Portfolio

I will be talking about 2 different things this post, creating a portfolio: Where to host and why, and creating level design documents: What to use.

---

Portfolios are essential to any artistic related position, level design is no different. Many have different opinions on where you should host your portfolio whether it is on: DeviantART, ModDB, or even your own domain. Well the truth is the best hands down is going to be to have your complete portfolio on your own domain which is normally your name .com or .net. Now the reason why we want to use your own domain to show to employees is to not let them be distracted by other peoples' work. Lets say you host on Deviant Art for your portfolio, it may allow you to show your work in sorted galleries but it also shows other peoples work.

Lets look at an example:

Now, domains can be a little pricey when trying to buy some top quality .com's. So if you run into a problem in which your name.com is already registered than try going for a .net or even a .org. Domain hosts are pretty common, I purchased mine through GoDaddy and haven't had any issues, but purchasing a Domain is only part of the deal, you must purchase Web Hosting, which will hold your portfolio and other files. This is where it can get really pricey really fast. I recommend Eleven2 both UTDTV as well as myself have had fantastic service and 99.99% up time. 

Now next time I will show you some basic portfolio templates that can be used for your website!

By special request I am going to talk a little about what programs to use for designing a level layout and document.

Well, for level design it is all really personal preference, when drawing you can do it either by hand with a piece of paper and pencil or on a program such as Photoshop. Now, I do suggest that if you draw it by hand that you do scan in your paper to a computer program such as Photoshop to clean up your design and finalize everything before shipping it off to your boss! As for your document I would say any word processing tool should work, but specifically Microsoft Word or Open Office.

Networking

This week I will be playing a little catch up, I feel behind on my blog due to school as well as person life and I am terrible sorry about that.

---

Networking is a very important part to any career, but more so in the video game industry. Networking is how you are able to get wind of new jobs as well as getting your foot in the door. In the past getting a job heavily relied on your experience, well this is true but with social media growing so fast you are recommended to be active in a social community and normally some game board. Now when I mean a game board, I mean a video game's online forum, posting relevant and constructive comments. For me I have been pretty active on Red 5's game forum, FireFall.


You can find me on there as "Shift`", feel free to add me!

Now back to forums and networking, well-being on a game developer’s forum gives you a limited way to contact the development team. I use the term limited because they are not required to use the forum or to respond to you. But it is a great way to connect with other gamers like your-self, and maybe just maybe catch the eye of a developer. This is one way to start your own connections; another is to attend game conferences and community events. These are normally gold mines for business cards, but just getting a business card doesn't mean that they are okay with you contacting them; it's just a formality really. Which means that you should go out and get business cards of your own! Be sure to include your name, email, and a link to your portfolio. Which I will go ahead and cover in the next post.

Well, I'm gonna go over my word limit here but... As promised here is my LinkedIn profile:

  Unfortunately, my connections were not comfortable with giving their contact information open on the web but I can make specific contacts if requested.
So just a recap for next time we will cover the basics of portfolio making as well as a special request about the process of actually creating level design documents and what programs to use to draw out the designs.

Adding on World Builder

---

In the last post I talked about being a level designer and a world builder, well due to time commitments I do not have the ability to teach you how to actually do world building or use the specific engine that you want to use. You are going to have to do that on your own. Though There are helpful blogs and tutorials that you can find for the specific engine that you want to use. Unfortunately I cannot provide links to specific blogs/tutorials because I don't know what engine you would like to use, if you want help locating one for your engine please post in the comments below and I will help you to the best of my ability!

That was a general overview of what this blog is going to be covering and hopefully some helpful information on getting started. I will cover some important topics next time such as networking. Including some of my pre-made connections as well as my personal LinkedIn profile!

Be sure to subscribe, and if you have any questions feel free to leave me a comment, I will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible! If it is important enough I will even include it in the next post!

Being a Level Designer

---

Let's first talk about what it actually means to be a "level designer". There are several terms floating around that are similar to level designer which cause some people confusion. The title Level Designer is not the same as World Builder or Mapper. A Level Designer creates the concept of the level in the regards to what is suppose to happen in the level, the purpose of the level and the over all look of the level. Now you might be thinking, that this sounds like a lot of drawing and art. Well, it sort of is. Level designers are normally expected to be able to produce top-down map layouts and be able to write, in detail, events that happen in the level and when they happen.  Now we run into our first problem, level design is a very abstract thing, and is hard to explain or show to anyone. It is also a very easy position to replace and doesn't have as much work as many other positions in game development.  So, solve this problem I suggest also specializing in World Building. In this blog I will be doing this, so you will be able to see the results for yourself.

Next post I will cover the basics of being a Level Designer and World Builder!

The Introduction

Want to get into the game development industry as a level designer? Well you are in the right place!

First a little about myself:

My name is Ian Owen, and I am currently the Lead Level Designer for Planewalker Studios and I work under the title of "indie" game developer. Even though I am the lead level designer I am still a student at The University of Texas at Dallas, and I don't plan on doing indie game development as my career. I am planning on making my way to the AAA sector of video game design. In this blog I will talk about some of the things that allowed me to get where I am today and how I plan on moving forward in the career, some of the things that you will see in this blog post are:

• Networking (via LinkedIn and in person meetings)
• Portfolio (How to)
• Resume (What they are really looking for)
• Cover Letter (To really stand out)
• Do's and Don'ts of Interviewing

A new blog post will be made about every 10 days. If you would like for me to elaborate on a specific topic, please let me know as soon as possible!