Well this week was probably one of the more depressing ones. First off it poured pretty much all week - gray, cloudy and cold. Alex left on Thursday to go back to school for a few semesters. He's hoping to come back next year as a programmer and I wish him all the luck. He was a great ATC. Ding's gonna be taking over for Alex in managing our team. I notice he's a little bit more of a hardass but not enough to warrant me hating him. I'm actually quite partial to Ding, he's a nice guy.
I finally had the meeting with Brandon Jackson - an Asian guy, which was kind of surprising but not really important I guess. More important was what he had to say about my work. Pretty much told me i wasn't good enough to land a character artist job.
Funny that's the first thing I remember because he gave me a lot of compliments where he felt they were due. But for some reason, maybe it's in my nature, but I only remember the negative. But it's a pretty big blow when you have your dreams swiped right out from under you. Getting into the character artist field, I understand it is really competitive. And I realize that I have a lot to learn especially when I've only really been doing 3D for 2 and a half years when I've been drawing my whole life. He said I had a lot of things going right in my drawing but i'm keeping too much to my safe zone, not to be afraid to do more exploration. More importantly is to do more life drawing which I admit I haven't been doing enough of.
Looking back at my character models, they clearly aren't anywhere near the quality of professional realistic models. I shouldn't feel as disappointed as I do because everything makes sense, really. I just have to hunker down and get better. Practice, practice. It's easier said than done. But I have to really want it, and I do - and I can't get discouraged. Part of the desperation is to be independent and I guess i'm trying to get better for the wrong reasons as a result. But I feel i can do this. I look at the professional models and it's like ... I FEEL i can do it. But for some reason the work I pump out isn't reflecting that.
I have to prove it to myself first before I can hope to convince other people of what i can do. Maybe that's what's stopping me. there's alot to consider as to the reason of my short comings. Or maybe, I shouldn't even bother thinking about it. Just keep doing it and it will come to me naturally. After all that's what I've been doing my whole life, right?
Hmm ... i think i'm onto something here. That kind of reflects what Jackson was saying to me earlier about drawing. Just draw. Kind of like modeling, texturing and everything else I love doing. Don't think, just do. That's advice i can follow. I mean as it is, he says he sees potential. I may not see it myself, but the fact that someone that accomplished sees it, I can have faith in what they say. Believe in myself - at the risk of making this entry sound incredibly corny.
Sure I can do it now. But I can do it tomorrow. And if not that, then the day after that. It's like quitting smoking. I'll do it tomorrow, or the day after that, and if not, then the day after that. There's no reason I can't apply that to my artwork as well. YEAH.
Suddenly I'm starting to feel better. Not today, but tomorrow. Everyday is a new day, and a new chance to improve.
I'm going to be okay.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Yet another Dev meeting! WOOT!
Went in to talk to mr. chandler the other day, following reg's advice. Chandler told me to come back in september and I wasn't planning on another HR visit until then but reg said it'd be a good idea to stop by and see if he's heard anything new as to a character artist position. As aspected, he hadn't heard anything new and admitted to me he wouldn't know anything until the bodyshop decided they needed character artists. And even then he wouldn't know how many and other specifics until the head of the department contacted him. The positions on EA's website are currently open but they don't plan on filling them till around fall.
He suggested in contact someone named brandon jackson who is apparently some kind of lead artist in the bodyshop. so I said okay, and emailed brandon to see if he wanted to meet me so I had a chance to show him some of my work. Not expecting anything to come out of it, really. But then 2 days later I got an email back from him saying "it would be his pleasure" to go over my work. You know what this means - POTENTIAL job!! I'm pretty stoked about it.
That was the same day I got into a verbal showdown with dave. I can't even begin to describe the level of his ass kissing. He's got his nose so far up alex's ass, alex is coughing up dave's snot. dave decided to check up on the new guy, Adam asking if his regression was coming along okay, and adam said yes. Dave stayed and pressed him on his regression, making sure he was doing everything right, so I politely leaned over and told dave to get back to work. Adam is experienced in QA testing and didnt' need him hovering over his shoulder.
Dave took it as an attack against him and told me to stop talking and to get back to what i was doing. He was doing some kind of soak which left him with little else to do and that I should mind my own business. He turned around to get back to work but I wasn't quite finished with him yet.
So i turned to face him and said we didn't need him checking up on us and that alex was doing a fine job running the team by himself. "No thanks to you." he retorts back - which is the saddest comeback ever seeing has how i LET alex do his job.
Donovan told me afte that ALex talked to dave about it, and said it sounded like dave was the one who was pissed off and not me. Probably because alex saw in the truth in what i said but is just too damn nice to say anything about it to dave. whatever, like alex cares anyway. he's gone next thursday - going back to school.
