Stabbing my life in the face, part 2!
Here’s a fun life update for my friends and family that read the site. I’ll hide it all behind the jump lest I clutter up all my useful chatter. :) Warning: Fairly intense and not about game art outsourcing.
link: 19 Things NOT To Do When Building a Website
My friend Nate sent me a fantastic article that was right up my alley: 19 Things NOT To Do When Building a Website. The whole thing is so good I’d just paste the whole thing here if I told you which parts were worth reading. Instead I’ll touch on my favorite points: 3. If your [...]
Learning In Progress #10: Writing Effective Criticisms
I’ve been trying to come up with a simpler and easier way to structure my feedback on assets I receive that makes it easier for the contractor to focus on one aspect at a time, without being dependent on anything but plain text. Most of my job is communicating ideas. And there are so many [...]
Environment Artist Portfolio Tips
Here’s an edited excerpt of an email I wrote for someone asking me for tips on putting together an environment artist portfolio. Focusing on environments but keeping your skillset broad is a good idea. Environment artists will always be needed, more so now that next gen games are getting crazy huge and complex. While this [...]
Productivity Tip #12: ThumbPlug TGA for TGA thumbnails in Explorer!
Here’s a quick one. Ever wanted to be able to view TGA files in thumbnail form in Windows Explorer, only to find that Windows won’t support it? Be frustrated no longer, for Thumbplug TGA is here. Just download and install, and view thumbnail TGAs wherever they might be. Invaluable little plugin. [update] Sven-Erik Neve in [...]
Productivity Tip #11: TaskSwitch XP – A better way to Alt-Tab
One of my friends from work suggested that I give TaskSwitch XP a try. What’s so great about it, you may ask? Envision this scenario: You have 30 programs open. You hit Alt-Tab, and you’re selecting program #2, and you want to select program #15. Instead of holding down Alt and hitting Tab 13 times, [...]
Productivity Tip #10: Incredible search tool! Agent Ransack
Agent Ransack is the best and fastest search tool I’ve ever used. Anytime I need to find something — anything — I use Launchy to fire it up, quickly type in the first few characters of what I’m looking for and where, and it finds it almost instantaneously. It’s lightning fast, far beyond what Windows [...]
Project: Outsource Everything
I’m in a unique position in my job where I have a modest budget to spend on outsourcing art for my game. I have complete control over where, how and when I spend it. I have to jointly art direct, manage the game’s art, manage my artists, critique and approve or disapprove their work, handle [...]
Advice for aspiring game developers
I expanded a bit more upon the questions I was asked by Monster.com and had a few more bits of helpful advice to entry level game developers. Check it out: What are some of the qualities it takes to succeed and thrive in the games industry? Passion, persistence, and adaptability. Passion is a given. You [...]