career-chat

[spice dagger]

Hello.

[rigid bluff]

Hi

[coarse ember]

I think that's a misconception on how teams/companies should be using AI systems and workflows (mostly due to all the hype around)

The value is rarely in the code gen but in other places in the workflow and/or parallelisation

Some examples

• 1st pass code review/PRs/rubber duck
• Doing basic maintenance work (removing a feature flag)
• Finding/Sourcing information from Slack/Notion/Codebase (what were the decision reasoning around this feature from 6 months ago)
• Planning/Investigation (how does X feature work, what is the high level architecture/logic flow)

• Analytics/user feedback/reviews investigation and reporting

1. It does work. We are using it and it does a great job and reduces the amount back and forth between the contributor and human reviewer. By the time a human reviewer comes to review, it's in a more complete state.

2. We have a skill and automation for this. It takes 5 secs to instruct the AI and it goes off and deals with it in a VM

We don't use AI to replace people either

It's more of a team output accelerator for us. IE increasing the velocity of work going to users

???

Sorry, I don't understand this?

I don't understand the context of this? When is the developer sitting there doing nothing?

The developer does their work, sends it off as PR and start working on the next task/feature

The bots review the PR in the background

It leaves feedback and the dev handles the feedback later

People aren't waiting for AI to do something

The contributor handles the AI feedback, not the reviewer

The contributor makes the pr and handles the AI feedback and is down to them to be responsible for understanding all the code that they deliver AI assisted or not or AI recommendations or not.

So there's an assumption here that all developers on the team are capable of making those decisions well, they can reject AI recommendations.

We don't have that dead time that you are talking about on our team

I'm talking about our experience of using AI and how other companies and teams have used it

While I understand how you can see it going wrong for other teams and companies, I don't see it how it's different from misusing any other tool or workflow?

I understand what you were talking about, but it's the worst case of integrating the tool and isn't reflective of how the teams are that are using it "correctly" to help accelerate team output

Assuming If what you've described does happen, IE If we have saved no time using AI, that would be massively clear in our metrics of team output

And we would have stopped using it otherwise we are just burning cash for no reason

[wary idol]

imo that's the sensible approach rather than going full clanker wanker mode

[wraith mortar]

It's also very good for diving into obscure poorly documented code bases and documenting your specific use case for you

[round radish]

1. AI is amazingly good at this... If it understands the system it's analysing.

[ivory geode]

But what if the company told you to move as fast as possible instead or prioritizing correctness

if you have infinite tokens you can create enviorement for agent to try to read source code, compile it, test it and then you just review it

[oblique ice]

only time i using machine learning was open and generated the modular actor of mesh i already created just to check shape and color, thats all, if blender or 3d application not available 🤔

[ivory geode]

im talking about use of AI that uses a net of agents that do subtasks

not using chatbot

I know of people who have codebases 80% written by AI

lol

well whatever you say

if you dont believe me then idc

if you ever used ai more than few times you would know that you could guide AI to perform better at specific task through gathering context overtime

so no its not same result

You have to train AI for specific tasks, you cant just go "please my generalist AI magic me out this interconnected system in 1 context window"

[round radish]

AI can make singular independent systems, it is absolutely terrible at making complex interconnected systems.
With the same example I outlined before, it can make an inventory system, adding or removing items. But inventory system never functions alone in a game. It needs UI, it needs Save System, It needs Equipment Logic, and so on. AI will Not be able to connect those systems together. It is going to throw you a sea of errors and bugs. Debugging and fixing those is going to take significantly more time, than if you had just made the system manually from scratch.
If your AI can't do this, you're using the wrong AI. I admit, it will need guidance and coaching, but a good AI can easily do this.

AI is a workhorse, not a controller.

(right now)

And, yes, it needs thorough testing and code review, just like any human-written code.

[ancient iris]

Yes fair point, AI still struggles with handling isolated systems properly when things need to connect.
Feels like strong architecture and clear systems boundaries can reduce chaos that can make AI generated subsystems more reliable.🤔💭
Um quick question...How do you guys structure and manage larger systems? It must be a hell of a journey to go thru on daily basis right?

[round radish]

That's probably more of a question for another channel.

(much like this whole discussion)

[oblique ice]

what was the main question? 🤔

[ancient iris]

Oh yeahh. Got a bit informal here. My apologies. I will maintain the discipline of this channel.

[ancient iris]

When multiple systems work together, how are you balancing decoupling, adding new features on top and maintaining stability of codebase. Im trying to figure out a way here and I also want to gain more insight from other people.
Let's continue this chat on Programming -CPP channel? 😄

[ivory echo]

How sensible

[ember spire]

Has anyone here transitioned from to film to games?
I am an editor and assistant editor for the film industry and I am considering pivoting to Cinematics/Lighting Design.
Glad to see that there are tons of free and comprehensive tutorials out there which is motivating, but I'm more interested in hearing the experience of others who have made this transition.
I would be mainly looking to work remotely, since my country doesn't have a developed games industry. Is this something feasible?

[ivory geode]

Disney is invested in making cinematics in unreal

[spice dagger]

Working remotely has never been more feasible than any other time in history.

[ivory geode]

Correction, it was more feasible during covid

[worldly monolith]

Bring back covid

[coarse ember]

It's tough to get remote work in games as companies still prefer remote workers to be in the same country/state due to tax and legal requirements

It's possible to do using an employer of record service like Remote.com but that comes at a cost for the company

It's easier with freelancing/contract work though

[spice dagger]

That is a good point, it is much easier as a freelancer/contractor to work remotely.

[coarse ember]

Regarding the switch to that role specifically, how many roles have you seen advertised for that?

[ember spire]

Yeah I would imagine so. Though I'm not opposed to freelance work, and relocating isn't completely out of scope. In regards to how many posts I have seen advertised, I wouldn't say I have seen a lot, but I've seen a couple. I imagine this isn't the kind of post that gets advertised all the time as it is quite specific. Why do you ask?

[coarse ember]

Because I wanted to emphasize how rare that role is in addition to the criteria of being globally remote or willing to relocate you over hiring some one in the same country

[ember spire]

Yup I imagined that would be the case. In that case, if I were to take a new entrant approach to working in games, rather than going straight for cinematic design, are there any roles that would fit my criteria? Maybe something like QA?

[coarse ember]

What did/are doing in film?

[ember spire]

Editing, assistant editing (implementing workflows, transcoding footage, quality testing footage, managing large media volumes) post-production coordination (designing and managing workflows, both live and archival media assets, timelines, freelancers, external vendor relations, and QA for VFX, colour grading, sound)

[coarse ember]

Not much crossover in roles for games unfortunately, maybe production related roles?

[dusky pivot]

hey

[bleak dagger]

"Senior cinematic designer @CDPR" No way, really ?

[dusky pivot]

I do

[bleak dagger]

Also during witcher 3 times ?

[dusky pivot]

no only cyberpunk

[ember spire]

@dusky pivot hey!! Would you mind if I DM'd you about this?

[dusky pivot]

Sure

[crisp spear]

I recently started doing freelance editing and production for video game trailers. That could be a path

[snow kiln]

Hi! How should one go about starting out as a QA Game tester?
And if someone who's been around could tell me what resources are needed for it I'd much appreciate it!

I imagine it starts off with voluntary work to "build the experience", however, my question is - what defines a good QA Game tester, how are they chosen, and what should I be mindful of?

[dusky pivot]

Qa tester haven't heard that in a while

[snow kiln]

Am I not up to speed, or has the name changed recently?

[dusky pivot]

No just haven't heard anyone say it in a couple of weeks

[snow kiln]

Well you're in luck I guess

Do you have any info you could share about it?

[dusky pivot]

Not really my department

I know a couple of friends there

Tho

[bleak dagger]

I just recently saw a post
Many bigger studios have sites where you can apply as game tester, unpaid tho
Its a bit harder to get a paid position as Qa atleast in the beginning

[sacred flax]

I dunno if they still do it anymore, but EA used to hire lots of QA testers as "contractors" which means you didnt actually work for EA and made it easier for people without experience to be hired

i did QA testing for metal of honor heros for the wii like that lol

[oblique ice]

didn't know got metal of honor heros 🤔

[sacred flax]

well heroes 2 to be exact

[oblique ice]

didn't know a heroes 2 🤔

[ivory echo]

It’s medal 🥇, you savages! 😀

Maybe you really weren’t working for EA after all, you’re talking about heroes and WII, prly got contracted to test some Chinese knockoff lol

[bleak dagger]

So you mean that one time when i worked on Gand Them Auto 5 i wasnt working for Rockstar?

https://giphy.com/gifs/BLoafX-the-studio-banjj-media-wHyqT1sbSQ17oywW3v

[ivory echo]

https://tenor.com/view/trollmeme-gif-20146451

[sacred flax]

also it was released like 19 years ago so i cant blame someone for not hearing of it lol

[bleak dagger]

I think no one has ever heard of that game 😄

[wispy snow]

A lot of QA is done by dedicated QA companies. They're probably your best bet.

As for what skills you need, some would be:

• A boatload of patience. You'll be doing the same test over and over and over again, in games that are broken and boring (most WIP games are boring).
• Good eye for details. The team will trust you to spot any and all issues, however minor.
• Good at documentation. The team will trust you to provide the exact and minimal number of steps required to reproduce a bug. This will require you to personally reproduce it in a variety of ways until you've honed in on the most reliable and simple way.
• No ego. Depending on the team you may or may not be able to come with suggestions for game changes, but you'll never have any say as to whether any changes you suggest will actually be implemented.

[worldly monolith]

Psp game

Pretty good for it's age

[bleak dagger]

Can you link it for me ?

Shop link or wiki

[worldly monolith]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor:_Heroes_2

[bleak dagger]

That doesnt say metal of honor

[worldly monolith]

They don't know how to spell medal

[bleak dagger]

Ye that was the point of the last 4 messages lmfao

[sacred flax]

oh i was typing metal lmaoooo

at least one of ya figured it out

[oblique ice]

metal of honour, metal slug 😆

[coarse ember]

<@&213101288538374145> 18+ spam

[full tulip]

What is it that makes someone qualified to be hired in this field of unreal game development?

[round radish]

Right now? Not much.

Industry is in a dire state.

[strange plinth]

highest chance to get a job is to look into new studios

while big studios breaks a lot of small studios emerge

[flat rapids]

Do not listen to anyone who tries to discourage you, you have to be ignorant sometimes to chase your goals and reach out to
projects/people that you want to be part of and explain to them why you want that gig and why you are a good fit and don’t worry too much about qualifications either but do not slack off learning skills that will help you excel in your strengths and what you love to do and ask for support from your loved ones. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help and support. Swallow your pride and do it if this is what you want to do for the rest of your life.

I got my first paying full time job last week. It’s not a lot of money if you compare it to our cost of living here in the US but I fuking love this project and I see this job as my internship and this is by far the best opportunity I got to level up my experience and prepare for my journey for the next project. I cannot wait to see where I will be in 5 years.

I never went to college or university and I started learning Unreal 2025 after leaving my corporate job in late 2024.

And if I had listened to everyone who is talking crap about everything that is going on in the industry then I wouldn’t have this job nor would I be working towards my goal or leaning new skills.

[fair salmon]

Actually, I design custom 2D assets for game developers things like UI menus, HUDs, icons, and lore packs. I’ve mostly worked one-on-one with devs, but I was told Discord is a great place to connect with more teams.