He suggested in contact someone named brandon jackson who is apparently some kind of lead artist in the bodyshop. so I said okay, and emailed brandon to see if he wanted to meet me so I had a chance to show him some of my work. Not expecting anything to come out of it, really. But then 2 days later I got an email back from him saying "it would be his pleasure" to go over my work. You know what this means - POTENTIAL job!! I'm pretty stoked about it.
That was the same day I got into a verbal showdown with dave. I can't even begin to describe the level of his ass kissing. He's got his nose so far up alex's ass, alex is coughing up dave's snot. dave decided to check up on the new guy, Adam asking if his regression was coming along okay, and adam said yes. Dave stayed and pressed him on his regression, making sure he was doing everything right, so I politely leaned over and told dave to get back to work. Adam is experienced in QA testing and didnt' need him hovering over his shoulder.
Dave took it as an attack against him and told me to stop talking and to get back to what i was doing. He was doing some kind of soak which left him with little else to do and that I should mind my own business. He turned around to get back to work but I wasn't quite finished with him yet.
So i turned to face him and said we didn't need him checking up on us and that alex was doing a fine job running the team by himself. "No thanks to you." he retorts back - which is the saddest comeback ever seeing has how i LET alex do his job.
Donovan told me afte that ALex talked to dave about it, and said it sounded like dave was the one who was pissed off and not me. Probably because alex saw in the truth in what i said but is just too damn nice to say anything about it to dave. whatever, like alex cares anyway. he's gone next thursday - going back to school.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
This Last Week
2 overtime shifts this week, Wednesday and Thursday. Our team has grown from 4 to 7 with the introduction of Adam and Jesse from NBA which has recently shipped. Also, another Dave was introduced to the team, the ATC that will be replacing Alex when he leaves.
Adam caught me drawing during break and starting questions about what my plans were in the company. He told me he was using this QA as an opportunity into the company, hoping to be a character modeler or an animator. He asked to see my sketchbook and I wanted to say no since I just took it from a heap of unused books and realized i hadn't drawn in it since grade 12 and there were alot of old ugly drawings in there. But I let him take a look anyway with the forewarning, lol.
Wednesday OT was the first OT shift ever for our team. It was Alex, me, Dave and Jesse testing out one of the game modes. Nate and Kasey joined us too. AFter break, the two of them headed back upstairs leaving the rest of us to finish off the modes. Don was sick that morning with something nobody could pinpoint. He told us Thursday that the doctors couldn't figure it out either, but managed to relate it to something with his galbladder. He's supposed to stay away from fatty foods an alcohol. So we don't know what's wrong with him still, but he's probably gonna be fine.
During OT break, I gathered the nerve to show Alex my portfolio website, following Tams advice to keep talking to people and getting my name out there. Kasey and Nate also walked in on it and they seemed to really enjoy looking at my work. Kasey noted to keep writing up bugs showing my knowledge (he used the anatomy bug as an example) and Nate advised also to keep working hard at QA because QA support could "go a long way" as he put it.
For Thursday's OT, met up with the dev QA team for dinner, wanted to sit with Reggie, Nate and Kasey and talk to them about my plans. Unfortunately I wasn't expecting Donovan and Sarah to join us. Not that I don't like hanging out with them but I hadn't planned on them to join us. Regardless, I pursued anyway, and Reggie said he liked my work, gave me some advice on how to approach HR and just be chill about everything. Even though I want a character artist job pretty bad. But after the meeting, Donovan and Sarah told me I seemed pretty chill with them, not like an ass-kisser dave style, which makes me feel good.
OH, and today I found out something pretty interesting - Trish is friends with the one and only Mocha Only. Not that I've ever been a huge fan of his, but I'm familiar with some music he's done in the past and have some form of respect for him. Turns out she was in one of his videos. As of this writing, I haven't seen it yet, but Dave swears he saw her in it. The link was on her facebook but I went and wasn't able to find anything.
After work, headed to BPs as the usual Friday habit, with Donovan, Tricia and Mike. Naubert joined us shortly after and Geoff too. Mike and I left around 9 cause I was going to his house for him to show me some of his 3D models he's done. My personal opinion, his character modeling in Maya is a little on the weak side as far as mesh flow and proportions are concerned but his Z brush skills are way better than mine could probably ever hope to be.
Adam caught me drawing during break and starting questions about what my plans were in the company. He told me he was using this QA as an opportunity into the company, hoping to be a character modeler or an animator. He asked to see my sketchbook and I wanted to say no since I just took it from a heap of unused books and realized i hadn't drawn in it since grade 12 and there were alot of old ugly drawings in there. But I let him take a look anyway with the forewarning, lol.
