career-chat

[bleak arch]

The "pay really well" comment was about me being a guy that likes to give back. And also if anyone is interested in that role, I would love to speak with them.

[plucky hatch]

that is the most broad question you can ask, start what and it sounds like you need to do some research

[bleak arch]

Well I know what game I want to create, and I know how I want it created. I know what audience I'm aiming for. I think that should be enough that I should know about what I want to do. I leave it to the experts hands in how to actually make it come to pass

[woeful iron]

so you have an idea?

but no skills?

[ashen lynx]

I guess if you drop the how you want it created, you can contact any game development stuido specialising in small scale projects and ask them for rough quote. Just dont mention how you want it created. Peeps who know how things need to be created turn out to be problematic clients. @bleak arch

[ivory echo]

Ah, the tech world’s idea man 😎

[bleak arch]

Precisely 😊. I want to outsource to some amazingly gift people.

Hire people even, if anyone is interested

[bleak arch]

My skills are more on the side of networking, constant inspirational and creative ideas that will hit the market with a boom, and bringing together gifted people to create an amazing product.

[shut token]

lol

[copper plinth]

I briefly explained how to go about using the /job function in this discord, sounds like you are set to get started 👍
I also suggest looking at other freelance sites to find your talent if you are unable to find them from the /job area

[bleak arch]

🤣 I seen your message, thank you

[bleak arch]

I essentially, I am looking to create a game that is based on space travel and being able to visit those planets seamlessly. Then what you can do with those planets is very Dynamic. And we are also focusing on the social aspects of online multi-player, social interactions with a new way of interacting. The goal is to become a dominator of worlds, with many different paths to power

[rigid bluff]

so what is your question?

is this your question? if you just have money to spend you start by hiring people for a fair amount... and if money and an idea is all you can offer then head to the job boards and make a post

[lilac walrus]

You're gonna need to be a multi-millionaire to pull that off, lol

[rigid bluff]

you would first off need to hire/pay an advisor that knows how much and how long your idea would cost

and the specific types of talent you'll need

[lilac walrus]

you'd probably need to start with consultants who would become your directors, minimum tech and design

from there you can actually put stuff to paper and start making guesstimates

but oh boy

[rigid bluff]

I just hope your idea isn't "Open World MMO"

[shut token]

It's not

It's Open Universe MMO

[rigid bluff]

oh ya I see... I didn't bother to finish reading that full post lmao

classic

[lilac walrus]

to be fair, nobody said massively multiplayer, but yeah

[shut token]

They didn't say it specifically, no - but used the exact buzzwords for it

[rigid bluff]

infinite amount of planets with infinite amount of possibilities with the power of ChatGPT and crypto

[plucky hatch]

https://tenor.com/view/unlimited-power-star-wars-gif-10270127

They're in GDL doing the same thing to lmao

[past cradle]

Hey everyone, Im a game developer with some experience freelancing in unreal engine and currently a student software developer, Im looking for some ways and tips to get into the industry, that is preferrably paid

[dusky fable]

What is the actual role you are looking for? The advice for someone who wants to do gameplay programming is a bit different than a graphics programmer.

[past cradle]

gameplay programmer definantly

[dusky fable]

1. Make technically impressive systems for tech demos. Lots of advice out there say to make a solo game, but we hire specialists not people who can make a game by themselves. You want to make systems that would actually be in a commercial game. Maybe that's an AI influence map, a camera system with different states, a locomotion system, and so forth. Watch some GDC talks to get some ideas. Focus on making systems that are flexible for iteration, how design would use it and add some good debug drawing options.

2. Do some game jams for experience working with multidisciplinary teams, prototyping and rapid iteration. Junior engineers are terrible at building things simply and iterating on design changes. Learn to get good at that.

3. Research job requirements by looking at a range of job postings for studios that you are legally able to work at. No one sponsors visas for any below senior levels. Gain any skills that you are lacking.

4. Make a resume that shows the skills that you gathered from the job requirements. Do not exaggerate your abilities. If you weren't paid, it doesn't count as job experience. You should have a projects section for non-professional work.

5. Build a portfolio website. Don't link to play your demos, we don't have time to play anything. Make videos that show off your skills. Also give us a bullet point list of the tech you used and the interesting problems you solved.

6. Practice interviewing. The technical interview is pretty fucking terrible. Practice talking through your thought process and asking questions.

7. Apply to any studio that is hiring, not just your dream ones. Popular studios are really hard to get into. Most of us had to spend a few years in lesser known studios, before we could get a response back from the more interesting ones.

[past cradle]

thats a ton of advice ! I actually have a resume and protfolio(which I will convert to video)

but I will keep a lot of this in mind!

is there a good place to practice technical interviews?

[dusky fable]

Practice with your classmates. The technical interview for games really isn't that different than general tech. Sure the practice problems are going to be more of a game focus, but the concepts are the same.

[past cradle]

I see, fair enough

and where should I go about learning stuff like game arcitechture, any good resources?

as well as optimization

[ivory echo]

👩

[past cradle]

oh lol mb

[plucky hatch]

Working on setting up crowdfunding right now, I think i've got everything setup really well, using other successful campaigns to base mine off of, but the question I have is how I should get the word out? The VR community is rather small, so it shouldn't be incredibly hard, but I am curious what you folks think?

My main avenues would be Discord, Reddit, Twitter, and Youtube

[abstract badge]

That's a nice list! I've saved that on my PC for when I may need this advice

[nimble geyser]

I agree with everything you said but how is this really viable for someone on juniors level, if Junior dev can build everything by himself why is he a junior? sure some of the things you mention aren't that hard to learn, but a system that would be in commercial game ??

[abstract badge]

I think the idea is that you need to demonstrate that you know the fundamental concepts of the system and can make a working example of one, not that you are an absolute master

[ivory echo]

I think the whole point was you’re not expected to build everything yourself, just make a decent system

Essentially show that you can actually make something of your own that is specialized rather than being a generalist

[nimble geyser]

That's fair 🙂

Thank you for explaining

[dusky fable]

A junior can't build everything by themselves (if you are going to look for a job, you need to stop defaulting to male for devs). You want to focus on making systems that would be in a commercial game, not a hobbyist project. That means you need something technically impressive, is flexible for iteration and focused on how design will use it.

It's the difference between a hacked together camera that works and one with states and transitions that design can customize. It's also thinking about the performance implications of your solution vs other options. And about the scalability: a quest system for building 10 quests should look different from something design can use to build a 1000 quests.

You should also write code that is readable by others and that follows a code standard. The UE code standards are googleable, but as long as your code has some standards it's fine. The variables and functions should be named well. Functions that aren't ridiculously long. And so forth.

[ornate mist]

How good do you have to be at this to make $50k+ remotely? Do those jobs exist?

[dusky fable]

Pay completely depends on the location and studio. You have to have really good skills to get anyone to pay you at all.

[ornate mist]

I'm working on a suite of plugins for my personal projects. The most technical one is a 1D physics engine for electricity/drivetrain/fluids sims, anything that can be thought of as a graph of connected devices. Assuming it's in a finished and usable state, does something like that carry a lot of weight when considering a candidate? I've been doing this kind of stuff for years, but my professional career couldn't be further from game dev.

I'd be interested in working as an employee in the field if I could work fully remote and not take a pay cut, presuming that it's not on a shovelware project and isn't like 80-hour crunch around the clock. Do junior positions like that exist?

I'm 100% dead set on giving going indie a shot sometime in the near future. If I can get paid to practice, so to speak, that'd be even better.

[ornate mist]

I'm in a weird spot where I have rather strong skills in some areas, but zero formal training, zero professional experience, and I don't even want it that bad. I'd want to do it just to get out of my current career for a few years before giving Indie or Bust a shot.

I basically already spend most of my free time in Unreal, Blender, and Rider, might as well get paid for it if the gig isn't too bad.

I mean I'd take 55k if it wasn't crunch city, I live in a very low COL area. I just don't want to spend 80 hours a week on some shitty Crypto-AI project that will never succeed, just to get too burned out to work on my passion projects.

[dusky fable]

You aren't going to get "paid to practice." You have to have a high level of skill to get your first role. Sure you will learn a lot from working, especially when working with people with more experience, but you do need a high level of skills to get your first job.

Not a lot of studios are going to allow juniors to be remote.

Most studios don't crunch all the time. Some don't expect it at all. How much crunch a studio expects depends entirely on that studio's culture and how poorly it's managed.

[dusky fable]

So don't take those jobs? I make significantly more than that and I don't crunch.

General software development or game dev?

[ornate mist]

Yeah I'm thinking if I'm to get in somewhere it'll be through connections. I have a few friends in the industry that are remote and they agree that I could probably get along fine. I'll probably try flesh out my plugins and demo projects and see what happens.

I can take it or leave it, just if my options are to stay in engineering and do game dev on the side, or move over to game dev without relocating, I'll do the move. I don't care about money, just it would be cool to not have my attention so divided.

[dusky fable]

The pay is going to be completely dependent on the studio and where they assess your level to be. Juniors tend to not make very much compared to general tech, but it jumps really fast once you get to higher levels.

[ashen lynx]

There is demand for that outside of gamedev, often with more interesting job and appreciably higher pay, provided you have expertise required.

[ornate mist]

What I'm working on is basically Simulink for games, but I'd rather leave the real work to the people who live and breath that stuff. I'm just doing it for my own project. I don't want anyone flying in a helicopter that depends on my code lmao

[abstract badge]

Some companies actually like to hire people with less experience because it means the company can train them in the particular skills and habits they want their devs to have rather than butting heads with aa more experienced person who might come in and start demanding changes in the way things are done.

Doesn't mean they won't hire experienced people too, of course, but being willing to adapt yourself to the company culture is important, too.

Also, from personal experience I can tell you that comanies using more obscure platforms are often more open to hiring people with less experience just because it's harder for them to find anyone willing to work for them. My first job out of college was like that, working on HP 3000 series minicomputers.

And to be clear I am am speaking solely from my experience outside the game industry

[ashen lynx]

In fact, experience thresholds, interviews, portfolios, referrals and many other things seize to apply, once ratio of applicants to vacancies drop below 1. If you reliably sit facing monitor and not the other way around, you are hired.

[abstract badge]

Yeah. I've been behind the tech curve since literally my first day as programmer

Started out with Fortran on the HP-3000. Moved on the Perl on Linux in the 2000s, and now I'm getting into C++ at a time when people are wondering what's going to finally replace it.

Yeah, COBOL is never going away. That's why I haven't learned it. 😄

[regal vigil]

This is why I love working with embedded systems, the tech curve moves so slowly Linux is practically new lol

[daring sleet]

Is it just me or Programmer jobs in game dev seem to have become scarce recently ?

[oblique ice]

Sure there programme job, just need search 👍

[fringe parrot]

This is Eve (from Stellar Blade), an artificial superintellig'ence in perfect body, and' a wife of Maciej Nowicki (Adam), best relation'ship in the universe

[hollow pumice]

I've been scanning the market here in Poland for the last 4-5 years and it has never been this bad
just a couple of postings for the whole country

[autumn prairie]

I cried at ";0110 0000.*0010" 🥲

[daring sleet]

I think AI might have already started taking over.
We're done for.

[hollow pumice]

haha I use GPT4 and Claude 3 for game-dev daily

and it's not even close

exactly. It writes almost perfect python code for me

I think the reason is something entirely different where the market is making a shift, where smaller studios are slowly gaining more piece of the pie

[nimble geyser]

I see no problem with people using GPT4 and whatever else as long as they really know what they are doing and are able to catch mistakes gpt is making, but for begginers its a horrible idea

Im aware

[graceful lake]

Anyone here transfer to game Dev from web development? I've been doing backend for the last 6 years and wanting to move to games. Just wondering would I have to start from the bottom.

[brave forge]

Probably not on the pecking order, but the pay drop may feel like it. Game dev doesn't pay in comparison

[graceful lake]

Yea I don't really mind a pay cut. Guess as long as I'm getting £30k I can get by fine for now. And hope it's more than that 😅

[brave forge]

Should be fine, just be aware also that it's a quiet period for hiring etc. same as all tech. Big slowdown in hiring and uptick in redundancies. If you are still employed in webdev just keep an eye out for roles and be prepared to wait a while

[graceful lake]

Cheers. Ye thinking I can just work on my UE skills and try get some projects made to show what I can do then apply.

[hollow pumice]

I had 9 years of mobile dev experience and tried to find a job in gamedev a couple of years ago. It was brutal 😃 I was looking for like a year and nobody cared about my IT experience. I managed to land an "intern" kind of role 😒

and I had a juicy personal VR Unity project as well, so it's not like I was coming empty handed 😄

[graceful lake]

Haha yea that sounds like it will be hard for me too then

[hollow pumice]

idk it's just my experience

you live in a different country too, so it might be different

[graceful lake]

I'm restricting myself too because I don't want to commute for too long so hopefully something more remote.

