A guide to starting a career in video games – prepare yourself for a break-in!
Will Kalif
Starting a
career in the video game industry
used to be a difficult thing; there were very few options and very few schools that
could teach the required cutting-edge skills. If you wanted to choose this path,
you had to be self-taught. Today, this dilemma has been turned upside down. You
now have a plethora of schools to choose from and lots of programs and specialties
to decide amongst. Here is some advice on what the industry has to offer and what
you can do to prepare yourself.
The video game industry has changed over the past 10 years. It has matured, and
is now a full-fledged industry. This means that there are plenty of opportunities
to
find a rewarding career without
being a hot shot game programmer. As a matter of fact, the days of the hot shot
developer are pretty much over. In today's world, the creation of a state-of-the-art
video game now requires a dedicated team of employees with a wide range of skills
and interests.
What does this mean for you? It means opportunity in a lot of different disciplines,
and it means that you have to specialize within a sub-genre of the big picture of
"Making Video Games." But before you pack up and go to a video game school or dish
out the dollars for an online school there are some things you should do and some
things you need to know.
1. Learn the basic concepts of game design
Have an understanding of video games, how they're played, and what they're all about.
You should have a feel for the game industry; know what games are out there, what
styles of play they have, and how they handle the game playing experience. Chances
are good that you already fulfill this requirement.
Have an understanding of the underlying principles of game design. There are several
ways that you can do this. I recommend one or both of these methods to get you started
in this:
Build Mods – Mods are modifications of existing games. Quake is a famous game for
this approach. You use the mod builder software and you build levels or worlds that
can be added right into the game itself. The Mod subculture is very vibrant and
you can find a lot of support and help. To gain an even better experience that translates
well into a corporate environment, you should join a volunteer Mod development team.
This gives you good teamwork experience and gives you insight on how a video game
project is broken down into pieces. Get a free or inexpensive Game engine development
suite and build your own games. You can build adequate and fun to play games on
your own this way. I recommend you do this with the Genesis 3d Game development
software. It is completely free.
2. Get familiar with some of the professions in the industry and the tools
that are used.
There are a whole host of tools that game design teams use. And the tools you would
use are dependent on what role you would play on the team. Here is an overview of
some of the different jobs in the industry and what software tools they would use:
If you like drawing and painting with traditional tools you might want to consider
being a concept artist. They do all their work with off-computer art tools. They
would conceptualize and draw the scenes and the creatures in a game.
If you think you might like computer designing worlds and scenes in a video game,
you should consider being a 2-dimensional artist. They create all the structures,
textures and backgrounds in game worlds. Photoshop is the de-facto program for this
job. If you can afford a copy of this program, you will get definite insight into
this career path. If you cannot afford Photoshop, you should consider getting Paint
Shop Pro. It is less expensive and very similar to Photoshop and it will give you
a good foundation into the world of 2-dimensional artwork.
If characters and models are what you are enthusiastic about, you should consider
becoming a 3-Dimensional Model Artist. This type of artist is concerned with making
the characters, monsters, creatures and objects that inhabit a video game world.
In this area of game art the choice of software is not as straight-forward as in
the 2d art. The most accepted software is 3D studio Max. Two other popular programs
are Maya and SoftImage. If you are looking for a free 3d modeling tool that will
get you started you may want to get Milkshape. It is a tool designed for the game
Half-Life.
The concepts of modeling are universal, so the skills will transfer from one tool
to the other. You will just have to learn the specifics of the new tool which will
be easy enough.
Animator - This is the person that makes the characters and objects in the game
move. It is a very specific skill and it takes good understanding of animation to
get things right. There are many software programs that are used for animation and
they include Macromedia Flash, Alias/Wavefront, 3D Studio Max and Lightwave 3D.
Programmer - This is something that is a little more traditional when we think of
video game making "Programming" and it is a very wide field that can find you doing
almost anything in the video game making arena. A programmer could be called upon
to do any number of things from managing a database to designing the artificial
intelligence within a game or creating specialized software tools that other designers
use to create the game.
Other opportunities in video game design - There are many other jobs in the video
game industry ranging from Script and story writer to even network administrator
or computer maintenance and repair technician.
Today there are many different career paths that can be taken into the video game
industry. This requires you to specialize in a set of skills. Understanding what
these different skills are and getting a head start now will increase your marketability
in the very competitive video game industry.
Will Kalif is the author of two self-published epic fantasy novels, an avid
classical guitarist and an amateur video game designer. You can download free samples
of his work and tutorials at his Web site:
Storm The Castle - Creativity
and Fantasy with an edge
Or you can visit his site devoted to fantasy on the Web at:
The Webs Fantasy Guide
Article source:
EzineArticles.com