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Post date: Mar 20, 2015 4:29:33 PM
For my first time at GDC, I was lucky enough to be accepted into the CA program. Personally, its definitely the way to go. There are a lot of cool people in the CA program and overall just a great experience.
The very first day was an interesting experience. The CAs have a mentorship program where other CAs in the industry will talk to us about portfolios and resumes. This was really interesting because the first day, a lot of what they told us was about specialization. Specializing in something will give you a huge advantage because (based on what I was hearing) a lot of companies like to hire based on those. However, when you actually start working, your job is more generalized. So having a specialized skill can get you in the door where you can then start working on more generalized things.
The second day at GDC, again we had another session of the mentor program. This day was for mock interviews, portfolio reviews, and resume reviews. This might have been the most helpful of the days. I want to working in lighting, so thats what I was telling people. A lot of the advice that I got back was to focus on lighting and not so much the environments. Or at least leading a player through the environment through lighting. One of the problems with my lighting portfolio too was the fact that a lot of the textures were killing my nice lighting. Basically, lighting isn't just about the lighting. You need to go in-depth for materials and textures.
On Wednesday, everything got really crazy. Working it, there wasn't so much time on the busiest day of the conference to see many talks. However, a lot of the CAs did some interesting networking in our group. This was the day that most of my networking was done. The CA lounge was on the 3rd floor of West Hall. A lot of past CAs showed up this day wanting to talk to us. A couple from Areananet gave us a private talk where they informed us that even if you're not looking for a job, or for a job that is open, you can still send in your portfolio. He told us that he loved getting them and looking through them. And if he couldn't help then he'd find someone that could. This was interesting because I never thought that someone would take the time to send someones stuff to someone who could help.
Thursday was another crazy day. I talked to several companies and a lot of them said the same things. Don't worry about polycount, just make the most badass thing you can. While not great for in game, I found this a really motivating thing. Just trying to get the best looking piece makes a lot more sense to me then getting the best looking piece for a lot more work. You're trying to show off how good you are, not how you can make something not so great look ok (not that that isn't important but for a nice portfolio piece, I feel like its a destructive attitude).
Friday was the best. I went to a talk about interior design in game design. I learned a whole lot and I can't wait to put everything I learned into use. Here are my notes from it: Interior design is a must. Deals with the entire space, not the 2D composition. Free moving camera needs interior design. Order, enrichment, and expression (mood). Must express the people that exist there. Order- orientation. A pattern. Pattern as in the pattern of the space. Orientation - identity, structure, or meaning. Define the space. Literal space. The walls, ceiling, and floor. Having something to help orient the player. Implied space. Different things in the space. So like floor tiles, level differences in a floor, or material differences. Enrichment. Elevating the experience. Making it more interesting. Approachability. We like a high complexity in a space (but not too high. Just riiiiiiight). People like naturalist spaces. We like to break down things visually. Breakdown patterns. It's fun! Legibility. Our ability to separate the space. Coherence. Patterns in a space. Repeating elements. Mystery. Want to investigate a space. One of the best. People want to investigate it. They might know it's not the best idea. Bit people WANT to know. Enrichment. Manipulation of enclosing spaces. Shape change. Unexpected space. Caves are great at manipulation of enclosing spaces. Surfaces articulation. Patterns (material) can enrich and environment. Not too busy but enough to move the environment. Special composition. No order is just chaos which is not good. Too much order is boring. Special composition can separate a room. Novelty. Something impactful and awesome. Too much novelty can be bad. People won't notice it. Tension. Space opening or widening. Gradually or abruptly releasing or building tension. Expression. How we deal with the mood. The broad idea of the space. World, inhabitant, and symbolism. Historical expression. How does the space express its history. Can you see when the space was made through the space. Cultural expression. A culture will have a very clear expression. Inhabitant expression. Who exists there affects the space. Their identity. An attitude the person has. Who they think they are and who they want to be. Sophistication, how much they appreciate something. Self presentation. How much they want you to see. Symbolism. Ascending and descending. Admittance and refusal. Ascending feels like a heavenly experience. Descending would be opposite. If you want someone to come into a space, welcome them. Inviting lights and open doors. Opposite would be chains on a door. The objects in a space can say a lot. Shaping interior space (Roberto J. Rengel). Read the book! Check out architecture and city planning. Sarah 101 and pure design.
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