[hollow pumice]

but as Boris pointed out, the market is crap right now

[graceful lake]

Im in Birmingham, UK so there are some studios there but not many.

[woeful iron]

I would hope that is the exception

strange that you accept an intern position as well though

[hollow pumice]

might be an exception based on where I live: Poland

[woeful iron]

do you really want to be in game dev that bad

[hollow pumice]

yeah, I was bored

[woeful iron]

game dev is just like any other programming tbh, game devs really overrate themselves

at least the biggest chunck of it

imo

[hollow pumice]

I had a nice contract in software dev and a lot of free time on my hands

yes it is and you know it and I know it

but game dev execs don't

it's ridiculous

only after 3 months of internship they were like "oooh, so you're a regular dev"

after treating me like a complete junior 😃 it was funny

[woeful iron]

so they instantly promoted you to senior with 150% pay raise?

[hollow pumice]

yeah much more than that haha

but I rejected

[brave forge]

Hmmm mixed on this. My experience is that people in games seem to be more motivated in general and are more interesting colleagues to learn from, less of the "that's not my job" type that I've run into in corporate life. But also, on an individual level I've found the work can be just as interesting, as I like problem solving and find enjoyment in most dev roles

But that's my experience

[hollow pumice]

I found new appreciation for software dev

[woeful iron]

sure you can have shit devs and people that don't care, but I'm talking about the complexity of the day to day work in itself

people in game dev generally care more about their job and product

[brave forge]

Agreed. You can find enjoyment in problem solving in most dev roles. Cutting runtime of a a service by 40% is just as fun as cutting 2ms off a frame

[woeful iron]

while I could imagin a big chunck of "normal" devs just doing it as a job and not really caring about results beyond their direct contribution

[woeful iron]

yep

pretty much what I said when recruiting people asked me if I wouldn't miss games and the likes

[daring sleet]

oh man.. after reading all this, I am dreading about my career choices.

[woeful iron]

what career choices

[daring sleet]

choosing to be a game programmer. I love my job though, I can't imagine doing anything else.

[modern relic]

It's only really a problem if you want to be hired by another company. If you plan on making your own games with your own team/contractors then it's likely less of a problem

[past cradle]

is the indie game market bad as well?

[dusky fable]

The likelihood of making a living wage doing solo indie dev is incredibly low.

[half tree]

@hollow ether please check your dm. thanks

[past cradle]

I see, fair enough, I guess im not only looking for game dev jobs, but anything else that is related

Can I get a review for this as well?

[dusky fable]

Is your work experience paid experience? Fan games aren't exactly what we consider to be professional experience. Also, the 2nd one is not a studio I could actually find.

Professional experience tends to include the project name as well. Or "Unannounced Project" if it hasn't been announced yet.

Something like:
Studio Name - Location
Job title - Dates
Project Name (platforms)

You have a lot of emphasis on BP work, which is actually detrimental to a programmer resume. Did you write any systems in C++? If not, you should focus on making a few technically impressive C++ systems for tech demos. If so, that's what you should focus on for the bullet points.

Resumes should be specific to the job role that you are looking for. It's a waste of space to talk about designing levels in a programmer resume.

"Using technology like debugging to optimize..." I'm not sure what this means. To optimize you should use profiling, not debugging.

Things like perforce and Git should be in the skills section, not bullet points of what you did.

[past cradle]

Hmm i see, the fangame is still being made and I should ask the client as to know what is exactly is in terms of type of project

and yes it was paid

so, i did work on c++, but mainly for my own indie projects, all of the paid work i did was using blueprints, but I have a bunch of programming projects for school, which where unpaid

for debugging, your right, its for problem solving and squashing bugs

also, Idk if i should add stuff made with other languages like c# or not

so your saying I should not have the experience section and just focus on some coding projects, like a texas holdem game with winforms and c#?

[dusky fable]

Is it paid like Fiverr/Upwork or an actual living wage? It honestly doesn't look like legitimate studios, especially the fan game.

[past cradle]

Like around 15 dollars per hour

We'll actually 20

[signal turtle]

why does the pay rate matter? I'd argue it doesn't
the size of the job does of course (complexity, scope, etc), and a well known company or studio will always look better, but paid work is still better than nothing

[signal turtle]

you should be careful to capitalize acronyms like PC, PVP, 3D, AI etc
your resume looks very rough because some of your capitalization is inconsistent

[past cradle]

does this look better?
I should mention the second game is a unreal engine for fortnite island
so idk if its worth including
I might just replace it with another project like the yahtzee game or texas holdem game

[signal turtle]

also even the bullet formatting isn't the same, just make sure all the styles between sections match up

[past cradle]

yeah i should compress mb sorry

what resume builder do you guys recommend?

Im using overleaf but would appreciate anything else as this is kinda clunky

still redoing it

[signal turtle]

uhh, google docs?
or if you want to get fancy find a LaTeX template on GitHub

[past cradle]

yeah im using a Latex template rn

[signal turtle]

oh is that what overleaf is? interesting

[past cradle]

idk if thats a good thing or a bad thing lol

[mint skiff]

Probably overkill

[signal turtle]

honestly it doesn't matter what you use as long as the content is clear and well formatted

[past cradle]

yeah Im getting the hang of it lol

alr

is this better?

[mint skiff]

Hyperlinks are broken. If submitting digitally make them clickable. Commas, semicolons etc should have spaces after them. Semicolons are inappropriately used - should just be commas.

[past cradle]

fair enough, Ill fix those up!

done

[past cradle]

do you think i should remove uefn as experience and put another project instead?

[mint skiff]

No, given that you haven't done a lot, all experience is good.

[past cradle]

alr I appreciate the feedback!

[past cradle]

working on adding hyper links btw

[woeful iron]

that's a lot of text

[daring sleet]

I spent an year fixing bugs for a AAA game. Would that be considered AAA professional experience ?

well, I am glad that wasn't a waste

[daring sleet]

in that case, it counts..

[finite knoll]

Well that Steam store page link is still messed up and you randomly don't treat things as proper nouns

In a world where people will reject you for anything, don't let punctuation and capital letters (or lack thereof) be one of them

I guess my feedback

and I say languages, tools and frameworks too

[modern relic]

I don't see HTML (specifically HTML5) listed there.

[lime cobalt]

Junior programmer
Personal game portfolio 4+ games on itch/newgrounds
Any juniors here in the chat? ||Man I'm going to kms with that market||

[past cradle]

I have 3 games on itch and 1 on steam if that counts

[finite knoll]

If this is the complete job description then that's amateurish at best

[formal burrow]

That's insulting even as a Jr position.

[dusky fable]

At the end of the day, it looks like you are inflating your experience with non legitimate jobs. If they have the rights to publish a Crash Bandicoot game, it's no longer a fan game. Googling the 2nd one only gives results to a sex toy company. Not even having a studio website is questionable at best.

If the experience doesn't look legitimate, I'm usually going to pass on a candidate. Because there are more than enough that don't have questionable work experience.

[dusky fable]

4+ personal games is a requirement I've never seen before. Most people who work in the industry have never made a solo games. The skills required for solo games are not the same as working on a team.

[chilly sundial]

I'm personally not sure how much I'd count it.
It doesn't say much about experience.

There's thousands of solo games out there published, that are completely awful from a customer and developer perspective that were made by someone super green to the engine.
Very little there that would be useful in a candidate

(Take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, this is personal opinion, not any reflection on hiring in the industry)

[dusky fable]

As someone who has been interviewing programming candidates for over a decade, I don't rate full personal games more than tech demos. All I care about is how impressive the systems are, the thought process behind them and what you learned from it.

[daring sleet]

I am a little out of touch from vanilla C++, thanks to years of programming with Unreal Engine.
Could that be put me in a disadvantage at an interview for a programming role ?

[dusky fable]

That entirely depends on the studio. Some teams will see that as a disadvantage and others won't.

[chilly sundial]

That makes sense. I can imagine it having some value if it details and showcases something technically impressive.

It's just when it's listed as work experience... I dunno, I dont get it. You haven't learned anything about the industry.

[past cradle]

So for the second company, I'm making fortnite islands for them, and they're Not a sex toy company, that's dirty little secrets, and these guys are dirty secrets, but yeah they're kinda new in the business

Also, when no one is excepting me for a project, like seriously what else should I add? More solo or non profitable projects?

[brave forge]

pretty much. Portfolio building

[past cradle]

I do have a github portfolio for that

And a itch.io

[brave forge]

yes, you asked what else to do. Keep adding to it

[past cradle]

I am , I swear I am

I'm currently working with ex Ubisoft devs on a project and I'm leading a team of students for a rougelite stealth action game

[brave forge]

good. Unfortunately it's always a bit tough for beginners, even more so with the layoffs of the last 12 months. Not a great time to be entering. Just keep at it

[past cradle]

Yeah I know man, it's really frustrating especially as a head of household and student

[dusky fable]

No one is expecting you to have professional experience before you even graduate, which is over a year away based on your resume.

Sure internships exist, but they are actually incredibly rare.

[past cradle]

Yeah fair enough

[dusky fable]

I get that people get worried when job descriptions ask for some experience for entry level jobs, but you really can ignore them. We hire people without experience all the time.

It's competitive, because a lot of people want to get into the industry, but you should really focus on getting really good at C++ to be a competitive candidate.

[past cradle]

I see thats very fair

Ive told the ubisoft devs if I could implement everything else in c++ to show it off on resumes and stuff

its what im focusing on for my over and out project as well!

[past cradle]

so should I do as much as possible in c++, or balance it with blueprints, like make a base c++ class and derive a child bp off of it

[dusky fable]

I would primarily focus on C++. Some teams use BP more than others, but it's not hard to use if you are a competent programmer.

[past cradle]

alright sounds good!

so have minimal bps if possbile than, noted

can i ask why c++ is preffered so much as to blueprints?

[dusky fable]

Being good at C++ is harder, so that's what we test for. It's also more performant, mergable and doesn't cause ref chain issues.

[past cradle]

I see, fair enough

[woeful iron]

you can also do much more in c++

and it's a skill that's useful outside of unreal as well if needed

[oblique ice]

If you can c+++, you are wanted alot

[woeful iron]

I'm sorry, I'm just human, can't compete with an alot

[nimble geyser]

I bet unreal engine 6 will use c++++

[woeful iron]

that's hard to write so they stack the + signs in pairs and call it c# instead

[steady pewter]

Nah, this is a diff lang

Similar of C -> C++ -> C#, D, R

etc

The next killer

++c++

[oblique ice]

Yes unreal engine will use c+++++ 😆

[shut token]

They did fork Clang....

[lavish glade]

Why not be your own boss if others won't hire you? Is it really that difficult?

[woeful iron]

paying yourself with your own money doesn't feel as good

[lavish glade]

Nice joke @woeful iron .

[woeful iron]

it's not a joke lol

[lavish glade]

Sorry if it sounds rude but your comment seemed like a joke. But I have to do this so that others don't start assuming things.

Being your own boss means starting your business. I simply wanted to know what others think about freelancing or starting their own company.

[woeful iron]

freelancing is good

but the way you phrased it makes it sound weird

cause if no onne wants to hire him, what makes you think someone would want to hire him just cause he's freelance

[lavish glade]

I disagree.
Well I don't know the person and only he can answer for himself.

But generally speaking, there are tons of examples where others just couldn't fathom a certain talented individual until they did something for themselves.
Jack Ma of Alibaba is one of those examples.

Also, do you really think the famous people/ the self made would have made good employees?

[woeful iron]

that's not what I'm saying

option A, you freelance and work for others, people don't want to hire you as an employee, maybe there's something wrong with you, so why would they hire you as a freelancer
option B, you make a business and work for yourself, you don't have income until you create a product, hence you're paying yourself with your own money like I first said

[lavish glade]

Ahan,

What is your career path? Just curious 🤨

[woeful iron]

I'm a backend developer

[lavish glade]

🙂

[woeful iron]

idk why that is relevant though

[lavish glade]

Changing topic

[hollow pumice]

that's exactly what I did! 5 years and going! thousands of $$ spent, lots of prototypes, lots of learning, lots of ups and downs and still nothing released 😎

but getting there! 😮‍💨

[lavish glade]

Not everyone wins. Not right away. Although that's how a man's success is measured eventually.

Still it's applaudable that you at least try

[lavish glade]

Awesome 😎

I also continue to experiment different ideas

[hollow pumice]

success came, but not what I expected! I met a creator, an artist, and we've been going at it together for the past 2 years

so much fun, such an interesting experience to do something that meaningful for you with someone else

[plucky hatch]

How's you get the money? I have a crowdfunding campaign going but finding it hard to advertise

[hollow pumice]

software dev contracting

can you share the campaign?

[plucky hatch]

I have been looking quite hard for these yeah, but it's proving hard to break into unfortunately

[hollow pumice]

yeah, these are interesting times, when it comes to programming jobs; game-dev or software dev

I've been living in "programmers are gods" bubble in the past decade, but it seems to be bursting

[plucky hatch]

It does indeed unfortunately

bad time for me to jump into lol

[hollow pumice]

what are you aiming for?

[plucky hatch]

I have more experience programming, Java, and C, plus Assembly just to flex 😆
I'm really open to software development in C, Java, or Python or Game development, Environment art and or level design

[hollow pumice]

As for the campaign. Parts of it look impressive, but it feels like you're trying to pitch an Unreal Engine dynamic weather system, not a game. At least that's my initial impression

My tip for you would be to play around with LLMs, especially ChatGPT API

Python preferably

[plucky hatch]

Yeah I have to wait a bit to be able to throw the VR stuff up unfortunately, some stuff broke

As a career path you mean?

[hollow pumice]

yeah, but it's just a hunch

[plucky hatch]

I've been thinking about that for a while yeah

[hollow pumice]

companies are in disarray right now

but they will need to catch up

[plucky hatch]

Python ML is BIG right now

[hollow pumice]

and there will be an era of "mobile apps"

but for LLMs

and there will be a huge demand for developers that know how to use GPT and other LLMs to deliver apps

and I'm sure the same demand will appear in games soon enough

[plucky hatch]

agreed yeah

[chilly sundial]

For what it's worth, you can't share the campaign

against the server rules

[plucky hatch]

bruh 💀
the man asked

[chilly sundial]

doesn't matter

[tall cove]

is game development a good career?

i dont really know what i wanna do

[woeful iron]

you wanna have fun? maybe go in games
you wanna make money and have an easy life? probably don't go in games

[woeful iron]

this sounds a bit narrow minded to me really, life is not about money, it's nice to have, but if getting more of it is the essence of your life and only measure of success I pity you

but that's just my opinion

[lavish glade]

I don't know why you had a need to tell me this.
But okay. I hope you feel better now 😊

[woeful iron]

it's a chat, it's normal people respond to things you say

[lavish glade]

True. And that's why you should focus on like minded people. Apparently we arent

[woeful iron]

why should you focus on like minded people?

if you only ever do that you end up in an echo chamber

[nimble geyser]

Depends on person, In my opinion it is. I absolutely love what I do and feeling of making things and click play and watching things come to life is so fulfilling for me

you can bring part of your imagination to life

thats how I look at it

[chilly sundial]

Side note: not all of gamedev is clicking play and watching things come to life

[nimble geyser]

Yes this is true, I'm just simplifying it

[chilly sundial]

It's also dubious how much you can use your imagination in the industry. When you get to that stage you've been in the field a while

[nimble geyser]

By Imagination = crative solution for some problem

or learning new things you havent done before etc

at least in my mind this is exciting part

[chilly sundial]

Yeah but that is regardless of sector :P.

Any development needs you to come up with solutions to problems and learn new things :P

[past cradle]

so for a student, I know I have to develope my c++ skills by making cool stuff for projects, my question is how do I get paid for doing such things if possible?

yeah thats what i expected, as the head of the household its extremely hard for me to work on multiple unpaid projects for recognition and portfolio purposes ( as Im doing now)

is there a good student job that ties into unreal/game development at least?

[sullen ridge]

[Paid Job posting] (Hope this is alright to post here, let me know if it should be somewhere else.)

Hello, is there anyone who are very familiar with ALS system who could tutor me so I can integrate into my game? I've set up the community version 5.3 and wanted to get a grasp of it as quick as I can.
Please dm me if we can schedule a quick call for intro!

[shut token]

#instructions

[chilly sundial]

No, you seek your money through other means while you build skills in the meantime

You also don't need to work on multiple unpaid projects

Just make a good tech demo by yourself or something

I'm assuming you mean like revshare or volunteer projects

[dusky fable]

What does being the head of the household have to do with it? I worked full time doing something unrelated to programming while I was in school. It's not impossible.

You don't need to work on multiple volunteer full game projects. You need to get good at C++ and make a bunch of tech demos. As a programmer you don't need full games in your portfolio.

[past cradle]

I see, fair enough

[past cradle]

yeah basically

[exotic marsh]

Open question related to this, are there any topics you'd recommend exploring when creating tech demos? Right now I've made projects that aren't all that technically complicated, so if anyone has any insight or recommendation for some topics that would be useful to know, I would appreciate your input!

For additional context, I'm most interested in working on RPGs

[dusky fable]

Anything that's an actual system. How would you build a quest system so that design can make 1,000 quests for a RPG? Or a dialogue system. Maybe a skill system with a skill tree. Think about systems in games that you enjoy and then do so research using GDC talks or articles.

[exotic marsh]

Thank you for your response! I've had a dialogue system in mind for a bit, looks like it's time to move it up the priority list

[graceful lake]

So make loads of systems, make a video, link to a build, link to source code? You reckon doing this and also showing I know c++ is a good way to get a job?

[tardy schooner]

Another way to keep a small enough scope is to think in terms of a plugin. That way you always need to be aware of the usability of your tech for others.

[dusky fable]

I wouldn't say loads. 3-4 projects is fine. Don't need to link to a build, because we don't have time to play it. Be prepared to answer a lot of questions on your decisions during interviews.

[graceful lake]

I'm not really sure how complex these projects should be. Are there public one you could link to that you can think of? I'm a bit lost with what I should be working on to find a job.

[dusky fable]

You can search for LinkedIn profiles of people who have the specific role that you are looking for.

[shut token]

Got it. Search for "Luthage" on LinkedIn

[graceful lake]

nice yea good idea cheers

[dusky fable]

Haha. I only had 1 system, a utility AI one that I did for my master's thesis. That was over a decade now, so the competition has changed a bit.

[dusky fable]

The key is to make it as if you are working on a decent sized team and make it professional. So it should be as complex as it needs to be, not complex for complexity's sake. How complex it needs to be depends entirely on the system.

The main point is that you need to show that you can potentially work at a professional level. That starts with how you think about the problem.

Let's say you want to build a cover system. First you need to sit down and answer a bunch of questions. How will design place them? What data do the cover points need to have? Can AI use them? What conditions must be met to use them? What happens when they are used? How would an AI search for them? And so forth. Google the door problem for an example of the kind of detail that you need to answer.

What are the different ways this could be built? What are the pros and cons of each one? What's the perf considerations? What's the scalability considerations?

Now that you have a rough plan, start simple and expand out. I like to start with the data, but that's up to you. Focus on making your system flexible for iteration. Follow some code standards (Epic's standards are freely available). Make your variables and functions have good names. Don't hard code any numbers. Use debug drawing to test things. Iterate on the system until it feels good. As you are testing, is there anything that should be added? Anything that feels awkward to use?

[graceful lake]

Loads of good info. Thanks very much for writing all this! I got much to learn then 😅

[nimble geyser]

For my first project I've build a Procedural Map generator with procedural animation etc

with biomes and whatnot

took me like 3+ months

and A parkour project

it worked for me

[kindred dawn]

Hey guys, I am looking for a business partner in US. Please dm me anytime if interested

[past cradle]

so, should things like creating a hash table from scratch, or a avl or binary search tree be on your resume?

[past cradle]

given this as a resume

[brave forge]

Those are typically uni/college assignments, so probably not. Put them in your GitHub for sure, but resume, i don't think it's eye catching. Why did you build them? What did you integrate them into? That's probably better portfolio stuff

[abstract badge]

Any qualified candidate for a programming job should know the basic algorithms already, so this kind of knowledge is assumed (or they actually test you on it in an early screening interview). It's kind of like a potential automotive engineer knowing what a carburetor is (OK I'm dating myself with that one since cars aren't carbureted any more. 😄 )

[woeful iron]

it's also something you will never actually do on a real job though

[plucky hatch]

As a complete beginner who has never coded a single line of code. What engine do you prefer me to start in?

[woeful iron]

I'd say don't start with an engine

learn programming fundamentals first

like in simple console apps

[clever yarrow]

On the other hand, I'm a software developer who's just now starting her foray into game dev. I don't work with C languages at all, but I don't mind picking up another language if it's advised.

What would you say is the "standard" approach between Blueprint and C++? I would assume most larger projects use a hybrid approach, though I'm sifting through Udemy courses at the moment and most of them seem to approach it as a binary choice.

[shut token]

It will vary from team to team.

One piece of advice is to avoid BP structs and BP enums

They're easy enough to do in C++

Otherwise, kinda just have to figure out what is the right balance for you

But going to much in either direction is pain in one way or the other

[chilly sundial]

assuming this is for a career given it's #career-chat it depends on your job role.
If you want an "... Programmer" rule, you can almost bet it would be C++. Little to no bp used in those cases.

[plucky hatch]

I have a feeling that I don't have the luxury to decide where to work. With no experience and no education, all I can do is to rely on a portfolio and apply without thinking on which company or country.

[exotic marsh]

It'll be a process I'm sure. I'm expecting that my first job in games will just be whatever I can find wherever. With time though, you'll probably become more qualified, and in a better position to choose more desirable work conditions

[oblique ice]

I just learn the fundamental of BP from epic games official site

[toxic vine]

How's everyone doing? Progressing towards your goals?

[plucky hatch]

Going alright, how are y’all’s portfolios doing? You guys have a host website to show games or just link them in your CV ?

[plucky hatch]

I have a website I made with start bootstrap and hosted on github pages, routed through my domain

works pretty good!

I see, I am going to try with Googlesites and name cheap

Don’t feel like webdeving

That's an option! It cost me 12 dollars a year for the domain and nothing on github

thats very true, took me a couple days to make the site

[plucky hatch]

It’s a nice skill tho good stuff

[plucky hatch]

I see

[plucky hatch]

Oh that's interesting, i used squarespace, prev. google domains

made ME angry yeah lol

I had no idea cloudflare offered services

the product is now owned by squarespace so im not very torn up about that, and its just the domain

[finite knoll]

I always used namecheap and it's been very reliable for me, but looking at that Cloudflare page has me thinking about transferring to them

[shut token]

@plucky hatch I switched to Porkbun - they've been pretty nice to be honest.

[plucky hatch]

This is crazy dude i've ONLY ever heard of squarespace

im learning so much lmao

i'd probably go with cloudflare for that anti ddos tbh though

they are great at that

so great they protect some ahem cotroversial people

[exotic marsh]

I have a website on meocities that links to my released projects and has a devlog kinda blog

Could definitely stand to get a more professional web page

[dusky fable]

You need a website with videos, screenshots and a breakdown of what you did. We don't have time to play any demos or games when looking at portfolios.

[woeful iron]

Barely have time to play games when not looking at portfolios

[mint estuary]

Hi, I have many questions to ask you all about the career opportunities and salaries in game development in INDIA.

1. What is the average salary of a game developer or game programmer at entry level?
   2.Today I was shocked to see in many job searching apps that many game dev jobs just pay you around 4 to 7 LPA and almost none beyond 10LPA (in rupees)which is very low compared to other non gamedev software jobs.
   Even senior game dev jobs which require 5 + years strong portfolio barely had 12 LPA. Why is the condition like this?
2. Aren't the game developers in demand?
3. When everyone says game development is hard why is the pay low compared to other jobs?
4. Is graduation in computer science a must ? Because I am currently studying BTech in electronics and communication
5. Do unreal engine game developer remote internships that you can find in job searching apps like internshala and Glassdoor add any good value to the resume?
6. Any tips to secure a 10 + LPA game dev job in India?

Someone please answer my questions. You can DM me too .

[dusky fable]

1. I recommend looking at sites like Glassdoor for regional information.
2. Depending on the market, it's pretty normal for game dev to be lower than general dev, especially in junior levels. Supply vs demand.
3. Seniors are in demand, but there are far more people trying to get into the industry than there are entry level positions.
4. Supply vs demand. It's basic economics.
5. A lot of studios get enough candidates to filter out anyone without a CS degree for programming jobs.
6. Internships certainly do add value to a resume. However remote does not mean can work from anywhere. Still need to legally be able to work for the company.
7. Not sure about India specifically, but you need a solid portfolio of technically impressive systems as well as a solid foundation in computer science.

[formal burrow]

Can add that even some university at a CS program but not finishing is a-ok if your portfolio demonstrates both your skill as a game dev and also a Software Engineer.

But the big thing is: solid portfolio

[mint estuary]

Thanks

[hidden kayak]

What's the usual rate for an experienced unreal dev? Per month. Remote.
And what about newbies. I really cannot trust newbies tho. They have done a very dissapointing job as volunteers.

[spice dagger]

Depends entirely on what field they are in (Unreal Dev isn't a proper job title)
Depends what your definition of experienced means.
Depends on where they live.

The answer is, it depends.

[formal burrow]

Depends on location and experience with what. In the US and most of Europe: expect to pay 20$ USD to 80$ USD an hour.

[spice dagger]

Generally speaking, you get what you pay for.

If you are paying $20USD/hr, dont expect work that looks like $80USD/hr

[formal burrow]

Bingo lol 20$ an hour gets you 20$ an hour work/low priority among their active contracts versus 60$ an hour.

[hidden kayak]

I see. Thank you.

[mint estuary]

That's a bit depressing. Anyway thanks

[dusky fable]

Some university doesn't stop recruiters from filtering out the resume for not having a degree, which most studios do.

[mint estuary]

I have nearly 1 year experience working with unreal engine as a hobby and I hate unity. But is learning unity a must for a stable and good game dev job? Is ue 5 as good as unity interms of job?

[brave forge]

Generally, yes, same. But depends on the studios around you. If there are a bunch of mobile studios unity might be more preferred.

[dusky fable]

The only real difference is the types of games. Unity is primarily super small indie (2d) or mobile. Unreal is typically larger indie, AA and AAA. If your area has only unity studios, you'll have a hard time. But it's about the same in general.

[tardy schooner]

The trend the last 5-10 years has been that students are learning an engine more than gamedevelopment in general. A trend that I really dislike.
They leave education knowing everything about a certain engines tools but very little about basic and generic features how an engine works and what is going on inside.
If using several engines you will get a broader understanding in what to look for when jumping to the next platform/engine and knowing basic stuff about optimizing your stuff/writing sustainable code that makes sense for any engine. In our studio we recently switched our project from Unity to Unreal and then the benefit of knowing "generic" networking, "generic" shaderprogramming etc is really valuable instead of knowing the latest nodes in PCG or how replication in UE works.
My "humble" conclusion: All experience with engines are great as there WILL be changes with platforms/tech. Don't get stuck on an engine.

[pseudo turtle]

Can anyone help me So, I'm making a game in Unreal Engine 5. My character walks normally with animations, but every approximately 4 seconds, he slows down and it looks like he's sliding on the ground. His walking speed remains the same, only the animation is like that.

[green oyster]

He'll lose his job because of it!

[pseudo turtle]

yes

oh, is this the wrong Genreal?

[glass pine]

With the recent layoffs and problems, how is archvis holding up? I am looking towards archvis free-lance.
I don't really know what would usually be expected of a job and how much is an average income?

[formal burrow]

Completely agree, and I feel sad for those recruiters that usually miss solid talent due to poor bias.

[chilly sundial]

Feel sad for the talent instead

[formal burrow]

Like will never forget this person I hired years ago; was a university drop out that dropped out to run and sell a successful software compan. He had made the software originally to pay for his university work. Most recruiters passed over him despite the clear talent and just more "life wasn't as perfect as everyone else's life, not good enough"

[mint estuary]

Thanks. I want to learn more engines too but I hate unity as much as I love Unreal. Unity looks like it ripped off from windows xp. Boring and clunky UI and everything feels so outdated when using it whereas I love unreal because it looks modern and behaves very professional.I very much liked the workflow in Unreal. It gives me the feeling that "Yes, this is how it is done in those big game studios". Whereas implementing anything in unity feels kind of hacky and workaround. For example , when designing UI, the canvas floats in the 3d open world which feels very ridiculous whereas Unreal has sperate 2d widget editors and they get attached to the viewport when we need them. That feels so much better and intuitive instead of having your play button float in the 3d world in the editor. And Unreal has pawns, Characters and controllers etc so that we can access our player and the controllers from anywhere and as far as I know , Unity doesn't internally know what a "player "means. I don't have much experience with unity so I can't judge it much. But I feel that it is not for me and I still regret that I wasted my some time with it. Needless to say about Godot and other engines as there are hardly any jobs with them.

[formal burrow]

oh the thing is; this kid understood the basics and everything. Not at the company anymore, but last time I checked, he was a SSE. Just bias is what has driven this industries AAA sector into the ground. Specifically degree only hiring lol

like if you want to hire by degree, hire specifically computer engineers with a minor in computer science since they know the concepts and the math for game dev better than almost any CS major off bat: plus project management is a required engineering course

[tardy schooner]

I hear you but this is the exact point I’m trying to make. Your view of how it is in the bigger studios are very skewed as most of the times they/we are rewriting lots of the stuff provided by the engine . Unity has no concept of players and movement? Yes and we are right now ripping out the movement component in Unreal as it is way too bulky for our game and writing our own. We are not using the network replication as it doesn’t suit us , writing our own solution with a simple transport layer. Thing is that Unreal stuff is good if you are doing very specific games and are designing the game around the tools it provides. It’s a good starting point learning game development but in the end you will wind up creating your own tech be it in Unity, Unreal or any other engine.

[mint estuary]

Yes, I have the same feeling. I don't like to open a completely blank project with no special plugins or packages and then open a boring stupid package manager(requires internet)and import TextMeshPro ,Cinemachine ,postprocessing stack etc.

[plucky hatch]

🤣

[worldly heath]

can anyone please send resume which has high resume score .
i want for refrence

[worldly heath]

https://resumeworded.com/score

like what they did ,
someone told me that resume are first sortlisted by resume score
idk how much true is it

any more information please ,
it will help a lot like that various method

[formal burrow]

Same. My interview pile is like "Yes" "consider if we do not have at least a couple yes" "might be useful for another position/future role" and "no"

I recommend reviewing a studio a bit before applying if it is a position you want and to quantify relative experiences at your previous roles that would matter to the studio you are applying too

But as Laura said, never lie

Ope that's one way, I just never lie personally lol

I can see that being acceptable lol

Ye, victimless might be good as long as your skills back it up

Like I am 100% sure I've had a few stretched trusths told to me over the past two years

When I was a chef; I heard ever lie in the book

Every*

[worldly heath]

but if there are 100+ or even more resume , you need a software to sortlist , because its difficult for human to go through all ?

[formal burrow]

Not at all, humans can do so but you also want to make sure your resume is AI readable in the event some companies use it.

I can read through a few hundred applications for a single role; just becomes an entire days work with OT. It just needs to be done and AI can skip a perfectly good candidate so it's good not to trust it.

I especially hate AI due to coded Bias. Spelling error filters dumping resumes due to ethnic names, etc.

Bur in the real world, AI and short cuts are used. So make sure your resume is AI readable.

[worldly heath]

yes our college suggest overleaf to make resume for ai readable but in that there is a section of projects
but as i saw in many resume template available in google dont have projects in that

[formal burrow]

For a student, projects in a resume are fine. You will not have much or any professional experience to list like in the example resumes. The examples on Google are for people like me who have been on the industry long enough my professional work is better listed in the space used for the projects since my professional work is more impressive.

For your projects; the same as a professional role, quantify what you did in a way that matters to the company you're applying for.

For example; it's not a project but I quantify my chef experience before my walking disability as a large contribution to my leadership skills.

[worldly heath]

ok ok got it

👍 thanks

[brave forge]

You mean companies won't open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits and claims?!?!?!

[oblique ice]

Happen to me before, encounter discrimination even during in application

[formal burrow]

Essentially yes lol I turned down a job a little over a year ago because the company was in a diverse city with almost no diversity in their staff (1 out of 130)

[formal burrow]

You don't want to work for them anyway, it's not worth it lol

[brave forge]

Yes, if they admitted what filters they used they'd be in deep trouble. No company will ever be transparent about hiring

[formal burrow]

Yup, sadly people with bad intentions often are in positions of hiring power and will put their bias into hiring.

I couldn't walk; bias definitely showed lol

[brave forge]

Not even bad intentions. There's just no upside to admitting what filters are in place because even if no bad intention is there, it can be used as evidence in a claim. There's just no point to a company giving out this information

[oblique ice]

Yes, the filter will pass /ignore all the resume or whatever all because of a filter

[formal burrow]

I should also mention that use of AI tools in hiring will require a notice in the US sometime this year or next year

[brave forge]

They will still be as opaque as they possibly can within the limits of the law

[formal burrow]

And the eeoc will ream them like they did the sports stadiums in 2018

[brave forge]

It's basically legal 101, stfu, don't say anything you don't need to say

[formal burrow]

If it was congress, they could skirt it. Direct EEOC stuff is basically near impossible to skirt without risking an unmitigated adult by the eeoc lol

Audit*

[dusky fable]

How else do you think that hiring managers are supposed to go through hundreds of resumes for every entry level position, when they also have other work to do?

[formal burrow]

Unsure since Id rather find the perfect talent and having a degree does not mean you'll be better than one without. Plus if I schedule a job post 4 weeks from now, that's 4 weeks + the time the ad is up to make it so I have an open day/weekend to review all applicants after the job posting closes.

There are people in this industry with 20 years+ and multiple shipped titles from before degree bias was a thing in this industry. Imagine you dump the resume of a developer with 10 shipped titles for AAA studios due to no degree on their resume.

The requirements for a degree in a lot of AAA studio jobs did come about in our tenure as developers.

[dusky fable]

If a degree is a requirement, then it's not bias to filter for it. Also I specifically asked about entry level and you responded about senior level. You don't get the same volume of applicants for seniors and even then a better filter is for years of experience.

[formal burrow]

True, not exactly bias but it does filter out qualifying talent none the less. The loss of "diamond in the rough" devs is why companies like Ubisoft, Epic, and Funcom do not automatically toss no degree resumes.

[dusky fable]

The "diamond in the rough" is incredibly rare as self taught programmers are considerably less likely to have the CS fundamentals to pass a technical interview. While you have a stack of hundreds of applicants who do plus impressive portfolios. Expecting anyone to give up a weekend to work is absolutely ridiculous.

[formal burrow]

That's why I made an emphasis on some university as well lol just some is fine

And being salaried means you work when needed. If you work on a title that has online service as a backend developer; you'll be expected to be on call every few weekends.

[wary idol]

Some of the best programmers I know are self taught

[torpid spruce]

Hi anyone looking for houdini vfx artist

can oneone show me how ue vfx reel should look like?

[formal burrow]

Same, like ive ran across a few that have blown me away.

[formal burrow]

Ohhh I just had a perfect wxample crap let me find the video

[torpid spruce]

Because Im from Houdini so That be like mostly pyro and destruction

[woeful iron]

Thing is proving you’re good self thought is hard, with a degree you have something to base off of

[dusky fable]

Being salaried does not mean that you give up an entire weekend to go through resumes. That's an incredibly toxic attitude.

[wary idol]

Degrees don't always or rarely equate to knowledge, you can get a degree by barely scraping by to get it

[formal burrow]

Like I said, if you work a live service title; you are expected too as a senior or lead to be available on weekends often.

It's not toxicity if you understand your position, the need of the work, and are compensated for it.

[torpid spruce]

Hi video?

[formal burrow]

Finance is digging it up, she was the one who showed me

[dusky fable]

There's a significant difference between being on call for a live service game while being compensated for it and working weekends to bend over backwards.

[formal burrow]

If I only have to hire for a position twice a year or three times; not much bending over backwards if it means I get the perfect team member.

Plus only time I've ever needed a weekend for applications was when a role resched over 140ish

Reached*

[torpid spruce]

wait i heard almost every company is looking for vfx artist for unreal engine

holywood is fk broken

[woeful iron]

I didn’t say that, but having a degree is an easier thing to show something than having inherent skill often

[formal burrow]

Very broken. was a lead for a Hollywood project, nightmare people to work for

[torpid spruce]

it could have been back but i dont think west ever getting it back because the way they involved in war crimes , hollywood is done the major fact

[wary idol]

Kinda goes in line with my thinking, company doing screening based on if you have a degree or not is probably not a company I want to waste my time on

[formal burrow]

I see a lot of production heading to Brazil, India, and Spain

[dusky fable]

We'll get 500+ in the first day of an entry level position being open.

Anyways, you can hire however you want. It doesn't change the fact that it's significantly harder to get an entry level position without a degree, so the advice is still relevant.

[torpid spruce]

yup bollywoood is rising , but I dont watch every bollywood movie

[formal burrow]

I watch a few lol

[torpid spruce]

This is why im rushing into Unreal engine because every company 80 out of 100 are looking for ue4 vfx artist

[formal burrow]

True, hard but not impossible. And that is why my applicants close automatically after 250

Applications*

[wary idol]

Let's say you had 2 candidates, first one with only a degree and that's it, and a 2nd one with no degree but with a few technically challenging projects/systems in their portfolio

[formal burrow]

You know who I'm hiring lol

[torpid spruce]

this is my reel ,Althrough I have checked few vdb export to ue looks quite cool

[formal burrow]

That we cannot help lol

I had a 500 applicant thing before and it was a weekend worth of screening. 2 8ish hour days lol

And a 3rd day to email the 12 for interviews

[torpid spruce]

u also do hiring?

[wary idol]

Jobs applied to you

[formal burrow]

Not often but as needed since I ran kitchens; used to hiring and dealing with applicants often at smaller studios without solid HR staff

[torpid spruce]

what r the chances I have? althrough I dont do blueprints ,

[formal burrow]

Thats so lucky lmao

Applying now sucks

True, it is more talent than anything else

[ashen lynx]

Talent alone gets you nowhere.

[torpid spruce]

I have huge skills with Houdini but none with ue4

[formal burrow]

Got Laura 10 years secured at her place lol I'd give a leg for thatif I had a functional one to give, kinda half functional

[charred sentinel]

It's not 10 years in one place

[formal burrow]

Chef gang 😎✌️

[wary idol]

The thing I also found is if you have something impressive you worked on you can get job opportunities thrown at you, basically bypassing regular interview nightmare

[formal burrow]

Ahh I see, I should respond to recruiters more but I'm happy where I'm at

[shut token]

I mean - how could you not want to hire that?

[formal burrow]

It feels nice when that starts happening tbh

I'd hire a red panda

Lmao got you, if only I still worked in the food industry

[torpid spruce]

oh want to work as a farmer

collecting berries 😄

[dusky fable]

Lol, so you bias on who applies quickest.

[formal burrow]

Both are searching for a job, more a race. Removing people based on degree in a field were degrees didn't matter for the lonest time in the industry seems more harmful than good.

[woeful iron]

But what if you have one with a degree, and one guy that claims to be really good but with no real public projects though

[formal burrow]

Degree person gets the job. Portfolios are important

[woeful iron]

And what if you have one with a degree and cool projects vs one with just the cool projects

[formal burrow]

That's actually the only automatic trash for me; no Portfolio

[woeful iron]

Rip Laura not hired

[formal burrow]

Laura can be my food taste tester for the recipes on my sauce website

[shut token]

Imagine passing up the chance to hire Laura 🤣

[formal burrow]

Boom hired again

Oh ye, I'd rather a resume and portfolio and CL/CV included or not. I'f your skills fit and your resume quantified your skills to where I can imagine your use in the role; I'll get to know you in the interview

[shut token]

But that's the thing, Laura has no portfolio

And you said that is automatic trash for you

[formal burrow]

She also doesn't apply for jobs

[dusky fable]

I don't have a portfolio either.

[shut token]

But there could be other Laura's

[dusky fable]

As a programmer, you don't actually need a portfolio after the first job

[shut token]

I mean, Luthage is 🤩 with AI. Wouldn't want to pass up on her either if ever given the chance.

[formal burrow]

And ye, game dev is a rough field. I specifically stayed as a 1099 due to cancer and surgeries to walk again. A lot of studios still get mad when you, as a contractor, cannot make their 9am stand up over chemo

I usually ended contracts if they get upset or asked me to move chemo. Like on the spot

[shut token]

Could you like, just not have cancer for us? Thanks!

[formal burrow]

I mean, I strongly recommend a list of at least the games you are credited on in place of a portfolio. Anything g showing work

[formal burrow]

Bro I like felt thats what they were asking

Like I'm good now and am in PT for muscle issues due to not using my legs for as often as needed

Its usually where I stated Section 2 Part c of my contract I make people sign. And I peave out

Peace*

[shut token]

The main point of me using both Laura and Luthage as an example is that even your own hiring process is flawed. Hiring the correct person is incredibly difficult. And these bigger companies just have to default to some kind of baseline. Even if it is silly in some regards.

[formal burrow]

I like making games, money is second to me.

For me; royalities, sauce company, and gambling is all I need to live lol

But I want to make games to make games

So that's why I'm here lol

I mean, I'm positive a few thousand % since I started my poker career lol

As it should me 🙂

[formal burrow]

True, I can agree it is flawed but more flawed by my want for applications that were submitted get looked at to make sure for myself and them; no one or useful skill is missed.

[shut token]

Luthage applies. She has no portfolio. Instant trash for you. You just missed a useful skill.

[formal burrow]

If she applies with even a sheet of the games credited on, that's fine. Just quantified experience is better than none

[shut token]

That would just be in her work history though. That's not a portfolio.

[dusky fable]

Well yeah... that's called a resume with work experience. Which is not a portfolio.

[shut token]

I also don't have a portfolio to be honest.

[formal burrow]

Which is lovely if a resume can actually quantify that work but they hardly ever do beyond mentioned what they did in work experience but not how they did it.

[shut token]

Because that's what you're supposed to do in the work history section

[formal burrow]

Oh people fail at making work sections quantifiable all the time.

Like I get you have the skill, but I want to know how you used it there and what the result was.

[dusky fable]

I no longer apply for jobs. They reach out to me. However, that's not very good career advice to people looking for their first job.

[formal burrow]

Ye. It's a hopeful goal for many though which is good!

[dusky fable]

I however refuse technical interviews and laugh if they ask for a portfolio.

[shut token]

And again - that is not what goes into the work history section typically.

[formal burrow]

Same on technicals

[shut token]

Technical interview: Build a prototype HTN system please

I'm fine with idiot checks

[formal burrow]

When the technical interview sounds like something they didn't wanna hire a contractor for 🤣

[shut token]

Same

[dusky fable]

You can filter out just fine by having a conversation. Our studio doesn't even have technical interviews for juniors. The technical interview is incredibly biased. However entry level candidates should be prepared for them, because most studios demand them.

[shut token]

Oh the learnings I could have if I worked for/with Luthage 😭

[formal burrow]

I ran into that in 2020 when I was first switching into game dev full time from just doing chef stuff and software in the restaurant industry

[dusky fable]

I offered...

[shut token]

Yeah, I know. And I explained the situation 😭

I still think about it to this day 😭

[formal burrow]

I usually just ask people do not use acronyms in their tests lol It was even an issue when I was in uni, so many people bad with acronyms as seniors in CS lol

[dusky fable]

The worst engineers I've ever worked with had passed technical interviews, so I'm not convinced they do much.

[formal burrow]

looks at other seniors work and sees they did a lot of BPs sees 7 casts in a row on branches to see if valid running on tick

[shut token]

I used to think fizzbuzz shouldn't be used....

[formal burrow]

Ye, maybe idiot checks help for senior roles occasionally lol

I just realized my uproperty question is an idiot check

That I ask people lol

[shut token]

When I got hired for my first programming job, my questions were all just basic OOP stuff. Showing understanding of classes, polymorphism, and things like that. Apparently I did far better than other candidates. I thought it was pretty fair.

Of course I had to write some of the code. Wasn't familiar with C# at the time either, so they didn't care that I made some syntax errors.

[formal burrow]

Ah reminds me of one project. I have a setup with docker, golang, and ue server for AI.

Tech was dead set on Java backend with modern ue, a backend from 14 years ago as the model to be used.

[shut token]

I just checked - almost a year exactly since 😭

[formal burrow]

Lmao 🤣 I just saw the earlier comment you made. Rip

[shut token]

Yeah. It was just a really bad time for my wife and I. I have a particular interest in AI for games, so it would've been amazing

[formal burrow]

I feel that. I've like been on two projects over the past 4 years where I really wanted to help but health forbid me and I was just weighing the team down due to medical unavailability and left.

[formal burrow]

Hope it has improved for the wife and you since then!

[shut token]

Eh - somewhat, but since then, decided to start my own studio and fumble my way through the industry.

[formal burrow]

Yup, usually why I specifically always have been 1099. I always do hourly and nothing upfront.

Plus it's helped I usually finish tasks early and under hour budget; clients like I try not to nickle and dime them since I just want to see fun games.

Nah I'm usually called into fix big netowrk physics and gameplay jank. I want gone 😩

[dusky fable]

So if we open another AI headcount you don't want to know about it?

[formal burrow]

If the problem is bad enough that I gotta question how they ended up there; usually want gone lol

[shut token]

https://tenor.com/bSvZm.gif

[formal burrow]

Opportunity comes again 😎

[wary idol]

Would interview both in that case, in this case the degree has no value to me
Only time it has any value is if both candidates provide nothing but 1 has a degree

[dusky fable]

In that case you interview both, but I have never seen it where you only have 2 applicants.

[plucky breach]

Ah okay thanks

[native mulch]

how hard is it to land a junior developer job?
been trying for the past 6 months, should I give up yet?

[plucky hatch]

Care to share your portfolio?

[native mulch]

sure

[woeful iron]

in this chat?

[native mulch]

no

[woeful iron]

https://tenor.com/view/lord-of-the-rings-frodo-alright-then-keep-your-secrets-smiling-gif-26462584

[spark fossil]

Hi guys.. new here 😃

[pulsar trout]

Junior dev jobs are very scarce nowadays, thanks to the massive layoff waves and hiring freezes

Things that can set your profile apart from other candidates are studies, looking up the companies you're applying for to better explain why you think you'd be a good fit for their line of work, and most importantly, personal projects that show you can apply what you've learned in real world scenarios

[native mulch]

sad world

capitalism

[nimble grove]

i think I've seen 2 junior audio roles, ever. I'm at my 64th job application since October 2022

[ivory echo]

We don’t have a better system yet so…

Well I guess there’s always “managed democracy” 😀

[abstract badge]

Actually, "managed capitalism" would be kind of what I want. Capitalism but with strong government regulation

[ivory echo]

Yeah, except the rich tend to call that socialism to scare people away, so they can get away with no rules lol

[pulsar trout]

I am so sorry to hear

[abstract badge]

O NOES ITS THE SOSHULIZMS!

[spice dagger]

This isnt the channel for discussing political and economic regimes. Please move back ontopic.

[abstract badge]

Sorry

[ivory echo]

Ya bossmang, for da Belt!

[formal burrow]

Love the expanse

[ivory echo]

Now run, that’s off topic too! 😀

[fiery owl]

Hey I'm a junior game developer using unreal engine 4 and 5 so if you have any opportunity so tell me actually I'm looking for a job change.

I have 2.5 years of experience.

[ivory echo]

#instructions

And see the job board section

[graceful lake]

Do many people bypass junior and go straight to a mid level?

[brave forge]

There's no bypassing. You might do this if you've got considerable experience with a game you released yourself, or a successful set of products on the marketplace, or maybe you transition from an adjacent job/career like webdev. In this case though you've actually done the hard yards of shipping a product, commercial experience etc

The question really is: What in the portfolio or resume/cv would indicate that the candidate is qualified for a midlevel role over a junior role?

[graceful lake]

Sorry yea I meant bypass game Dev junior if you are already experienced in programming and have a good enough portfolio

[brave forge]

In this case I wouldn't really call it "bypassing" then. Yes it's possible with the right/enough adjacent experience.

[oblique ice]

don't forget able to work in team or teamplayer

[vocal aurora]

Portfolio is everything. If you can’t show you can make professional level work, you won’t get the job. And they’ll know if you’re just rendering free assets off the marketplace

[daring sleet]

Here's something I've learnt about myself during my job search.
"I am too old for internships and too inexperienced for permanent roles."
Anyone else feeling likewise ?

[shut token]

No

[plucky hatch]

How old are you?

You can always make up for it in skill

[daring sleet]

I have a game dev job. Its just that, I am aiming for some AAA or similar studios.
They all offer internships that I am too old for and their junior most roles still require some experience that I don't yet have.

[daring sleet]

That's what I've been trying

[woeful iron]

have you tried just applying anyway?

[dusky fable]

Job descriptions are wishlists. You don't need to meet all of the requirements

[daring sleet]

Honestly, I've no idea if I've been meeting any of the requirements.
Half of my applications are straight away rejected with no specific reason, and the rest get ghosted.
Most recruiters don't reply with any feedback.

[daring sleet]

I do..

[dusky fable]

You can post your resume and portfolio without contact information here and get feedback. You will unlikely get feedback from recruiters for legal reasons.

[dusky fable]

It would be very unlikely to jump to a mid level position with only solo dev experience as a programmer.

[daring sleet]

my github portfolio has my name on it, and my professional resume has name of projects that could easily identify me. 🫠

I am gonna ask ChatGPT if it can generate a stealth version of my resume 😆

[dusky fable]

Can't really help without it, unfortunately.

[daring sleet]

Here's a anonymized version of my resume created by ChatGPT.

I am trying to figure out how to change the user name of my github account

[daring sleet]

the original has better formatting obviously, and more details such as the name of the studio the project etc.

[nimble grove]

It's ok, I'm getting indie contracts in the mean time! Those are much easier to get

[daring sleet]

there you go - https://github.com/HappySapeta
I pasted my resume above

[dusky fable]

I'm not sure what chat GBT is changing, but your format is confusing. Typically the projects that you work on at a studio are with the work experience and not in a different section.

Current Job Title - Current Studio - Dates
Current Project (PC/Console/mobile)
Bullet list of what you did.

Projects then should be listed newest to oldest.

You have a lot of unnecessary words that you can rewrite to be more succinct about what you did. Things like: Played a pivotal role in the enhancement of a globally popular AAA game.

I really wouldn't call yourself a seasoned developer with the amount of experience you have. I'm personally not a fan of the summary, because it tends to cause people to over-evaluate their skills.

[agile basin]

maybe lightly seasoned is a better word for it

[daring sleet]

You have a lot of unnecessary words that you can rewrite to be more succinct about what you did.  Things like: Played a pivotal role in the enhancement of a globally popular AAA game.```
Those are good points. Noted.

[dusky fable]

Having professional experience makes the personal projects far less important. If you are taking space from the professional experience to make room for them, I would cut down the personal projects.

Did you work collaboratively with anyone during your professional experience? That is just as important to mention as the systems you worked on.

There is nothing really I see that would put you as an automatic no. It's likely there are just more candidates with experience right now.

[daring sleet]

I agree. Unfortunately, my current job doesn't give me opportunities in my areas of interest, game AI for example.
They have me working in domains in Game Programming that have nothing to do with what I am aiming for.
So, the only option I am left with is developing more and greater AI related personal projects with hopes of impressing a AAA recruiter or the like.

[dusky fable]

Fair. As the AI lead for a AAA studio, we do actually look at resumes from people who have only gameplay experience.

Looking at your GitHub, I would like to see more AI projects that use and extend the UE systems instead of ones that work outside it. AAA studios are unlikely to recreate the built-in A* and often use Havok navigation instead.

Most interviewers don't have time to read through your code. So videos and a detailed explanation would help a lot.

[daring sleet]

Thank you for reviewing it. This is quite helpful.
Did you take a look at my traffic AI simulation. I thought I made a complex and smart system, but it couldn't me any interviews.
Would be awesome to get some feedback from an AI Lead. 😀

https://github.com/HappySapeta/TrafficAI

[dusky fable]

@daring sleet I took a brief look. I would recommend using the engine more. If I was hiring, I would be concerned about much you are working outside of the engine. Not everyone looking at a portfolio looks for the same things, but one of things I heavily look for are candidates that don't fight the engine or go around it. Overall I don't see anything that would cause me to immediately reject you, but you'd be a much stronger candidate if you had at least one project that used the UE AI systems.

Some examples: Did you do this project pre Mass AI and if not, why didn't you use it? You have manager classes that are an actor, a raw C++ class and subsystems. Why don't you use a subsystem for all of them? Why are you not using the significance manager to update LODs?

The way that you are using obstacle avoidance is why the turns look janky. What would you do to fix that?

You also have some inconsistent naming and commenting conventions. As well as pointers not being checked - IsValid should be used for any UObject.

[real socket]

Wondering what's the best way to expand my portfolio; I'm wanting to focus more on technical sound design and audio systems. I'm not exactly an expert, but I have ambitious ideas, experience in sound design, FMOD, WWise, Steam Audio and compositional skills. I want to continually grow and learn, but also to join projects as well and implement into them. As far as I've seen in #volunteer-projects, many of them do not require audio specialists and I wouldn't want to bring anyone down or be someone that slows down projects due to my lack of experience.

[daring sleet]

Thank you @dusky fable . I really appreciate you taking a look at my work. 🥹
To answer some of your questions :

1. Did you do this project pre Mass AI and if not, why didn't you use it?
   I did not use Mass AI simply because I wanted to learn the basics of traffic simulation, data oriented design, optimisation, and simulation LODing.
   Mass might have proved useful but it would have prevented me from learning the technical nitty-gritties.
   In the past, I failed to answer basic problem-solving questions in tech interviews. I reckoned that there was no better way to learn problem-solving than by actually solving problems.
   For my next project though I am going to make better use of the tools provided by the engine.
2. You have manager classes that are an actor, a raw C++ class and subsystems.
   Some classes didn't need the features of a subsystem or an actor, and didn't need to be UObjects. So I kept it simple and represented them using raw C++ classes.
3. Why are you not using the significance manager to update LODs?
   I had no idea there was a thing called Significance Manager. Now I know. 😁

@dusky fable - I am seeking AI programming roles at AAA studios.
Could you recommend any projects that would significantly enhance my portfolio and make it stand out?

[languid cedar]

Is it worth paying $10K to get into private game design schools or can I get the same information for a couple hundred bucks from online courses?

[chilly sundial]

You can get the same information for free tbh

[brave forge]

Very few of those game design schools have a good reputation. Depends what you are looking to do, but more traditional courses tend to be better like computer science etc as also sets you up for careers that aren't games. And they are generally more reputable colleges/unis

[nimble geyser]

what is "the best answer" to question Desired salary? I get it depends on skill and experience but speaking in general term

I usually have no idea what to say there

[tepid elbow]

what are step by step to be indie game developer?

is it right first step build shitty game?

[shut token]

Step 1 - finish a game
Step 2 - release said game without a publisher
You are an indie game developer after completing these two steps.

[tepid elbow]

you mean play game until finish?

[shut token]

What?

[tepid elbow]

what does it mean "finish a game"?

[shut token]

You are in a game development server (primarily). Why would your reading of "finish a game" be "play game until finish"?

Step 1 is to make a game

Develop it fully

You don't become an indie developer by playing some random game until you're done

You actually have to develop, hence the name developer.

[tepid elbow]

how to make graphic game?

[shut token]

That is far too broad. Go to Epic's learning site and learn how to make games with Unreal.

[tepid elbow]

can unreal build 2d game?

[unique meteor]

Yes, #paper-2d

[lone ice]

can i buy someones services here?

[woeful iron]

read #instructions on how to hire people

[old tundra]

Guten tag

[ivory echo]

Maybe he’s looking for other services 🙃

[woeful iron]

hello?

[old tundra]

Dieter 👉 👍

(German name)

[woeful iron]

I know

yet I am not german

but thanks I guess

[old tundra]

Wow

Are you from the USA?

[woeful iron]

no

I'm from Belgium

[old tundra]

Austria? Swit..

[old tundra]

I see.

Dutch speaking background?

[woeful iron]

I do speak dutch, and not just in the background

[old tundra]

I mean are you Dutch or French

You know what I mean by the above

I can't remember what is Walloon what is Flemish

I assume Walloon is Dutch

[woeful iron]

lol no

[old tundra]

I might be wrong

[woeful iron]

Flemish is Dutch

[ivory echo]

What is Flemish

[woeful iron]

but really Flemish is Flemish

[old tundra]

Well there.

[woeful iron]

don't call a flemish person dutch

[ivory echo]

And what does this have to do with your career

[old tundra]

sigh

[woeful iron]

good question

[ivory echo]

Are you moving to the Netherlands for a job opportunity? 🙂

[old tundra]

Cute.

[oblique ice]

interesting conversation

[plucky hatch]

This year's gonna be fun
I'm forced to learn unreal CPP and unity c# at the same time

It was a meme before??

Ah I meant to say unreal and cpp together

Isnt "unreal CPP" just a bunch of engine classes to call upon engine stuff

Didn't realise it's become a fork now, entirely

[dusky fable]

You're welcome! When we look at portfolios, we are evaluating your potential to work professionally. The questions I asked are the types an interviewer will. While learning new tech and practicing solving problems is a reasonable answer, it doesn't make me less concerned that you would do the same thing in a professional context. Development time should be a big consideration in the decision making process. If you spend months working on a system that already exists in UE, you have to have a really good reason not to use it, because that's time taken away from other features.

One thing that you need to do on a team project, especially a large team, is to have consistency. You have to have a really good reason not to use a subsystem for a manager class. Even if you don't need all of the features, the clarity it gives is incredibly important.

I highly recommend doing 1-2 projects that use the UE AI systems. Maybe that implementing the traffic sim using Mass and doing A/B testing. That can give you space to compare and contrast. Other ideas: an influence map that the EQS can use, a BT/Utility hybrid, extending the EQS to generate items that are not actors or locations. They don't need to be really big, just something to show that you know the built-in systems, can use them and can extend them. GDC AI Summit talks might give you other ideas as well.

[dusky fable]

The best answer is the amount that you would be willing to work there for. You should definitely research salary for the location, role and level to make sure you are asking a fair amount. It's a shitty question hoping that you'll undervalue your worth so they can save money.

[main abyss]

A good way is to think:

• what do I need to make
• what do I want to make

The answer is somewhere inbetween.

Usually we disclose the salary up front however.

[steady jasper]

hey yall, i'm a senior in college, studying film. i've been using unreal engine since 2020, learning how to build virtual cameras for virtual productions (mocap enviroments), is there any advice I can get to break into the industry? I like to think my experience in Unreal makes me a solid candidate with my film education

i've also done live link face with metahumans, live link vcam, and built my own cameras with vive trackers

[mint skiff]

My advice is apply for places with a strong portfolio 👍

Looking for roles in film? TV? Livestreaming? Technology/support for above?

See if you can leverage connections through your teachers or peers.

[steady jasper]

what would a strong portfolio look like? i do a lot of personal projects

[steady jasper]

thats the thing, i feel like i can work on production environments and behind the scenes

[steady jasper]

unfortunately im the only person in my school’s program doing this, everyone else is more traditional

[mint skiff]

you should have an eye for what is good work and what is bad work by now, and you should be able to judge your own work critically. Compare yourself against the work of other industry professionals. Ultimately your portfolio pieces should be on par with the work you would do 'for real' as a junior at a studio - within reasonable limitations like budget & manpower.

[mint skiff]

so? It's still film no?

have you done these VP projects through the school? Have they supplied hardware/talent/training etc? I think you are too quick to dismiss them, right now they're probably your best source of connection with the industry :)

[rigid bluff]

what work have you done that you can show off?

[steady jasper]

oh shit, say less

[rigid bluff]

work show off?

[steady jasper]

https://www.artstation.com/abstractnikon

[steady jasper]

so everything i've done with unreal has been independent, i bought all my hardware and everything. the program did give me independent space to do my work, which helped. i'm doing a presentation in May about all my work.

[rigid bluff]

you need at least 1 good piece. I like the mood and theme on the 1am one, but that isn't being shot hand held and there's a lot of rendering artifacts I think you should work on figuring out how to eliminate (mostly the depth of field artifacts). I don't like the theme, mood or the lighting of the first one, it's not original and captivating at all... I feel like the important things you need to show off as a video production person is good lighting, good camera work, good understanding of outputting a solid render and show that you have a creative eye

It's great that you have breakdowns showing your work and your understanding of what's going on in your work

[steady jasper]

https://tenor.com/view/spongebob-patrick-star-noted-notes-gif-26231953

[mint skiff]

this is more of a blog than a portfolio. It really needs to be only your best work, and only 3-5 pieces. This means no WIPs, no tests, etc.

[rigid bluff]

ya, you should really avoid having a mannequin in your portfolio

[mint skiff]

by all means keep a separate blog for WIPs and dev work, and even link it in your portfolio or resume, but keep your best work front and center.

[steady jasper]

okay, so scrap everything, and make more complete works

[rigid bluff]

I would focus on just 1 piece

3 is good, but until you have 1 solid piece don't go for 3

1 solid good thing is better than 3 mediocre things

[steady jasper]

right right right

[mint skiff]

are you more interested in the tech side or the art side?

[wary idol]

I like Earth, 2076 because it reminds me of the Pacific Drive (game)
That's all feedback I have, I'm not an artist 😆

[steady jasper]

that's the thing, i feel like i can do both, the tech side gets me super excited because it allows me to figure out things

[steady jasper]

that one is such an old project LOL

[mint skiff]

Artstation is very art oriented and advice above applies there, but I find the tech community tends to respond better to detailed blogs and breakdowns (on somewhere other than artstation)

[rigid bluff]

I watched 3 things, someone looking at your portfolio will probably only watch the first and move on tbh

[steady jasper]

i understand

[rigid bluff]

with their sound off

[mint skiff]

I think also working in VP on virtual camera stuff employers will be more interested in your technical capabilities.

[rigid bluff]

ya I like the stuff showing you with the rig and moving around, that's good

[mint skiff]

the Kinect dev work? me too lol

[rigid bluff]

make it clear what's going on

[steady jasper]

for sure for sure, make it more clear what's going on, got it

[steady jasper]

i hated working with that pos sensor

okay. it seems i really need to focus on a really good piece of work, like a complete short film like my previous project? i never noticed DoF artifacts before this is an excellent catch @rigid bluff

[rigid bluff]

you might want to look into using path tracer

[steady jasper]

i just used it actually! for my latest project on artstation, i'm def using it again

[rigid bluff]

make something with 3-point lighting that shows off ray tracing well, show you have an understanding of lighting and the emotions lighting can express

that's all, I will now say even less

[steady jasper]

https://tenor.com/view/kobe-not-satisfied-jobs-finished-gif-18340629

me rn

ok bet, im going to start working on a complete project right now

but how long should these things typically be? maybe im too used to working on demos and shit

[rigid bluff]

15-30 sec

[steady jasper]

okay bet

so its less about demos, and more about what you can create basically now

i already developed and understand the tools i have now, now i just have to start making shit

[rigid bluff]

people hiring you want to see you have an understanding of what they are trying to accomplish, understanding tools is great, now you need to show you can create ideas and express emotion in your work and tell a story

I think you can do that better

[steady jasper]

i already did it once, i guess i can do it again

[oblique ice]

you can show MVP 😆

[steady jasper]

whats mvp?

[ivory echo]

Minimum Viable Product

[winged dragon]

Isn't it stupid when they ask "what is your expected salary"?
I mean dude, I could be expecting 50k a month, why you even ask me that?
Just tell me your budget/offer and that's it lol ....

[solemn needle]

well employment is still a business agreement.
That means establishing expectations is important.
You can just say "i expect a minimum of this amount per hour but i am flexible according to your budget"

[winged dragon]

Well for example I had USA gigs that paid me 8k usd per month. I got used to that payment and this is my expectation now. But when I apply for another job in Europe for example and I tell them my expected salary to be 8k ... they will probably say that's way out of their budget.

So why not just say what is their budget and avoid all of this, knowing that people from all around the world can apply and that their expected salary could be a lot higher

[finite grove]

Depends on your goals. If you're trying to pay as little as possible then this is pretty effective. If someone asks for too much you say no. If they ask for too little you got a deal. You can't lose as an employer.

[exotic marsh]

https://hauntyouforever.artstation.com/

I finally updated my portfolio. Not much there, but it is now up to date

Hopefully I can add some interesting shaders soon, but for now I haven't made shaders that I think would be strong to show

[plucky breach]

Hey guys how do I access the job borad through the Manny bot for volunteer projects? I'm new to UE and looking to work for free on a short film/ cinematography project? Thanks

[ivory echo]

See #instructions

[dusky fable]

What type of work are you looking for? Studios tend to not hire generalists.

Have you looked at portfolios of people who are employed as technical artists? That's the quality bar you need to hit. I don't think you are there yet, but as an engineer I don't have the vocabulary to explain why.

[exotic marsh]

Thanks for checking it out! At the moment I am interested in basically any role that could get me into the industry. Much of my skill development is on the technical side with a focus on gameplay and tool programming. I am primarily considering technical roles, designer roles, and QA. Technical Art is more of a long term goal for me. A role I'd like to have in 10 years maybe.

I have viewed the portfolios of employed technical artists and am aware of the discrepancy between my portfolio and the bar set by professional tech artists and am working to bring my work closer to that standard.

As it stands, I think my portfolio is a bit more geared towards showcasing environments that I have created for games, and thus I would currently consider it more representative of environment design skills. For this reason, perhaps it would be best to remove the mention of technical art until I have more substantial work to show. That way, I can present the work in my portfolio with a different set of expectations more appropriate for the contained content

Again, thanks for checking it out!

[buoyant nacelle]

@exotic marsh start by making something beautiful

[exotic marsh]

Working on it 👍

[dusky fable]

When you spend your time being a jack of all, you become a master of nothing. This industry is incredibly competitive and you really need to master 1 skill.

[exotic marsh]

Yes, I have heard. I have found that I naturally enjoy a generalist role, but as you have said, such a role is pretty rare. I think that's why hybrid-esque roles such as technical artist or technical designer appeal to me.

In any case, I have chosen to focus on developing my technical skills. I've begun developing a dialogue system and editor tool for Unity, which I believe will be a nice addition to my portfolio (thank you for the suggestion).

[pulsar tulip]

Where are Environment Artist in UE 5?
I want to make some friends to help each other ,learning and also collaboration with each other ❤️

[spice dagger]

Spend some time in the Content Creation channels, you will find like minded people as you engage in conversation there.

[pulsar tulip]

Ok thanks

[main abyss]

I think studio size matters a lot too. The smaller the company the more roles you want to fill.

[dusky fable]

Every TA I've worked with has mastered something. Sure they are also good at other things, but they are really good at one aspect. The person I was responding to was spreading themselves out to all aspects, including design and QA.

[oblique ice]

TA i meet familiar with Designer and they can do CPP in VS 2022

[exotic marsh]

I've seen devs online say that QA is a decent role to look into to get your foot into the game industry door. I'm sure there's a lot of variability, but would you disagree with that notion?

[ivory echo]

Safe to say that experiences will vary from studio to studio, and country to country

[dusky fable]

No. People rarely move out of QA anymore.

[woeful iron]

I always found that a weird path personally

maybe from QA engineer

but "normal" QA, idk

[west surge]

It should ask here, I've been a tech artist in both Unreal and Unity, Unity for the past two years working in Mobile VR but I'm trying to get back into Unreal as like 90% of the jobs I see are in Unreal now.

I have been a pipeline, performance profiling, asset making, shader making kind of guy in Unity, I'm not really sure what to continue doing in Unreal to help my chances? I've loved BPs so I do want to focus on some landscape "parametric" stuff with weather systems, that feels like the most relevant addition I can add, or is that just wacky?

I'm not too bothered by any industry (except arch vis, screw that), very interested in immersive experiences and realtime interaction though.

[agile delta]

There's nothing wrong with being a generalist, and in some positions, particularly in small studios, it may greatly benefit you to be able to wear multiple hats. I've built my career on this.
However, you can't sell yourself or apply for a job as "I'll do anything" because it's perceived as "I have no skills". As you said, you need to raise your bar to be competitive with the job requirements, competitive with the people specialized as the role you're applying for, and sell yourself as competent.

If you think about it from that lens, applying without a specialization is the hardest option because you have to be competitive in every role you apply for. So I'd say the right path to being a generalist is to hone different skills with extreme focus during different points in your career and take up opportunities to broaden as they arise professionally.

[exotic marsh]

Thank you all for your advice!

[exotic marsh]

Following this, how does one typically showcase their technical work? I have some projects on my GitHub page, but the majority of them are private repos. Do you typically leave them open? Open them when applying? Link upon request?

Curious to know some thoughts as it is something I have deliberated recently

[mint estuary]

HI , is this Unreal C++ specialization from coursera any good? It seems it doesn't has that much depth knowledge in it. Does this certificate significantly boost the chance of getting a unreal game programmer job?

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/cplusplusunrealgamedevelopment

[fallen topaz]

may not be highly related, but for your info
i got certificate coursera for learning python
though my career as programmer is not long enough, but i've never got a question related with it
but only about my projects and basic cs knowledge
so based on my experience, certificate does almost nothing

[mint estuary]

What job are you doing? If Unreal game programmer, what would be the case if you had a C++ certificate instead of a python certificate?

[fallen topaz]

am unreal game programmer
personally don't believe certificate cuz certificate tells little about one's capability (i hate python and not good at using it too lol)
and even if it was C++, i don't think it would be a booster
i would not ask my future partner's certificate but ask about what they did on their project, ask for explanation how they did what and what they learned from doing it
also, hope you to remember that submitting a project done by certain course may not be best idea
seniors in studio/company has quite high chance reviewed same or almost same project from another student, explaining in same way (team leader of other department already complained about it)

but learning through it? that's great i'd say

one more thing, there's many sources from epic that help you to learn c++ programming using unreal
so before making payment, i'd recommend you to look those things first

[mint estuary]

Is learning C++ outside of unreal also important? Also what kind of projects do you suggest? unreal C++ game projects or general C++ projects?

[fallen topaz]

very, very important i believe
learning only unreal context c++ limits your capability
let's say you have to communicate with server using socket, not FSocket that unreal provides and you only studied unreal
then it would be torture
also, using external libraries also happens, which requires you some knowledge outside of unreal

for projects... i'd recomment focus on unreal c++ project but do not let general c++ project go away

and ask for other people's opinion on it too
i'm only a junior, eager to help people who asks for help if that's what i can deal with
there's masters around here, so value their's more
just take my wordings like ah there's a one thinking like this

[mint estuary]

I am just a student in a non game dev college. So you are much senior to me and your opinion too matters a lot to me. Thanks for taking such long time to type and explain everything to me . You really have a really good patience and a nature to help everyone. Thanks. 🙂

[fallen topaz]

glad i could help
hope to see your name on my purchased game list someday!

[mint estuary]

Wow! That's one of the best game dev inspiration quotes I have seen 🔥

[chilly sundial]

Certificates are mostly useless in the industry. The only sector I've heard of that mandates them is cybersecurity.

Most people won't care about your certificates, because it doesn't prove much of value

A degree can be good for cutting through auto filters and legal stuff, but a certificate will not help for either of those

[oblique ice]

mostly tertiary will care about if have certificates, and they keep give preference to post graduates holder
i mostly prefer anyone that can solve issue

[winged dragon]

what is the best way to find constant freelance work? Besides here. Upwork and Fiverr are also not good options as you compete with people that can do the same for much lower prices...

[round radish]

It might look good to a smaller studio who don't get 5000 applicants, though.

More high profile the job, the more high profile the paper you would need to cut through those filters.

And vice versa.

[winged dragon]

Do we have any successful freelance artists here? Where do you find freelance work besides the freelance channel here?

I find it so hard to find constant work as a freelancer. I feel like fiverr and upwork are not very helpful unless you are an already known name or famous...

[oblique ice]

they are mostly on diferent site

[winged dragon]

Like what?

[keen turret]

Hello

[oblique ice]

hello

[woeful iron]

Hello

[chilly sundial]

hello

[dusty shoal]

Hello

[ivory echo]

Hello

[young frost]

Yello

C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER

[woeful iron]

you're fired

[oblique ice]

Understand will pack my things

[reef prairie]

Hey all 🙂
I am a c++ developer with embedded background but want to get into gaming industry. Any other programmer here that has made a switch like that ?

Other programmers here, do you have any c++ portfolio you had to show of?

[oblique ice]

have seen some programmers doing stuff using CPP in VS

[woeful iron]

well I'd start with making some game stuff on your own first of all if you haven't yet

and probably when switching you will lose some seniority

and definitely some pay

[west iris]

It’s a very generic question but for any triple a studio’s entry level gameplay or UI, am I supposed to know Cmake?

[finite knoll]

I wouldn't expect it, especially for an Unreal shop

[west iris]

Imagine random triple a company using their proprietary engine. How likely they using cmake over msbuild?

[abstract badge]

I don't know how widely used cmake is, but I can tell you that as a gameplay or UI dev you wouldn't need to know how to write or update the cmake files. You'll just get told "run this command to build, and run that command to clean up" and that's all you will really need to know

[round radish]

Yeah. There will onboarding on how things work.

Everyone's gonna have their own specific build process.

[river jewel]

does anyone know if there is a collection of metahumans out there. like a bunch of faces ready to go for animation and live link

[ivory echo]

So you can make them your employees ? 🙃

[west iris]

I also need a clarification I don’t know graphics I will never have any expectation to know graphics for gameplay or UI titles right?

[candid oak]

Hello i’m wondering which channel I would need to go to ask for advice for my resume and portfolio, what i’m missing and etc. The reason for this is because i’m getting rejected for the jobs/internships that i’m applying for and I don’t know why. If anyone can help point me in the right direction that would be appreciated, thank you

[mint skiff]

Here

I'd recommend posting on somewhere like polycount.com though. People will put more time into their answers.

(I'm assuming portfolio means art portfolio)

[candid oak]

in terms of programming it showcases my projects, contact and about

would anyone be willing to look at it and give advice?

[dusky fable]

There are some studios that do expect gameplay programmers to know graphics, Naughty Dog is famous for that. But it's not common.

[dusky fable]

Sure. Post it here and people will give feedback

[candid oak]

Ok here is my portfolio - https://bwap.netlify.app. Im trying to apply for game programming internships but i keep getting rejected. I feel like my website is pretty good and resume is as well but im not getting any feedback from the jobs that im applying for.

[chilly sundial]

You won't get feedback for legal reasons

[candid oak]

legal reasons? why so? how do I know why im getting rejected?

[chilly sundial]

You don't know. There's plenty of reasons you can be rejected that are illegal. Plus they might have a valid reason, but accidentally use language that infers something else, opening them up for a lawsuit.

So it's just safer to not do that

[candid oak]

Ok thank you for the explanation. I guess ill just ask here and polycount. any other places to ask?

[chilly sundial]

Immediately looking at your portfolio it's unimpressive.

I clicked the game engine one expecting to read paragraphs of what you found challenging, and the things that you faced and how you overcame them, but instead was met only with a short blurb, that reads more like a pitch to get funding for the engine. No screenshots, or anything.

I'm far from experienced enough to be a recruiter, but your portfolio tells me nothing about your skill level, as I can't even see the result.

You have a lot of projects there but none of them explain the obstacles you overcame and the skills you developed

Also I'm not seeing any actual code samples anywhere

At least round here, that's essential for 90% of jobs

[candid oak]

Thats very valuable information and I appreciate that info. So include what was challenging, the obstacles that i faced and how i overcame them. Anything else? Im making note

@chilly sundial could you guide me to a sample of what may be impressive?

[dusky fable]

1. Be very careful about calling any of your skills advanced at this point. It tells us you are either trying to over exaggerate your skills or you can't evaluate yourself appropriately.

2. Work experience is for professional experience. Not a volunteer project.

3. Your resume has a lot of prose like: "To nurture critical skills fundamental to superior game development." Don't do that. Nearly everyone builds a game engine, it's not superior in any way. Just tell us what you did instead of trying to inflate it.

4. Part of what we look for in hiring people is "what will this person be like to work with?" You really don't come off well here. You come off as having a possible ego problem, which is not what we want in an entry level programmer.

[chilly sundial]

For me, whenever I showcase a project on my portfolio I like to discuss the challenges I faced, relating it to relevant technical info. For example, if i'm going for an unreal job in programming, I'm going to focus on the C++ aspects and the complexities of the engine that I faced. If I was going for tech art, I might instead discuss parts of the engine like Niagara and the Material Graph.
I always like to embed screenshots to show the project, and if applicable a very very short video (Recruiters are super strapped for time, so I've learned)

I always tend to focus on making a short few paragraphs that demonstrate the most technically complex things. Code samples in my case are also critical. I can always talk the talk, and show pretty screenshots, but at the end of the day, the could be held together with butterfly clips and tape, so having some code samples available tend to help.

I also like to keep it simple. A non standard interface or something that can be confusing to navigate seems like it might lessen your chances. I'm going for an unreal job, not web development, so a flashy landing page probably isn't going to earn me brownie points versus something simple and effective

[candid oak]

Never thought of it like that, thank you for pointing this out. How can I come off well? any more resume tips?

[chilly sundial]

I was also expecting those bold pieces of text to link to the things you made :P

Because again, on your portfolio and about me, I have this description of an "innovative save plugin", but no frame of reference. Is it easy to use? Is it intuitive? etc.

[dusky fable]

For example with your game engine project, you spend more time telling us why you are building it than what you actually did. What are some key features? Without flowery language about how "innovative" it is.

[dusky fable]

You also need a skills section on your resume. What languages? Do you know Jira or any other task tracking software? Version control?

[candid oak]

@dusky fable @chilly sundial thank you for taking the time out and giving me valuable feedback. I have another question. For the resume is there anything you would suggest taking out and improving on?

[round radish]

I did read somewhere that expecting people to click on things to get info is really bad.

[candid oak]

I think I have that though Its on the right side of the resume at the bottom page

[round radish]

People just won't bother.

People have, on average, about 3s to evaluate you and decide whether to add you to the "let's take a closer look" pile.

If they have to click on things, they simply won't.

[candid oak]

could you elaborate further? Is this specific to my portfolio?

[round radish]

Your portfolio requires many clicks

[chilly sundial]

It took me 3 seconds to figure out where to click to even see any information

[dusky fable]

Oh. I see it now. I had to scroll over.

[round radish]

Also it's hard to get back to the main page when you do click ona nything because the back link is just hiding at the top-left and doesn't say "back" or "close"

Overall, just really bad design.

[chilly sundial]

I really like to follow the KISS principle for things like that

I've seen lots of flashy non standard portfolios from peers and they only succeed in making it unclear to find what i need 🥲

[candid oak]

I tried to make it unique but didn’t realize that would be considered bad design, ill change it to say back

[round radish]

It's still hiding in the middle of nowhere

[candid oak]

Does mine do a ok job? any recommendations?

[round radish]

"Unique selling point" often means "nobody has done this before... and there's a reason for it"

[candid oak]

would you suggest I put it in the middle?

or make it stand out more?

[dusky fable]

I would honestly rewrite most of it. Based on the advice you've been given. You want to focus on the what you have done instead of trying to tell us how advanced you are. As well as things like "Notable for problem-solving" should be removed or reworded.

[round radish]

I would suggest a complete design

I am not, however, an artist or web designer.

[chilly sundial]

My reccomendation would be to keep it standard as always. It took a lot longer to find what I wanted than it should have done personally.
When you look at other portfolios, and portfolio templates and websites, the first thing you're greeted with is projects, in your face with pictures and descriptions, which you can then click on to find out more.

From what I've learned speaking to recruiters a lot, the first impression matters. If it isn't a wow, you don't have a chance, unless they're really struggling for applicants (also remember these larger studios get thousands and thousands of applications when intern windows are open)

[candid oak]

Ok Ill do that. I will not over-inflate words and do a massive resume improvement

[candid oak]

would there be any sample sites that I can look at that you can recommend?

[chilly sundial]

I'll see if I can find what I used 🙂

[candid oak]

So do a complete website design? I honestly thought the website looked pretty good and simple too

[chilly sundial]

one of the first result for "game portfolios" brings me this which is a good example of keeping it simple. It's for a different discipline but the point still stands. I'm immediately greeted with information and projects

[chilly sundial]

it looking good isn't as important as it conveying what it neds to

[candid oak]

I appreciate everything and the help

[chilly sundial]

You're not going for a web designer job, so it being flashy and unique isn't going to help you there.

If it was not meant as a portfolio I'd say it's a pretty cool website

[candid oak]

The reason why i made is was that i thought I could kill so birds with one stone meaning taking the hiring manager through a journey while displaying my work. Since im applying for game programming mentioning front end dev could hurt me correct?

[chilly sundial]

Your hiring manager often doesn't have the time to go on a journey though. As Daekesh pointed out, often times it's as little as 3 seconds for the first pass

[candid oak]

could you link that site if you done mind?

[chilly sundial]

For example, seeing this in a few seconds seconds, tells me a lot more about their skills than the landing page

https://www.joshcaratelli.com/
https://www.davidshaver.net/

Sure thing, you can find much more by just googling game portfolios. They were the top results for me

[dusky fable]

For your portfolio, you also need to sell your skills and not the projects. All I see is a blurb about the project and not what you did or how you did it.

Put up videos to show off the functionality, not the credits screen. We don't have a lot of time to look at portfolios, so make every second count.

Survive The Enemies has a pretty environment, but all the enemies look broken.

The game engine project: "BLU is a groundbreaking game engine currently in development, designed with a focus on innovating beyond current game mechanics." No offense, but you are a student. You can't say this and expect anyone to take it seriously without being able to back up your claims.

[candid oak]

Thankyou ill definitely look at these. So going forward Ill make another website thats much more simplistic and gets straight to the point also ill redesign my resume as well. Are the projects that I included enough in terms of quantity?

[chilly sundial]

That was something I tried to avoid with mine. I can understand wanting to fall into the trap of selling yourself, because I wanted to as well, but the person interviewing you is going to have 10000x more experience than you :P

[chilly sundial]

Focus on quality, not quantity.

If those projects have sufficiently technical aspects you can discuss, then yes, that should be fine

[candid oak]

thank you for pointing that out

[chilly sundial]

Always pick a few of your best ones that you can talk about

[candid oak]

yea thats what I was focusing on

Ok I have a lot to improve on, would it be ok if I show you guys my progress next week and ask for feedback?

[chilly sundial]

I'm always happy to give things a look.
Do take what I say with a pinch of salt though. What I've learned has only been from talking to recruiters, not being one. The other people in this chat are normally vastly more experienced than me :P

[candid oak]

any experience helps. you guys addressed a major design and info flaw that I couldn’t see and I am grateful

[chilly sundial]

A fresh pair of eyes always helps with anything. Often times I get tunnel vision if I'm the only one looking at somethign for so long

probably why code reviews exist too 😁

😄

[dusky fable]

I'm not a recruiter, but I've been interviewing gameplay programmers for over a decade. Every interviewer you have will look at your resume and portfolio.

[candid oak]

Do they normally look at the resume first? also is my resume template ok? you mentioned having to scroll to se my skills. any template you recommend?

[chilly sundial]

Personally I didn't use a resume template, but I did use a portfolio template on Wix (shamelessly, my web dev skills are ass 🤣.... might want to consider a better website designer though)
It managed to land me something so it can't have been all bad :P

[dusky fable]

I'm on my phone, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Recruiters do evaluate resumes and portfolios, but it's the engineers on the team that evaluate your technical skills.

[candid oak]

tbh I have been doing web dev for about a year so I would still consider mine a work in progress. But I think I overdid it

[candid oak]

ok ill still use the same template

[chilly sundial]

Tailoring your resume to the job is also helpful. I found nearly all the ones I got rejected or didn't hear anything from were the ones I neglected to relate the my skills to what they were asking specifically in my resume. I always specifically reworded mine to fit the job role, and specifically mentioned points I read in the job description (I've heard there's auto filters that scan for that, no idea how true it is though)

[dusky fable]

All a recruiter does is determine if the candidate has the minimum requirements and do an initial phone call. The hiring manager (typically a lead engineer) will then pick the top candidates to interview.

[candid oak]

Interesting, auto filters?

[candid oak]

ok

[humble imp]

hi there! im looking to get people on board to a project, but i dont know how much pay they will get until some more details come through, can i post in #volunteer-projects

im new to this

[dusky fable]

Yes. Unfortunately we get too many candidates for a human to look through all of them.

[candid oak]

I figured that was the case but didn’t know it was called an auto filter

[ivory echo]

It’s not

It’s called ATS (applicant tracking system) and it’s the scourge of modern day employment

[candid oak]

ok ATS interesting

[dusky fable]

Tell us how you really feel

[ivory echo]

I have lots of hate for those systems

They’ll fail you for having the “wrong” text formatting and your resume that you spent a long time tailoring gets instantly sent to the recycle bin

[candid oak]

Wrong text formatting really?

[ivory echo]

Yeah, like you’re better off having plain text and regular margins, no extra side columns or such, as most ATS won’t be able to handle it

[chilly sundial]

It's why I always specifically mention the job requirements in my CV, I've heard a fair amount of them scan for things like that.

[ivory echo]

And employers will never even know you applied, unless you have a reference and they manually pluck it out of the bin

[ivory echo]

Aye, they’re looking for buzzwords

[chilly sundial]

Talking to people also helps. One of the most valuable things I did was talk to the hiring managers of my current company and ask them what they look for in a candidate, prior to applying to them.
That way, the person reading my application, already has met me.

[dusky fable]

IDK if that's the case. I've never had a problem with mine and it's nicely formatted. You can also check your resume for free.

[ivory echo]

When’s the last time you applied for a job tho? I thought you’ve been there a while

[dusky fable]

2021

Most of the time I get contacted by recruiters or via my network, but I still occasionally apply when I see something interesting.

[fervent palm]

I struggle to sell myself on my CV. Have done for ages now half the time they don’t even get back to me

[nova coyote]

oh yeah the job market right now is really really bad right now. i guess the only way forward is to just improve your skills and apply for anything. lower your standards. if you got rejected by google then maybe give that local old radio business that needs some stuff written in cobol a chance

[chilly sundial]

Or don't, because that means using COBOL

[nova coyote]

i mean you need to weight the pros and cons. are you welling to: improving your CV, making your chances of being hired at a better company way higher, while getting enough money to keep you alive at the exchange of using cobol?

it's close i know but who knows? you might be crazy enough to be welling to use cobol

[west iris]

Imagine two person who equally knows c++ same level. One spent 5000 hours on DirectX + wulkan to make a game other spent 5000 hours on solely unreal. They both applied with gameplay titles for triple a companies with the projects they developed within 5000 hours. Which one would be more valuable?

[chilly sundial]

For unreal I'd probably pick the person with engine experience.

But realistically with that amount of experience, it would never come down to something as specific as that

[west iris]

For proprietary engine company, Vulcan + directX experienced looks more promising?

[west iris]

Even the title is just generalist gameplay programmer

[chilly sundial]

I'm not sure it matters. working for 5000 hours in any part of C++ makes you valuable and adaptable

If you can't figure something new out after 5000 hours, there's something wrong

Generalist Gameplay Programmer is also not a thing

But 5000 hours in DirectX isn't going to do much for gameplay programming specifically. Because that's graphics programming

[west iris]

And studying too low level is not worth for game dev right? Sometimes I too much carried on LLVM clang Cmake waste my months doing nothing for game dev

[chilly sundial]

It depends™️
If you find it interesting, why not. There's plenty of lower level in game dev, like engine programming.

Any experience is good experience

I always like to try different things out because you never know what you might enjoy more

[dusky fable]

That scenario never happens. People just don't have equal experience and quality of projects. However, if I'm hiring a programmer for a UE job, the UE experience might weigh higher. Depending of course on what that experience is.

A bunch of mediocre UE projects aren't going to be impressive.

[chilly sundial]

That's a fair point. 5000 hours spent not learning new things and just throwing out beginner stuff still makes you a beginner :P

[exotic marsh]

Out of curiosity, what are some projects that would be productive for a graphics programmer? I've been seeing some programming roles lately that are more graphics oriented and it seems intriguing, but I'm not exactly sure how one would approach skill building for graphics programming

On my mind because I've been working with shaders a lot recently. Anyone have some knowledge there to share?

[dusky fable]

Graphics is the only position that I opt out of interviewing. I just can't come up with good topics to ask about and I just don't understand the black box nature of that work. I would say though that you need systems and not just shaders.

I will also say that the vast majority of graphics programmers start off as Engine programmers. Most teams only hire 1 - 2 graphics programmers and so they only hire seniors. Typically what happens is they are hired as a junior engine programmer and pick up extra tasks from the graphics programmer(s). Until they get enough experience to get a job as a mid-level or senior graphics programmers.

AI is typically the same way, but they start as gameplay programmers.

I'm an AI lead now, but I did UI -> gameplay -> AI.

[exotic marsh]

That's very interesting! I forget to consider that some positions more naturally result from a progression of work