Turn & Burn

Where to begin? A lot has happened since my last post. I went to GDC for the first time ever, we shipped 2 champions and a butt load of content, and I've been training up the new tech artist I got...all without skipping a production beat.

So lets' start with GDC. GDC was amazing! I met plenty of developers, visited a lot of booths, and got a bunch of swag...but I didn't go to any talks because I had the expo pass since I paid my own way there. So with that in mind here is some things I learned, liked, and hated. For first timers I highly recommend the expo pass that way you don't feel overwhelmed with all the stuff there is to do. I also highly recommend really really REALLY comfortable shoes because of all the standing and walking you will be doing on hard concrete. On top of that, make sure you plan your trip super far in advance to get the best deals within proximity to downtown as that is where you will want to be most often because of the convention, good food, and after parties. Beyond that, how you visit the expo floor is up to you. You can take it a booth at a time like some friends and I did so you can see the latest tech or the new hotness and meet the developers. Or you can bounce around to whatever piques your interest.

It's really impressive that when you first meet someone, they first look at your badge and then to you to see what you can bring to the table or how knowledgeable you will be so they know how deep to go when explaining something. A good instance of this was I was talking to an Amazon Lumberyard programmer about the way they did lighting in their engine and handling/calculating transparency and at first he took a step back and was a little blown away, because no one else had asked him that yet, and then he looked at my badge...saw that I was a tech artist and then a big smile appeared on his face and we had a really good discussion. It's important to note that everyone there is super friendly and they want to meet and learn people just like you do, so don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and network.

The food at the convention center is so-so and is great if you need a quick bite or a pick me up but I highly suggest you leave the convention center and explore some of the restaurants downtown. The food is great and it's a nice break to allow you to decompress and discuss what you saw, or who you met, or to even network some more. We went to this Chinese restaurant and when we were seated the owner came over, asked us if we'd ever been here before as he was beginning to pass out menus, and when we said no...he took the menus back and said he'll take care of us. What followed next was plate after plate of deliciousness beyond words!

It's also worth mentioning to allow you some time to arrive and depart a day in advance. We got there the night before the expo floor opened up and we left Saturday morning and boy did we feel rushed. After all the staying out late and drinking, you don't get much time to rest. GDC is definitely not a vacation. The amount of energy required to rally and keep the momentum day in and day out till the convention is over is pretty demanding. 

For my next trip, I plan on getting the big boy pass so I can go to the talks! Especially if I can convince my company to send me (I did help them out this year by showing up at our booth and taking interviews for potential candidates).

Moving on to champions!

We shipped Inara who is this nature stone maternal mother-esque champion who harnesses stone magic to her will. Her kit involved some new tech to be spun up to handle the way her ammo scales out when firing, as well as some new tech for her wall. Her wall took many iterations and quite a few whiteboard discussions to figure out how we were going to tackle it and the scenarios in which we had to account for, like going through doors or over uneven terrain.

Here is her reveal trailer:

The other champion we shipped was Lex. A dual pistol wielding lawman who passes judgement on other champions. This champion was in a great state before we all took off to GDC, but when we came back there was a kit change that affected his main inhand weapon to allow him to gain ammo back, and since we had heavily relied on the slides to dictate ammo...we needed to create tech to adjust slider position when ammo was granted. There was also another request to allow him to fire while sliding. Both of those put a huge weight on the programming and tech art departments to make the tech needed to fulfill these changes. We probably ripped up his animTree 3 or 4 times to get it to where it is now. There was definitely lessons learned and processes put in place to prevent these last minute surprises but that is after all GameDev. You have to be ready to scrap or pivot very quickly and still put out something the community wants.

Here is his reveal trailer: 

On top of all that we still shipped regular content of skins and we are coming up on another champion being due while working on yet another new champion at the same time. So sometimes it feels like we are moving at this death march pace and that can be overwhelming. Especially when you feel like you can't really take time off to decompress. I was watching this show on Netflix called Chef's Table and there was an episode where the chef was talking about how the freshest ingredients make the best dishes and I immediately equated that to the gamedev cycle. If you have people who are burnt out or overworked, they aren't going to be putting there best foot forward and that in turn affects what we put out. There's a reason this industry has a very high burnout rate and that's because people work so hard for such a long time trying to deliver content that the world can enjoy and they never take time for themselves to go on vacation. I know I've mentioned quality of life before in past blogs but it's definitely worth mentioning time and time again because it always crops up time and time again. Needless to say, I think I will be scheduling some PTO time soon to recharge my batteries to come back and tackle the next big list of champions and content we have planned. Hopefully.

Wrapping up, I've been helping our new tech artist find his footing and spinning him up on how things work and the way we do things. It's always interesting to look at something from a teacher's point of view because normally you just do a task as if it was second nature. But when you have to explain to someone how it works, why it works, why we do it that way, and so on...it reaffirms your skill set and knowledge in those moments and in actuality I think makes you a stronger leader by allowing you to identify your own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to certain systems.

 Try not to relax your brain, but your body instead.
-Ben