Wednesday OT was the first OT shift ever for our team. It was Alex, me, Dave and Jesse testing out one of the game modes. Nate and Kasey joined us too. AFter break, the two of them headed back upstairs leaving the rest of us to finish off the modes. Don was sick that morning with something nobody could pinpoint. He told us Thursday that the doctors couldn't figure it out either, but managed to relate it to something with his galbladder. He's supposed to stay away from fatty foods an alcohol. So we don't know what's wrong with him still, but he's probably gonna be fine.
During OT break, I gathered the nerve to show Alex my portfolio website, following Tams advice to keep talking to people and getting my name out there. Kasey and Nate also walked in on it and they seemed to really enjoy looking at my work. Kasey noted to keep writing up bugs showing my knowledge (he used the anatomy bug as an example) and Nate advised also to keep working hard at QA because QA support could "go a long way" as he put it.
For Thursday's OT, met up with the dev QA team for dinner, wanted to sit with Reggie, Nate and Kasey and talk to them about my plans. Unfortunately I wasn't expecting Donovan and Sarah to join us. Not that I don't like hanging out with them but I hadn't planned on them to join us. Regardless, I pursued anyway, and Reggie said he liked my work, gave me some advice on how to approach HR and just be chill about everything. Even though I want a character artist job pretty bad. But after the meeting, Donovan and Sarah told me I seemed pretty chill with them, not like an ass-kisser dave style, which makes me feel good.
OH, and today I found out something pretty interesting - Trish is friends with the one and only Mocha Only. Not that I've ever been a huge fan of his, but I'm familiar with some music he's done in the past and have some form of respect for him. Turns out she was in one of his videos. As of this writing, I haven't seen it yet, but Dave swears he saw her in it. The link was on her facebook but I went and wasn't able to find anything.
After work, headed to BPs as the usual Friday habit, with Donovan, Tricia and Mike. Naubert joined us shortly after and Geoff too. Mike and I left around 9 cause I was going to his house for him to show me some of his 3D models he's done. My personal opinion, his character modeling in Maya is a little on the weak side as far as mesh flow and proportions are concerned but his Z brush skills are way better than mine could probably ever hope to be.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
More Developments at Work
So this week was spent mostly trying to secure a position for myself at EA. I think overall it went pretty well but I wouldn't say I'm guaranteed a position with the company since i still have over a month to go before my contract ends with VMC.
I emailed Trey sometime last week, asking if it was possible for me to sit down with an artist from the team and just talk about art related stuff, how to get into the industry. He responded and told me one of the artists Tam (whose name I've actually come across before) was willing to meet with me over lunch. We planned for our meeting to be last Wednesday but he had to postpone twice on me and ended up meeting on Friday. He felt bad and offered to buy him lunch, which I planned to turn down and just buy my own but stupid me, I forgot my debit card in my backpack and he ended up buying me lunch anyway.
Tam didn't really tell me anything new - don't give up, be persistant, it will happen. But coming from someone of his status at EA, I took it quite seriously. And I don't plan on giving up - not that it was ever in planned in the first place. He told me a bit about how he got in, what he went through and that it wasn't at all different than what I'm going through now. Just the biggest thing was to keep it honest, what my plans are in the company and keep talking to as many people as possible to try and promote myself. Shortly after the meeting when we got back to work, I wrote him and email and gave him the URL to my portfolio website. He said he'd take a look and get back to me on it. I've yet to receive his response, but we'll find out sooner or later.
Also, Adrian was fired from work this week. We just found out for sure on Wednesday at the weekly team meeting. Reg asked if we had any questions as the team was dead silent without anything to say. I'm pretty familiar with what Don and Dave's opinion of him, and I have my own too of course, but I never expected they'd actually fire him outright seeing as how he's been this way all along and has still managed to hold the job. I didn't have anything to say and just replied with a no-comment. But at the back of my mind, I couldn't shake the feeling that justice had been served. And even as I write this, I kind of feel guilty for admitting it. Reg also told us that he would be replaced by two people (and I think now that maybe one is meant to replace Adrian, and the other would replace Alex when he leaves at the end of the month).
And speaking of Reg, I also emailed him asking if he'd mind being a reference for me when I formally apply for the character artist position with EA in September. The HR guy told me that's around when the positions would be filled. I was nervous about the emailing Reg because I didn't know how appropriate it would be but thankfully he encouraged me to be more forward about these things and to not "beat around the bush." He also said (much to my relief) that he and the rest of the quality assurance team had been happy with my performance and he'd be pleased to be a personal reference for me.
