Tag Archives: Train2Game work placement

Train2Game News: Ezekiel Morris Student diaries: Week 13

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Ezekiel Morris week 13

First of all I had a weeks holiday to catch up with stuff but in my spare time while I was away for the week and over the weekend I have been sculpting using Zbrush and Mudbox.

I was experimenting with both sculpting programs, I do like both programs but the ZBrush I find more useful. When I’m sculpting in Zbrush I sometimes don’t think what I’m creating, I just go with the flow. It’s the same with Mud box but I do prefer the ZBrush tools. You start off sculpting some random model then, in a couple hours it starts to morph into something else.

I always start off with a concept before creating something but I was in the flow. I didn’t know the short-cut keys in Zbrush or the sculpting tools but you can tell by looking at the small picture icons on the sculpt tools column, for example move, sculpt, smooth, flatten etc.

I’ve been watching some ZBrush tutorial videos and it has helped me a lot. I’ve been diligently working through my T2G course work, creating a concept sea creature, quick thumb nails sketches with silhouette pose and then filling the detail later.

OK back at Dr Studios, finishing off robot animation in flash, creating tick boxes using vectors and placing text in speech bubbles.

Train2Game News: Craig Moore Student diaries: week 43

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Craig Moore

Student Diary

Week 43

So, I must apologise for the radio silence as of late. With the combination of the upcoming Game Jam, my heavy concentration on Train2Game coursework and a consistently frantic day at work, occasionally things will slip my mind.

I blame my age, since I am now the oh-so lofty age of 30! I collect my pension soon …

So last time I left you I was heavy in to UI work and really learning Unity and getting to grips with the tech. Not much has changed to be honest; there is simply so much UI work that needs to go into games of this type that it’s a lofty job for anyone. That being said it is coming along very well, elements of the game are fully implemented with just some polish required and it’s actually becoming a product!

I was able to get a build on my phone, which is one of my favourite moments, to see it actually on device and I was very pleased. Taking all I had learnt from my work on Sea Park and how I feel I have naturally grown; really shows. It has made a much cleaner UI and it just generally feels much more accomplished. Each little icon I have been doing has become a little art piece in its self, it makes me incredibly proud whenever I can see these little things and how they look in the game. It’s those moments that remind you why you are doing this in the first place and why you have made the decision to follow this path!

As the first submission draws ever closer there is no let down on the work that needs doing, as each task generally leads to more tasks it often balloons before it gets completed. I foresee a few late nights as we go forward but it should make for a much better game and something I am genuinely excited to play myself!.

Hopefully I should be back rolling with proper updates after this weekend’s Game Jam, without that on my plate and my recent submission of coursework for Train2Game I have a little extra free time so things won’t slip.

Until next time!

Craig

Train2Game News for students

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There are many notes on the forum with a number of views as to how to apply for a work placement. The reality is THIS is how the placement scheme is operated.

First you should visit student world and look at the openings available. The information within Student World explains you should apply in writing saying why you think you should be considered for the opening. Your application should include a CV.

More here on the Forum

GOOD LUCK

Train2Game Student Diaries Ezekiel Morris Week 11

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Jonny and Ben had a leaving do on Friday so went out with them for a drink.

At work we had a meeting talking about the characters and texture for the characters in our new project, commonly the characters are bill boarded. We also discussed the characters having eyes instead of no eyes which I thought that was the style we were going for so change of plan. So that will be my next task to do sketching up character eyes

Conveniently I’m getting use to using Maya  but I still prefer 3ds Max  but people do say Maya is best  for animation, if it does the job and it works for the game engine  then go for it, particularly it’s straight forward with 3ds Max but it’s still good to learn other programs as well.

The programs I’m learning are Unity and Maya and I’m getting better every time I use them. This week I’ve been animating so there’s hasn’t  be anything different from the last task, since doing this work placement I’ve learned so much,  it’s starts off complicated  for a while and then you get used to the work system, now it’s as easy as pie.

www.train2game.com

 

Train2Game Student Diaries Craig Moore Weeks 37 and 38

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Week 37 – It’s all kicking off now!

This week we really have started on the new title full swing. Art is doing arty things, development is doing developy things and I’m getting to do a little bit of everything; which is lovely and just what I want to be doing.

Most the week I have been assisting Rory in just concreting a load of the design functionality and, particularly, social aspects of the game. We learnt so many things from My Sea Park that going in to this next project we feel much more confident as to what we are doing and it’s making the process much more concise.

I have also had to do some more changes and updates to a pitch document which has gone off to yet another magical destination in the ether! It’s very exciting seeing my documents go off to people, so far the feedback has generally been positive so I must be doing something right.

Other than that the next Game Jam is coming out of the wood work, and teams are being assigned. I got myself in the nice and high Team 32. It’s been a bit of a quiet reception so far and fingers crossed some coders will come out the woodwork as we won’t get very far in Metro without them.

Craig

Week 38 – Properly back in to the fray.

