Category: News

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Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Espoo, Finland

Remedy Entertainment, the creator of Quantum Break, Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Death Rally and one of the leading independent game studios in the world is looking for a VFX Artist for a key role working on Remedy’s projects.

We are looking for a visual effects artist who feels at home in “Hollywood Realism”; a team player who has experience with realistic high-quality real-time effects and optimizing them.

Combining artistic talent and technical ability, you know your way around particle editors and scripting, and compositing an effect comes naturally. You would be working closely with our Art Director and team lead in designing and implementing special effects using our internal tools.

Leave your mark in our upcoming games by setting up stunning visuals and final touches to everything from gameplay to cinematics and characters.

Responsibilities

• Create and maintain particle systems and other gameplay specific effects and assets
• Take part in designing VFX workflows to reach higher quality efficiently
• Ensure that consistent communication is maintained, in all directions, to guarantee the quality of the game

Requirements and qualifications

• 2 to 3 years of experience in game development
• Expert level understanding and knowledge of techniques used in visual effects
• Expert level proficiency within Maya, 3DS Max or other 3D software package
• Knowledge of a fluid sim package (FumeFX, Houdini) is a big plus
• Ability to learn new programs and toolchains quickly
• Clear verbal and written communication in English
• A passion for games

The ideal candidate will also have

• Bachelor’s degree in arts/engineering or relative field
• Experience with one or more scripting or programming languages

What is in it for you?

• Yes, you get to move to Finland where the quality of life is exceptional and cost of living is affordable. Moving to a new country can be intimidating, but our relocation service is there every step of the way to take care of you. You can concentrate on work, while we’ll take care of everything else.
• You will be offered competitive compensation with a bonus system.
• We work hard, but at Remedy we believe in a great work-life balance. Happy people work better. In Finland you get up to 5 weeks of paid vacation every year. This is on top of public holidays and other special occasions.
• Above all, you get to work on awesome, unique video games that the global audience is interested in at a studio where your input is valued. We try our hardest to keep our team sizes and the workload sensible, so your contributions feel valuable.

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

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Greg of 3D Game Dev Blog took a few weeks to dig into the code of No Man’s Sky to try and figure out how the game engine created by Hello Games creates each element of an entirely procedurally generated game world. 

This blog post is definitely worth checking out if you’re a dev at all interested in the code that went into procedurally generating nearly every bit of content on a multi-planetary scale. 

The post splits its findings into three main categories: geometry, textures, and animation. The section on geometry is by far the most in-depth and talks mostly about how the game creates creatures, ships, and other models by combining multiple parts from assets with a predetermined chance value. 

A similar approach is used to procedurally generate the textures and color pallettes used for creatures and planets within the game. 

“…except [for] designing different model parts, [the game artists] have also provided multiple different textures for each part. So traversing that file in the same fashion with the descriptor file, one can calculate the final diffuse texture of the procedural generated model,” he explains. “And here is the even better part. Even if two models are identical geometrywise, they can end up having completely different colors, marks, shapes, etc using those procedurally generated textures.”

The piece-by-piece way No Man’s Sky generates all its content leaves the door open for Hello Games or modders to add additional model parts post-release and exponentially increase the procedurally generated possibilities. While this might not say much about the current state of the game, Greg explains that this way of content generation speaks volumes about the game engine itself.

“The mindblowing thing about this generation procedure is that if they had double the number of [artists] working exclusively on [models], the game content (just for the creatures) would be hundreds of times larger,” he says. “And this fact alone shows me the capabilities and the potential that NMS game engine has.”

The full post, which includes models rendered in a viewer and a more in-depth explanation of the code behind No Man’s Sky, can be found over on the 3D Game Dev Blog.

The appeal of Fortnite’s cosmetics are eating up the competition around other console franchises, according to a report published by market research firm Superdata.

This may not come as much of a surprise, as the free-to-play game recently earned over $1 billion so far from in-game purchases alone.

Superdata’s analysis estimates that sales from Fortnite cosmetic and skins alone are masking a six percent drop of combined revenue from microtransactions and in-game content sales of other console titles across the globe.

The report also shows a 49 percent increase of revenue from in-game sales on consoles, and mentions how Activision Blizzard and EA Games noted in their financial reports that Fortnite introduced more players to their games, which lead to increased sales as well. 