I’m curious if you or your project could use extra visuals like that. I’d love to help make your game look sharper and more immersive.
I also design games for people

Right now I’m also running some special discounts for new clients 🙂
Sorry if this message comes at a bad time ❤️

[gritty halo]

Hey there. I think its difficult to approve/give you a rate without knowing what life situation you are in. It looks like you have a plan. Break down the hours you will need for the project. Add around 20% as buffer on top and calculate your hourly rate. See if you can live on that amount. Keep in mind asset costs and the external freelancer as well. Depending on how much those all will cost youd need to adjust your rate as well. No one in here can give you a more accurate price since no one in here has the full brief for the project and your specific circumstances.

Without knowing anything about your circumstances Id say its a fair quote. But again rely more on your own calculations than on anyone in here

[bleak dagger]

Can you solve the problem someone else have? If yes you are qualified

[brave nexus]

I’m building a competitive 5v5 football game with a strong focus on skill-based passing, dynamic AI, and online multiplayer.

I’ve developed a full game design and vertical slice plan, and I’m now looking for a development partner to co-build the prototype and take this to investors.” DM me if your intrested

[ancient iris]

Hey everyone! I’d love some feedback on my portfolio for mid-level Unreal Engine roles.

I’m currently working on:
• A time-of-day routine-based deterministic simulation system.
• A Blueprint → pseudocode → C++ translation plugin, designed for future expansion and performance optimization.
• An AI vs AI combat orchestration demo.

Do you think this combination is strong enough from a hiring perspective? Which of these would stand out most to recruiters, and is there anything you’d suggest adding or refining to increase its impact?

Thanks in advance!

[wispy snow]

Hard to say without knowing how good they are, but roughly speaking it depends on which kind of programmer you want to be. The routine sounds like a gameplay/AI mix, the c++ translation is engine, and AI vs AI is obv. AI.
So if you want to become an AI programmer I wouldn't focus on the c++ tool at least.

[coarse ember]

"qualified" will vary from company to company. Easiest thing to do here is look at open roles and what they expect candidates to have. Eg https://hitmarker.net/jobs/blizzard-entertainment-senior-unreal-engine-5-engineer-ii-unannounced-game-1626318 (ignore the experience requirements as this is for a senior role, I'm just using this as an example)

[coarse ember]

Have you got previous industry experience?

[void gust]

"Qualified" is having 19 years of experience, in a fast paced work environment, with a technology that has only existed for 5 years.

[full tulip]

Thank you.

[coarse ember]

<@&213101288538374145> 18+ spam

[quartz night]

Hey guys, I'm a Level Artist with two years of experience, currently working at a game outsourcing company in Chengdu. I'd like to ask: what is the current market situation for Level Artists abroad (especially in Europe and the US)? Aside from visa requirements, what are the essential qualifications or skills needed

[coarse ember]

It will be incredibly difficult for someone to get a job in another country without already being there because there's so much local talent. There's little reason to consider anyone from abroad unless they have experience in a field that is hard to find locally

[quartz night]

thx for ur reply

those are some of my old portfolio, It might need a bit more polishing.

[coarse ember]

Your best chance is to join a local studio in China that has other offices around the world and then look to do an internal transfer from one location to another. From there once you're in the country (like the UK, EU, or whatever), you can look for other studios to work at because the fact that you are local makes it easier for them to consider you. You've already gone through most of the checks. There's no delay in having to have you relocate from country to country. That can now be immediate and you also have more professional networking opportunities.

[bleak dagger]

Ive seen some studios offer positions with relocation support, i guess offers like this are only avialable for seniors with a great track record?

Not specifically for Level artists tho

[coarse ember]

At the moment I would suspect it is for leads and higher. There's a massive oversupply of senior and below at the moment, and arguably lead level as well that would be available locally

[bleak dagger]

At what point can someone call him self a professional in the Industry?

Is working part time but fully paid already Professional?
Im havin severe imposter syndrome 😄

[coarse ember]

Are you doing paid work in the industry? If yes, you are an industry professional

Not all experience is equal though

[bleak dagger]

Some months it pays all my bills fully

Depends on how many gigs i get

But when ppl ask me what i do i hesitate to tell them im a professional game dev

[flat rapids]

another spam, please do not follow this instructions

[oblique ice]

where ever you finding overseas, just make sure to check if it's legal company so can avoid issues

[bleak dagger]

Bro will end up in a sweatshop where he works for food scraps if he doesnt watch out 🙃

[void gust]

Just wait a few years. Asia is the future.

[bleak dagger]

https://giphy.com/gifs/winnie-winni-winny-TjrChA3THtDGTraeJG

[flat rapids]

Just my opinion here so I don’t mean any disrespect by saying this to any country 🙏

If all the companies from Asia were to make games in the US and Europe and hire people
from that region only then they would have hard time making games because the cost of living here is pretty high vs most part of Asia and that gives them more advantage and hence, this is why we see a lot of cool things coming from Asia and they make a lot money which gives them freedom to experiment, invest in things and give raise to their employees.

For example, if iphone were to assembled in the US, we wouldn’t be able to afford to buy them and that is the reality. People over there make less money than us while doing good job making lots of product for cheap.

[void gust]

Yup, you can make more money here in the US but cost of living is getting worse every year. Even a software engineer in San Francisco could be living paycheck to paycheck.

Stagflation

[bleak dagger]

Really? I always thought Us devs are paid super well ...

Guess Europe is in between those 2

Cost of living gets pretty high recently but atleast i can afford a apartment and food with a single job

Heard some crazy horrorstories about Usa like ppl are bareley surviving a month even with 2 jobs

Saw in a youtube short some places demand like 30$ for a sandwich

[coarse ember]

<@&213101288538374145> this one too

[void gust]

They are paid well but we're getting some pretty extreme inflation in the US, and Donald Trump seems to want to speed run even more inflation. Here's one example: gasoline, which is $6.50/gallon in San Jose and $5/gallon in Orlando. Should reach $10/gallon by 2028. There's a lot more to say here but I don't want to get too off topic. I think it would be a disservice to tell people that America is the dream haven that it used to be.

[void gust]

I know a lot of people who have 3 jobs. They work 70+ hours per week and they're still broke. On the other hand, I know a guy in China who rents an apartment for less than $100.

I wouldn't recommend the united states at this moment unless you're earning $100,000+.

[agile kettle]

i really need a freelance gig or full time job am a modeler but at the moment if i see a full time remote customer support role i will do it cause a tired of reaching out without getting a single responses

[bleak dagger]

This aint the right channel tho
But to give you a reallity check
When i open a job offer for a 3d artist i get 20 requests in the first 4 hours of the post being up
Another 20 - 50 over the course of a few days
There is just a lot of competition at the moment

#instructions

[next shell]

Hi everyone , I just started learning unreal a few days ago, I am quite enjoying it, just want to ask if I Know enough to make a game prototype in unreal after a few months, can I get freelancing work, I am new to game dev

[bleak dagger]

No

[next shell]

Then how much do I need to know for it?

[bleak dagger]

Could you reliably find and fix bugs in this bp?

It takes years untill you learned enough of the engine and its systems untill you can start selling your skills
Context switches constantly, you need to know nearly everything inside out
ofc you can specialize in only ui for example

Then its faster but for sure not after a few months

[digital gate]

ask if I Know enough to make a game prototype in unreal after a few months
Uh... to prototype your magnum opus? No, not very likely.

But to pick a game idea and try to make a really simple not-to-ship version? Sure.

ask if I can I get freelancing work
I agree with Blackhand here, that's a no. It took me closer to 8mo *, you're asking if a few days is sufficient?

*: And when I did get freelance work, it was barely beer money. It took another year of doing that type of work before I started getting more steady/serious income

https://20_games_challenge.gitlab.io/ Follow this

[digital gate]

Bonus question: Do you immediately have ideas to make this more maintainable? Do you understand the tradeoffs involved in implementing those ideas?

[next shell]

Hi, both of you , thanks for replying and giving advice, I just wanted to know how much I need to know for game dev work, i only know that the above image is of blueprint problem, but don't know anything in it , as I said I just started

[fleet spruce]

If anyone interested, I want to hire a Game Developer for scripting a Game

[bleak dagger]

Once you understand how to refactor that mess above and you know how to fix bugs in it your good enough

[flat rapids]

It is possible to get freelance work and eventually landing a full time job. I started learning Unreal in beginning of 2025, left my cooperate job (end of 2024) because the games I love playing so much (Action/Adventure RPG games) made me feel that this is what I want to do until I get old and soggy😅And now I have full time gig.

You have to find out what kind of games you love making and try to learn smaller things from them. Just mimic them to understand why you love it so much and what makes that specific game unique to you and hang around people that have similar mindset/goals like you do and find a mentor/friend that believes in you, this is very important or else you will be discouraged quickly and eventually giving up.

Once you find what you love doing in the industry, keep enhancing your strength over and over and over again until you become the best at it and you will notice that very few people can compete at your level in that specific area. I am slowly but surely getting there!

This method works for me and may not work for you but keep trying new things to find out what works for you and why! Good luck and try not to fly when you are just learning how to walk, it takes time but if you have enough money then hire people from here to make your prototype 🙏

[bleak dagger]

The dream ^^

[next shell]

Ya, same thing with me, I got a laptop last year before joining college, and started playing games when I am free, and then decided to make a similar copy of the game myself and started learning unreal

[bleak dagger]

Most people seem to get a clearer understanding of what they are doing after roughly 1 year
If you pledge your soul to unreal and learn 12 hours each day you might get there faster however with freelancing you need to understand pretty much everything or you have to turn down 90% of clients and when you get some you might produce bad code that gets you bad reviews

Competition is insane too

You are competing with people from third world countries that work for less than 10$ / hour

Some months you get no clients at all ... other times you get 5 at once

[digital gate]

feast or famine is real!

[fallen heath]

https://youtu.be/qwD6-l3D2HQ?si=sWK9vN0Zq7epy1r7

the kind of games I want to make

[fallen heath]

man in yemen one time I worked in a job with 0.33$/h

[fallen heath]

left after one month ... just needed a 120$ to add it on some money I had to buy a new laptop

[bleak dagger]

Jeeeez thats miserable

[fallen heath]

it is ...

[bleak dagger]

guess cost of living is really low there ?

But still thats horrible

Thats like slavery .....

[fallen heath]

1gb internet costs 1$ 😭

we don't have electricity ... just solar

but just 2 months and I will leave and go to Turkey

I think for solo devs it's better to make some thing easy but with very smart game mich and in a genre like rage games or something to spread more easily

[flat rapids]

this game looks really cool man, for some reason it reminds me of old game Snake from Nokia phone when I was a kid. I remember when my dad and I used to compete who can survive longer, I think that was probably my the first game I played😅

[bleak dagger]

Ich wish you good luck that you find some place with better chances for you....

[fallen heath]

thank you brother 💙

[half kiln]

Is the game dev carrier still alive?

Is it good for remote friendly jobs ?

[bleak dagger]

Whats a remote friendly job?

We had massive layoffs recently but you are able to find freelance work

if your hourly wages isnt too crazy

[half kiln]

Like a graphic designer, Web developer those types of jobs are more remote friendly

[half kiln]

Game dev is not struggling due to Ai then why so many layoffs

[bleak dagger]

Overhiring during covid

[half kiln]

Hmm make sence

[bleak dagger]

But im sure ai plays its part too

[half kiln]

Game dev is still hard to enter filled, so I think it has low competition compared to graphic designer or web development

[half kiln]

Not in game dev yet I think, it needs to be improved more

[coarse ember]

LLM is plenty in gamedev

But the layoffs are more to do with over hiring during COVID and funds/investments getting hard to get as of late

[coarse ember]

Competition is quite due to low number of roles available and sheer number of applicants. Not uncommon to have a few hundred or so per open role

[junior plume]

Hi guys, i am trying to build a portfolio. what would be the most impressive thing to show someone? I have a massive scene that's pretty optimized, and its gorgeous. but it does not really seem like its that impressive

[bleak dagger]

Depends on your profession 😄

[junior plume]

currently im a autozone employee XD
But fr I am happy doing anything that will get me noticed in the unreal engine scene, I have started making my own game and I really want to make money off of unreal engine.

