Sumo Digital talk

I particularly enjoyed the Sumo talk as it really did put my mind at ease about the whole industry, or at least Sumo studios. The start of the talk did seem to reiterate everything we have already been taught and the programming side went over my head but one thing at the start that did interest me was the mention of a new studio opening in 2016. I asked about this but it sounded like it was going to be mostly comprised of programmers. This hasn't put me off as the studio in India is mostly comprised of artists but has recently started employing programmers over there. I'm going to assume that at some point they will be wanting artists there so if I am already on their radar I might get shortlisted.
The thing I found particularly useful which calmed me down was when they talked about the interview and the mentality of the company. I was rather worried about the interview as I knew they would be quite casual but that they would still have an exam feel about them. Apparently, or at least in the case of the Sumo their interviews are very relaxed and are more like conversations than interviews which put that part of my worry at ease. Another thing which helped was the mention of the whole mentality and attitude of the studio which seemed to be friendly and much like the one we currently have at university. This helped ease my mind as I was really worried about what would happen should I mess up in some way and how it would be received by the team. It seems that often it results in a simple 'it's alright don't worry about it' which I really like as that would be a big fear of mine going into the industry as so many people rely on each other and having a smooth work flow. It hasn't made me think that it's OK to screw up all the time but it has put to rest my fear of everyone's temper blowing up because of an accident. At least I hope so anyway.
On the whole I found Sumo's talk very useful and much more informative than some of the other talks. I really do believe that there should be more talks like these as they really do give good information and can allay any fears like mine, which is a motivational boost and that is something I think a lot of final year students could do with, just someone from industry coming in to say 'yes you can do it, you are good enough to join the company and if something goes wrong it's OK these things happen.' I can only hope other studios are like this.

Mark Ranson lecture

Even though Mark is an environment artist I found his presentation to be quite useful as he really did give a very detailed breakdown of a games creation, something I had never thought important to know up until now. It almost put me at ease knowing the stages a game or level goes through as that is something that worried me slightly, not knowing how the workflow would be for a AAA game is quite an intimidating thought however I think will try to experience it for myself before make any proper judgments. I particularly liked his Fail Faster mantra which I believe I have been unintentionally doing for all 3 years just trying to get at least something passable. I thought his Zbrush demonstration was quite interesting however personally it was a little lost on me. My experience with Zbrush is very limited and so I would prefer a very slow tutorial rather than a speedy hour long creation of an impressive looking asset however I do feel that I could make some use out of it at a later date when I am looking at more advanced techniques to use, should I ever need to use Zbrush at all. Overall I found this presentation more interesting and useful than Aardvark games' presentation and I got much more industry insight which both put me a little at ease and made me a little more nervous at the same time, which is an odd feeling and the Zbrush tutorial was interesting but a little wasted on me at the current time.

The big showreel

After reviewing a few showreels I decided to put my own together using some pieces of work I currently have. The Prometheus section is just my A3D play blast so that remains the same with a slight alteration towards the end where the camera pans down. This leads into the idea I had of fading in the next model so for this example the ending of the Prometheus pans down leading into the X1 Alpha. I find it hard to not use a turntable to show off the X1 but I have kept it to close and panning upwards shots but I honestly did find it hard not to go turntable with it. It might have something to do with the fact I had it on a podium as the Falken model didn't have turntable shots but panning ones to show the whole model as well as close ups of it and some props I have scattered about such as missiles on trolleys.
As for music I haven't looked at any yet and this will be my next task, trying to find a piece of music that will compliment all the various models I have as they do come from different time periods as 2 are sci fi and one is real world finding some music to compliment all 3 will be an interesting challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlLsetikYcA

GradJobs fair at the NEC

I never considered that the Graduate Fair would be of any use to me, there were no games studios there so what would be the point of going?
I'm so glad I did go however as it turned out to be one of the best decisions I could have made.
After wandering around for a while taking as many free things as I could I got talking to a man from the DSTL who do science and technology for the military. The one thing that attracted me towards the stand was actually an Arma style simulation they had running on a laptop. The man was talking about various science projects that I could work on before he mentioned the laptop simulation he had running which was when I brought up my real interest in it. He mirrored my enthusiasm and told me that there were lots of jobs creating simulations as most of the models they would have to build are classified and therefore obviously can't be out sourced. This is an avenue that I had considered but never really took seriously but honestly on reflection I'm really surprised I haven't as creating classified vehicles for military simulations sounds like somewhat a dream job for me and speaking to the representative has really give me pause for thought.

Another place that gave me a lot to think about was Teesside University. We started off speaking about criminology but once I was asked about my course we had an extremely interesting talk about using my 3D modeling for more scientific things which again was something I had never considered. He told me about the large opportunities to work with various researchers for different areas such as physiotherapy and we spent over half an hour talking about it.
He also talked about a fair that Teesside hosts called Expotease where graduates of the course set up a small booth with a TV screen and they invite all their contacts from the industry who come round to look at your work. The way he described it seemed like a face to face portfolio where the employers come up to you, ask what can you do and you describe what you have done and how you did it all the while the model is being shown behind you and I think it is a really, really good idea and I personally believe Derby should do something similar. This could be a huge opportunity to not only get contacts within the industry but it would also give a personal touch to your work by allowing employers to put a face to the work they're looking at and I believe that is something that would prove very useful.
One final thing he mentioned was Ubisoft soon to be opening a Customer Contact Center in the north east and while this doesn't involve modeling but they do want people who are interested in games, enjoy playing games and are knowledgeable about them but that is beside the point. What it represents is a way into the industry. Work at the contact center and get noticed by people and work my way up the chain. This would be a lot easier than trying to muscle in half way up the ladder and would also give me job experience that I don't currently have so this is an idea I would be interested in researching and possibly following up along with the DSTL.

I also managed to get some professional head shots taken by a small company called The Headshot Guy which I will use for my LinkedIn page once they have been emailed to me.

On the whole I found the fair to be much more interesting and useful than I first thought. I got lots of new information into areas I had never even considered or even realised we available to me and it has given me a lot to think about and many more options for me.

Aardvark Swift talk

The Aardvark Swift talk was quite illuminating. Even though it was surprisingly geared towards programmers I still got a little bit out of it. One issue I had and it is not the fault of the presenters was the fact that we know most of the things he was talking about and have gone over them quite rigorously already. The CV was a nice addition and supplemented the knowledge I gained from my careers interview. It was nice to get a games industry specific talk about CV and what studios want to see on them. I think signing up for their site would be a massive step forward for me as LinkedIn and Artstation and good sites however GradsInGames seems like a perfect site to take full advantage of as they actively search for jobs specifically for graduates. However after looking at the site it seems that there are few jobs on the site. Whether this is temporary thing or if companies simply don't use the site I don't know however to be safe I signed up for their newsletters to hear about any jobs they may have.
I will most likely use the site to keep up to date with competitions that are hosted but when I checked they were only taking applicants for November 2016 which would unfortunately rule me out as I would have (hopefully) graduated by then which is a shame as the publicity would have hopefully done some good as well as saying that I have taken part in the competition and did hopefully quite well in it which should impress employers.

On the whole I think this presentation would have been better if we had it earlier in the year as I feel that we covered most of the topics in more detail in the lectures rendering the Aardvark presentation somewhat useless in my opinion. Still useful in parts but on the whole it simply reiterated what we have already been taught.