But I really want to be a game designer

[Adrir]

Originally Posted by BorisK

so basically u just add someone else's assets into the game level??? did u have to make your own textures as well(eg walls)

Game development studios usually consist of multiple people (sometimes a rather large number of people) with different areas of expertise. Using a level development tool (for example: Hammer), the designer just picks what they want from an asset management system in the development tool. If what they wan't isn't there...then they just ask them for it!

I've created levels for the Starcraft series, Command & Conquer series and several Source games having never actually done any environmental art.

[BorisK]

HAHA thats wicked. hope i work for a company like that
im not a big fan of UV editing lol

[Brice]

I would say that the best way to show a company that you can do game design is to actually make some small independent games, and then refer to those games. If you can show a company that you can design successful games, levels, and all, then they'll want to have you.

Best of luck!

[marvinhawkins]

Ok so I passed! I made it... Although they told me that my art skills were definitely week (for an art school) but they encouraged me to go into tech art since my skills are somewhere in between Art and Technology. So I feel like I wasn't passed so much as released from this program. Which is fine with me. My plans now include preparing for the IGF. It's kind of funny tho, they're reccomendations for me were to go out and make some games with a group of people. Which was what I wanted to do in the first place. (although the constraints of the school wouldn't let me for this class)

final review reel

[yaustar]

Originally Posted by marvinhawkins

final review reel

Why do I remember seeing this before :/..

Anyway, you spelled 'Environment' and 'Designer' wrong in the video.

[Ezion]

Your second demo reel is vastly better than the first; I can see some of the design decisions that went into level creations. I'm still not sure if the solutions worked and how well the level played, but the new reel is still a big improvement.

Some improvements you could make

• Smooth framerate throughout all of the video (you'll need a good computer to render and record some of the zoomed out areas in Red Alert)
• Fixing the spelling mistakes Yaustar pointed out
• Better looking text-areas

You'll have to figure out how to do the 3rd point...the grey box with text was effective at conveying messages but not very asthetically pleasing.

I'm tempted to give the same feedback I gave before, but you did do a better job of explaining some design decisions. I'm not sure how you could improve on that. Maybe if you had a reel where you focused specifically on your UT3 map and analyzed the regions where people died the most, collected player feedback and improved on it, and really polished it up graphically (team up with an environmental artist for this, unless your school is retaining IP rights to your map or some similar situation.)

The video in itself is a test of design. Non-interactive design, but still very important.

(One last comment; make sure anyone who gets your demoreel gets a high-quality video if at all possible. The quality of videos on YouTube goes down because of compression.)

[marvinhawkins]

Originally Posted by yaustar

Why do I remember seeing this before :/..

Anyway, you spelled 'Environment' and 'Designer' wrong in the video.

Doh... I fixed it and yes I have a higher quality version that I'm giving out at the show. This was my fail safe version. But I fixed those text issues/titlesafe issues.

What do you mean yaustar? Does it mean that the reel doesn't look like it changed that much?

[yaustar]

I thought I saw it before a while ago and now I realise I saw your first iteration a while ago from your first post.