I have only been in blueprint for the "coding" aspect, but I know that there is a large community around lighting, level building, character animation, and all that thats not coding in raw language.

[bleak dagger]

Well.... you should probably decide that before you build a portfolio tho

Programmer, Level Design, Game Design, Lightning specialist, virtual production

All of these have very different portfolios

[junior plume]

well right now I have a bit of all of that, but what would be the best to get into? I understand each one is going to be different but I have done a little of all and I would like to ask others their opinions on each. would being a good lighting specialist be something that gets noticed often? does level design need to follow rules that if you dont follow no one will ever choose me? I dont know and I dont want to google myself down a rabbit hole, you know?

[coarse ember]

https://entrylevel.games/ would be place to start role wise

[bleak dagger]

Yes for sure if you cant write a proper Gdd no one will take you serious as Game Designer for example

Animators are probably one of the best paid and rarest roles

[junior plume]

that makes a lot of sense

[junior plume]

ooh, really?

[bleak dagger]

I wouldnt really go into sound design or art

Thats pretty saturated

Alltho if you are a very good artist you will still find something .... probably

This infos are just for indies now

i think @coarse ember can tell you more about AAA

[junior plume]

ohh, got it. thats fair

[coarse ember]

In my experience in the west, programmers are paid the most because studios have to complete with non games salaries too

On most teams, art and programmers make up most of the roles

[bleak dagger]

How are artists paid in the industry ?

2d and 3d

I see many artists working almost for food in indie projects

[junior plume]

okay thats understandable

[coarse ember]

UK salary survey https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uZF-gfBDHNJE8ebDQUFy49pwrAnCMx8uf6VzNITaOKI/edit?gid%3D846726335%23gid%3D846726335&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1776554257702085&usg=AOvVaw0rRlOL5HYQ9ash0RfUvAwj

Global https://www.google.com/url?q=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cM3_iBGF8IXZfLS5GKvC0-JWh0tS6TVYJJ-HxlguinA/htmlview?usp%3Dsharing%26pru%3DAAABcrSmbYk*J5OhG3eCmEl1Xu_Y325bRg%23&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1776554298858752&usg=AOvVaw0z6BvJm72e2cpkJroK3LoN

Sweden https://gamedevforce.com/salary-visibility

[junior plume]

wow these are so cool to go through

[coarse ember]

There's a careers section here if you want now resources https://stevenyau.co.uk/gamedev-megadoc

[bleak dagger]

Artist 3d Quebec Montreal 35k$ ouch ... wonder what studio that could be 😄

[coarse ember]

It's mostly crowd sourced data so there could be bad data and outliers

[junior plume]

thats good to know, hmm

I think I will try out animation then, I can animate pretty well in unreal engine... but will that impress people? or do they want animations in like blender which are then exported?

[bleak dagger]

Unreal isnt great for animations

You need blender

You can do a lot in the engine but if you want industry standart you have to go with maya and then blender

[coarse ember]

See page https://entrylevel.games/database/junior-animator especially at the bottom where there's portfolio links

[void gust]

Might as well work at McDonald's.

For $35K...

Is it really true that Unreal is not good for animations? K Pop Demon Hunters made a lot of animations with Unreals Control Rig.

[oblique ice]

you can still do animation using control rig, but you need understand principles first, because you want to do that will taking time and effort, so if anyone here no patience and the effort to do that, if don't have cannot do anything already

[worldly monolith]

Maybe if your a manager 😮

[coarse ember]

It's not really designed to be an animation tool compared to blender, max, Maya etc

[void gust]

They admit that it's for pre visualization of scenes, but with the added bonus of very fast iterations. I think it's great to learn both Maya and Unreal instead of just one or the other.

[flat rapids]

really nice information here, did you made this document?

[coarse ember]

No, but I'm in the Slack group that kicked off the UK one

I personally think the salaries trend lower than the actual market rate

[flat rapids]

thanks for sharing, i have been saving all the documents you have shared in my notes😅

[coarse ember]

All my links are also in https://stevenyau.co.uk/gamedev-megadoc which I have compiled myself

[blazing path]

Hello guys, I’m adeola. 3d Character and props artist. Great to be here ✨

[livid oxide]

Hello, maybe someone here knows how to post a role in the job board channels ?

[bleak dagger]

https://tenor.com/2LJS.gif

[sullen yarrow]

hello, i was wondering if anyone here could help me come up with a portfoilio for internships

[coarse ember]

What does your portfolio look like at the moment?

And what role are you looking to do?

[sullen yarrow]

I just made a website for it but I don’t really understand what to put in it

[sullen yarrow]

I can either do coding or pre designing but I would like to improve my skills to be a main designer

Or honestly just anything in the field to get the experience

[coarse ember]

They are two different roles that require different portfolios. Which one is your focus?

[sullen yarrow]

I would say designing then I can dm you my portfolio for feedback if you’d like

[coarse ember]

Sorry, public chat only

[sullen yarrow]

Oh ok I’ll send it here then

redskelion.squarespace.com

The password is test55

[coarse ember]

If it's designing, this is my go to example of a portfolio https://erinmcdermott0719.wixsite.com/emcdesign/projects

[sullen yarrow]

Woah I’m finishing my 3rd year of college and we haven’t gotten that far I’ve barely learned to make video games in unreal engine 5

So I don’t have much experience doing much since they teach everything so late

[coarse ember]

Usual feedback: you want the front page to quickly show your skills and project

So a quick intro and skill breakdown followed immediately by your projects

This is for a programmer but it's a good example of intro followed by project list and thumb nails/GIFs

https://vacui.github.io/

Each project needs a detailed breakdown of the project.

Summary at the top followed by what design problems did you face? How did you solve them? What skills did you use and how did you use them?

An example of that structure https://vacui.github.io/projects/tunnel.html

[sullen yarrow]

My projects have links to Google Docs by clicking on them which have more details about the projects but I can add those things to the document

[coarse ember]

Too many clicks

Expect people who are looking at your portfolio not to click through to external links like that. They're just go and go to your page. Look at project, read it and that's it

You want to reduce the amount of friction that someone's looking at your portfolio to find that information

So as few clicks as possible, videos instead of working demos, gifs, screenshots etc

[sullen yarrow]

Got it will do 🫡

But like for the work itself

Like if I add more details and all that will the amount of work and the quality of my work be ok?

[coarse ember]

For example https://redskelion.squarespace.com/portfolio/project-one-f5w4d-z9nem-s3jda-eyssk-a6prr-9lpbj

This is your first project on that page

When I got to this page I was hoping to be able to read about the project but I just got five screenshots. So at this point, I've already made the decision not to look at the other projects because this is my expectation of what the other projects will look like

[coarse ember]

Honestly, no, given the quality of design portfolios I've seen so far, you need to up the quality and your skill sets to match that benchmark

[sullen yarrow]

Icic I’m sorry 😓 I went to college to expect to learn about these things but it took 3 years for them to start teaching me game design for some reason so I really don’t have much work but would somehow like to have the opportunity to make it to an internship so besides having lots of information is there anything I can do about the quality/lack of work or am I just screwed?

[coarse ember]

The unfortunate truth is that you will have to learn those skills in your own time and build up that portfolio quality

[sullen yarrow]

Am I allowed to take internships after I graduate school then?

Cuz I only have this summer really to take an internship during school since I graduate next year

Over the summer I do plan on experimenting in unreal engine 5 and making a game with whatever I can figure out what to do in those 4 months

But as of now I only have 1 game but am currently working on 2 more due next month

[coarse ember]

Some will allow it. Some won't. Depends on the internship requirements

[sullen yarrow]

Ic since that is my main concern right now

[coarse ember]

Do you have to do an internship?

[sullen yarrow]

No but I feel like when I’m out of college it’ll be impossible to find a job without any experience in the field so i would prefer to find one so I don’t struggle later

[coarse ember]

You can't change second, the situation you are in now, so what you can do is try to best prepare yourself for that future where you know you're looking for a job without prior experience from an internship

So that means not only working over the summer to improve your skills, but also during your final year doing far more than what the university teaches you so you in a better position than anyone else at that university

And that includes networking going to local game Dev events. Trying to get to know people in the industry so you have more opportunities to try and get a referral into a game studio

[sullen yarrow]

I would of wished people told me that university didn’t teach you anything till late then I would of been trying to work on stuff but they all said that you learn in university

[coarse ember]

Additional to that, building up a personal brand so you are showing off work on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, blue sky, and increasing your surface area to the wider industry

[sullen yarrow]

I also live in one of the biggest cities in my country so finding a job will be basically impossible

[coarse ember]

Which country are you in?

[sullen yarrow]

United States

[coarse ember]

Which state?

[sullen yarrow]

California

[coarse ember]

You have a decent game Dev community and industry around in California, so you have location advantage to many other people in the United States at least

[worldly monolith]

Plus I'm sure many like minded people your age could always start your own studio and be the next doom

[sullen yarrow]

Yea but also at the same time it is very hard to find any sort of job here to begin with

[sullen yarrow]

I thought of that but also after college I don’t have a stable job since I moved 6 hours away to go to school and I don’t have a job to go back to back home

[coarse ember]

That's a massive challenge in itself that you shouldn't take on unless you're prepared for it end-to-end

[sullen yarrow]

So balancing that and a full time job would be very difficult but. It impossible

[worldly monolith]

Nothing worth it is meant to be easy

[sullen yarrow]

True that but I would like to find something in the field as soon as I finish school so I’m not too worried about anything

[coarse ember]

In your situation this is what I would do

Aim for technical designer or level scripter/level design

Look at the games companies local to you and what technology they are using. Are they using unreal? Are they using Unity?

Whatever they are using focus on that technology stack

Think of projects that you can build and show your skill set as relevant for the jobs that are currently available for game designers and levels designers

This could mean a series of small games with a very polished game mechanic that you can build

Or building out content for existing games so you can grab an FPS template in unreal, for example, and build out multiple levels to showcase your level design skills

On LinkedIn, I will find the game industry professionals in California, especially recruiters and hiring managers. Send them a connect request with an intro to yourself saying that you would you're connecting to follow them what their activity and follow them anyway

This is so that on your LinkedIn feed you can see possible opportunities that come up as well as post your progress through these projects so that they show up on their feed

I would also look for local game Dev events that you can attend and try to meet a few people face to face, especially those that are currently in the industry

And as you expect, never stop learning. There's always more material than you can ever consume around the subject that's available freely online through video sites like GDC, YouTube and other expos

I also saw your a Pokémon TCG player so another game time project could be to make a card game that is balanced and that can be done with cards and all sets without needing to learn any technical engine

[bleak dagger]

@coarse ember am i allowed to share your mega doc somewhere else ?

[coarse ember]

Yep, it's completely public. If you can use the redirect link, I would be greatful https://stevenyau.co.uk/gamedev-megadoc

[solemn vale]

Hi, I’m a beginner.

Using Sequencer + Camera Cuts.
In viewport car is visible, but in render it disappears (ghost).

Using Movie Render Queue.

Any idea what might cause this?

[modern imp]

select the car
check details panel
search for actor hidden in game
uncheck if checked

[solemn vale]

It's unchecked only by default... Soo what others problem??

[bleak dagger]

wrong channel

[solemn vale]

Didn't understand.. what??

[bleak dagger]

This is the wrong channel for fixes, this is career chat

[solemn vale]

In their know one replying

[bleak dagger]

So its fine to spam this one because in the others no one is replying ?

In that case we wouldn need any channels at all, lets just have one and everyone puts their stuff in htere ...

