Sunday, December 7, 2008

The New Job ...

So yeah, working up on the 4th floor now - pretty exciting concept, being embedded with the artists. But since I share a cubicle with Katie, we're kinda cut off from everyone else (as they are all cut off from each other) via the cubicle walls. There's this one guy who i pass by, and everytime i walk by, he's always doing some kind of character work in maya and it takes all the effort in me not to go up and be all like "Hey, i love your stuff. show me some tricks!"

There are these meetings every morning where the technical artists from every project get together and update each other what is going on and what they need to get done that day. I was thrown in without any knowledge of what was going on, but after 2 weeks of daily scrums, i've pretty much got the idea how its run and perhaps some ideas what I can contribute in the future, if its even my place.

The first week was spent mostly testing the online software development kit, or the website because there simply wasn't work being delivered to the artworks section. I got to know the guys sitting in octo pretty well. And i like them all. corbett gave me his opinion on the ihoq guys and there seemed to be alot of tension going on between development and contracted qa. I made a passing comment the next day to katie about what corbett said and she told me to just ignore him, which is the best i can do if i didn't want to get involved in any of the politics.

last friday the entire CTU team got together to play dodgeball, which was pretty fun. I don't know how many times they did that before i joined in on it, but this was my first time and i got nailed pretty bad in the face by Chris once, and another time by Craig. The jerk tossed a ball in the air to confuse me and nailed me with the other ones he had in his hands, while i was trying to figure out what was going on. But i realized as the ball struck ...

All in all, I have to say the CTU team is pretty fun to work on. Usually I work up in the artworks section with Katie, but every once in awhile, we'll get togetehr with the rest of the team, since we're scattered throughout the office building. Last week we went for sushi, and there's another dodgeball event planned this upcoming week.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

New Job

Yeah, I didn't see it coming at all. In fact today started out like any other ordinary day with me waking up at the crack of dawn heavily considering calling in sick just so i can sleep in. I was so tired this morning that i canceled any overtime shifts i had scheduled for myself this week. At least i was working for the day - and i'm so glad i was. Where do i start ...

After 3:30 break, Alex was saying how HR was harassing him about transferring him to EAX but he didn't want to go because it was inconvenient for him. I wondered why they wanted to move him when he filled out our 6 person online team, otherwise we'd have to go find someone else to replace him. And he was adamant about not going so I offered to take his place at EAX on the repro team - that way i'd be working alongside the developers and me and jeff could go on smoke breaks together, lol.

From out of nowhere, I got an email from Matt York with the subject "Please come and see me". The email was blank, and I'm thinking shit, I'm in trouble. So I reluctantly walk over to his office and ask him whats up. At this point my mind is racing wondering what it was he had to tell me, was in trouble, what did I do ... So the first thing he said was

"It's looks like we're going to have to let you go on Monday." Swore i felt my heart break, but all I managed to do was nod and let him continue talking. And then he adds something about me getting the artworks job I applied for last week, the job that Stacey forwarded my name to. He briefly explained what the job was about - quality control stuff in the artworks department, how i'd be embedded with the developers. And the whole time, i couldn't stop smiling. My body was shaking and all I could say was thank you. He said how I mentioned to HR that i wanted this and this was my chance and not to fuck it up. And I'm said "no, i will do everything in my power not to fuck this one up!" I'm not sure if he knows how much this opportunity means to me.

I don't remember much after that. i was still shaking, mind was racing, remember Trish hugging me, hahaha, and Duane asking "Oh, so you are an artist?" So i go back to the team and tell them the news - first i told Alex i wouldn't be able to take his spot at EAX anymore and he says it doesn't matter to him because he was not coming into work tomorrow. Stacey had threatened to fire him. Then I explained what had happened to me which was a little awkward after hearing what Stacey had told him. So our cozy online team had been brought down from 6 to 4 in 5 minutes.

Then I got an email from Stacey to come to the office but by this point i pretty much knew what to expect. So both HR ladies congratulated me - even clapped, which had me blushing pretty bad - and I profusely thanked them both for what they did for me. So they dismissed me and i headed back to my desk, only to have Yavar come up some minutes later and fill me in on the details of this new job.

He explained that it was going to be a 3 week contract with VMC, with the possibility of being kept on for longer. But that would be up for my performance, and EA to decide, based on their needs. Freakin told everyone on MSN, Cody and gurn seemed pretty supportive ... so we'll see what happens next. I guess theh rest is up to me huh ...

Sunday, November 16, 2008

RPD

i wasn't sure if i could ever look at another picture of the Raccoon City police department's main hall. It was probably 2 years ago around this time that i started working on one of my earliest 3D projects. I've gone back before to try and clean up the scene but cleaning it up was taking way longer than I expected, and it'd be faster to just start over a new one. I wanted to start over but decided that i'd had enough of looking at the reference pictures and just leave it be.

