Game Industry

[Henry Martin]

Alright this is a question toward the developers or anyone how has been in the game industry.

I have one more year until I graduate from college and I was wondering if their is any advice for getting skills I should have or how my portfolio should be like. I am looking at being a professional level designer and Iam working on levels for school and on the side. I mainly would like advice on becoming a level designer, but would appreciate any advice.

I know a lot of people ask these question, but when you are paying 80k for schooling, its best to ask for help.

[Joseph Visscher]

Experience, experience, experience, and more experience, get your head down and keep creating levels for all games that can have the most detail possible, not half assed speed workings either, quality in artistry is true experience. If I was to hire you, I would hire you for your previous workings and integrity of your character. I would not give a Sh** about your 80k worth of schooling. Why you ask? Because schools sometimes miss the most important things an artist can learn, if you don't have an artist's mind, dedication, passion, rationality and originality to what we do, it is all in vain.

[Henry Martin]

Originally Posted by Joseph Visscher

Experience, experience, experience, and more experience, get your head down and keep creating levels for all games that can have the most detail possible, not half assed speed workings either, quality in artistry is true experience. If I was to hire you, I would hire you for your previous workings and integrity of your character. I would not give a Sh** about your 80k worth of schooling. Why you ask? Because schools sometimes miss the most important things an artist can learn, if you don't have an artist's mind, dedication, passion, rationality and originality to what we do, it is all in vain.

thanks for the advice. I wasn't trying to through out my schooling in a arrogant way(makes me sound like an ass, lol).

Would you say I should do single player maps as well as multiplayer? As most of the maps I do are multiplayer.

[Alex Walz]

Level design is a very vague field. Do you just want to design the maps or do you want to go into scripting, environment art, or other related subfields?

Level design is usually the main entry-level position, so it is very competitive. I'd suggest trying to at least get a basic understanding of all related fields so that you can come in well-rounded and up for anything. Should have excellent communication, writing, and organizational skills and be able to work under a deadline.

Singleplayer vs. Multiplayer doesn't really matter. You should be working with 3D environments for a somewhat-recent game of the same genre you'd like to professional work on. Education is important to stand out against all the other applicants. For a basic level design position, you have a couple of possible majors - computer science, art, communication. Just have something. Most of the larger studios ask for at least four years of prior experience in the gaming industry. Good ways to gather up this experience include checking Gamasutra and getting a level design position at a small, indie or local studio, taking on a level design internship with a larger studio, or starting as a tester.

GameDev.net and Gamasutra.com have some great articles regarding the industry and breaking in.

[Henry Martin]

I like to design the maps and environmental art. I am learning scripting, but I don't care for it.

The school has us using torque engine and unreal (2004). I have messed with ut3, unreal dev kit, hammer editor (tf2). the program I am is a bachelor degree in Computer science.

[nickson104]

And may I pose a noobier question and ask of a good place to start in software/games design? So far I havent done much and am starting to learn VB... But that most certainly is not enough and I know that... Any pointers?

[Chris Harshman]

Originally Posted by Joseph Visscher

Experience, experience, experience, and more experience

In Addition, Be the Best you can be, Go all in.

[zach12wqasxz]

i am trying to figure out what i wanna do with my life in the next year as i am graduating high school. I was looking into video game design, and i was kinda looking into graphic design, ive studied very little into it but is it neccasary to be extremely skilled artistically? i kinda wannae desgin characters and stuff, but still have no idea wether or not ill hate it when i finally go to school so any information and life stories about why you guys chose this field of work would be greatly appreciated. also do you htink its a bad idea to go to college without any prior knowlede in design?

[Supreme]

Chaos! This deserves a ban!

[Henry Martin]

Originally Posted by zach12wqasxz

i am trying to figure out what i wanna do with my life in the next year as i am graduating high school. I was looking into video game design, and i was kinda looking into graphic design, ive studied very little into it but is it neccasary to be extremely skilled artistically? i kinda wannae desgin characters and stuff, but still have no idea wether or not ill hate it when i finally go to school so any information and life stories about why you guys chose this field of work would be greatly appreciated. also do you htink its a bad idea to go to college without any prior knowlede in design?

I am still in my schooling, but I think you will be better off going to school. If you look at a lot of job requirements they ask for a Bachelors degree. I am going to Brown college in Minnesota and I learned a lot more than if I would have tried to teach myself.

Download a 3d package trial and model in it. I didn't care for modeling the first time I try it and now I am modeling almost every day.