[solemn vale]

In sequence chat my message won't bro what should I do .. stuck with this from past days... I not asking unrelated problems rights .. I just sent one msg that all .. not spam in every time

[bleak dagger]

So if its just 1 message its fine? What if every user does the same with just 1 message ?

[solemn vale]

Sorry bro 😔 i don't know how to use discord properly okay

[modern imp]

so I'm mainly a 3D artist transitioning to Unreal Engine to make cinematic sequences..
I generally use Motion Capture Animations in my scenes
what I mainly focus on is VFX, Camera Movements, Environment Design and Lighting..

what roles could I be aiming for in the game industry?

[wispy snow]

VFX and Environment Design (often called Level Artist) are common. Lighting as well, though that's often baked into a Level Artist.
Camera would be part of a cinematic specific role, which also exist.
Doesn't sound like it would be too hard for you to make the transition (except for the state of the industry, that is...) 🙂

[bleak dagger]

Virtual production, there is for sure a demand for trailers and cinematics.

[modern imp]

and how do I get into that?
can I dm you?

[bleak dagger]

I dont see how dming me would help hahaha
Well you apply to studios with your portfolio

[modern imp]

okayy😭

[bleak dagger]

You can also try freelancing

It isnt a stable income tho

[drowsy obsidian]

Pls german

Im from german

[soft stratus]

Hello all, I have a small project I'm working on and my friend wants to join me for a % equity if it makes more than like, $500, and free otherwise. Does anyone know of any example/template contracts or something that I can whip up?

[coarse ember]

Equity or revenue share?

[lilac walrus]

template contracts are usually not worth the paper they're printed on since they don't actually reference or respect local laws etc

[void gust]

You'd be better off paying a professional to write up a contract.

[solid agate]

The most important thing is to just have it on paper what his percentage is if the game exceeds 500,- or more than have him sign that, a full template contract won't be needed for that

[tulip lava]

This is added stress during the most stressful part of the project. I say this from first hand experience. Make the game first, then worry about sorting out contracts. If you don't have enough trust in your friend to make it through development to a product, you probably shouldn't work together.

[grave cove]

This is terrible advice. The whole point of contracts is to agree in advance to expectations. Not retro-actively split up a created thing.
You wanna make the game and then your let your contributors block you from doing anything with it because you didn't do simple IP reassignment to the project?
If you don't want to deal with this sort of thing, that's fine. But that means you should go it alone (maybe with a spouse) or stick to straight up purchases.
Otherwise it's just a Sword of Damocles hanging over the project.

[tulip lava]

I disagree. Verbal agreements hold in a lot of cases, so writing contracts instead of worrying about the game's development just puts additional stress on the devs when it's not needed. Just make a game you guys think is fun together, then if you want to release it, do contracts. Idk just my two cents.

[bleak dagger]

Lol

In fairytale land where we all love each other and ride on unicorns to work that is sureley a valid option

but in reallity team breaks nonstop, now all of a sudden there is drama and your "partner" threatens to sue you if you use his material

Also i feel like knowing exactly what i get by the end of the endeavor is less stressfull than hoping the other person wont try anything funny .... but thats just me

[grave cove]

Yeah, I'd love to live in a world where contracts aren't necessary.
But unless you're banking on only a minor success, it's better to have it agreed to before hand.
They may be happy with a 50/50 split until you have lots of money at stake and now they want 75 and it becomes he-said-he-said.
Maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical.

[oblique ice]

are you having arguments? 🤔

[modern relic]

<@&213101288538374145>

[lofty crane]

Which country are you in? Contract law isn't the same everywhere

[tulip lava]

Damn people are so greedy these days lol. Worried about contracts before the game is even halfway done is crazy. That stuff only makes sense for corporations. What happens when you agree to give equity to someone who doesn't pull their weight? You better have some legally binding wording the prevents loopholes. Which costs money from an attorney. I'd say it costs about $1,000 for an actual contract, plus time away from development. OP better hope the game makes more than $1,000 just to break even on the contract. I literally just dealt with all of this contract nonsense. It's a waste of time at this stage in development.

[round radish]

Contracts are only worth it if you can afford to enforce them, regardless of country.

[bleak dagger]

If the game makes x money and you get scammed out of a million im sure you can find a lawyer that works for a provision

[bleak dagger]

Ye.... how greedy not wanting to get scammed

[round radish]

Most games are not gonna make that much money. 😛

[bleak dagger]

Well... for 200 bucks it aint worth to enforce the contract

[round radish]

If your indie game makes $50k, you can probably barely afford to hire a lawyer to cover the costs of a law suit... and, yeah, for $200, nobody is gonna come after you for that.

[bleak dagger]

i would

just out of principle

even if i make minus

as long as i can hurt the scammer

A lawsuit would ruin him too keep that in mind

[digital gate]

Well, I would not start production of a game concept if I didn't think it would clear the costs required for legal setup - because I wouldn't start the game concept if I expected that the game wouldn't be part of a sustainable biz (and the floor for that very much exceeds $1k legal cost).

This is, after all, #career-chat and isn't #hobby-chat.

That's from the perspective of the project runner - from the other side, as someone who has done freelance work on projects, there's no way I'd want to chip in on a project of any type without feeling like an enforceable contract existed.

Getting ripped off a few times tends to make you amenable towards the concept of legal protections.

[bleak dagger]

Your greed sickens me 😄

Just dont worry about it .... trust

[digital gate]

Oh I'm so evil! I'm downright despicable, with my desire to be able to continue to make entertainment products that statistically do not sustain themselves.

[digital gate]

"hey bro I know I said that Devolver would definitely pay us after this milestone, but actually I can't get them to reply to the pitch! We're gonna have to go with tinybuild, let me see what their email is.

Oh can you spend another 3 months on that feature that makes the design too convoluted to market?"

[bleak dagger]

I already showed footage to the investors, all they want is a playable build, after that you will 100% get paid i swear, you think we can do that in the next 2 months ?

I dont even get how this is a discussion haha a contract is the basis for any endeavour where ppl invest their time / money ^^

[digital gate]

oh sad news, the angel I was totally talking to no longer wants web3 and he was backing out, but I told him that we would have Gemini be a fully integrated storyteller by Friday

[bleak dagger]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Joeljamescomedy-funny-lmao-hilarious-aqqUwXz7j0xMOKnJgb

[digital gate]

why are you not adding claude!?!?! you're ruining our projectd!!111 I'm hiring another dev

yuor out!

[bleak dagger]

Deserved ngl

[coarse ember]

I agree with this. At the same time, I would still prefer having an agreement in writing vs verbal for the usual reasons

[vapid wing]

hey guys I have a message to send bc im looking to put a team together where should i post it?

[grave cove]

#instructions for posting to the job board.

[frail plaza]

.

.

[tulip lava]

Why are you doing business with people who might scam you?

Seems like you have a history of making bad business decisions if scammers are your first instinct. I don't seem to have that problem personally.

https://tenor.com/view/risada-risada-meme-gif-1808894066457451256

[bleak dagger]

Because like many others im working with strangers online lmfao

Called freelancing

Also, someone arguing that contracts are unnecessary while talking about bad business decisions is pretty ironic

https://giphy.com/gifs/Joeljamescomedy-funny-lmao-hilarious-aqqUwXz7j0xMOKnJgb

[spice dagger]

You should absolutely take every step you feel necessary in order to protect yourself against fraud when dealing with others on a financial level.

Seeking protective measures such as contracts is not greed at all.

It is a massive red flag anyone that does not take seriously legally binding financial contracts.

"Trust me bro" is exactly how people get scammed.

Its also a major reason why people don't take revenue share projects seriously either.

Complaining about people not pulling their weight, when you aren't willing to even consider contracts as a serious protection mechanism is pretty telling IMO.

[tulip lava]

You can screw yourself just as easily by signing a contract as not signing one. OP had the ball in their court as they were the ones with the project IP. The project had just started, why would you give someone equity who might not be around in 2 months? Why would you spend thousands on legal when the game is worth nothing? I've completed many jobs freelance both with and without contracts, and have never entered a court room. I know when contracts are necessary, and when they are just noise to distract you from production. I also have a business degree from a university. I've done well enough for myself in business to have a pool in my backyard and land for my dogs to roam. Also if you read the original post, he's working with a friend, not randoms on the internet @bleak dagger.

You guys are being the boogeyman this guy needs to ignore. This is a solo dev considering working with a friend. IMO the words friend and contract in the same sentence is a recipe for disaster. Just make a game with your buddy without worrying about monetary value. Figure that out when you're close to finishing the game. After the work is quantifiable.

Just agree to disagree. GG.

[spice dagger]

At the end of the day, its all on each individual to take responsibility for themselves, we aren't going to solve this problem in this chat here and now for everyone as circumstances change the dynamic as you pointed out in this particular case.

But the assertions you made are just simply wrong and not advice that anyone reading this should be operating with in their own arrangements.

Take the necessary precautions to protect yourself.

Dont enter into agreements with people who raise red flags.

Friend or not.

[tulip lava]

Yes, protect yourself, but at the same time don't kill the vibe of your project by adding extra stressors early on. That's all I'm saying. Everyone has the right to make a suggestion in a public chat. That was my suggestion. People also have the right to think my opinion is stupid and respond. No hard feelings. That's what chats are for.

[void gust]

"Just make a game with your buddy without worrying about monetary value."

Except the original person asking the question was considering monetary value. So he feels that he will be making some money rather than no money. Agreeing to what will be split from the beginning is not adding any stress but relieving it, and it solidifies CONFIDENCE in the product. Without confidence then no one will believe in the future of your product. But also, you don't know if anybody here has had bad friends who betrayed them in the past so why would you mention that when that wasn't even part of the question? There are, however, quite a lot of untrustworthy people on the planet, so you are better off doing your due diligence.

[worldly monolith]

Ngl I stopped working with my friend because they were doing nothing they wouldn't even spend much time to learn anything.

Then would ask basic questions time and time again when I would link or even show them things like it was something new to them.

So yeah if I were to work with a friend again I'd 100% contract with them.

Not waste my time putting in a bunch of work when they're barely putting in an hour a day.

[coarse ember]

What is so stressful about a written working agreement?

It's for both parties' benefit to have agreed working terms in writing

Having a verbal agreement is a recipe for disaster if it's something you need to rely on later

[wraith mortar]

@spice dagger do we have rules against posting the same post in both #freelance-jobs and #salary-jobs

Nevermind the predatory aspects of that certain listing

[spice dagger]

Not really.

We dont actively read/vet the job listings.

Unless there is an obvious scam one or one gets reported.

Which is why we recommend that people be extremely cautious when entering into financial arrangements with other users.

Its not feasible for us to treat it any differently than we do now. We dont have the resources to validate the legitimacy of listings.

We arent a job platform. We just provide a convenient board that facilitates it.

If we didnt, people would just spam them in other channels.

[bleak dagger]

LOlolololo work for free untill we have funding then you get paid a normal rate XD

No one in their right mind would take that offer anyways

[wraith mortar]

Oh my question was mostly focused on cross channel spam. Surely you should post in the appropriate channel, jobs aren't both freelance and salary

[spice dagger]

In a perfect world, yeah, but its not really that consequential in the long run. And as I pointed out, we don't scrutinize them as thoroughly as the chat channels.

