Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Cactus
Jun 24, 2006

OneEightHundred posted:

I'm still not sure why the reversal happened. The US/Japan schemes used to be the same, up until the middle of the PS1 generation when they diverged. It's not like there's some legacy reason for it... the legacy was to leave it the way it was.

I'll admit my theory as to why is purely conjecture on my part; I haven't seen anything anywhere that backs it up. It's why I'd have done it if it were my decision. One thing I'm pretty certain of, though, is that whatever the reason, it will not have been done arbitrarily.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug
I'm curious about what sort of software development strategies do game devs use? Agile, Scrum, Waterfall?

Do you guys do test driven development? What about code reviews?

leper khan
Dec 28, 2010
Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

CommieGIR posted:

I'm curious about what sort of software development strategies do game devs use? Agile, Scrum, Waterfall?

Do you guys do test driven development? What about code reviews?

Varies greatly by org. Agile is common, as is agilefall.

Code reviews are pretty common. Tests in game code are sadly uncommon. Lots of architectural practices abandoned elsewhere years ago, like extensive [often exclusively for all state] use of singletons, is prevalent.

Jira looms over dev just like everywhere else in software.

Git is coming into wider use. I’m currently stuck on perforce; our rep seemed surprised to learn that our code was still managed by p4, so I expect a bunch of other groups have switched to a hybrid versioning system with p4 handling art and git handling code (p4 rep went into a whole thing on their solution at me, as they do).


So basically it’s broken in similar ways as every other software shop. With the addition of perforce being the ‘legacy’ vcs instead of cvs. :shrug:

Fano
Oct 20, 2010

leper khan posted:

Varies greatly by org. Agile is common, as is agilefall.

Code reviews are pretty common. Tests in game code are sadly uncommon. Lots of architectural practices abandoned elsewhere years ago, like extensive [often exclusively for all state] use of singletons, is prevalent.

Jira looms over dev just like everywhere else in software.

Git is coming into wider use. I’m currently stuck on perforce; our rep seemed surprised to learn that our code was still managed by p4, so I expect a bunch of other groups have switched to a hybrid versioning system with p4 handling art and git handling code (p4 rep went into a whole thing on their solution at me, as they do).


So basically it’s broken in similar ways as every other software shop. With the addition of perforce being the ‘legacy’ vcs instead of cvs. :shrug:

Does git have issues handling non-code asset files? I'm a developer but I don't work in games, the few Unity projects I have done on my off time are all on git and it has never complained about large assets/textures. I imagine it's a little complicated handling your code and your other assets in separate version control systems.

leper khan
Dec 28, 2010
Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

Fano posted:

Does git have issues handling non-code asset files? I'm a developer but I don't work in games, the few Unity projects I have done on my off time are all on git and it has never complained about large assets/textures. I imagine it's a little complicated handling your code and your other assets in separate version control systems.

Git-lfs has made it much better, but it still has issues handling lots of large binaries.

For small/medium size projects it’s not a big deal.

ChickenWing
Jul 22, 2010

:v:

leper khan posted:

Lots of architectural practices abandoned elsewhere years ago, like extensive [often exclusively for all state] use of singletons, is prevalent.

Can anyone expand on this? I read somewhere that ECS was the prevalent way of doing things (as opposed to MVC like most of the rest of the dev universe) and my slight experience with Unity seemed to confirm that. What are the major developer differences between games and other industries?

Hughlander
May 11, 2005

CommieGIR posted:

I'm curious about what sort of software development strategies do game devs use? Agile, Scrum, Waterfall?

Do you guys do test driven development? What about code reviews?

As with most places it varies. Agile or Agilefall as above is most common. Some where it's a 1 week 'sprint' with you and your lead saying here's whats next. (Not even Kanban just this is your focus this week.)

TDD is very rare but tests are more common. If it's a mobile game or MMO tests are more common both because of the increased complexity, the clear delineation of concerns, and the type of engineer that is hired for a backend is the type that tend to write tests. However I also was chatting with a friend recently who has been in the industry for the past 18 years and he mentioned that he's never been at a place that wrote tests including his own start-ups so YMMV.

