GDC Experience 2015

Post date: Mar 21, 2015 1:24:57 AM

Tuesday, March 10, 2015, I began my journey to my first ever Game Developer's Conference.  This was also my first time visiting Northern California and the city of San Francisco.  I had a vague idea of what to expect and was ready to take in all the conference and city had to offer: awesome art, awesome people and sushiritto.

Wednesday began with me and my hotel roommates picking up our name tags, and realizing just how expansive GDC was.  I scoped out the career center, scanned through the events on the GDC apps and peaked into the expo floor.  Needless to say, I was a overwhelmed.

I spent Wednesday getting portfolio reviews from lead artists at Creative Assembly, War Gaming, and Sony Playstation.  Some reviews were more insightful than others, for example, the guys at Sony Playstation took the time to look through and give me advice on what aspects I could improve on in my work and presentation by creating more dynamic lighting, organizing contact sheets and including some detailed zbrush sculpts.  However, some reviewers only briefly skimmed through my work and sent me along my merry way.  All in all, it was amazing meeting people and getting feedback, but I would definitely not waste time standing in long lines for busy people to rush through my work.

There was also an Internship Program Talk by Sony Playstation that was to let people know of their internship opportunities.  It was useful in getting some information on how the internship is run, and some general tips on how to apply (writing cover letters, portfolios, etc.).

Thursday, I started the day off by hitting the booths with shorter lines for portfolio reviews.  I hit up Nexon, Glu, and High Voltage booths early in the day.  At this point, I decided it was time to wander off and explore what the Expo floor had to offer.

I started by heading to the Epic Games booth.  There, they were demoing a game on Unreal Engine 4, Adrift.  The player takes the role of an astronaut navigating a wreckage in zero gravity while monitoring their oxygen levels and piecing together what happened that caused the incident.  The game utilizes UE4's strengths in lighting and reflections to create a beautiful and suffocating environment in the vacuum of space.  The other piece they were demoing was their open world environment, which consisted of 100 square miles of navigable space and fluid character animation, all beautifully rendered in their engine.

I managed to bump into an Art Director of Epic Games, and he took the time to review my portfolio.  This was one of the most insightful reviews I received.  He managed to tear apart each and every piece of my portfolio and explained how I could make it better.  It was fantastic.

Allegorithmic was demoing their software, Substance Designer, at their booth.  Substance was shown being integrated with Mizuchi rendering engine to do high quality real time PBR rendering.  The program was shown creating materials through combining textures to create masks to minimize memory usage, and utilized a layers based workflow instead of a node based interface.  This was shown to create easy to change materials on the fly.

Cry Engine was also demoing their tech in collaboration with Oculus Rift, the company developing the up and coming virtual reality headset.  It was my first time trying out the Oculus Rift and it was amazing.  The introduction of depth perception with motion tracking really brings another level of immersion that I never experienced before, and would definitely recommend trying out.

Friday was spent at the Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer talk by lead artists from Epic, Fireaxis, 343, and Visceral.  After the talk, I spent the afternoon waiting in line for a portfolio review from the artist at Fireaxis.  Below are my notes from the talk:

•  Doing the work is the most important part

  • always be hungry

  • always be creating new work

  • Start with a pretty picture, then break down callouts

    • show though process

  • Demo reels only for VFX artists and animation

  • ONLY show your best work

    • edit out all the moderate stuff

  • each piece has to tell a different story of equal strength

  • don't feel compelled to put things in our portfolio because you can do them

    • put it in only if it is GREAT

• GOOD TASTE IS KEY

  • Show the ART; forget the tool

    • "If you are a good artist, we will teach you the tools" -Wyeth Johnson, Epic Games

  • Every piece has to satisfy all aspects that make it good

    • "this piece focuses on mod kit" will NOT fly

  • Art test

  • go above and beyond

    • ask for feedback halfway through

    • tests are for everybody

    • opportunity to show you can do the company's style

  • stay away from iterations of current company work (fan-art)

  • in the face of rejection, ask "why?" to learn from it

  • have an online presence

    • don't be a dick

Overall, the experience was amazing.  I got to meet a lot of amazing artists from all over the world including Korea, China, Latin America, and more, and it was just the thing I needed to get me pumped for the upcoming year.

I did not get to try sushiritto though.