Help? Should I be a Game Designer?

[Mo-shi]

Um, Hi everybody!

I'm in Grade 10, and ever since Grade 8, I've wanted to work in the media field, and make people happy with art/animation/games/videos/movies/whatever.

But this year, we had to really look into what we wanted to do in life. I decided to look into the Game Design profession. I found out how much they make, their hours, programs, ect.

It seems really hard to get in. Most people say you shouldn't do it, but I'm going to try anyways. Apparantly, I have a better chance to get in though, because I live in Vancouver, and I can (and plan to) go to VFS (Vancouver Film School) and take the Game Design course. You get to build up your portfolio, make your own short game, learn how to use the proper programs, learn to cooperate in a small team, and meet influental people in the game industry in Vancouver. Meeting the higher ups is a big plus apparently, because you get a foot in the door.

Yes yes, I've watched the Extra Credits video, it was really good : )

I'm just a bit confused. At VFS, there's script class, animation class, physics, art, level design, playing games (YES A WHOLE CLASS FOR PLAYING GAMES), whatever class in this course.

This ... sounds amazing. I am a pretty good artist (going for Art Rep 2013!), and apparently I'm an okay writer. (I think I'm rubbish though.) I have The Sims, and I've always enjoyed making big houses or interesting lots and making Sims of famous people and whatnot. When I was 13, I played around in the Halo 3 Forge constantly! I never made any realy popular stuff ... but I really enjoyed it. Pretty much, I'm interesting in all of it. The whole concept of game design.

But, as a designer, do we do everything? Or are we split into groups and we're left to do our thing? Does it depend on the studio you work for? If I learned animation and such, could I also work at Pixar if I wanted to? As an animator, or is it different ... ? Because Pixar Vancouver just opened here.

I also just really, don't want to waste my father's hard earned money.

If you don't know, VFS is one of the top Game Design schools apparently :/
It has other courses though, it is an Art School at heart.

 

[ThriKreen]

It is very hard to get in, as it's a very competitive industry and technology moves very fast so you often have to stay on top of the game and maintain it. A lot of people burn out because of that pace. You need to be in the top 10% that stands out from the other wanna-bes vying for the same position. If one doesn't have the drive to see it through, often it's best they bow out now before they get too invested and become a dead-weight at a studio in the middle of a project crunch.

It sounds like you have a good direction and know what necessary steps to achieve it, and you've still got some time before you graduate from high school. But don't stay idle and wait it out, fire up a game toolset, the 3D modeling package, and make something. Game studios will not just look at your school credentials, but also your portfolio and what sort of non-school related projects you've worked on.

Someone who mods an existing game will stand out more than someone who only does some high res 3D models within the art course. The reason being is that the former will (hopefully) have experience in video game engine limitations and optimize their assets to best work within those restrictions (and scale from say a 750 poly, 1 512x512 texture map model to a 6,000 poly model with diffuse, normal and specular maps).

Now, are you sure you want to get into game DESIGN, or just be a game DEVELOPER? Developer is a label that can be applied to any regular role within a studio: designer, artist, animator, programmer, etc.

If you want to get into game DESIGN, yes, as like the Extra Credits video mentions, you'd want to have a wide body of experience to draw from to design gameplay that should hopefully appeal and be fun to your game playing audience. Card games, board games, regular RPG games, and all the genres of video games, are only scratching the surface in the skills you need to be a really good designer. Human behaviour and psychology is another, knowing what makes people tick and how to apply and present it in a game.

Good luck on your endeavors!

 

[Anarchemitis]

I just finished attending the British Columbia Institute of Technology for a certificate in Digital Animation, and I learned a great deal for a program that was only a year long and $15,000.

Firstly, Designers are a very special part of the game making process. They're the people that invent the experience and the aesthetic. They're like the Directors in a movie, but they also designate how and why something is fun. (The technical people and engineers sort out the coding woulds and shoulds). Thus it's a rather difficult position to attain, I would imagine. (All this is informed conjecture and speculation, as I have yet to get work x) so take that as you will..)
Personally I'm aiming for Set or Environment modeling in the production side of things.

But here's an excellent peice of advice before you get started: Contacts are important, and Computer Graphics is a small world. That said, Movies and Video Game companies are relatively interchangeable at certain levels. Get known around town, meet people. Research industry nights and meetups of companies and organizations like SIGGRAPH [http://siggraph.ca/]. Unless you are incredible at many things, most of your ability to get work in video games or film will depend on your experience and who you know, probably about as much or more than your actual skill with whatever programs you use.
If you want to try out level design, download Steam and get SourceSDK and learn how to use Hammer World Editor. (Comes free with any Source Engine game. If you want to make a Single-player level, buy Half Life 2. If you want to make a Multi-player level, buy Team Fortress 2 and/or Counterstrike). Two of my Steam friends (Icarus [http://steamcommunity.com/id/icaruswong], maker of cp_Coldfront and Nauz [http://steamcommunity.com/id/gestoert], lead modeler for the Zeitgeist mod) are highly capable in these respects and would be able to give you useful advice in trying your hand at that. if you add them as friend, just say Tyler referred you.

For modeling, try out copies of 3D Studio Max, Maya or Softimage [http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center] and see which fits your fancy; all three are important workhorse programs for the Computer Graphics industry these days and all three can do modeling and animation. (They all have the same controls, just different names and buttons for everything). Try your hand at Set Modeling (Making vehicles, props, junk, etc.) Character modeling (self-explanatory) or Environmental modeling (Forests, buildings, whatever have you). (All three of those programs can be downloaded for a Three-year free liscence if you are a student, but it is illegal for those copies to make something that you directly sell, such as freelance art)

If you do try your hand at modeling, work from real reference. Find pictures and lots of them, and actually make a real thing. Don't just make up a jet fighter from your mind, find pictures of an existing model [http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2002/photorelease/q2/c35-1881-3.jpg] and make it come alive. Also, if you start doing modeling, also take up texturing, lighting and rendering. But of course each of those things is a discipline and an art each their own.

If you want to try animation, start simple- on paper, or in something insanely primitive in order to get a feel for it, like Pivot Stick Animator [http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/]. Animation can be the hardest because of all the things there are to learn about it, and like a language or a muscle, skill in animation must be practiced regularly, or else your ability to animate will decay.
Once you think you've got some skills with animation (if that's the avenue you took), then you can give it a whirl in 3D- Team Fortress 2 comes with complete rigs of all the characters for Maya, located in Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\Username\SourceSDK_content\tf\modelsrc\player so you can try animating those for a while.

With whatever you try, if you get stuck, google it. Somewhere someone WILL have come across the same problem you're stuck at, and someone will have given an answer as to how to fix it. Also, always look at tutorials and help pages. They're awesome.

Assuming you heed this advice, this should keep you away from games with all sorts of learning pasttimes for years. Sure as dang it did for me. Good luck, my friend!