Now at SnowCastle in Norway
So I guess I’m the last one out this round and at the same time this is posted I begin my employment at the Norweigan studio SnowCastle where I also did my intership.
Oslo Begins
It all started with our program manager Ann-Sofie stopping by, saying she had heard from a guy named Bendik and his studio that could offer the perfect internship and was super enthusiastic about me! Surely I took it with a large grain of salt , but as we started talking he actually was super enthusiastic about me and though I was opposed to the idea of moving at first, he never gave up his never ending effort in persuading me which I’m very grateful of, cause I’ve had the best of times and have always felt extremely appreciated, which means more than anything to me!
So, back to the start!
I took the night bus, 6.5 hrs trip to meet up with Fredrik early morning on August 1. Fredrik is one of our concept artist. The other one is Fridtjof who also is our art director and of course Bendik, our boss 3D artist/programmer/manager and our lead programmer Alf. And last but not least, Mattis who is our game designer. Since then SnowCastle has employed an additional 3D artist, Hans-Kristian from Tønsberg! So wer’e growing. Little by little.
Idea of Édea
In the beginning of my internship I started creating assets for the prototype of “Winds of Édea” our flagship which we have received some great publicity for aswell as been awarded a grant from NGA. The game has evolved quite some time since then, but I assure you all it’s gonna be really great! Without saying to much since it is to be announced it’s mesmerizing art and character concepts combined with really intriguing gameplay mechanics.
Use every part of the buffalo
That saying is something that the Norwegians seem to have embraced in full and it holds true not only at SnowCastle. For example there is an old silo outside the city center, now rebuilt as a students apartments complex. Great, huh? As far of myself at SnowCastle I’ve been put to a set of different tasks, ranging from modeling and animation, to finding out different technical solutions to our projects which includes some scripting in Maya/Unity and I just began learning C# and studying programming now in my spare time. Perhaps I chose the wrong class back at TGA! Not really, but I feel really fortunate to be able to explore both worlds and to feel so appreciated in the process.
Time to Unity!
What is Unity and what is so special with it? Unity is a game engine developed in Denmark.
I’s cross platform so it’s really convenient to create apps for iPhone, iPad, aswell as Xbox Live and PSP Network. So you see, perhaps it’s not the thing you use as the base for AAA FPS or MMORPG’s even though I’ve seen some pretty impressive tech demo of an FPS level, but since our studio is focused on another market and in creating a variety of entertainment and media applications it really is the perfect tool for us. Plus you can get it for free although it comes with some limitations of course, but still fully functional. If you are a studio starting up and you have small aids, there’s really nothing to consider.
What did I really do?
I created scripts to easily export the model to unity and some other tweaks to enhance the Maya/Unity pipeline. Worked to get familiar with unity and tried to sort out how the scripting could be done and used in interactive ways.
R&D in what we could accomplish with the Unity engine on the iPad and to enhance the user experience while at the same time be focused on the limitations we faced. For ex: We are utilizing the parallax effect for a media application, but we use real 3D object to do so, which means they have real depth while at the same time be affordable poly-wise and really make the artwork come through as painterly and vivid as it was in the 2D art. We also use vertex coloring to make it all come together and give that extra boost to the art. Cheap old methods which works surprisingly well.
Began work on a modular auto-rigging script which isn’t finished yet, but it’s getting there.
Stepped into the role of the 3D quality assurance manager for models we’ve outsourced.
And as of now I’m creating a text formatting script which we will be needing in our application.
Signing Out – Signing On
So they idea is that the 14th of March is going to be my very first workday as an employee here at SnowCastle and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for TGA and Ann-Sofie! The school has been a great invaluable aid in my pursuit to get into the game industry and in conclusion I just want to give my thanks to Ann-Sofie, Kostas and the rest of the teachers.
Best Regards
Dag Isaksson, at TGA between 2008 and 2011