However, Superdata emphasizes that when Fortnite is excluded from this analysis, there’s a six percent revenue drop across the entire industry as a whole. 

The six percent drop includes sales figures of what Superdata lists as “top 50 digital console titles”, and while those titles aren’t explicitly provided, it can be assumed to include titles like EA’s sports games such as FIFA 19, and Blizzard’s Overwatch. 

SuperData also believes the drop when removing Fortnite is not a coincidence, explaining that Fortnite players might be taking money they would spend in other console games on cosmetics and the seasonal Battle Pass instead and called that relation a “material cannibalization across top incumbent franchises.”

On top of revealing how Fortnite encourages players from spending money on other games in favor of cosmetic upgrades, Superdata also suggests the game might be cannibalizing online viewership.

The analysis reports Fortnite‘s audience on streaming services like Twitch has increased 59 percent in the last three months, while CS:GO viewership dropped 51 percent, Overwatch viewership dropped 16 percent, and League of Legends viewership dropped 19 percent. 

To read the entire Superdata analysis, click here. 

Electronic Arts has released its first quarterly financial report of the 2019 fiscal year, ultimately showing year-over-year decreases in multiple categories though still coming in above its forecasted numbers for this quarter.

For the quarter ending June 30, EA reported net revenue of $1.14 billion, down from the $1.45 billion reported during the same period last year. In an earnings call with investors however, the company noted that this quarter’s net revenue still falls above EA’s forecast for Q1 by a solid $57 million.

Digital net bookings now make up 69 percent, $693 million, of EA’s total net-bookings and 6 percent larger chunk of that overall pie compared to last year. Additionally, net bookings related to live services found in games like FIFA Online 4 and The Sims 4 rose by 7 percent from last year to $450 million for the quarter. 

While digital itself rose, PC and console full-game downloads declined by 14 percent, year-over-year. Additionally, mobile net bookings fell by 2 percent year-over-year, something EA COO and CFO Blake Jorgensen credited to slight declines in older mobile titles. In an earnings call, he notes that this quarter’s release of FIFA Mobile in Asia helped to offset that decay, however. Though FIFA Mobile has only recently reached China, Jorgensen says the company is “encouraged” by the game’s performance so far, explaining that the game delivered one of the highest grossing days ever for any of its mobile titles. 

Both the mobile FIFA tiles and the series as a whole gave a solid contribution to this quarter’s performance, something EA notes was boosted by the World Cup event and its corresponding in-game promotions.

If you liked the comic book roots of Telltale’s The Walking Dead, you should know that the folks at Rival Games have decided to tackle another part of the Robert Kirkman-verse. A couple weeks ago, they released Thief of Thieves, a stealth/storytelling game that adapts the Image Comics series. 

It’s a game that’s got a stylish mix of dialogue trees, isometric viewpoints, and stealthy encounters, and it’s caught our attention here at Gamasutra. So today at 3PM EDT, we’re going to be streaming Thief of Thieves with Rival Games CEO Jukka Laakso, talking about everything from making games in Finland to adapting comics to a broader game format. 

It’s a neat game with neat design decisions, so you should come by and join our conversation in Twitch chat! And while you’re at it, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel for more developer interviews and editorial roundtables. 

The Chinese internet tech company NetEase has made a $50 million investment in SpatialOS dev Improbable, picking up what a press release describes as a “small stake” in the company in the process.

For Improbable, however, the partnership represents a way for the company to bring its cloud-based platform to both China and developers in the Asia Pacific region, something that is typically difficult to do for a Western company.

SpatialOS itself is a cloud-based technology geared toward developers making online games. The platform divides the computational work of managing online worlds and divides it up between a battalion of cloud-based servers, allowing developers to create more vast and persistent online worlds. So far, the tech has been used in the recently released MMO game Worlds Adrift and is used by the upcoming AI-driven MMO title Seed as well.

As part of the partnership, NetEase itself has announced that it will be releasing at least one SpatialOS-powered game in the future, though it won’t officially reveal the title itself until later this year.

Hey game makers, if you have a great idea for a session that would be a great fit for the Visual Arts track of talks at Game Developers Conference 2019, now is the time to submit it! Show organizers are now accepting submissions to present lectures, roundtables, panels, posters and tutorials through Thursday, August 16th.

