My name is Johanna Persson and I’m a student at the vocational school PlaygrounSquad in Sweden where I study computer graphics for game development. After new year I decided to become a Technical Animator/Artist, I posted my thoughts about it here and got some great help and tips, so I decided to write down some questions about my upcoming internship.
From the 10th of November to the 12th of May we’ve got an internship period. I am about to send out some applications to a bunch of companies but I’d love to get some help from You guys first.
What can I do to take it to the next level?
Right now I’m learning python in motionbuilder and is thinking about making a tool to show that I have some knowledge of it.
Do you know any companies that want interns, especially TA’s, during this time or earlier?
I’m flexible and can move about everywhere.
Do You have some general tips about internship applications and internships?
Looking nice there. For your facial rig, I would show your joint layout in a bit more detail and also put a little bit explaining how it’s driven. Is it through set driven keys or is it expression driven etc. Did you have a tool for making this so its easy to create the rig for different faces. Can it be used purely for humans or is it extensible enough for heads for animals / aliens etc. It’s always very good to see how something is done, not just what the end result looks like. This makes it easier to determine how you approach problems.
Thank You for the answers!
Matt, I’m going to create a setup for a facial rig in my autoRig tool, I thought about it before but forgot it now when school started, thank you for the reminder. When I’ve done that I’ll show it more detailed in my reel so you can easily see what I’ve done. Do you know if Rockstar have any internship positions?
mje11even, I’m absolutely very interested of applying to you. I saw on the website that should live in the US or a working visa for the jobs. Is it possible to have an internship on a student visa?
I just checked and international students can do the internships at Reel FX using a J visa. However relocation is not offered to internship positions, so that may be a problem. PM me if you want some more details.
I’m afraid to say that we don’t do internships as far as I’m aware, but give me a shout when you’ve finished your course and I’ll see if we’ve got full time positions - we’re always looking for good tech people to make my life easier
hej do,
So just in order:
Pretty strong reel for the most part. Just a few notes:
1)On top of what’s been said, especially about the facial rig, somethings that really wow recruiters are attention to detail.
For example, your UI, while flexible is a little ‘designed by an engineer’ rather than ‘designed by an animator’.
*Things like making the more used controllers easier to click. Thing like the COG and arm controllers have the smallest buttons even though as an animator they’re the one’s I’d be using the most.
*The torso buttons are fairly crammed together, which means an animator has to stop and think about where to click.
Also again, your body controls are the thinnest controls even though they’re most likely to be used.
There are a few VFX companies in Vancouver that will probably jump at any rigger/TD. Python is like the holy grail word here to get hired.
Games is dying here but your reel should be good for most companies. Immigration is the tricky part though.
It’s easy to do now and mostly free for the company for an LMO, but they don’t like the wait and they’re cautious about foreigners in case things dont fall through.
Rhythm and Hues is very TD friendly but currently no openings.
ABout internships, I’d make sure you get paid firstly. Don’t do it for free.
Secondly, check about the companies intentions, and more important, their ability to hire you at the end of it.
Productions fall through and shit happens, and then might not hire you right away after…but I’ve had friends leave stable jobs for an internship and then be left with nothing after.
On the flipside, I’ve had friend sfinish internships with jobs at Disney and Pixar so two sides to the coin.
and generally, just be friendly and enhtusiastic once you’re in. Making friends is very valuable, because they’ll get you back in or into another place.
Please send an application to CCP- I am not sure if we have use for an intern right now, but it can’t hurt, and immigration would be simple as a fellow Scandanavian.
Hi again and thank you for the answers!
It really makes me glad when you guys helps me.
Matt, thank you and I’ll keep in touch!
dgovil, you are so right about the controls, I haven’t thought about it.
Here is a quick update, a little less engineer and a little bit more animator:
I will absolutely check out VFX companies I Vancouver, thanks for the tip.
Rob, I will send an application CPP hopefully next week when my showreel is a little stronger.
I’ll work with the face rig over the weekend and update you as I go, hopefully you’ll find it interesting.
Hello!
Over the weekend I’ve been working with scripting the facial rig as planned.
Here is a picture of how it looks now:
As inspiration I’ve used Jeremy Ernst “Fast and efficient facial rigging” documentation from GDC 2011. Can be found here: http://www.unrealengine.com/files/downloads/Jeremy_Ernst_FastAndEfficietFacialRigging2.pdf
In a close future I’m hoping to script a very lowpoly face just to make the joint placement easier to begin with.
Because of my tight time schedule, my showreel will be updated before Wednesday so I can start sending my applications to different companies then.
Thats an interesting idea using a lowly face you can model around your hi poly to get joint placements. I personally prefer to not have my joints sitting on the surface of my meshes however. I like having them ‘inside’ the mesh so that they can arc (plus rotation is generally far cheaper for us than translation so we try to do everything by rotating).
I had no idea that rotating was cheaper then translation, thanks. At the moment you can place your joints wherever you want, and I think I’m going to have the lowpoly mesh as an optional choice. In this way it hopefully could be of use to more people.
dgovil, Do you know any specific companies that you think I should apply to?
Yesterday I started sending out my applications to different VFX companies mostly in Canada and the UK and I’m going to apply to game companies next week. So if you have any tips, please contact me.
I do not think it is possible to do internships in Canada if you are from Europe (as far as I know…) So you better check that before spending too much time on it
I got a list of companies on my google docs. I will share it once I get home because I can not open google docs at work.
Generally rotations are cheapest or game engines purely because we try to do as much animation via rotation as possible. This way, we only have to store animation and degrees of freedom on the joints for rotations. If we add translation into the mix or scale then we can potentially triple this data size.
[QUOTE=Nysuatro;17675]I do not think it is possible to do internships in Canada if you are from Europe (as far as I know…) So you better check that before spending too much time on it
I got a list of companies on my google docs. I will share it once I get home because I can not open google docs at work.[/QUOTE]
It is possible depending on the country and the kind of work/trade agreements they have. ie I have a few German friends on working holiday permits.
The harder part is also convincing recruiters that you’re worth it:
some recruiters don’t care and will help you immigrate after your initial work permit ends.
Others are very wary of foreigners. Even though I have a 2year permit (long enough for me to get residency), some recruiters are afraid I’ll be sent back to India and they’ll need to rehire.
Nysuatro, I really would appreciate if you could send me that list, either as a pm or to my mail ( johannajpersson@gmail.com ), thank you!
dgovil, I will keep on sending applications to Canada and hope for the best then. That forum was awesome, got loads of new companies to send my application to now, thank you so much for the link.
MattRennie, This is so good information. I’m going to take this new knowledge with me to our next game project in school! Thanks.
Just a little update on what I’m doing right now apart from sending out internship applications. I’m creating a few preset facial expressions to make the animation easier and/or faster. You will be able to offset the the controls from the presets and they would still be working fine.
yea, I think internships in Tech Art are pretty hard to come by. I remember looking a few years ago, with little luck. Also, check out the smaller studios and casino gaming if you not getting any bites from the larger companies.