Code-Reviews are almost universal but almost all are just rubber ducking. My current place does automated tooling of which I have mixed feelings.

My biggest annoyance is that DI on the client isn't really a thing still in most places leading to those drat god classes. Backend wise it's far more normal though.

Orikaeshigitae
Apr 28, 2006

never kiss a gun street girl again
Is there a better or more current resource for realtime tactical AI than F.E.A.R.'s papers? My impression from playing recent FPS efforts is no, but I have only worked at indie studios and so don't feel like I have enough perspective to say either way.

That AI developer seems to have moved on to actual AI research, so I'm a little puzzled as to the current situation.

eshock
Sep 2, 2004

Orikaeshigitae posted:

Is there a better or more current resource for realtime tactical AI than F.E.A.R.'s papers? My impression from playing recent FPS efforts is no, but I have only worked at indie studios and so don't feel like I have enough perspective to say either way.

That AI developer seems to have moved on to actual AI research, so I'm a little puzzled as to the current situation.

The state of the art is captured pretty well in the Game AI Pro series. The first two are available for free, the third still costs money but will be free eventually.

I haven't read the chapter but Killzone's AI is quite highly regarded for an FPS, that might be a good place to start. The Last of Us stuff I have read, and it's really good.

TacticianMagician
Aug 19, 2009

I claimed this title entirely by lurking around and not having a life. :f5: Woo! :suicide:
This thread is incredible and I'm so glad I found it as I'm just starting my own dev journey

KingBomber69
Feb 25, 2018

by VideoGames
I'd consider being a game designer.

mutata
Mar 1, 2003

You're hired!

Canine Blues Arooo
Jan 7, 2008

when you think about it...i'm the first girl you ever spent the night with

Grimey Drawer

KingBomber69 posted:

I'd consider being a game designer.

But, do you have ideas??

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!
Is there a reason why all these delay announcements are happening right now? In a big wave, I mean.

Doctor Soup
Nov 4, 2009

I have nothing but confidence in you, and very little of that.
Question for US game devs:

How common are binding arbitration agreements in employment contracts, and how often are they successfully negotiated away when you’re discussing employment terms for a new position?

leper khan
Dec 28, 2010
Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

Doctor Soup posted:

Question for US game devs:

How common are binding arbitration agreements in employment contracts, and how often are they successfully negotiated away when you’re discussing employment terms for a new position?

Extremely; never tried and I imagine very infrequently.

Depending on the state, the enforcement of that clause varies. Talk to a lawyer. :shrug:

Walton Simons
May 16, 2010

ELECTRONIC OLD MEN RUNNING THE WORLD
Have any of you ever worked on a game with a famous/infamous difficulty spike or even directly on that part of the game? Not so much games like Dark Souls which are meant to frustrate, I'm thinking stuff like the shooting asteroids part of Dead Space, the parking lot tutorial in Driver or 'all you had to do was follow the drat train, CJ!'. What made it such a spike? Did you know it was going to make people struggle before it left the studio?

kznlol
Feb 9, 2013
Somewhat random curiosity:

One of the FPS games I played in early testing phases recently used UE4, and had a console command that allowed you to specify your mouse sensitivity by first inputting your mouse DPI and then inputting a desired distance (in inches) of mouse travel required for a 360.

This was super convenient for me (and for a lot of other players who played the game) because I really dislike having different sensitivity in different FPS games. Is doing something like this actually difficult? Why do I not see similar options (at least, for instance, displaying the required mouse travel for a 360 in the game somewhere) in other games?

Buckwheat Sings
Feb 9, 2005
Anyone work at Riot?

What's with all their recent negative glassdoor reviews? Are they trolls or is the studio having issues?

Is that kind of thing normal?

Canine Blues Arooo
Jan 7, 2008

when you think about it...i'm the first girl you ever spent the night with

Grimey Drawer

Buckwheat Sings posted:

Anyone work at Riot?

