Job hunting.

We have been tasked with searching out jobs in order to see what the required and current skills are for getting a job within the game industry.

Now i’ll hold my hand up and say i have played World of Warcraft, and for a long time now working for Blizzard has been high up on my list of dream jobs, so despite it seeming over ambitious to think i can get in straight after uni (which i dont) it marks the way for aiming high and building up to the required standards.
Blizzard actually have a really good recruitment page, and have a lot of jobs going which i didn’t think they’d have available. Some of the real eye catchers were:

• 3D character artist
• 2D concept/character artist
• 3D character equipment artist

All of which apply to either World of Warcraft or Blizzards next-gen MMO.
The main things that i notice is they have a need for people to be familiar with 3Ds max, Photoshop and as a bonus Maya and painter.Currently at uni, we are only working in 3Ds max so perhaps using this project to develop my knowledge of Maya will be beneficial.

I also had a look at Climax, unfortunately there wasn’t much info for skills required on their website but in the brief description for environmental artist they do recommend that the applicant is familiar with Maya and Photoshop.

The other company i have looked at is Lionhead Studio’s, based in Guildford. Luckily I had the pleasure of working a weeks experience there some years back as a beta tester. I also managed to arrange a tour of the studio and talk with various team members, including character artists, animators and programmers.Its shame really that, that happened whilst i was still in secondary school and showed no signs of industry knowledge or skill…..

Anyway, I have looked at their website for art based positions and found a criteria for what they call a “standard artist” position.In general they are asking for near enough the same as any other company for an art based job. A high level of artistic skills and knowledge on form, lighting and colour etc, aswell as people skills.They do however ask for knowledge with the 3D programme XSI, which is completely new to me. So that will be something to look into.

So to summarise, Software that i should really use/look into from now on include:

• 3Ds Max
• Maya
• Coral Painter
• XSI
• Photoshop
• ZBrush
• Mudbox

So yes, definitely worth considering a look at, over the next 16 weeks and hopefully continue even past the deadline.