So that's Tam and Reg who I've got rooting for me so far. I'm not sure if they're enough to secure me a position since Cody's led me to believe I'm up against Gurn who works with development. If Gurn gets the job over me, I won't mind because I think he has more knowledge of the kinds of games EA makes. If anyone deserves the job more than me, it'd be him. But still, I'm hoping I get it, lol.
And it looks like things have been shaking up at Blackbox. In our daily spam, Ken told us that Friday was his last day at Blackbox because the company wanted to cut down on employees. So I emailed Cody the next day and asked him if he was still with the company. He said yes, but he wasn't convinced they would be renewing the contract. Seems he was aware that the company was downsizing too. But knowing him, I wouldn't be surprised if he was just being pessimistic so that if they renewed his contract, he'd be happy. I still hope everything works out well for him though, whether or not they decide to keep him.
That's about all the noteworthy development things this week. Except I forgot to mention the Beijing Olympics started on Friday! Meh, nothing worth mentioning really, since I don't really care too much about the Olympics.
I emailed Trey sometime last week, asking if it was possible for me to sit down with an artist from the team and just talk about art related stuff, how to get into the industry. He responded and told me one of the artists Tam (whose name I've actually come across before) was willing to meet with me over lunch. We planned for our meeting to be last Wednesday but he had to postpone twice on me and ended up meeting on Friday. He felt bad and offered to buy him lunch, which I planned to turn down and just buy my own but stupid me, I forgot my debit card in my backpack and he ended up buying me lunch anyway.
Tam didn't really tell me anything new - don't give up, be persistant, it will happen. But coming from someone of his status at EA, I took it quite seriously. And I don't plan on giving up - not that it was ever in planned in the first place. He told me a bit about how he got in, what he went through and that it wasn't at all different than what I'm going through now. Just the biggest thing was to keep it honest, what my plans are in the company and keep talking to as many people as possible to try and promote myself. Shortly after the meeting when we got back to work, I wrote him and email and gave him the URL to my portfolio website. He said he'd take a look and get back to me on it. I've yet to receive his response, but we'll find out sooner or later.
Also, Adrian was fired from work this week. We just found out for sure on Wednesday at the weekly team meeting. Reg asked if we had any questions as the team was dead silent without anything to say. I'm pretty familiar with what Don and Dave's opinion of him, and I have my own too of course, but I never expected they'd actually fire him outright seeing as how he's been this way all along and has still managed to hold the job. I didn't have anything to say and just replied with a no-comment. But at the back of my mind, I couldn't shake the feeling that justice had been served. And even as I write this, I kind of feel guilty for admitting it. Reg also told us that he would be replaced by two people (and I think now that maybe one is meant to replace Adrian, and the other would replace Alex when he leaves at the end of the month).
And speaking of Reg, I also emailed him asking if he'd mind being a reference for me when I formally apply for the character artist position with EA in September. The HR guy told me that's around when the positions would be filled. I was nervous about the emailing Reg because I didn't know how appropriate it would be but thankfully he encouraged me to be more forward about these things and to not "beat around the bush." He also said (much to my relief) that he and the rest of the quality assurance team had been happy with my performance and he'd be pleased to be a personal reference for me.
So that's Tam and Reg who I've got rooting for me so far. I'm not sure if they're enough to secure me a position since Cody's led me to believe I'm up against Gurn who works with development. If Gurn gets the job over me, I won't mind because I think he has more knowledge of the kinds of games EA makes. If anyone deserves the job more than me, it'd be him. But still, I'm hoping I get it, lol.
And it looks like things have been shaking up at Blackbox. In our daily spam, Ken told us that Friday was his last day at Blackbox because the company wanted to cut down on employees. So I emailed Cody the next day and asked him if he was still with the company. He said yes, but he wasn't convinced they would be renewing the contract. Seems he was aware that the company was downsizing too. But knowing him, I wouldn't be surprised if he was just being pessimistic so that if they renewed his contract, he'd be happy. I still hope everything works out well for him though, whether or not they decide to keep him.
That's about all the noteworthy development things this week. Except I forgot to mention the Beijing Olympics started on Friday! Meh, nothing worth mentioning really, since I don't really care too much about the Olympics.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Long Weekend Update
While I'm waiting for my health to recharge (I'm playing Mass Effect right now), figured I'd update this thing. I'm starting to get real bad at doing that. Yeah I bought Mass Effect a couple days ago. At first i thought it wasn't going to be much - just wanting to buy it for the sake of it being an RPG and i like that genre of games - final fantasy anyone? Stuck at the Thorian right now, trying to kill that giant bug but that bitch Asari and her entourage of zombie freaks keep killing me with their too much power.