What's with all their recent negative glassdoor reviews? Are they trolls or is the studio having issues?

Is that kind of thing normal?

It's pretty standard to see negative reviews on Glassdoor. It's a useful site for sure, but it's also a place where people with an axe to grind go to air grievances. I've not worked there, but the folks I've spoken to that have worked there have had good things to say about Riot.

Hughlander
May 11, 2005

Buckwheat Sings posted:

Anyone work at Riot?

What's with all their recent negative glassdoor reviews? Are they trolls or is the studio having issues?

Is that kind of thing normal?

I’ve never seen trolls on Glassdoor but it’s not that simple. There’s two part of the reviews. The facts and the feelings. The feelings are always correct it’s what the reviewer feels after all. Ie: the company is going down hill. People are depressed/ scared etc... then there’s the facts which oddly is usually where things are wrong. Ie: They promote from nepotism, there’s no long term plans etc... usually the people giving the reviews are QA or something and aren’t privy to the things they’re bitching about.

Which is another thing. Look to the reviews written by full time employees. Preferably engineers and producers as they tend to know what’s going on.

OneEightHundred
Feb 28, 2008

Soon, we will be unstoppable!
I dunno if I'd call them trolls, but I've seen reviews on Glassdoor that are almost definitely fictional.

There are also a handful that are literally outside commentary from people that have no idea what goes on inside the company.

(I don't work for Riot.)

kznlol posted:

One of the FPS games I played in early testing phases recently used UE4, and had a console command that allowed you to specify your mouse sensitivity by first inputting your mouse DPI and then inputting a desired distance (in inches) of mouse travel required for a 360.

This was super convenient for me (and for a lot of other players who played the game) because I really dislike having different sensitivity in different FPS games. Is doing something like this actually difficult? Why do I not see similar options (at least, for instance, displaying the required mouse travel for a 360 in the game somewhere) in other games?
There are a few complications:

You'd need to get everyone to agree on a standard, it would probably needs to be kicked off by a third party because the incentive for every developer is, if anything, to match the sensitivity behavior of their own games.

Physical distance to turn distance isn't necessarily linear. There can be acceleration curves, contextual modifiers (zoom-in), and pitch/yaw might have different sensitivities (usually less pitch sensitivity).

Ideal sensitivity isn't necessarily the same for different games anyway. The whole point of sensitivity controls on gaming mice is that it's not necessarily the same in different parts of the same game.

OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 06:51 on May 30, 2018

TiredDaemon
Jul 14, 2006

Xythar, Kill: Spoonsy, ##Vote: TiredDaemon

Buckwheat Sings posted:

Anyone work at Riot?

What's with all their recent negative glassdoor reviews? Are they trolls or is the studio having issues?

Is that kind of thing normal?

Sort of. The reviews are true but a very narrow slice of what has happened. Something to consider, Riot has more than 3,000 employees and due to the heavily decentralized nature of the company, there are many parts that are amazing, and a few parts which are pretty crappy. Separately the company is trying to shift around many pieces to grow into a healthier development organization for the long term, and that is also painful. The good or bad experiences are mostly based on what teams you work with, rather than a specific discipline being good or bad.

Disclaimer: I worked at Riot for many years and just recently left.

foutre
Sep 4, 2011

:toot: RIP ZEEZ :toot:
Edit : but yeah, I'm sure many of them are just totally legitimate as well.

I think if there's been a spike of v negative reviews from people who don't actually work there just recently that's probably related to them canceling a big community event last Friday due to technical problems. People were awfully mad and posting in glassdoor is definitely the kind of thing the League of Legends fanbase would do.

Studio
Jan 15, 2008



Yeah, it looks like a lot of negatives were from before last Friday, so probably not related to the event cancelling.

Glassdoor is a very "grain of salt" website. There's usually useful information, but it's very possible for both fake positive and negative reviews to appear, and you absolutely have to find reviews relevant to your position and location. In my opinion looking for trends is probably the most useful thing. Like, if the negatives are "work life balance sucks" and the positives mention it as well (or some sappy way to say it's actually a good thing), then you can probably expect your work life balance to suck.

