GDC 2017 - Poji C.

Post date: Mar 17, 2017 6:43:27 PM

Even with this being the second year at GDC I was still unprepared this time around (chalk it up to al side-effect of juggling between two disciplines). By arriving earlier with a few hours to spare, it allowed us to settle down and plan out what to do later in the evening. WIth exhibitor privileges this time, we were able to check out the expo as it was being built alongside the Ringling booth that needed to be set up. It was interesting seeing that a lot of booths did not seem close to ready even though it was about to turn dark.

First up was the Polycount Mixer which turned out to be very crowded with students for the most part (starts to become the theme of the whole trip). It was very much unlike last year in which there were developers around the place just starting up conversations with anyone right when you make eye contact. We then moved onto the GitHub mixer which was a much quieter place where you can actually talk to people. It was a great warm up to the event as throughout the night it turned into a bit of a mini-Ringling Alumini meetup. We did end up running into our mentor; Ignacio, and caught up a bit with how things were going and what went down throughout last semester. It was a nice chance to talk to some of the older graduates that were pre-2013 and seeing how things were outside of school life.

On the next day things were starting to ramp up as it was the opening of the expo floor, or simply put the main event. This year things were definitely very jumbled up compared to the last. WIth both the North and South Hall having active recruitment made jumping around slightly confusing. With the Crystal Dynamics event being set very early on during the main conference, the only thing to do was scout out the floor and see how it feels compared to last years.

The Crystal Dynamics event was interesting in the sense that it was essentially the equivalent to a recruiting booth in the event but has a fairly larger location. I was able to talk to an environment concept artist which was a great start to the whole event as it did start the overarching conversation of what to actually do to compete in the field of concept when it comes to specific higher end studios. It then harps back to the idea of do you have a little bit of everything with a strong suit, or just go all out with your speciality. To be more specific it is the notion of do concept artists who lean more towards characters have to do environments? This subject matter is very dependant on the studio itself and would later on be reaffirmed a few times. The most important thing that was I think was brought up was to be conscious of your habits (related to art of course). What is the subject matter? Materials? Character types? Etc… This is simply being aware of how you would like to portray yourself as an artist. It is definitely a great eye opening talk in that sense and does also boil down to, more content is needed. This also sparked an underlying goal of the trip: Talk to someone from Bungie/ 343.

With the pass we had and ridiculous lines for the talks in the halls, it was nigh impossible to get into one without committing a for chunk of time. The rest of the event was yet again simply getting the feel for the place again (booth talks weren’t going anywhere so I saved it for later) and later on in the day was the Ringling Alumni event. This time around the event was much larger than last years with a fairly large amount of Alumnis. I was able to catch up with some Alumnis’ the previous night so I attempted to talk to those who I have not met yet. Fairly early on in the night I was pulled into a conversation with an Alumni from the early 2000s’ currently doing UI/ UX. It was cool to get a nod when I brought up the distinction between functional UI and non-functional UI (great field no one wants to get into). It was interesting to hear about the differences between the generations before us and how different things were back then. It was also then that I found out our school had some sort of mentorship program that I have not heard of (not the one we had for GA). Soon after our conversion one of her colleagues comes in and we had a great talk about all sorts of things. Her colleague was actually her mentor during her time at Ringling and he was from the generation that started ConceptArt.org and one of the few that went on to forming Massive Black. In terms of credentials and those colleagues of his, it was simply insane. What made it interesting though was how he talks more about aspirations beyond art. Once you make it, now what? These are the conversations that stand out from the norm when it comes to GDC as everyone is so focused on the art that all they end up doing is hauling their tablet everywhere. We also were invited to his studio for a tour so that was a first (Could probably go on forever talking about this meeting).

Thursday was simply the day to get 90% of the things out of the way. First on the agenda was Hi-Rez and that was another affirmation of “do what we do” if you want to work here deal. It sounds fairly obvious but when you do break down all the different studios, some are more straight forward than the others when it comes to “do what we do”. Since they are very character focused the task was simple, pick a mythological god/ being, and go (spoke to the art director of Smite). It was definitely interesting as I did find out that their position was basically the equivalent of a rolling application as they said they have enough content they need pushed out each month to be able to do so. That being said became a possible route to take as the path is very straightforward. Yet again I got a, go find Bungie/ 343.

With that completed it was then wandering to different booths and just seeing what is around this year. The Striker VR haptic gun was definitely a cool addition as I believe last year was their full body tracking hardware with people playing basketball to demo it. Talking to some of their staff it became clear that it was them wanting create experiences as not so much of a full game. In a way it was almost comparable to the mobile industry on how quickly the industry is gaining traction in terms of investors and consumers (definitely less than mobile due to barrier to entry). I was also able to talk to the CTO of sketchfab which was an insightful talk in terms of what could possibly be next for them. They were pushing their efforts onto the mobile side of things to make it easily accessible for ease of use and the even more interesting one is the VR version of sketchfab. The selling point was the idea of scale in which we would now have complete control over. It makes it so that the viewer would be able to get closer to experiencing what the piece on display was designed to be when it comes to bringing it to life. This however may take a while as they are still running into stability in its fps.

Going back to the staple of the expo floor was the Substance booth. They again emphasized on the idea of tileable textures and masks, or simply put master material systems. It is amazing to see the amount of people who under utilize this or simply do not even try it. The greatest thing that I got out of it personally was the update of non-additive layers in Painter which would save a lot of hassle when it comes to order of layers. The rest of the day was a blur but some of us managed to drop by the realtimeVFX party which was a nice change of pace. As the name suggests about 95% of the people there were VFX artists and it was interesting to hear them talk and try to convert us into FX people. (side note, Cliffy B was there). We also had a chance to talk to some developers from popcornFX which was something some of us touched on a while back. It was interesting to hear them talk about their stance in the industry as they are one of the few large third party VFX software developers and simply wanted to show off their work.

Friday was the last day and also the day a lot of people show up late due to the influx of highschool students. The main objective of the day was the killer portfolio panels review portion. In the line a standout conversation that I somehow ended up being a part of was about the VR/ Tech Art roundtable. It was interesting to hear the thoughts and the direction that Tech Artists are taking with VR being the hottest thing in the industry at the moment. For example the discussion of is IK tracking for elbows and such even worth pursuing? With all the other possibilities, is such a nuanced thing that important to send so much time on? The idea became a balance of money and time amongst other things. Much of the talk boiled down to how Tech Art is just a route people fall into when heavy amounts of critical thinking and puzzle solving comes in. Back to the review, the line-up had an artist from 343 industries in which I ended up queuing for and it was a great reaffirmation on what to do to get into a studio like 343 or Bungie. From the opposite side of the artist from Crystal Dynamics, the recommendation to get into somewhere like 343 or Bungie is to be the best at what you do. No need to cover other grounds unless you want to. We discussed other artists on the team and that is where the mixed bag of artists come from. In terms of what they look for when hiring it does become vague as you would be hard pressed to find the work of a jr artist who got into the studio.

Some points to take away as there is simply too many things that could be elaborated on:

• • Do your research on studios to get the most out of your conversations.

  • Be somewhat selective with what you are lining up for. Spending 2 hours in line for a “this looks good” is counter productive.

  • Do tailor your work to studios and definitely try to find example portfolios of those jr artists who make it in. and side note from last year: be realistic. E.g. chances of a weird high fantasy game is very low due to risks. Only certain companies can afford to invest in such an IP.

  • VR industry is turning into smaller companies trying to get the best “experiences” rather than a definitive VR software/ platform.