This week has been the first proper return to agile development and scrums for the team. Poor Rory has been neck deep in planning and attempting to foretell his way through a large project which is no simple feat considering everything that has to be taken into account.

In saying that, it is great to have a concrete list of things that need doing for the week and targets to aim for, despite working hard, there is something about a task list that pushes you towards the goal for the week so much stronger than simply having “stuff to do”.

Using new tech we do have a lot of unknowns, which do contribute to the uncertainty of time scales, but as a team we have overcome them successfully. It is Friday afternoon and I am 99% done on my tasks. The general idea is not to ever return to these once they are ticked off, but I think we might just pop our heads in to tweak from time to time as the project goes on, when things don’t quite match up or look slightly wrong. I’m not sure if that’s just because it’s possible to do or because it fits the nature of the project, but I like the ability to go back to things if they simply no-longer work/look good or I feel that there is a better way to do the task.

More next week I guess, it’s about to get a bit crazy in here!

Craig

www.train2game.com

Train2Game Student Diaries Ben Collings 16 – 27 July

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Monday 16th July 2012 – So turns out what I was trying to do with the extra detail just wasn’t needed in the end so I was able to quickly add it into all the levels done up till now.  Just need the lead designer to implement all the changes and make sure there’s nothing wrong.  There shouldn’t be but you never know when exporting to FBX, miss one little tick box and it can all go to hell!

Unfortunately the lead designer was busy with other tasks today so to avoid me twiddling my thumbs I was moved onto the same project Rod had been moved onto the other week.

Tuesday 17th July 2012 – Spent the day drawing up concepts for scenery items, that and trying to get to grips with the visual style of the game.

Wednesday 18th July 2012  – More concepting done today, working hard towards getting a game pitch document done.  Exciting times.

Thursday 19th July 2012 – I’ve got a four day weekend starting tomorrow so had to work extra hard to get all my components drawn up today, got it done and the pitch document went down well.

Friday 20th July & Monday 23rd July – Day off.

Tuesday 24th July – More concepting work, drawing scenery items till the cows come home it seems.

Wednesday 25th July – More concepting but not any scenery items this time, today was accessories!  Don’t think I’ve ever spent so long just doodling random items!

Thursday 26th July – Had to make some final little tweaks to the levels I’d been working on for the previous game.  Ended up taking up most of the day fixing them just lots of little tweaks, making sure things weren’t too close to each other and other similar tasks.

Friday 27th July – My final day of work experience.  It’s been a blast I’ve learnt a lot and I’ve even got my name into a couple of games!

www.train2game.com

Train2Game Student Diaries James Bouckley EMPLOYED BY UNITY!

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Train2game student James Bouckley has been on the T2G Work Placement scheme and has now found FULL TIME EMPLOYMENT – Well Done James!!!

James picks up the story:

Week 20 w/e 20/7/12

Why leave the good news until the end, I got a full time job at Unity!

This means my diary entries will be coming to a close soon but I’ll keep anyone who reads them updated until the end.  So apart from the amazing news had a fairly good week in terms of work done too.

In the game there was a bug where if all the spawn points for the enemies were on the camera at once then it threw and exception.  I fixed this by, if all of them were on the screen at once, the enemies spawn from the one furthest from the player.

Previously we had a system where power packs needed to be put on a dispensing machine whilst you fought off enemies.  When the energy of the machine was full it would dispense items.  I’ve changed it now so that instead there are waves of enemies and the last one you kill dispenses items.  There was also a fairly major memory leak in the script that made items between you and the camera invisible which I have now fixed and also made it so that multiple things at once can become invisible.

Aside from the game Graham has asked me to write a beginners guide to asset bundles.  I finished the first draft on Friday but I am yet to hear people’s opinions on it.

To sum up: new job! YES!

www.train2game.com

Train2Game Student Diaries Jonny Robinson Diary 27 July

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This is my last diary; on average I think I must have written about 10,400 words which is stupidly crazy. With DR Studios playing such a vital role in my career path, what can I really say to my colleagues, mentors and even friends besides the stereotypical crap of thank you…To me a thank you isn’t enough, it needs to have more worth than that. As selfish as this sounds my only true way to repay their wisdom is to teach people what I know, and make successful games along the way.

But I’m going to say it anyway thank you, thank you and thank you for helping me gain respect in being happy at work. I used to hate all of my previous jobs with a passion as I always felt like an outcast in the group, the dreamer, the lad who lived in his head and a guy who ranted on Youtube. If it wasn’t for any of those things, I wouldn’t be here today. I left school with terrible grades but this didn’t stop me one bit, I retook all of my modules, did online learning in my spare time whilst working full-time. I have slapped haters in the face with hard work and persevered with pure determination to make it into the game industry

Since being here I have attended Develop twice, once as a representative of Train2Game/DRS and the other was with Epic Games. I have won 48 hour game jams; I was the leader of the winning team of the Make Something Unreal Live 2012 winning the Unreal 3 licence. I have also got my name on at least 4 games and I have done it all with a smile on my face. Now do I think it will be easy out there in the cold and harsh world without DRS holding my hand; of course not but that hasn’t stopped me before and it won’t stop me now!

