blah... I'm hitting a down | Page 1 | Chatterbox | Guild Forums

Kai_Chi
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Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2011 8:01 pm

I've been working as a 3D artist for a gaming company for the past 3 years and a half now. Just recently I've been considering leaving the company I work for and trying to get a job with different company, but I'm hitting a slight down at the moment.

Allow me to explain. The company I work for, makes very very VERY low res games. (equivilant to play station 1 or less) We make game for in flight entertainment... namely air plains. And because we don't decide what technologies or machines the airlines put in their air-plains were forced to make games that are compatible with any air-plans consoles. (which quite often aren't even gaming consoles but multi media consoles (designed for films... and were running games off of what ever little space is left... which isn't a lot... and if your any kind of gamer you'd know that gaming requires much more juice from consoles then films do, so working the opposite way and making games for film consoles... well >.> lets just say its a challenge by itself.)

The thing is... airlines equipement is very expensive, so often airlines won't update there technologie if they don't have to. This means were running games on consols that can easoly date back 15-20 years.

With that said. The 3D models I make for our 3D games are very low res models.... to the point even cell phone games have higher resolution in there models then what we can afford. And the more I work on my portfolio, the more I get discouraged because the stuff I have to offer isn't even considered low res in todays industrie.... its like super low res. I'm making characters out of less than 500 triangles when todays industrie, low res models consist of 1500 triangles per character. I feel like my portfolio looks like crap ._. and its because of the technical limitations I've been working with for the past 3 years. And now... I just feel bad... I feel like I have a very slim chance of finding another job in the industrie because of the work I've done to date isn't up to date with what they do. That my portfolio wouldn't be very visually appealing for anyone in today's industries just because of how low the resolution of work is.

And its mostly because of the technical limitations... there's nothing our company can do about it... its just the consols we make games for are frigen toaster ovens -.-

I'm working after work on making new assets to add to my portfolio... stuff that's more along today's standard... but I feel like it will take me a year to build up a half descent portfolio... and even there... its very discouraging to always be working all the time. I go to work during the day, come home and work for another 6-7 hours building new assets for my portfolio this way, just to have the possibility of getting a job else ware... *sigh* I just feel compleatly down right now... like my chances of leaving this industries are minimum.

Posted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:45 pm

I'm surprised this still has no replies...I'll admit I havn't been around much but I keep coming back and looking..

When I first saw and read this in its entirety I was really down about it to, and still am. I was under the impression that you had an awesome job you enjoyed and did cool stuff all the time, and I don't mean to bash what you have because I am still envious. Even as what it is, you must appreciate that you have a job and are (hopefully) making enough money to support your lifestyle.

That aside, I completely agree..if I could put myself in your shoes I would without a doubt feel the need to do something better after some point. You can't force what isn't natural if you want and need to be doing something that is challenging and exciting. If you know there are people out there doing what you want to do and getting paid for it, and making things that look utterly awesome.

One of my favorite art professors in college always, always, always in every single class I took with her...she would tell the class, and even in small discussion groups, that if you have a passion you absolutely NEED to follow it. No matter how long you ignore it you will have to face it at some point in your life. If you don't do what you love then you will be facing a huge gap in your life and it will drag you down. She went to college to be a chemist like her family had wanted, and then she worked in water plants checking the regulations and a bunch of chemical jazz. But halfway through her life she realized she was only in it for the money, so she went back to school for art and became a teacher.

I can't say that I learned a whole lot from the actual content of her classes because I'm very much self taught and really only took her classes because of her. She is the kind of old soul hippie personality that you just have to love. But I learned that if I know what I want to do with my life I have to make it happen at some point or I will regret it.

If you feel that you want to move on from where you are I think you are on the right track. And I give you mad props for being able to work a job all day you don't entirely value/enjoy and then come home and work even more in a similar but more advanced way. It's unfortunate that you have to spend a year or more working to achieve your goal, and possibly even lose sleep and motivation at points.

The way things are in the world now, you have to work even harder than ever to get close to where you want. In the end it's all about what is best for you and what makes you happy in the end.

I really hope you can find your motivation and will and do what you need to do. I wish you the best of luck Kai, don't let this get you down for too long.

Amandelie

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Kai_Chi
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Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:13 pm

Amandelie

Thank you Amandelie. For the record, I do love doing what I do. And yes my job is awesome. Its a little less awesome then some others because of the technical limits we have but still awesome none the less.

Allow me to explain something I haven't really shared in the previous post. Recently, our big boss fired two (crucial members of our developmental team) Our chief of technology and one of the co-founders of the company. With that done, the hole development team has been on edge. The company is talking about possible cut backs. And this is when I started thinking about if I'm able to get a job else ware should anything happen.

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