[tulip lava]

Yeah that's my point. Imagine if you signed a contract early on and gave your friend 50% of all sales. That's why I say wait until there is quantifiable work done before you sign a contract. Sure you could argue that contract is void if your friend doesn't do what they agree to do in a contract, but you better have a good lawyer writing the contract. If the contract spells out that your friend is in charge of UI for example, well you need to have what exactly they're responsible for in the UI. Otherwise they can make one widget and claim they worked on the UI in court. All game devs know how many layers there are for each aspect of a game. A UI can have hundreds of user created widgets. A lawyer will have to write all of that into the contract. A lawyer's time isn't cheap and you need to find one that knows what they're doing, then on top of all that people bail all the time. So maybe this guy spends $1-2K getting the contract done, then a few months later his buddy decides he doesn't want to work on the game anymore because it's too hard, too much of a commitment, etc. Now OP spent $1-2K and weeks of time they could've spent developing, worrying about a contract. I'm not saying you should never have contract with the people you work with, only that there is a time and place. If you work on a game for 2-3 years consistently with someone and you're getting close to launch, you can sit down with an attorney and say, here is what is done and by who, divide the equity accordingly. Worrying about contracts a month into development is just unnecessary IMO. People are free to disagree with me, that's normal. Just my opinion.

[bleak dagger]

Do a point system, every task gives x points that gets agreed upon beforehand, at the end you add all points together then you divide the persons points with the pool to calculate his revenue split

Fair for everyone

not much hassle

[tulip lava]

Money, time spent away from development, finding a lawyer that can write contracts without loopholes. At one month into development it's not worth it unless you're making a game you expect to have a massive payoff in the first place. OP seemed very casual about the ambition of their game. Games take years to develop. Finding people who are willing to stick it out for years is rare, people can leave whenever they want. No contract can force someone to work for free. If you own the IP because you started the project, giving away equity to someone with a contract is silly if the game is just starting development. If the friend you give equity to decides to bail, you have to trust that they won't throw a curve ball and sue you if your game does astronomically well.

[coarse ember]

It's not that much time and if it's between friends, it doesn't need to be legal tight

[tulip lava]

That's valid, but once again, there are many layers to each task in game development. That'll be an insanely long contract.

[coarse ember]

A written working agreement > a verbal agreement

If you are going to take the time to talk about having a verbal agreement and agree on what would be distributed in the event of a success or if someone walks away, etc., have it in a written agreement. That written agreement can be a contract; it can be a legal-type contract but ideally it should be written down

[bleak dagger]

The problem is also that in many countries without a contract any ip that someone contributes stays with him

So lets say he drops out after a month and tells you you cant use his work anymore you are screwed as lead

[coarse ember]

If this is not thought about upfront right at the beginning of the working agreement (verbal or not), then you're opening for the whole thing to go south later down the line when money is starts getting involved

[bleak dagger]

Guess ive seen to many projects fail and too much drama with crap like this lol

Jaded and cynical to the core 😆

[tulip lava]

Lol yeah I haven't had any bad experiences in business personally, but I do understand where you guys are coming from.

[coarse ember]

I've seen friends break down relationships because of the lack of up front agreements in place

Or more specific, when money starts getting involved

[glacial elbow]

Hii Guiizz, Looking for some Unreal Paid Freelance project, have a good system and wifi, Have 3 Years of Experience in gaming industry as a Cinematic Lighting and Environment Artist, Have worked on titles like Fortnite and Rocket League with Epic games and other unannounced AAA titles for past 3 years

If my Role Interest's you Dm for Projects!

[bleak dagger]

#instructions

[void gust]

This is the way. You get paid for the work you do. If you don't work then you don't get to eat.

[formal salmon]

It’s the Mr beast scam

[flat tapir]

So many news about the fall of the US economy and ppl discussing the rise of China. Since I can't speak chinese or japanese, it leaves me scared to think about going to China or Japan to work there. The future for the US economy seems dark, grim, I can't say. I have no idea how game developers are going to be affected by this new world dynamics. I'm avoiding thinking about it because first I have to make a portfolio, not try to foresee the future.

[spice dagger]

Personally, my opinion is that you would be at much greater ease if you didn't follow macro geopolitical events or macro economics of countries and didn't base your life around what may or may not happen on that scale. Narrow your focus, everything goes through cycles. The Games Industry is in a slump, that doesn't mean its going to disappear entirely. It will gain traction again, if you are new to the industry, by the time you are comfortable in your discipline, it might be picking up again.

Skills in this industry are very remote friendly, which means you are not necessarily tied to a location to be useful.

[flat tapir]

I really want to travel the world and live abroad. But that is after the job, obviously

[spice dagger]

Nothing stopping you from doing that, other than the obvious financial requirements.

[uneven drum]

Hey so I don't know if here or #ue5-general would be better but.... How should one learn C++, Bps at a better rate. I have learned basics with youtube for bps however I don't seem to recall half of what I "learn" and I am wanting to be more proficient. Is gamedev.tv good or udemy? Whatever you suggest or have thoughts on would be beneficial.

[digital gate]

Have you tried a more hands on approach, less hand-holding less follow-tutorial?

https://20_games_challenge.gitlab.io/challenge/

If you work your way through this, and you try to minimize the amount of tutorials you watch, you’ll probably retain a lot more. It’s okay to use tutorials to find answers to unblock yourself, but I’d suggest trying to work through each game with as little tutorials as possible. When you use tutorials, I suggest skipping around until you find the bit where the tutorial covers a specific thing you’re stuck on, and then immediately pause and put that into practice.

[chilly sundial]

I would avoid gamedev.tv at all costs personally. Their stuff is pretty bad, especially for C++.
As for getting stuff to sink in, I find the best way is to learn and then apply, not in the way of recreating exactly what you've seen, but trying to apply it to something that the video isn't telling you and then expand upon it. Rather than just trying to copy paste say, an inventory system, try and integrate one into an actual thing, not just a testbed. Use it, expand upon it and fit it exactly to your needs.

[digital gate]

Applying the knowledge in a different context is pretty OP yeah

[uneven drum]

Ok cool. I like actually learning it and not copying if that makes any sense.

[mortal pike]

Hey does anybody have any advice about getting into small scale team projects? I've just finished a large project of my own which is my only real portfolio, I'm very experienced in the engine and interested in learning even more (about all aspects of game design). Just thinking of small team projects that pay at least a little up front. I'll definitely look at the channels here but are there any other approaches, eg links to potential job listings and so on?

[bleak dagger]

Interested in small freelance work?

[mortal pike]

Yes I am, I'll post details in the appropriate channels of course I was just looking for general advice

[bleak dagger]

Wrote you a dm

[reef knot]

Hello folks Virendra Here
I Want you guys to please check my website let me know that my projects are upto the mark or not to get a job
Please check out I am struggling to find job and suggestions appreciated
Thank you
Link -> https://danaolegion.github.io/index.html

I have posted my resume also and if anyone feels it's decent and has a job to offer I will wait for you message

[pure gyro]

Be aware of PDF exploits, as a developer, I do not recommend downloading it.

[bleak dagger]

I mean, it looks like a junior portfolio

A bit thin

[bleak dagger]

Are you interested in small freelance work to build up your portfolio?

[idle maple]

I always recommend buying a domain name for your portfolio. It might seem very shallow, but for some it can give the wrong impression when it’s like github.io or .wixsite.com.

I’ve recruited programmers for professional projects, and if you can show off code, I usually would like to see snippets of stuff, not just dump the whole repo. No one is gonna have time to dig through that.

[coarse ember]

The project's aren't very diverse. It's basically locomotion and a runner game. What I would like to see is more varied stuff like what this person does https://www.youtube.com/mixandjam

[undone needle]

I am a student currently in MIT doing my masters in computer science, but to be honest of i have lost interest in it as I went to college and from the age of 17 I've had a dream to work as a game developer but my parents wanted something else so I had to choose the other path. My college is going to end very soon I am totally new in this game development and don't know anything about this but I have the will to learn game development. I am confused that from where I should start, I would love if you guys would help me out and I appreciate all the suggestion you guys would like to give me as a newcomer. Please guide me.

[reef knot]

Yes, I would love to

[reef knot]

Can you show me some examples having the code snippets ,that would be so much helpful

[reef knot]

Thanks for the reference

[digital gate]

I quite like https://20_games_challenge.gitlab.io/, but that's moreso for handson learning gamedev skills. What are your goals with gamedev?

[bleak dagger]

Ive sent you a dm

[undone needle]

Talking about games I quite not know alot about it as i am new to all of this but my goals would be establish a game that would try to engage the user in it through its story and would like to focus main on people's preference towards my game.

[digital gate]

Well, more like, are you interested in making independent games, big studio games... I suppose you're absolutely looking for gamedev to be your primary income?

[undone needle]

I would like to take a experience of Indie gamedev first and as of current situation my thoughts are to focus on gavedev first but soon enough ill start freelancing too for other things like ui ux designing, web development...

[bleak dagger]

Hmm

Ai web devs are flooding the market right now

But i heard the good ones still get regular clients

Make a account with all the freelance sites asap, it takes a while untill you get your first clients and ratings, after that there is a high chance of earning good money with it

[true sigil]

I hope this is the correct place to ask this. What methods do you guys use/prefer for signing legal contracts between developers who are located in different places of the world and/or freelance workers? We have the documents, but is there some general preferred way/website to sign it between each part?

[coarse ember]

Docusign

[true sigil]

Anything that is free?

[coarse ember]

You may as well as people to print to sign and upload a scan at that point

Have you paid for someone to draft the documents for the legal contracts?

[true sigil]

Nope, we are making them ourself

[coarse ember]

In which case, ask them to print and sign/use a PDF tool to draw their signature on it. Mac Preview app allows this. Or something like this https://leed.my/

[karmic solstice]

Hello, UE4-5 Dev. with 9 years experience, looking for side-jobs or a career change. I am a published game developer that can build just about anything you can think up within Unreal Engine blueprints, level design, user interfaces and much more.

[grave cove]

See #instructions . You'll want to move this to #hire-a-freelancer

[pure gyro]

Because they also make really really good website...

[bleak dagger]

You know whats sad

Ai doesnt make us work less

it just pulls down the price for everything

[mortal pike]

well of course, technology only helps the collective in the right hands

[wary idol]

https://tenor.com/view/oh-really-raise-eyebrows-eye-brow-gif-7674114773191232285

If you are desensitized to slop maybe

[pure gyro]

Depends for what website type I guess, but for landing page, it's amazing at it.

[worldly monolith]

May I see your landing page?

[undone needle]

Alr thank you

[bleak dagger]

#instructions

Good luck 🙂

[pure gyro]

I'm also interested by what he precisely mean, since even his own portfolio website doesn't have snippet of codes, though it does have information about each project he worked on

[coarse ember]

I don't see a portfolio site in the bio

[pure gyro]

This is his: https://olssondev.com/

[coarse ember]

Different context, he's not a junior or graduate trying to get a job

The fact that he was a CTO means that hiring manager's/companies want or need to see code

He's already past that point by having previous jobs

[idle maple]

I used to have it when I was getting into the industry

Now when working on NDA projects, I can't for obvious reasons

But most recruiters don't look at my portfolio really, just the resume. The website doesn't get any traffic even though I get responses from recruiters

[pure gyro]

Do you recommend having the resume as a google drive file like you have?
I thought about having it in my portfolio website

[idle maple]

Sure, I've had it that way since I joined the industry. It worked for me, but usually I just send the PDF

[shut token]

@idle maple Woooow - that's all your website says? Gonna have to pass on that.

[idle maple]

😂 thanks! Might just take it down, no one goes on there and costs 100$ a year

[shut token]

dafuq you paying $100 a year for????

You can host that free on like github pages lol

[idle maple]

ya, but im lazy 😄 Have had this portfolio since 2018

on that website

[shut token]

That's how they get ya'

[pure gyro]

cloudflare pages is also free

[modern relic]

Too lazy to not pay $100 a year? I can't judge actually

[strong cobalt]

<@&213101288538374145> We got another one

[strong cobalt]

Thankyou 🙂

[idle maple]

Will likely just shut it down 😄

[coarse ember]

<@&213101288538374145>

[coarse ember]

Happy to do things in public channels

[pure gyro]

What are your thoughts on my portfolio? https://catlover.dev/

How could I improve it?