What would my advice be to anyone trying to make it into the game industry, just don’t ever stop dreaming and working hard to make your dream a reality and of course join Train2Game 🙂

So, with this being my final DR Studios diary I want to say to anyone who has followed my year long journey into the game industry, thank you and I will catch you on the flip side.

Here is my Portfolio www.jonnyrobinson.co.uk

and my Twitter http://www.twitter.com/ironcore1

if you want to keep in touch or just ask for some advice!

This is Jonny saying goodbye just for now

www.train2game.com

Train2Game Student Diaries Ezekiel Morris weeks 9 and 10

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Ezekiel Morris week 9

Working on a new project so it has been a busy week, we have till Wednesday to get this pitch document done in time so my task was to finish  off  five characters  in 3 days.

I ending up having to stay late with the guys who were collaborating on the project,  we discuss  about the art style to go forward, lucky enough  in my spare time  I  have done quick thumb nails sketches  at weekend then the guy at studio can decide which thumb nails are we going with.

So the first part was easy now  the next part was to  get  some feedback, the guys were loving the characters, I was copying the same art style from the original concept that rod had drawn.

Rod  is in charge of  art style  for this project, he’s shown me some tips  in Photoshop that can be handy to use to speed up my workflow, Anyway I was burning these characters so fast  if there  needs to be any changes I can then  go back to them later.

Staying late working till 10:00 but some Chinese food takeway on the side it’s all good baby.

 

Ezekiel Morris week 10

Previously this week I have been renaming layers in Photoshop. Didn’t get the chance to rename the layers as the art assets for this pitch document has to be done in the week .

The pitch document is finished and the next step is the production stage. My schedules were to create more characters and begin animating them, that would be my job and for the other artist  doing asset building etc.

So as I‘m the character artist on the project the scenario is this ,animate the characters using  Maya, separate  the character’s body parts  in Photoshop then go into 3d max open the PSD or Targa file and  then apply the texture on plane mesh using the cut tool to cut out the shapes.

Now I might have to learn Maya considering I haven’t had any experience in Maya before  so I’m working closely with Matty  who has an understanding on how to use Maya. Using Maya is not that bad, it’s just like using 3d max in  a way but the setup is a bit different just show me the tools and I will know what to do, alternatively unity 3d doesn’t support some of export settings when exporting  from 3d max, looks like maya is the way to go bro.

www.train2game.com

Train2Game Student Diaries Matty Wyett Simmonds weeks 33 to 35

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Week 33

So as My Sea Park is now out and getting updates constantly with upped level caps and more items to get, we have been working on a new project, similar in a few ways but completely different in many. It will definitely be an interesting process, as we aren’t using the same game engine anymore, which means none of the Sea Park stuff is reusable! I’m sure the T2G students will enjoy this when it’s out in the open.

I’ve been kept busy with setting up a pipeline and making things workable, it’s been a hard process but the payoff seems worth it.

Not long left for two of the students here, as they will be leaving soon, making us down by one designer and one artist. The new artist has started recently though (staff not student) and he’s been great so far, learning a lot from him already! And it’s nice to have a definite person in charge of art now, as it’s giving us some direction that has been needed for a very long time. He’s worked at a few other studios that vary in work flow, giving insight into how other studios work differently to each other, which is interesting.

Week 34

Another week passed now, and last Friday we had some interesting news from Clive which basically meant we were in crunch for this week! That’s not too bad though, crunch time for me means staying late, listening to music on the sound system and getting free pizza/curry. It’s hard work but lots of fun, especially with mine and Craig’s DR play list that we setup on Spotify, anyone can join in and vote for songs to be played next, so we had a few students logging in and choosing what we listened to during crunch and it was a lot of fun!

During the week I have been working closely with Rod, the new artist, to make the art style work and to produce a lot of content that could be used quickly. The other student artist Ezekiel has been working on character art, while I was working on building art. There’s not much else I can say really without giving too much away, so I shall leave it at that, as I have to be off early this Friday because I have to go to a christening and graduation over the weekend (Obviously not for the same person).

Matty Wyett Simmonds week 35

This week I have had a few days off for the events which I mentioned in the last diary, so I started this week on Wednesday and got straight back into it, there is not too much to say about this week since being off for half of it! We had a meeting on the Wednesday that I got back and everything has basically been the same since I was away (as you would expect from two days off). I have just been starting off where I left off on Friday.

This week however is an unusual week, as today (this Friday) is the last day of two of the students, Ben and Johnny (Johnny as in Ironcore on the forums) Ben has been here a good few months now and Johnny has been here even longer. It’s a shame to see them leave, although when ben leaves I get an entire desk to myself at home but that’s beside the point.

I wish both of them good luck and I hope they both grab another job in industry quickly, too long out of the loop may leave you out of the loop permanently and I hope that doesn’t happen to them, they’ve both worked hard and have done well to stay here longer than their original contracts, so they must have been doing something right.

www.train2game.com