This will be the 33nd edition of GDC, the world’s largest and longest-running event serving professionals dedicated to the art and science of making games.  Next year the show will take place March 18-22 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California, and will again play host to thousands of game developers from all around the world for a week of learning, networking and inspiration.

Organizers are looking for submissions of expert talks that would be a great fit for the show! In particular, they’re seeking submissions for the GDC 2019 Visual Arts track of talks. Here’s what they’re looking for, in their own words:

Success of the GDC Visual Arts track has grown over the past few years and we want you to help us build on that momentum. We want disruptive, inspirational and amazing artists, art directors, and art managers to speak this year.. We’re looking for people who are willing to share their skills and techniques with us. We want to hear from directors and managers who can teach us how to build great art teams, and create outstanding visuals on tight budgets and schedules. And we’re seeking out top notch technical artists to show us new insights in look development and tool creation.

• Inspirational Art Direction Talks: Continuing with our ‘coffee table book’ art direction sessions from last year we’re looking for art directors who are willing to not only talk about the evolution of their game’s style but to show us that evolution. Whether you’re a AAA big budget developer or a small 2-person indie team, pull back the curtain and reveal the sketches, concepts, prototypes and in-development shots/videos that led you to the final look of your product.
• TECHNIQUES and DEMOS: Visual artists are just that, visual. We want to see what you know, not just hear about it. We want artists to teach us new techniques, new tools and new styles. Can’t talk and draw at the same time? No problem, we’ll even let you have two presenters – one to talk and one to demonstrate. Show off your 3D modeling techniques, concept art drawing, and animation work to the best audience in the world – your peers.
• Next Gen Art Techniques: A console transition is looming, and it’s time to start planning for all the new graphics goodies it will bring. What will we be able to do with lighting, with procedural art generation, with materials, or with new pipelines? Help set the agenda for the next generation of graphics by sharing your cutting-edge techniques and plans.
• Art Management and Production Talks: Did you develop an interesting strategy that saved you art development time and/or money? Did an in-house or 3rd party tool help alleviate your production pipeline woes? How do you manage to keep your artists from seeing the trees instead of the forest? We’d love to hear about your solutions to these problems and more!
• Art Culture: What core values are you looking for when you hire artists? How do you manage critiques within your organization? Managing creative people with disparate personalities can be daunting. How does your team manage that? Share your successes (and failures) in this with us so we can create better collaborative environments at our studios.
• Animation: What sets your game’s animation apart from everyone else in the industry? What went right in your latest game’s motion capture sessions? What went wrong? What have you learned from studying animation techniques used in other entertainment industries? Share your lessons with other animators as we want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding animation trials and tribulations.
• 2D Art Production Pipeline Talks: It is surprising how some aspects of 2D art production pipelines are a lot more work than 3D art production pipelines. We want to hear from someone who can talk about an interesting 2D art production pipeline.
• Character Design Talks: We’d like to see a character talk that speaks to the DESIGN of the characters, not just how to sculpt high-frequency detail in Zbrush or do pretty rendering in Photoshop so the character design can pass a publisher focus test.
• Show us your tech, TAs: You’re the glue that holds art production together, TAs. What new ideas in tools and pipelines have you developed this past year? What new shader techniques are you investigating for next-gen? Is there look development work you’ve done that would enlighten us? Come show us and inspire us!

Last year was the most popular ever for the GDC Visual Arts track, and we want you to help us build on that momentum. We want disruptive, inspirational and amazing artists, art directors, and art managers to speak this year. We’re looking for people who are willing to share their skills and techniques with us. We want to hear from directors and managers who can teach us how to build great art teams, and create outstanding visuals on tight budgets and schedules. And we’re seeking out top notch technical artists to show us new insights in look development and tool creation.

Meanwhile, those interested in submitting for any of the GDC Summits (AI, Community Management, Game Narrative, GDC Education, GDC Mobile, Indie or UX) or [email protected] (all of which take place on the Monday & Tuesday of the event) or Friday’s Game Career Seminar should know that the call for submissions will open later this year!

For more details on the submission process or GDC 2019 in general visit the show’s official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

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