RazzleDazzleHour
Mar 31, 2016

I'm looking to get into game development as an artist, but I'm not sure what a good/correct approach is. I have a BFA in Studio (heh) Art, but I don't have any industry experience or even really a portfolio of digital art. Right now I'm more concerned with getting a job than having my dream job, so considering I'm at ground zero, what would be a better course of action - double down on a digital art portfolio and try to apply at a larger company as a concept artist, or self-teach myself some of the modeling programs like Zbrush and Maya and open myself to work at smaller companies that don't hire dedicated concept artists? My other consideration is to go back to school somewhere where a bunch of my credits transfer and blaze through a program as fast as possible with hopes of an internship and a more career-relevant degree.

(for the record, I have a second degree in art education and just quit my teaching job)

leper khan
Dec 28, 2010
Honest to god thinks Half Life 2 is a bad game. But at least he likes Monster Hunter.

RazzleDazzleHour posted:

I'm looking to get into game development as an artist, but I'm not sure what a good/correct approach is. I have a BFA in Studio (heh) Art, but I don't have any industry experience or even really a portfolio of digital art. Right now I'm more concerned with getting a job than having my dream job, so considering I'm at ground zero, what would be a better course of action - double down on a digital art portfolio and try to apply at a larger company as a concept artist, or self-teach myself some of the modeling programs like Zbrush and Maya and open myself to work at smaller companies that don't hire dedicated concept artists? My other consideration is to go back to school somewhere where a bunch of my credits transfer and blaze through a program as fast as possible with hopes of an internship and a more career-relevant degree.

(for the record, I have a second degree in art education and just quit my teaching job)

I’m an engineer, but my understanding for artists is that your portfolio is the only thing that matters.

You’ll probably have an easier time getting a job doing UI or character art or props than pure concept.

Make sure your portfolio shows your best work; maybe target portfolios to positions the way you would target a resume (cut landscapes or props for character positions, etc).

RazzleDazzleHour
Mar 31, 2016

leper khan posted:

Im an engineer, but my understanding for artists is that your portfolio is the only thing that matters.

Youll probably have an easier time getting a job doing UI or character art or props than pure concept.

Make sure your portfolio shows your best work; maybe target portfolios to positions the way you would target a resume (cut landscapes or props for character positions, etc).

Yeah, strong emphasis on portfolio is how art school application worked too, that's the advice I gave to students. I also have like three different resumes I use for different job types depending on what I'm applying for, but haven't begun a real job hunt though for this situation. Everything I'd be putting together for a portfolio would be from scratch starting now so I can start targeting for those things. Wouldn't have considered UI though, that would be fun to try out, but the only thing I can think of doing to practice would be to try and improve the UI of games that are already released. For character art, mix of portrait and full-body? More completed drawings, gesture sketches, or both again?

Studio
Jan 15, 2008



RazzleDazzleHour posted:

Studio (heh) Art,

:yeah:

Do you have art experience outside of school and teaching? You mentioned industry experience, just confirming if you have experience elsewhere (marketing, freelancing, etc.). As far as I've seen, portfolio is key for entry, and experience with a good portfolio shows that you can work under restrictions (usually time). I don't think you could get into a senior position, but it'd be nice if you could say "I've worked under these constraints and still produced quality art."

mutata
Mar 1, 2003

Character artist in games means 3D character artist, so keep that in mind. If you're a painter, you could chase concept art, but (A) a concept artist is more of an idea/solution generator than a painter and (B) concept art is generally the single most difficult position to land in games. If you have graphic design/motion graphics/UI interests, then UI/UX are positions that are frequently in demand. Beyond that, there's very little exclusively 2D art roles in games. Even companies that are big enough to employ dedicated texture artists use photogrammetry, procedural generation, and 3d sculpting to make their materials.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
On the other hand, the mobile game industry does still use tons of 2D art, which could be a good direction if you really love 2D.

mutata
Mar 1, 2003

Ah, good point.

