Teddy Mundy's GDC Recap

Post date: Mar 17, 2017 9:38:2 AM

I went to GDC for the full week this year, rather than just going for the expo days like I did last year. This year was really an incredible experience, and I ended up learning a lot about myself (however cheesy that may sound!) over the course of the week!

Day One:

This day was mostly spent in the Art Direction Roundtable’s talks. On that really struck me was the very first one, called “Pantalones: What I wish someone told me before I was an Art Director”. The whole talk was mainly about how tons of people, even those in high positions, are impacted by impostor syndrome. The speaker in question became an art director on a project his company was working on, and initially he felt unqualified and unable to lead. He realized that he was capable of leading when he, on a spur of the moment, started to use the word “Pantalones” as a greeting / goodbye term, and once others started using it as well, he understood that he was leading them, in a way. While that is pretty silly, he also had a lot of great advice about leadership that he learned about during his time as an art director. All of those points can be boiled down into a couple of thoughts -

You need to delegate tasks to those below you, but do not micromanage those same people

Giving people ownership of their tasks makes people happy - even if they do the work not the same way you would have done it

Directors give direction, not solutions

These points really hammer home the idea that you are not telling those below you exactly what to do, but instead leading them to a better result while still allowing them to do their own work. Another really great point was -

Art Directors are not your best artists, and shouldn’t be

I hadn’t had this perspective on the art career line before, in that it actually has two directions - one going in the senior / principal artist direction, and the other going into the leadership direction, into positions like Art Director. This kind of thought is actually reasonably new, whereas before a lot of artists were “promoted” into director positions that they did not want to do, since they wanted to do art itself instead. Overall, this was a great talk.

Day Two:

The most notable part of Tuesday, to me, was the parties in the evenings. One party in particular was the Polycount / Marmoset meetup, which was the first party I went to that night. My mentor, Eddy Ortega, gave me the tip before going to GDC that I should treat the people I meet there as peers and friends, not as job opportunities. I really took this to heart, and I had a great time just meeting people and talking to them about who they were and what they do. I still did meet some great contacts, but I think that the experience I had was richer because I didn’t walk around at parties with my tablet out, begging people to look at my portfolio. In some cases, I may have underdone it, but I still think the conversations I had were great, and this carried on through the rest of GDC.

Day Three:

This was the first day I was demoing my thesis, and wow, this was an emotional rollercoaster. At 9:59 AM, I ended up accidentally unbuilding the building at the end of my level in an attempt to make it run more efficiently, which only make it irreversibly (at least at GDC) worse. So, I deleted the building, also known as the destination of my demo. I thought that it was going to go terribly, but it was a really great time to demo it for all of the different people that came by. I was meant to be there from 10:00 to 11:30, but I ended up staying until 1:30, just because it was so fun! I ended up doing the same thing the next day as well.

Day Four:

On this day, I actually spent some time going around and talking to different booths about their work, and getting my portfolio looked at. What surprised me then was the reception that my work got, most notably on the shaders side. I was explaining the different working parts of the Bark shader I have for my trees, and they said I should definitely make a breakdown of it to show off - I thought it was nothing too special. Sometimes, in the Ringling Bubble, being middle-of-the-road can be disheartening, but a middle-ground Ringlinger can still be pretty impressive to a lot of people. So, this one taught me, don’t be scared! Put yourself out there!

I also learned another thing on this day, which was a culmination of what I had learned from that days Art Direction Roundtable, combined with the advice of many I talked to at parties on Tuesday, and also talking to developers on the floor. Up to this point, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, aside from just “3D Art, I suppose”, and I really didn’t know what kind of company I wanted to work at. However, I have discovered that I definitely want to work at a smaller studio, and I would in particular really like to work at Survios, if I can manage to land something there. Having a goal and a direction is both heartening and terrifying, because while I have something to aim towards, I also have a target that is possible to miss - but I won’t know if I don’t try!

Day Five:

I spent the last day pretty casually, not really rushing to any talks or long lines for portfolio review. I went and tried some things on the expo floor, and demoed my game for the last time. After that, I helped Jim, Holly, and Collin tear down the booth. That whole process, and seeing the expo floor that I had seen get built up not 3 days earlier being torn down again, made me rather sentimental. The whole experience of GDC this year was full of affirmation, fun, and meeting great people, and I could not have hoped for a better experience. I’m even more excited to graduate and finally make my way into the games industry!