[coarse ember]

What job(s) type are you applying for?

[pure gyro]

FullStack / Backend Software Developer

[coarse ember]

The rendering project doesn't add to your skillset in that case, nor does the circuit one unless it shows frontend work

I would want to see more projects similar to the mobile one

With more in-depth detail about the workings and problems you've faced. Eg, why does 5000+ users matter? What was the actual problem you've solved and how

[pure gyro]

Catchy numbers are usually what to put on a CV

[coarse ember]

Why was "Optimized frontend performance using Coil3 for efficient image loading on Android (Kotlin" an issue in the first place and why does this matter?

[pure gyro]

a lot of it I can't talk about though

But I understand that I should be doing more backend related projects.
The graphic one for me was a realization that I don't want to do graphic programming

[coarse ember]

In general, it looks like you did 'stuff' but I don't get a sense of how you work, how you solve problems, how you provide some impact on the team or project

Eg optimised frontend image rendering performance that gave us a 10% uplift in retention

[modern relic]

@coarse ember you should start a business reviewing CVs and offering career building advice. I'd pay for that. Obviously I'd get a sweet discount for giving you the idea

[mild vector]

i've got an all day interview coming up. senior c++/UE5 position. anyone wanna hit me up with some prompts i can jam on for practice by any chance? not sure if they're gonna focus on c++ features, algorithms or framework related stuff, i'm sure it'll touch a little bit on everything

[coarse ember]

Do you know how they are going to interview you? Leetcode pair programming, unreal project live programming etc?

Good luck either way!

[mild vector]

no. ive never in my life done leetcode in an interview so i highly doubt that will be how it goes lol

[idle maple]

It's very varied, but with that said I've never had any heavy technical interviews in my 7 years in the industry across 4 jobs. It's more been focused on me as a developer

So it can be like that too, but as I said it's varied

[coarse ember]

If you have time, it would be worth asking what the format of the interview would be and if it includes live programming/leet code so you can beat prepare

FWIW, I've done leetcode, full projects live, debugging/fixing exercises, verbal / whiteboard systems solving for game jobs

[wispy snow]

Agree with yaustar about asking if they can provide you with any details. In a recent technical interview I had I had gotten a note that it was gonna be "a simple c++ game without any engine" which allowed me to spend the train journey there by remembering how to even write a pure cli c++ app again 😄
By comparison, a former colleague of mine had had the same interview but without that advance note and completely bungled it since it just takes a bit of time to remember "the basics" when you've been neck deep in stuff like UE for a long time.

[round radish]

Yeah.

On my last code interview, I had to relearn how to use stl on the fly 😂

(they were very understanding)

[mild vector]

i have time and did ask. this is all the info i have unfortunately lol

[coarse ember]

Have they replied?

[mild vector]

not since i got the next interview scheduled

i sent an email like three? weeks ago? asking for any info on stuff i could prep for and haven't heard back. and it was obviously scheduled pretty far out

[coarse ember]

In the absence of that information, I would personally look at:

• Modern C++ specific stuff like move operators, etc (Effective Modern C++ can help here
• Practise using C++ to handle leetcode problems
• Practise verbally explaining your leet code solution
• Recommended practises in Unreal
• Any area of UE that they mention in the JD
• Systems planning in the area of the stack that you are interviewing for
• Behavioural questions
• Prepare a good set of questions for them and leadership
• How would you make X sytem in UE (eg inventory)

(If you have the JD, that would help)

[mild vector]

basically what i have been doing is grinding codwars just to get reps in with working outside of an IDE in case they make me do some kind of web based test thing where i don't have intellisense or anything, and as far as framework specific stuff i'm just sort of game jamming, i'm making a crappy mewgenics clone

[pure gyro]

Here: https://cires.coreinfinite.tech/

[raw walrus]

So I did something stupid

I left an unreal engine server thought I left the wrong one then left here but this was the one I wanted to stay in

[round radish]

And that was how your career ended.

[woeful iron]

#rev-share-jobs #hire-a-freelancer

[worn wraith]

Hey everyone 🙂
I have been working on sharpening my Unreal Engine skills up until now and after making some projects and working on my CV, I would like to start the journey to find my first job. I noticed that I am not getting too far by just applying to job postings so I would like to start also networking but I really have no idea where to start. I know of the general concept of game jams but never gotten into it and so dont really know where to begin. does anyone have any advice on where I should start and maybe overall about how to land a first job?

If anyone would like to work together on a project, I would be more than happy to sharpen my skills further and help with anything

[round radish]

The #hire-a-freelancer channel

[coarse ember]

Which country you are in?

[worn wraith]

Germany

[coarse ember]

Okay cool, so that makes it easier job hunt-wise. The main things to work on are your CV and your portfolio. Doing game jams is fine. I personally wouldn't don't like them as networking opportunities because it's usually other people who are still trying to get into games or looking for gaming jobs that are attending these events.

Instead what I would do is build and iterate on your projects in public:

• post updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, and talk about your work openly
• talk about what you're learning
• talk about what problems you've found and fixed
• talk about what things excite you that are coming up, like new Unreal features
  Make sure there are images and videos attached to them

Engage with other people on LinkedIn through comments. Follow people who are developers or hiring managers in companies that you want to work in or in Germany, especially if they're active on LinkedIn

[granite brook]

@carmine brook Use the job board via #instructions . And read the #rules once more.

[bleak dagger]

What can you do? Like what skills do you have ?

[fierce ledge]

#career-chat isn't a job board.

#instructions to use the job board.

[rain mango]

How do you see your career future considering the rapid AI developments?

[sacred flax]

LLM improvement seems to have plateaued and they still aren't quite good enough so not too worried.. whatever comes after LLM's might worry me though

[coarse ember]

Lots of adapting and flexibility needed over the next few years

[woeful iron]

potato farmer

[craggy nacelle]

Honestly if it gets to a point that I have to use AI tools, I'll probably try and find something what they call a lifestyle business. Potentially from building some small app or service around something that I can find enough customers to pay my salary and that's it.

Somehow I doubt it gets to that, and technically I certainly could adapt to it, but it just isn't fun

Unless I receive a significant raise compared to what I'm paid now, I'd rather just... not work with those tools.

[woeful iron]

I don't mind using the tools, but if it ever gets to full vibe coding where you're just directing AI yeah fuck that shit, I'm looking for another career

[pure gyro]

Guess what, that's what Im already doing because I probably will not be able to find any jobs soon even with experience.

[oblique ice]

that make sense yes, if the person is already change to mindset about doing the bussiness or collect $$$ only, then they will using it

[young solar]

Hey everyone,

I’ve been trying to improve my programming skills in Unreal and learn how to build systems on my own instead of relying too heavily on tutorials.

I want to better understand the logic and thinking process behind creating systems, problem solving, and structuring code/Blueprints independently. If anyone has advice, learning methods, resources, or personal experience that helped them reach that point please feel free to DM me I’d really appreciate it.

[bleak dagger]

do some cs course

Or just keep creating, but it really helps if you learn a leanguage from ground up.... i recommend c, its pure torture for like 6 months (imagine a guy that geats beaten but instead of crying he is screaming harder daddy, you have to become that guy) but after that you have a solid foundation, then continue creating stuff in cpp and or blueprints

[void gust]

If you hate C, then MIPS Assembly will make you love C.

[spice dagger]

@umbral anvil Please use the Job Board for listings #instructions

[umbral anvil]

Ok

[wispy snow]

In addition to taking actual computer science / programming classes, I also recommend programming stuff together with somebody else. Not a hacked together game jam, but either a small game or just a single feature. Talk about ways of implementing stuff, discuss your preferences and your learnings as you go along, find common ground in terms of methodologies etc. Having someone take the journey with you is going to be immensely valuable as it will teach you communication and hopefully motivate both of you to learn both wider and deeper. Plus, once you do get a job you will 100% be working with other folks.

[fervent arch]

https://youtube.com/shorts/E_fguEV1wdI?si=tIBMjxWOSPtY1R3c

is this how most game dev groups start out? 🤣

[wraith mortar]

What on earth does that have to do with career

[worldly monolith]

Everyone knows your money guy has to be a gambling addict.

[pure gyro]

Is this really how business gets created? I see many more stories about a solo guy working hard, Making some cash then recruiting, not the other way around.

[worldly monolith]

I'm sure it depends if you have a group of friends like the Doom guys or a group of brothers like the people who worked in the original Runescape.

[coarse ember]

The mechanics of starting a business is easy. It's generating and maintaining cashflow that's the hard part

[rain mango]

I agree, Nicely said

[full rover]

@median cedar I hate you

[fallow parrot]

My biggest complaint with the game industry is that companies believe $150k is the salary of a senior engineer.

As someone who began his career doing regular software engineering work and then moving into tech, it's basically non-feasible to move into the game industry.

[coarse ember]

Which companies are you looking at? I believe the major studios are paying above that

https://www.levels.fyi/en-gb?tab=levels&compare=Electronic+Arts%2CJPMorgan+Chase%2CMicrosoft#

[fallow parrot]

I haven't checked engineering salaries in the game industry in a while. From what I remember, only Epic Games and Unity paid salaries close to tech companies.

Both of those companies had layoffs this year so I wouldn't expect them to do much hiring at the moment.

[pure gyro]

TBH, studios usually pay less, like it's rare that it's above 200k+ while in tech (backend, ai, ...), it's not rare that the base sallary is around 200k... Companies like Facebook, Google, Tiktok and many more.

That is also why I left the gaming industry for a backend role.

[red pumice]

Nvidia would pay well

[fallow parrot]

Yeah that's true. I've considered moving in the game industry twice over the past six years. It would have always resulted in a significant pay cut.

[grave cove]

It's the "passion tax" at work. as well as supply & demad pressures from all the people that don't care (yet) how much they're making.

[fallow parrot]

Nvidia does pay well. I should look into them again.

[fallow parrot]

The passion tax existing in 2026 is insane

[grave cove]

I'm not sure I agree.

[red pumice]

They also use UE

[fallow parrot]

Why is that?

[grave cove]

Because there's more to life than money. That's not to discount the importance of money.
There's something to be said for testing your work by playing a game and not some spreadsheet. But even that's just a preference.
And meeting people that have played your game and said they had fun can make you feel like a rock star.

[coarse ember]

Roblox pay pretty well too. Riot, EA, should do recently

Netflix is also an option if you still want to do games and have big tech TC

[soft stratus]

Hey all. Curious what people think
I started coding a game a few months ago and am close to landing a licensing deal with a small band, then pulling in an engineer and Co for equity
But I also just got an offer from a startup for 200+, and I'm unemployed, and the startup would have me leave my friends and family to work for 60-80hr/week.
Any suggestions on what to do? Or stories about what you did and if you regret it? I'm dreading picking either

[spice dagger]

Its hard to give you any real advice, since there are so many details left out, mostly about you personally.

[soft stratus]

Aerospace engineer turned Gamedev, worked in games for two years after working in navy/sim

[spice dagger]

Without those details what I could ask is, is this something that you think wont come around again?

[soft stratus]

Then funemployed lol

[spice dagger]

Or is this circumstance something you could replicate again.

[soft stratus]

Interesting. Both the game and the career opportunity, you mean?

[spice dagger]

Yes

If the timing is not right and that is why you are hesitant.

Can you turn it down, settle your personal affairs (however long that takes) and be able to land with a similar deal at a later time?

[soft stratus]

Probably not tbh.
It's a pretty wild offer from a big name company

But I'm not sure how replicable these Gamedev circumstances are either - no family to support and no job means more dev time

It's very good advice. Thank you

[spice dagger]

Do you have a Wife and Children?