Orikaeshigitae
Apr 28, 2006

never kiss a gun street girl again
Look at your skillset, think of the kinds of techniques and approaches you prefer, then go find where those are being used. This takes a lot of research and independent thought. Then make a portfolio based on those contexts.

MC 68000
Dec 22, 2007

Fuck the Z80

Buckwheat Sings posted:

Anyone work at Riot?

What's with all their recent negative glassdoor reviews? Are they trolls or is the studio having issues?

Is that kind of thing normal?

Some of the negative reviews is legit..[you can usually tell, the multi paragraph ones that go into detail] even the negative reviews praise pay and benefits but there is more to a job than just that. As for issues I'll put this out there. 2000+ people in the Bundy/Olympic campus. 1 game in 10 years.

League and E-sports are super strong teams but that doesn't take 2000 people to maintain/operate.

They used to brag [LOL @ hungry and humble there] about being on Fortunes top places to work for list, but lately they're not even in the top 100 while "That other place" in Irvine is always on the list. That being said Riot's pay scale is better than Blizzards without a doubt.


MC 68000 fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jun 2, 2018

Buckwheat Sings
Feb 9, 2005
Geez you're right. What would cause all that stuff? Valve hasn't been doing much either aside from their upcoming card game. Is it just one of those fear things startups into big studios have once they're big?

Brackhar
Aug 26, 2006

I'll give you a definite maybe.

Buckwheat Sings posted:

Anyone work at Riot?

What's with all their recent negative glassdoor reviews? Are they trolls or is the studio having issues?

Is that kind of thing normal?

Back in October the leadership of the company changed (https://www.riotgames.com/en/explore/founders-lane-swap). This is in turn changing a bit of how the company runs. I don't want to get into specifics, but so far I agree with everything that I'm aware has changed, and as a result and I'm quite optimistic about the future of the studio. That said, any time a leadership shift happens it'll make people uneasy, so I think at least some of that is being reflected in the reviews.

Brackhar fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Jun 11, 2018

cubicle gangster
Jun 26, 2005

magda, make the tea
I work at a creative studio of 70 people that has over the course of 20 years employed 150 - in the last 10 years we've properly in a big way fired 5 people. We have 5 reviews on Glassdoor, all negative. It's pretty clear who wrote them.
Some scale perspective is always needed.

Terminally Bored
Oct 31, 2011

Twenty-five dollars and a six pack to my name
How does locking a release date work? Is it a constant back and forth between the devs and the publisher or is it a deadline you have to hit?

Do delays hit the dev or the publisher financially?

Cocoa Crispies
Jul 20, 2001

Vehicular Manslaughter!

Pillbug

Terminally Bored posted:

How does locking a release date work? Is it a constant back and forth between the devs and the publisher or is it a deadline you have to hit?

Do delays hit the dev or the publisher financially?

This post goes into how release dates and day one patches work: http://ramiismail.com/2016/08/patch-the-process/

Developers, the publisher, and platform companies have to come to an agreement about release dates, and parts of the schedule that affect that. A finished game that's not released literally never happens, an problematically unfinished game that is released sucks for everyone involved, so contracts frequently have milestones and checkpoints required to advance software production.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Warmachine
Jan 30, 2012



This is a general programming question, since it has been a sore spot with regards to a certain game I like. People ask for multi-threading/64-bit all of the time with Rimworld, and I tend to brush off the whole multi-threading thing because that is a can of worms I can't currently wrap my head around, and see as unnecessary compared to the constant headache of running out of addressable memory. I understand it isn't as simple as flipping a switch on the compiler, but what I don't understand is WHERE in the process it starts to become an issue. So my question boils down to two things:

1) Why in TYOOL 20XX since the release of Windows 7 would someone decide not to compile a game nativly to 64-bit even if initial design requirements don't predict addressing requirements to exceed the limits of 32-bit addressing.

2) What and where are the hurdles in taking a finished product from 32-bit to 64-bit addressing?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply