Just an update on things ...

Hi all ...

This term is feeling like it is going slower than the others. It seems like there is more work involved. I have A's in College Writing II and Cinematography, but have jsut slipped down to a B+ in my Sequential Drawing and Visual Narrative class. There is so much to know about storyboarding! Who knew? I normally have my class schedule for next term by now, but nothing new has been psoted yet. It may be because of the long break for Christmas. I will tlak to my advisor next week and see what he has to say. I also had a migraine last week and ended up in the ER over night. Thankfully I have my wonderful caring wife who takes care of me. We hada nice quiet Thanksgiving with mother and stepfather as well as a friend of mine from the next city over. Word tot he wise -- when ordering a precooked Thanksgiving dinner, ask if "precooked" means if the meal is warm and ready to be served when you pick it up, or if everything has been cooked, frozen, and needs to be reheated. Give you one guess what happened to us!

Something interesting Ihave been doing. I have been researching Game Companies to see see what they have for job openings, and to see if they have any internships or anything else that I might be able to do until I get out of school with my degree. I also noted where they are located. Meredith will be happy to note that there are about 3 of them so far that are located overseas in the UK, someplace that she and I both agreed would be fun to live. I included some notes that I jotted down for each. Here is what I have down so far:

Game Companies

Hiring Opportunities and Locations

11/27/2009

Nintendo – contracts out to a company in Redmonton, WA. Will only take local applicants. http://www.nintendo.com/corp/tester.jsp

Bioware – will only take local applicants in Austin, TX. https://jobs.ea.com/jobs/jobposting.aspx?refresh=1&postid=a0z50000000I9hS

SIDE NOTE: IGDA WEBSITE -- http://www.igda.org/qa

Atari Games – nothing listed for quality testing, but does have other jobs listed. http://www.atari.com/careers

Blizzard Games – offers multiple internships for different game titles, especially in 3d character modeling/animation. Located in California. https://blizzard.taleo.net/careersection/2/moresearch.ftl?lang=en&radius=1&jobfield=6160134073&portal=101430233&radiusType=K

Activision – offers internships/co-ops through accredited colleges. Will even pay for relocation. http://www.activision.com/index.html#careersen_UStype:university

SIDE NOTE – GAMASUTRA.com for listings

Gearbox Games – located in Plano, TX. Nothing listed for interns/co-ops. Nothing listed for quality testing. http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/jobs/

NC Soft – has locations in TX, WA, CA, and England. Has multiple job listings and types. Some quality testing and some internships. http://us.ncsoft.com/en/jobs/

Square Enix – located in CA. Has quality testing and must be local. Prefers someone who speaks Japanese. http://www.square-enix.com/na/careers/

THQ – has multiple job listings, some of them through Volition – Inc. http://recruiter.kenexa.com/thq/cc/CCJobSearchAction.ss;jsessionid=3204FDEC0E656BF896DB141C4537032E?command=CCSearchAll&ccid=bupJEdUjsTs%3D

Sega – has multiple job listings in multiple locations, but NOTHING listed for quality testing or internship. http://tbe.taleo.net/NA4/ats/careers/jobSearch.jsp?org=SEGAUSA&cws=1

Rainbow Studios – in Phoenix, AZ. Few jobs listed, nothing for quality testing or internship. http://www.rainbowstudios.com/employment/index.php

Capcom – does not have many jobs, but does have an internship. Located in San Mateo, CA. (WARNING – ask.com autofills San Mateo with COUNTY JAIL and COUNTY INMATES) http://www.capcom.com/us/?careers

Traveller’s Tales Games – located in Maidenhead, UK. Has multiple job listings including quality tester, but must be local. No interships listed. http://www.ttgames.com/jobs/

Ubisoft – programming jobs only. No internships or quality testing. BIZZARRE website. http://www.creatorsofemotion.com/home.php?param=en-us

505 Games – located in the UK. No career information listed.

So, anyway ... I have to finish getting ready for work. Next week I have 2 job shadowing opportunities with people in the standard tech areas of State Farm. I just wnat to keep my communications open with them in case anything falls through for me. I al have been keeping touch with Erwin. He tells me that State Farm jsut hired a person to work solely with 3dsMax. We are going to see if the 3 of us can set up a monthly meeting with each other.