Less specifically, do you have direct dependents?

If not, then I would do whatever you feel is the most selfish (because why not?).

If you do, then you should be talking with them about this instead.

Laying all the cards on the table.

This is whats involved, this is how long it will take, this is what you will miss out on.

But this is what we get out of it at the end.

Then make the decision together.

[pure gyro]

Higher risk, higher rewards.

[soft stratus]

Not yet! But serious gf. She supports either way but would prefer the income lol

[soft stratus]

Feels like a small understatement lol

[spice dagger]

Given that answer, I feel like the course of action you should take is obvious. Whatever moves you closer to a more secure future.

If your GF is as serious as you claim, she would see the benefits as well and support you. Its not only your future, but potentially hers as well.

[pure gyro]

I don’t know your age, but I’m young, and what I’d personally do is try to make both work. Take the startup job for the financial stability and keep building the game on evenings/weekends, even if it means putting in an extra 2–3 hours after work and longer days on weekends. That could still add up to ~40 hours/week on the game alongside your job.

It’d be a grind for a while, but if the game launches well, you’d have more freedom later and could potentially slow down or choose your own path. Hard, but maybe worth considering before giving up either opportunity entirely.

(this is what I would do as a young entrepreneur)

[fallow parrot]

I'll have to look into those companies.

[coarse ember]

Are you sure it's 60-80 hrs a week?

[fallow parrot]

60-80 hours a week? So you’ll be basically working two full time jobs a week.
How much are they offering to pay you?

[soft stratus]

Yeah, so says the interwebs

[soft stratus]

Yeah. They're paying 200+, I haven't gotten final # yet

[fallow parrot]

What is 200+?

[soft stratus]

More than 200k USD a year

[coarse ember]

Interwebs where? For this specific company?

[fallow parrot]

60-80 hours a week is a huge commitment. I've never seen or heard of any company ask for that in my 15+ years of experience.

[coarse ember]

There's been a rise in 996 culture in SF https://sfstandard.com/2025/09/16/san-francisco-became-ultimate-996-city/

[fallow parrot]

As long as that stays in SF I'm good 😂

[grave cove]

It should be smothered in the crib in SF. It shouldn't be acceptable anywhere.

[wraith mortar]

I had the advertising studio for Toyota/Lexus wanting 60 hours a week some time ago

[void gust]

Oooo, I used to live in SF. Lots of game studios there. And lots of homeless doods.

Didn't 996 come from Jack Ma in China?

[flat rapids]

I agree and also, all the games I love playing and cherish so much from my heart that made me quit my corporate job to pursue the career in game industry were all made with hard freaking work and countless hours poured into it and nothing good comes from comfort. You have to be able to put in a lot of hours to make incredible games but making employees to work insane hours or normalizing that is absolutely no go.

When you love something, you obviously put a lot more hours and effort and company should reward that with recognition and compensation for employees who are willing to work hard and go above and beyond/bringing up new ideas to enhance the game experience.

[bleak dagger]

Roblox? I mean sure if you dont have a soul you could work there .....

[coarse ember]

You can say the same for many games companies

[bleak dagger]

Ye but especially for Roblox, they are using children as worker slaves

Thats something i wouldnt want to supposrt with my name

Besides that their payout is a insult

They keep up to 90%

[coarse ember]

Wait what, that's not really true

They do keep a % but its not 90%

They do a struggle with moderation issues on their platform

[bleak dagger]

Hmm how did their ceo say it
Its a gift for young developers not child labour, it gives them a opportunity to earn money

Seems like a philanthropist to me 🙂

[coarse ember]

No one is forced to make content for it

It's not worker slaves or child labour

[bleak dagger]

These child labour laws are there for a reason

They loopholed them by not paying the children money but robux

[coarse ember]

The implication here is that Roblox is 'hiring' them which they aren't

It's an opt in system

[bleak dagger]

So lets open coal mines as opt in system for childrens

We allow kids in there and we pay them per bucket they bring up

We are not hiring them

[brazen plover]

Hyperbole aside, "no one is forced to XY" is always a bit of a weak argument against regulation.

[coarse ember]

True. I guess my point that "using children as worker slaves" is hyperbole

They do have a content platform that pays out and encourages users to make content

But phasing it has 'worker slaves' just rubs me the wrong way

Should they completely disable it for minors?

[bleak dagger]

Yes

Or only non profit

Also they need better moderation

Or any moderation at all for that matter ....

Like i would not let my child play this

[grave cove]

There's definitely a significant difference between a) temporarily needing to put in more hours to meet a short term deadline (overtime), b) wanting to put additional time in because you believe in something (passion) and c) mandated 12-hour days, 6 days a week (basically crunch).
As a (generally) deadline driven product, I don't believe that overtime will ever truly be eliminated from games development. But it should be fairly compensated.
But overtime is not crunch, which shouldn't need to be compensated because it shouldn't be happening! Though I suppose if it does happen it needs to be unfairly compensated in favor of the employee 😄 .
Compensation for passion is tricky. An employer shouldn't really be on the hook if the employee chooses to do more. But are they choosing it? or is it really peer pressure/fear? The latter falls into overtime/crunch. The former ... 🤷 tricky.

[brazen plover]

Is the capable game developer capable of posting in the right channels?

[bleak dagger]

https://giphy.com/gifs/NpL4D3Oc2bJUMAXF9P

[flat rapids]

I agree and at the end of the day, great games don’t come from working 8 hours a day especially if you love the game project so much. Recognition, bonus or road to promotion is also nice but over working is never a good thing. It’s all about balance and communication in my opinion.

[barren stump]

is there a text chat soley for questions? because i have a few

[brazen plover]

They all are. Maybe you'd like https://discord.com/channels/187217643009212416/846520322642411570

[barren stump]

thanks

[rain mango]

What is your question about?

[cold tinsel]

If anyone knows of principal dev, SDET, or staff engineer roles in the Boston area, I'd love to hear about them.

[fast snow]

hey guys do anyone know from where i can get coms?

[coarse ember]

Coms?

[oblique ice]

coms?

[jade trout]

commissions most likely

[fast snow]

yep

[tawny kayak]

Prefix your job offer with one of the following to get it pinned:

• **[PAID]**
• **[CONTRACT]**
• **[ROYALTY]**
• **[UNPAID]**

Jobs will remain pinned for 7 days or until you request to have it unpinned; whichever comes first.

[vernal wolf]

#career-chat

[shadow trench]

hi!

[vernal wolf]

[PAID] I am looking to buy a character model of myself. Unfortunately will be vastly underpaid. Message me lowest acceptable price and quality samples.

Sweet non-pin

[low pond]

[PAID] Looking to buy a character model of a mecha ala Zone of the Enders

[tawny kayak]

You need to include the ** on both sides, too. Basically, make it bold.

Editing old messages won't trigger it.

[vernal wolf]

YOU SAID PREFIX

[PAID] I am looking to buy a character model of myself. Unfortunately will be vastly underpaid. Message me lowest acceptable price and quality samples. [PAID]

[PAID] I am looking to buy a character model of myself. Unfortunately will be vastly underpaid. Message me lowest acceptable price and quality samples. [/PAID]

Yo.

[PAID] I am looking to buy a character model of myself. Unfortunately will be vastly underpaid. Message me lowest acceptable price and quality samples.

I swear to god

[tawny kayak]

🤦

[pastel estuary]

lol

[tawny kayak]

I didn't think it would be this difficult to read what I wrote. 😦

[vernal wolf]

Where does it say []

The fuck is that character

[tawny kayak]

The instructions in #unreal-news and the first post in this channel, which is pinned, both have the formatting written out. Does it look wrong on mobile, maybe?

[vernal wolf]

Yeah, shit makes zero sense on mobile

I have no idea what you're talking about

[tawny kayak]

It looks fine on iOS. Are you using Android?

[vernal wolf]

Yeah

[tawny kayak]

Can you upload a screenshot of what the instructions look like for you?

[vernal wolf]

How the fuck do I screenshot. Clearly I don't deserve a phone

[tawny kayak]

lol I don't know.

I don't use Android.

[vernal wolf]

Fuck it, don't need it pinned anyway

[low pond]

BOOTS YOU OUT OF JOBS SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO EARN A LIVING HERE

[lilac walrus]

usually it's power button plus volume down at the same time, I think

also MAKE MONEY MONEY

[vernal wolf]

I did that and now my phone is on mute, gg

[lilac walrus]

haha

[vernal wolf]

• [PAID] Copy paste mobile test

Oh ffs, i copy pasted your instructions

[low pond]

Hang on, let me generate it for you

[PLAID]]

There you go

[scarlet maple]

Vastly underpaying and not knowing how to post a proposal, how can you sleep at night?

[elder mist]

it's power+home (on apple)**[PAID]**

[vernal wolf]

I do that and i get asked if I want to shut down

@scarlet maple I don't sleep

[elder mist]

@tawny kayak is it possible to make Unreal bot store those tagged messages?

and !jobs will make bot pm you all of them

[tawny kayak]

It's possible, but currently it doesn't use a database at all.

That would take significant work.

[elder mist]

ok

[tawny kayak]

I may have time in the future.

[elder mist]

@tawny kayak TY in advance

[pastel estuary]

@vernal wolf, on/off button and volume down

[vernal wolf]

Ive tried!

[pastel estuary]

lol

[vernal wolf]

Okay, super sensitive home + power, if you're one ms off it shuts off

test

[PAID] FUCKING PIN

Im totes done

[pastel estuary]

[PAID] pin dis

[vernal wolf]

What the fuck

[pastel estuary]

hehe

one sec allar

[vernal wolf]

[PAID] fuck

[pastel estuary]

https://i.gyazo.com/49aa2f036c53e22b5a283c0d53322b89.png

[vernal wolf]

Oh god damn it

[pastel estuary]

need asterixes on both sides

[vernal wolf]

Needs twoooo, gah

[pastel estuary]

hehehehe

to be fair, ive been laughing ass off <_<

[vernal wolf]

That fucking [] char

[PAID] FUCK SHIT

[vernal wolf]

God damn

/me leaves

[pastel estuary]

hehe

https://i.gyazo.com/dd00eabd6d291c2f2198d0c2ea567b1b.png

[tawny kayak]

😕

Well, at least you guys got it to work. Obviously I'll be unpinning those.

[pastel estuary]

hehe

[offtopic] is this a thing?

ok

[vernal wolf]

Yeah, I totally do not see the double asterisk on mobile

It renders as a square

[tawny kayak]

Snapasaurus rex.

[vernal wolf]

Scroll up

[tawny kayak]

Thanks for that. I wouldn't have known.

That's crazy. They're just asterisks. Android hates me.

Can you see these? **

[tawny kayak]

Wow. Android app doesn't render asterisks.

[pastel estuary]

^ bugreport

[tawny kayak]

!@#$%^&*() What does the space to the left look like?

[low pond]

You are a silly s t

[tawny kayak]

Yeah, definitely. This is a job for [e-mail]

[glad imp]

[PAID] Looking for someone to make a binaaural ASMR video using an extra clicky mechanical keyboard. Video must be Normalized and have some noise removal done for noise Lower than 100 hz.

[vernal wolf]

The fuck lmao

[tawny kayak]

@vernal wolf Wow, interesting. So the asterisk shows up in that group, but not two on their own.

[tawny kayak]

@vernal wolf Double asterisk is the enemy. Confirmed.