And now, two years later, I decided that i want to get back to it again. I've just started working on a new RPD today, which could also stand as a testament to my environment modeling abilities despite the fact i've stuck the character label on myself. And surprisingly, in four short hours, I've gotten the main shapes of hte station down pat. I jsut need to add the finer details like doors, props and railings (which I estimate are going to take awhile.) I love the fact that now i have a laptop, i can take my work around with me wherever I go. I can finally get started on all those projects I always wanted to work on but couldn't because i wasn't at home on my computer.

There's Shaniqua who still needs to be made as well, and i need to finish off the bust of Cranky's head - I'm not sure how much farter I want to take that piece actually, it might be better to just start over but i haven't decided yet.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

New Laptop

Yeah, first post on my new laptop. Just bought it yesterday and I'm trying to get used to the controls. The keys are a little more flat and closer together than what I'm used to but as I'm writing this, I'm starting to get a good feel of just how to work this thing. Also there's no mouse yet but i plan on getting that fixed tomorrow when i go buy some accessories for this thing.

There's not much to update on the work front. managed to land another meeting with a lead artist but this time it's going to be focused on environment art. so hopefully if EA is looking for any prop artists, they will be looking to hire me. Or at the very least, consider me.

skate.2 is really eating up alot of time. working overtime 3-4 times a week (except this last week because of the whole laptop fiasco, cause the bank wouldn't let me purchase it because of my debit limit so i had to go back the next day, thus missing a second day of OT, and pick it up). Thursday night - the night i got the laptop, they decided to reward us at work with free beer and pizza with all the progress we've made in knocking out the QA issues with the game.

And then i had one more beer tonight when i went out for dinner with matt and nicole. the last time i saw them was just after i got hired at this job - sometime in april i think. we went to gleneagle after and watched 2 of dixons metfest plays, and i gotta say, it was definitely nice seeing dixon again even though i was apprehensive at first, because its been so long since i stepped foot onto the grounds of my old highschool.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Birthdayness

Wow its been awhile since I updated. I know, when I first started this, blog thing, I was honestly wondering how long I'd be able to keep it up. Turns out the answer to that is less than a year! There's a bunch of stuff to update this thing on and I'll try to hammer them out one by one.

1) Jade Empire. Yes, I downloaded the game just to see what it was all about. Cost a bit of money - my guess is 14 bucks or so, but I really don't know since Microsoft uses those stupid points that you have to buy to put towards a game. I thought initially those points was something you earned in game, not that you actually have to pay real money for it. Anyway, Jade Empire is awesome - an RPG similar to Mass Effect as far as building your character is concerned. The fight system is nothing I've seen before, letting the user chain attacks from different fighting styles into one combo.

2) Work - I've been transferred to work on Skate2 - a game that needs some help right about now. It's coming together, but with final submission in about 2 weeks, there's still a long way to go. And the team has been pulling 12 hour week days and 8 hour weekends for some time now. It's an ambitious game I will say, and the more ambitious the vision, the bigger the QA team. There's about 40ish people on the team right now, half online half single player mode. Each team is split up into minor teams taking care of individual parts of the game like challenges, modes, interface, etc. I'm for online interface (offline interface is someone else). I've been intending to save up for a laptop and working as much overtime as my body will allow and made some decent money as a result. Saved about half the money i need for my laptop sofar. But I'm starting to wonder whether i want one anymore considering I can't get XP for it.

Just got my contract extended last ... Thursday was it? Or last Friday, one of the two. Anyway, it got extended all the way till Apirl 14th. Talked to Ding about it and he checked the schedule for Wii Tennis and lo and behold, that was the end date for Wii Tennis as well. Which means I'm not sure if they're planning on firing me after that or what, but I hope to be able to climb the QA ladder, as a backup if in case I don't make it as an artist as I work on improving my artistic abilities.

Sara also got let go and this was our first week without her. Damn, I miss Sara and her sass already. And midway through the week, we find out that Jeff got moved over to the Vancouver location so there's hardly anybody left anymore. Trish is still trying to decide whether she moves back to Ontario or stays here since her contract was extended too.

I also told Nate I was gonna get some more logos done for him for his Tshirt business venture but I haven't yet as of this writing ... oops. As a reward for last time, he got me Army of Two , cause I chose it. Got home and played it a couple times but I've reached the conclusion now that it's really not that great of a game. Cody even msged me and told me it was bad just as I was getting into it. I'm not sure if its opinion that tainted mine of if it's legitimately bad game but as of right now, it's not my favourite. Mind you it's not that bad either. Still waiting for my free copy of Dead Space which comes in 2 weeks according to Yavar.

