Jason Chisolm GDC 2018

Post date: Mar 30, 2018 4:15:14 PM

Monday: This was the first day of GDC so it was a summit day. The animation bootcamp was held that day so there were a lot of really interesting talks ranging from animation techniques, to animation theory. Some of the more interesting talks covered areas outside of art such as failure and mental health. The two most important talks saw were, A talk by Super Giant’s 3D artist where he went over the pipeline and the animation bootcamps lighting talks about failure. The first talk by Super Giant was a really cool in depth look at their pipeline, and how they make 3D models work in a 2D engine. They essentially just render models from preset cameras and turn them into really detailed and high fidelity sprite sheet this is then composited into the engine. Learning more about the pipeline was fascinating as I think Super Giant has some of the best overall art direction in games currently, with each of their releases being visually stunning in their own ways. The most important info to be gained from this talk was the importance of being self reliant and accountable. The speaker is currently the only 3D artist so he had to establish his own pipeline and methodologies, but this also means no one else can help him and if something breaks he needs to be the one to fix it. As someone who’s just about to enter the workforce it got me to thinking about how important this skill is if I someday want to work on a smaller project.

The next series of talks I thought were probably the best series I saw while at GDC. Failure was the theme for all the lightning talks, lightning talks are short form talks with a set time and there were about 9 during the panel. These talks covered various types of failure, ranging from failure to create quality content, failure to move forward in a career, failure to grow, failing yourself, as well as how to deal with and overcome failure. As a student failure is a very hard subject to come to terms with. The curriculum is so fast paced and stressful already that failure seems like a death sentence, so it was really neat to see industry professionals speak about the importance of failure. Failure isn’t something that should be scary, it should just be part of the artistic process. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up for failing at something new because after all it’s new to us we shouldn’t really set expectations too high. These talks really made me excited to start being more experimental with my art and inspired me to just try out new things and fear failing less.

At the end of the day I managed to meet up with some old coworkers which was nice.

Thursday: BOOTH DAY! Thursday was a long day at the booth, we had the later shifts that day so things were a bit slow, but overall it was a really great experience. Showing off the game was a really great way to get feedback and highlighted some minor tweaks that should be made to improve the project as a whole. Working the booth was also a really great way to make connections because people came to you instead of having to rapidly pursue others. I met some of the team behind Battlerite, and some recruiters from other companies such as Rockstar. I also managed to meet some people who have been following keeper’s development through twitter so it was really cool to have them play through it. This experience has made me more interested in developing small titles and developing my skill set so i can create small experiences and share them.

Later that night was the Blizzard Mixer where I was able to meet up with a bunch of the warcraft team, including VFX artist, the art manager, and the art director for the game. It was really nice to be able to meet them before I fly out to Blizzard as part of the contest. This was a really nice experience because it’s always fun to speak with other VFX artist and learn more about their process and how it compares to my own.