Well, off to work!

Well this is exciting!

It was an interesting day at work for me on Wednesday. I had signed up to attend some training, and it was supposed to start right away when my shift started. It was in the building next door, and when I got there, no one was there. I went back to my desk and quickly checked my schedule and saw that something was scheduled for me, but didn't take a long look because I was running late and had to run back to the other building. Still, no one was there. I got back to my desk, and the lady sitting across from me asked me if I was going to the Developmental Fair because she was and didn't realize that she was scheduled for it. Checking my schedule again, and sure enough, it was the fair I was scheduled for, and not the training. At the fair, I got to stop off of booths put up by other departments at work and see if there was any other department that interested me. Of course, I stopped by the Creative Services Department and got invited to Brown Bag Lunch-n-Learn that will give even more information about their department and give me a chance to network. One thing that Erwin told me about and they reinforced is that some of the jobs will require that I present a portfolio of my work. I haven't quite gotten to a point yet where I feel that any of my work is portfolio quality, but I am still working on it. I also got some information on both sides of the ITSS (Internal Technical Support Systems), and it was really exciting stuff. For starters, the people at the booth recognized me as the person who installed all of their computers over a year ago. The felt that I would fit in really well with them just from my experience as is. I told them that I didn't even have a degree or any certifications, and one guy laughed at me and said his degree was in agriculture. He suggested that I set up some job-shadow times and go sit with their groups and see if I could do it. The other exciting part is that there are two sides to ITSS, one for hardware and one for software, and for the software side the point of contact was someone I worked with for my entire time in the kiosk. I attended meetings with her so I have hopes that perhaps I might be able to get in on a developmental opportunity with her group, and possibly on full time (I am currently only part time, and making less than what I would make within adifferent part of the company). Meredith asked if I would be happy doing helpdesk sort of work, and I told her that if it meant full-time, having all of my evenings off with her, and getting paid more, I would be more than happy to do that for our little family.

So ...

My supervisor was not in on Wednesday, so I need to talk to her first before I can start communicating with these other people and see about setting up some job shadowing and such.

Keep your fingers crossed!

As for school, things are going great. In the first three weeks of this term I am at 97% or higher in all three of my classes. I am excited!

Anyway ... will write more later!

My visit with Erwin

So today I talked to a member of the Creative Services team, his name is Erwin. He is the only person who uses 3dsMax, which is the tool that I am currently learning for school. This will most likely be my main tool, but as my instructor has mentioned, there are many programs out there and each one should be a tool in my tool box.

Erwin and I talked for about an hour about different things, different programs that he has used, and it turns out that 3dsMax is not used that much at all. State Farm is pretty much in the practice of hiring outside help to do their 3d animations. He mentioned that they have currently hired a company to make so many seconds of 3d animation and is paying them $150,000 to do it. Professor Clever had mentioned that freelancing can be a good way to go, but the downtime between jobs is what can pull you down. Erwin also mentioned that State Farm bounces back and forth between whether they want people for 3d work or not, and that maybe my skills would be better for Learning and Development instead of Creative Services. I do have skills with other programs that they use, such as Illustrator and Flash, and so I could try to get on there with those programs and continue to develop my 3d skills on my own after I am done with school. Maybe freelance a bit while I do that, but who knows?

Erwin told me that he had mentored someone before for a short period because she got in to Creative Services not long after he started mentoring her, so there was little left for him to mentor her on. He did give me a name of someone to talk to about mentoring, and I will follow up on that.