[vernal wolf]

Aye

test

[vernal wolf]

Blank

[pastel estuary]

that was 16 asterixes

[vernal wolf]

Lmao

[pastel estuary]

https://i.gyazo.com/b8e8056dd52cc14841fb87c4d75250a8.png

hehe

shows as 4

[pastel estuary]

lol

[pastel estuary]

omg shadow, how dare you say a curseword :p

[vagrant girder]

lol

[pastel estuary]

reminds me of lbp, where EVERYTHING got bleeped out

[vagrant girder]

gfdfdfd

[pastel estuary]

even "opened" got asterixed because it had the word pene in it

anyways, enough offtopic on jobs :p

[vagrant girder]

it formatic bug

it formats empty text between *

so it removes *

[glad imp]

[PAID] Looking for a male age 26 to 35 wearing a banana hamock or speedo to make a LIDAR Scan of themselves. A Consent form will need to be signed. Pays well.

[pastel estuary]

O_o

[vagrant girder]

-ffff-

#kokokok#

huhu

``

[tawny kayak]

renames channel to #android-bug-testing-and-stupid

[pastel estuary]

lol

[shadow trench]

.>

[vagrant girder]

<lol>

[tawny kayak]

🤦

[low pond]

🙆🏿

[glad imp]

[PAID] Looking for a Professional spriter to make a series of SANIC and Cat Emojii's.

[pastel estuary]

oh god

[scarlet maple]

People pay for SANIC-tier material?

[glad imp]

yes

[vernal wolf]

Headclots got money

[elder mist]

@glad imp how did...you found that emote?

[glad imp]

@elder mist - Better Discord Plugin I think

[elder mist]

but...i have no one installed iirc

and it's still visible

[glad imp]

[dry crypt]

[vital parcel]

oh god its grand dad. can you tell me in #lounge where you get those?

[haughty zodiac]

So, I have a question:
Is it really possible to find people to work with for royalty?
I understand why people try to do it, but has anyone ever done it?

All posts of this type I see are more or less vague ideas from people with no real plan.

[pastel estuary]

i dunno man, if its a project where you can def see its going to at least be some success..

i can see people taking it a shot

but most of those projects where its royalty look like bleh, or have a very inexperienced team

[low pond]

A lot of conversations in #career-chat seemingly take place in private so I don't know but it would never hurt to ask

Worst that can happen is a "No"

[pastel estuary]

^

[steel creek]

I have worked for royalty on projects. Nothing from these forums per se, but it depends more on the people (trust). If you trust the team and the idea, then at least you learn along the way of your passion. If you join a group of people, disorganized from the start (a huge majority) -- good luck.

[haughty zodiac]

I realize trust is a major factor and that probably means most of those teams consist of people who know each other IRL.

[granite brook]

That, or at least for a long time over the Internet

[honest cipher]

yes, you can find people like that

but finding professional people that way? really hard

often, the "royalty" teams are formed becouse they knew each other in university or similar things

the professionals charge for their work

[lilac walrus]

well, that's because they're professionals 😉

you're not a professional if you're not taking money for your work, hehe

[mild spade]

Royalty projects are okay if you're just learning and want something to work towards. Just don't quit your day job for them though.

Good experience at times, but they rarely deliver haha

[ocean harbor]

@haughty zodiac you can look at Chivalry as inspiration - royalty based

but to be fair, core team worked on mod before that

they met face to face first time when Chivalry was released 😄 worked remotely before that

there is interview with the lead dev, he explained quite a bit of how it was organized

[low pond]

[[PAID]] Want flight system in BP similar to how Dragonball games do it. Don't have the time or patience to do it myself.

[ocean harbor]

@low pond I have semi-realistic 3d wing based system. It's part of MMT (Open-Source)

[low pond]

Got a link? @ocean harbor

[ocean harbor]

https://github.com/BoredEngineer/MMT_Content

Airfoils are on flying things, it's all BP so performance might be bad

Fokker and Aerosled with wings are the flying ones

[low pond]

Ah yeah, it seems more aeroplane based, I was looking for more superhero-style flying

Cheers anyway dude

[ocean harbor]

np

[dreamy jacinth]

that seems hella cool @ocean harbor

[ocean harbor]

there was someone on slack who did flying character, I don't remember nick name. Character was something like Native Indian girl with wings

@dreamy jacinth Thank you!

[low pond]

I'll bear that in mind, I didn't plan to go actively looking, more "If you want a job, it's here" kind of thing

[lilac walrus]

heh, the one I've wanted for a while is a decent Tribes style movement system. Tried doing it a couple of times myself, but it never quite felt right

there's even a C++ version out there by someone else, but it doesn't work properly and also doesn't feel right

[ocean harbor]

it sucks to do it on top of Character component

[dreamy jacinth]

my first game was a tribes clone. I dont have the source anymore to see how it was done but they had the movement down just right

[lilac walrus]

I think the problem is that the original movement is more or less predicated around a collection of bugs and hacks specific to that particular engine

makes it quite hard to reproduce

[low pond]

Well there's some dollar bills if someone wants to make a nice flight system ala Dragonball (Superhero) or whatever

Doesn't have to be complicated or any of that hsit

[shadow trench]

@haughty zodiac I would, but only if the planning/goal is well written

[unreal gust]

We've just opened quite a few positions over at Force Field VR (previously known as Vanguard Games) in our Amsterdam office. PM me if you have any questions!

http://forcefieldvr.com/jobs
Game Producer
Senior Game Producer
UI Artist
Storyboard Graphic Artist
Lead Programmer
Senior Environment Artist
VFX/CG Generalist
Senior Game Designer
Lead Game Designer
(Senior) Game Programmer
Technical/FX Artist
3D Artist
Senior 3D Artist
Lead Artist

[torn sparrow]

@unreal gust just a few jobs then 😛

[unreal gust]

Expanding quicker than the universe with some pretty nice projects ;)

[torn sparrow]

So it seems, great stuff 😃

[elder mist]

oh, @plucky hatch now also a mod? ...ufuf

[plucky hatch]

@elder mist yep! so if you have any trouble please dont' hesitate to tell me

[dreamy jacinth]

I need a new Vive.

my old one is still in the shop waiting for me to buy it

[shadow trench]

Grats @plucky hatch 😛

[plucky hatch]

thanks~ here is a cute picture in return
https://media.giphy.com/media/k4IARcs82peqA/giphy.gif

[shadow trench]

That one will one day be president of the US 😛

[little bay]

lol

[gentle pewter]

@haughty zodiac To add an answer to your question from yesterday: I'm currently in a three-person team working on our own game, and we still try to pay everyone who makes one-time contributions just regular task-based freelance fees. If there was someone we thought would fit, and who would want to join us as a full equal partner, that might be possible - because we're already working on the game full steam ahead and have shit to show for it. What generally doesn't work is looking for people on a royalty basis in order to start something from scratch... 99.9% of those projects tend to fall flat on their faces sooner rather than later, so anyone with a bit of experience will be very reluctant.

[vernal wolf]

Aye, full partners on royalties, everyone else, no

[earnest jasper]

you're awfully young for a game developer Valkrysa

[plucky hatch]

@low pond How is the flight system? Just wanna know

got any video

[solid bridge]

Looking to contract out just 1 particle system - tried doing it myself but cant come up with a good result.

Long story short - would like a Jet flame. This is from a Jetpack - so about 3/4 the lenght of TPP character. Here's a reference image - please contact me with PM for contract details. Will be going through Upwork.com - you're guaranteed to get paid that way.

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/cet/isfworkshop/images/dlr-ethylene-jet-flame.jpg

[low pond]

[PAID] Anyone want to fix some bone weights?

[plucky hatch]

@low pond I could try to do it, for free though 😃

[wet plank]

@low pond What sort of bone weighting issues are you having?

[sick scaffold]

paid to fix bone weights ? wew.. 1$ per vertex pls :3

[woeful pumice]

Whould I need some type of profolio to show off my blueprint skills?

[lilac walrus]

how do you expect to show off said skills without a portfolio?

[wet plank]

Typically a portfolio is what you'll need for any job application. No one wants to download games or take your word

[woeful pumice]

So show the game be in video porfolio?

[serene halo]

@woeful pumice might be good to have a video demonstrating whatever you implemented, and then after go over it and how you accomplished it

[plucky hatch]

Or a series of gifs on your site

So the reviewer doesn't have to download/stream something long

[lilac walrus]

why would gifs be better than streaming video?

[plucky hatch]

to keep things short and to the point, if you're trying to show off a single cool feature per gif

streaming video is fine as long as you don't over do the length

[unreal crest]

I'd vote video over gif. too much animation at the same time would make me close the window so fast

[wet plank]

I'd say best thing to do is a demo-reel type video. ~3mins total with about 10-15secs/max per project. If you go over that you're just wasting their time and they're going to close it early.

You just want to show them what you're capable of in at first glance. They can then get into the nitty gritty later

And honestly, the end-result is more important than the graph of nodes. If you're a C++ programmer and want to show them you can make a driveable car, you don't want to show all the functions and blocks of text. No one is going to care. They want to see the car driving around

same goes for the Blueprinter, showing all these wires connected mean nothing because you don't see the end result, they just wanna see what it does not how it does it

[dreamy jacinth]

or just say "Look I have 5 other offers and tbh your pay was weak. Bump the money and I will work for you.". Make them sweat ¬_¬

[low pond]

Nah I think from a Blueprint standpoint it'd be 80% functionality, 20% code presentation

I wouldn't pay for an SnapUI 😛

[haughty zodiac]

[ROYALTY] Golden Lens - First Person Puzzle and Exploration - Graphic and Level Designers Needed

[haughty zodiac]

https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?123455-Golden-Lens-First-Person-Puzzle-and-Exploration&p=597059#post597059

[regal cloak]

Hey so a company I've worked through via contract wants to hire me but from 27 an hours that I make to 24 an hour

should I take it?

[vernal wolf]

What?

[earnest jasper]

is it for more work?

and if so, do you have free time to burn?

[regal cloak]

I do Unity, Unreal and Xamarin work but they are training me for Xamarin

40 hours a week

[earnest jasper]

seems underpaid by about half imo

[vernal wolf]

Ohhhh that was your rate

[regal cloak]

Yea so they want to bring me on the team

but for 50,000 a year

[vernal wolf]

Are you worth more than 50k?

[regal cloak]

I consider myself entry level

[earnest jasper]

you should offer to fight the owner and if you win you get the company. if you lose, at least negotiate a living wage. $24 an hour seems low for tech work.

how long have you been doing it and how old are you?

[regal cloak]

I know I have friends that sit at desks and answer phones making more than that

[earnest jasper]

exactly

sometimes you take a paycut for the role you want, but you can't do that all your life

[regal cloak]

Only reason I'd do it is for the experince

[vernal wolf]

$25 is entry level in gaming

[regal cloak]

This is my first year in the tech industry

[vernal wolf]

In some cases, higher than entry

[regal cloak]

?

[earnest jasper]

it's ok for a young person in their first year, but you should expect to climb that pay rate ladder pretty fast

[vernal wolf]

But if you are in tech but not in games

Then you should ask for more

[regal cloak]

hmm what do you mean?

We do all kinds of stuff

Games, apps, VR

[vernal wolf]

Games tend to pay less than non game tech work

[regal cloak]

Well I've done mostly non game applications

[earnest jasper]

how long have you been working?

[vernal wolf]

A much better question is

Do you have any better offers

[regal cloak]

I haven't looked an no, I have no offer

I guess I should just take it

And look around then?

[vernal wolf]

Aye

You're not being paid loyalty money

[regal cloak]

Man 24 just seems like dirt cheap

loyality money?

The guy in the office said i'd make 26 an hour

look at the paper and it says 50K

that is like 24 an hour right?

[vernal wolf]

When you are paid more than you are worth so you dont leave. Loyalty money.

Depends if its pre or post tax

[regal cloak]

I see

[vernal wolf]

Most salary quotes are pre tax, its worth to ask