or cut some polys off that model or make a different rock.

One insightful thing I pulled away from the Career Pavilion would be to not go back to back to back one after another with your friends if their work looks similar to yours. The person reviewing your stuff will probably lose interest or think you aren’t original. This is something I saw coming but did anyways because there were so few companies to go to this year. I wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you want to stand out and gain the attention of someone you want to be hired by.

Overall, the Career Pavilion was a success in judging where I am at and where I will be next year. I didn’t get any job offers, or anyone blatantly itching to have me as an intern on the spot or take an art test, but I’m hoping that may come in an email format. After gaining multiple contacts from various companies, I have emailed and filled out a few applications so hopefully something will come forth in the next few weeks. I know a few of my classmates got fantastic offers and opportunities while at GDC. The fact that the same didn’t happen to me can be a little discouraging but I will as always keep my head up and look for more opportunities that can come my way.