He did show me some of the things that he had worked on, such as a tornado simulation and at-fault simulators of vehicles. Those were pretty cool to look at. He said that the models were provided for him and he did the camera work. Still pretty cool stuff.

Over all, it was a very well spent hour. It has given me some leads to work on and made a friend. He said he will keep in touch with me and that I should start working on my portfolio, which is really great advice.

So, I gotta run ... gonna take care of some schoolwork.

Made the Dean's List again .... yay!

Well, I cannot seem to lcoate the sheet that I had written down my grades, but it was all A's in my classes. I do remember for my final project in 3d animation that I had received an 88%. This really bummed me out for I felt that I made the changes as my professor had requested them. I still received an A for teh class, but it was disheartening because he gave my prelims rave reviews, stating that he wished everyone else was where I was at with their work. He was disappointed with the gag, saying that he didn't get it (the bottle flying at the bear). Meredith wondered if he had never seen any Disney cartoons, for the bottle behaved like the brooms in Fantasia. Oh well ... can't win them all, right?

So, this term is going along really well. In my first week, I recieved 100% in all three classes. I am slightly worried about my Writing class as I need to come up with a a 7-10 page research paper by the end of week 9, and I still ahven't picked a topic yet. Not even sure what I want to research at this time.

I am very excited about Tuesday, coming up. I have an appointment to meet with the only person at State Farm headquarters who uses 3dsMax (the software I am learning) and he will show me how he uses it there. If I am lucky, I might even be able to job shadow him for a day depending on how things work out. This could be my "In" to the Creative Services department.

So, that is it for now. More later!

The final draft

Here it is, my final draft. I softened the light coming from the sconces, and lessened the reflection on the brass table base. I also added some more footage, and made the teddy bear's gait a little more swayed to add weight to his movements. I hope you all enjoy it.

My final ... a rough --

Well, here is my final for my 3D animation class. It looks a little rough due to compressing the file down to size, but when I have to upload it to the school's server, I have to keep it small. So this is still my rough, but it is not due until next week. Hope you all like it!

To answer some questions from my brother, I have just completed my my 6th term out of 15. I will complete all of my classes in July of 2011. Hopefully by that time I will have a nice portfolio put together and can find a really decent job with this degree.

Anyway, it is time for bed.

Grades and Next Term

Well, here it is in week8, and have 2 more weeks to go until I am done with Term #6 of 15. Wow. Where does the time go?

So, my grades so far are:

College Writing I: 466/500 (93.20%)
3D Modeling and Animation: 1102/1250 (88.16%)

College Algebra II: 663/730 (90.82%)

For my animation with the mouse, I got a 405/500, which really dropped my mid-A to a high-B. I don't mind much getting a B in my math or english class, but as this is the tool that I will be using in my newly chosen career, I want to do well with it. I do not agree much with his grade, as he docked me points because of the way I compressed it. As we never really went into great detail about compression, I used the same format as 98% as the people in the class used. Everyone but one person had large files that were uploaded that ranged in the 20mb-50mb range, and that last person had it down to less than 1mb. So, I now jsut have to work harder to get that grade back up to an A. The last project, which is worth onl 100 points, will be a teddy bear running across a floor and bumping into a glass table (see the attached picture). Why the last project is worth only 100 points and the midterm one was worth 500 is beyond me. After all, you know more at the end than you did at the beginning and know how to use it better, right?

Anyway ...

For next term I have three classes. One of them is my second English class. My other two are:

Cinematography
This course provides students with an overview of camera dynamics. Topics include camera placement and movement, scene composition, and lighting. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to analyze, identify, and apply cinematic elements in games.

Sequential Art and Visual Narrative
This course covers in depth the elements and techniques of sequential art. Topics include story boarding and scene layout, graphic arts publishing, pencil tests and animatics. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to create dynamic and effective narrative content for a variety of visual media.

Don't they sound exciting? I cannot wait for these class to start!!!

So, that's about it for right now.