Yes, and that copy of Dead Space comes as a result of our work on FaceBreaker Wii which got a 1st time pass on 3 different levels of QA!! This is a big deal for me because a) it's my first QA project ever and b) I was one of two responsible for compliance issues on the core team which made it past Nintendo no problem and Nintendo is supposedly really anal about their compliance issues and c) this is a new title that EA was taking a real gamble on. So at least on the quality part, I did my job! So Mike Richardson (the lead QA guy of the entire place, i think that's his name anyway) threw a first time pass party for the team and everyone involved in the QA process was there from the QA label team, the core team, the Shared Services team who worked on the game, even Yavar, Mathieu, Sanaz and Stacey were there for hiring us in the first place, lol. They were making a pretty big happy deal out of it all. The champagne they brought, Mike said it was "non-alcoholic" but he seemed to have gotten it mixed up. Cause after a few small cups of champagne, I was starting to feel a bit woozy, and then realized after the bottle I gotten mine from said "12%" alcohol.

Also on Friday, to congratulate the skate2 team for finding x amount of bugs in the last 2 weeks, matt decided to throw a forget it friday event specifically for our team. Had like 2 beers and practically conked out for overtime that night. But I think I worked well drunk because first of all, I hid it quite well. Found about 4-5 bugs in 2 hours. But in the last hour of overtime i couldn't work anymore, too tired so I jsut sat there and free tested the game until it was time go to home.

3) Becoming a Professional Artist - Just last Friday i was browsing the forums at work and there was a posting that someone wanted a concept artist for some new IP they were working on, but they didn't say anything about whether it was for an in-company thing or a project on the side. They had posted the message about ten days before and I'm regretting not having replied until now. Not that I can be considered good enough for the job in the first place but i rather do it and say that i tried than not doing a thing about it at all. Emailed Brandon with my basketball player and bust models but he had pretty much the same thing to say "draw draw draw and learn the basics" so that's what I've been doing for the last little while, whenever work allows some time for it.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

No More NFS ...

Starting to get the feeling the QA department at work is starting to wonder what to do with me. After testing basketball for 3 days, they moved me and the remaining members of the original facebreaker team over to a "fresh eyes" testing team for NFS HD. That would be fine and all normally ... except the NFS QA team is probably hands down the largest in all of EAQA existence and adding us to the mix won't really change much. Sofar we have't found many bugs, less than 10 between the 4 of us. And we've already been on the project for a week and 3 days as I write this.

The parents are renovating the basement, finally. They've been talking about it since before I graduated but now that I have, and gone out and gotten a quasi-job and the whole bit, they're actually acting on it. Which kind of sucks because that means the computer has to be moved upstairs and I'm not sure for how long, and the state that my room is right now, probably couldn't hold much more. So I decided to get a laptop instead. It'll be useful not only because it'll allow me to work on my personal projects while the renovations are going on, but I will also be able to work on them wherever I am instead of being chained to this desk all day at home. My only issue right now is I'm not sure as to the tech specs of the laptop I will need. Lots of friends to advise me on the matter though, so I'm not expecting it to be much of a problem.

To save up money for said laptop, I volunteered to do OT this weekend. At first I was tempted to do Saturday and Sunday, but then realizing I'd be doing 12 days of work straight, i turned sunday down but am still working on saturday. I'll see how i'm feeling then, and then decide on what's gonna happen on Sunday if its not already too late. Just gotta be careful not to go over 45 hours of work or the government will tax my sorry ass.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Maybe not getting fired?

Just a quick update since I have to get to bed real soon cause I've got work in the morning. So last wednesday they transferred us over to NCAA basketball to run through a list of scripts. I'm not sure what state the game is in an the moment, or what milestone, but we were just filling a work order sitting in the WWQA department for about 3 days. The first day, Wednesday, wasn't so bad although i'll admit the game was boring as shit though. We were just running through screens and testing controller pulls and the like.

Dave was pissing me off as usual and i was taking it out on donovan which made me feel bad - but come to think of it, he's also done a few things to get under my skin. doesn't matter though - i ended the day by pretty much flipping on dave and giving him a piece of my mind at the expense of looking like a bad worker to Jeff. Talked to Ding, turns out he doesn't like Dave much either, hehehe. So now that he's not my ATC, the real dirt comes out, love it.

Thursday i called in sick. the truth is I wasn't really sick - i was feeling under the weather, yes, but that's not really odd since this job is seriously robbing me of sleep. But I had a dentist appointment at 1130 but they called to make it earlier at 11. by the time i get out of the appointment it would've been too late to show up for decent hours at work anyway.

Friday i went back to work feeling a little sick for real, but decided to suck it up because it was payday! And as usual i forgot to pick up my paycheck at lunch so i went over to sanaz's office but interrupted them in the middle of deciding who to fire - which was awkward. Yavar sat us down and told me, donovan dave and rocky that we were going to be moved to NFS HD on monday as a "fresh eyes team", meaning we were to approach it as a group of end users judging the game for how it is, not tainted by any of the core team members' opinions. Too late for that, lol.

Nate also recommended me to a friend of his, the development manager for Wii tennis. I also have Ding helping to pull me into the project. If I get in on this project, that means I'm guaranteed to stay till at least summer of next year, which is quite a long time to get my nose farther into the EA art department. Here's hoping everything turns out well.