It was an interesting day at work today - got an email from ... I forgot that kid's name, but he's the POC for work orders (and Yavar sent a work order last week since Alex was away, for a mentorship about Ncheck.) and it was answered this week. This guy went to AI and graduated in the Spring of 07 which meant I was in ... Q4 at the time. I knew my mentorship would happen on the Tuesday after the long weekend but I guess I forgot. So I was pleasantly surprised which meant no mindless bug hunting for the rest of the day. As I type this, I just remembered that I was supposed to do a soak before leaving work today, dealing with an NMI. Whatever, I'm tired.
Anyway so after lunch today, i headed straight over to the world wide service section where they had set up a computer for me. turns out it was Shan's computer and up to that point, she had been spending all day moving her workstation over so I could sit there for the rest of the afternoon. I spent the afternoon going over the Ncheck scripts that Donovan and I couldn't finish last week. Fortunately the scripts were already done so we spent some time going over them and what I would do if I were running these scripts for real. And I took some good notes along the way, shared them with Donovan. For some reason, the mentorship didn't include him. My best guess is because he didn't approach Yavar to ask for one - this happened the day he went home sick from that cough.
Tam also emailed me today asking to get our lunch appointment changed to Thursday since he was going to spend wednesday relocating his office to Phase I. So I said yes - not like i had a choice in the matter anyway. I'm still glad an artist is willing to meet with me and give me some tips on getting in on the industry. Sounds like I'm going to need quite abit of luck.
I spent the long weekend finish off the UVs for Tammy. There was quite a bit of optimization to do on her but I really wanted to get onto the normal mapping process. After the UVs were completed, I upped the resolution on her mesh a little bit before taking her into Z brush. That's when I ran into some problems.
When I first tried sculpting a little in Z brush, i saved the Z brush document and not the tool, which was actually the 3D obj of Tammy. So I had to go back and start sculpting her again from scratch. But when I tried to generate a normal map from what I sculpted, it turned out her UVs were fucked. Somewhere along the way while I was sculpting, I must have hit the worng button by accident or something. I'm not sure and I can't even begin to guess what buttion I must have hit since the Z brush interface is probably the least user friendly interface I've ever had the misfortune of stumbling across - and yes, I think this might even beat Flash.
It was an interesting day at work today - got an email from ... I forgot that kid's name, but he's the POC for work orders (and Yavar sent a work order last week since Alex was away, for a mentorship about Ncheck.) and it was answered this week. This guy went to AI and graduated in the Spring of 07 which meant I was in ... Q4 at the time. I knew my mentorship would happen on the Tuesday after the long weekend but I guess I forgot. So I was pleasantly surprised which meant no mindless bug hunting for the rest of the day. As I type this, I just remembered that I was supposed to do a soak before leaving work today, dealing with an NMI. Whatever, I'm tired.
Anyway so after lunch today, i headed straight over to the world wide service section where they had set up a computer for me. turns out it was Shan's computer and up to that point, she had been spending all day moving her workstation over so I could sit there for the rest of the afternoon. I spent the afternoon going over the Ncheck scripts that Donovan and I couldn't finish last week. Fortunately the scripts were already done so we spent some time going over them and what I would do if I were running these scripts for real. And I took some good notes along the way, shared them with Donovan. For some reason, the mentorship didn't include him. My best guess is because he didn't approach Yavar to ask for one - this happened the day he went home sick from that cough.
Tam also emailed me today asking to get our lunch appointment changed to Thursday since he was going to spend wednesday relocating his office to Phase I. So I said yes - not like i had a choice in the matter anyway. I'm still glad an artist is willing to meet with me and give me some tips on getting in on the industry. Sounds like I'm going to need quite abit of luck.
I spent the long weekend finish off the UVs for Tammy. There was quite a bit of optimization to do on her but I really wanted to get onto the normal mapping process. After the UVs were completed, I upped the resolution on her mesh a little bit before taking her into Z brush. That's when I ran into some problems.
When I first tried sculpting a little in Z brush, i saved the Z brush document and not the tool, which was actually the 3D obj of Tammy. So I had to go back and start sculpting her again from scratch. But when I tried to generate a normal map from what I sculpted, it turned out her UVs were fucked. Somewhere along the way while I was sculpting, I must have hit the worng button by accident or something. I'm not sure and I can't even begin to guess what buttion I must have hit since the Z brush interface is probably the least user friendly interface I've ever had the misfortune of stumbling across - and yes, I think this might even beat Flash.
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