#this year I thought I’d be building my own new traditions with [redacted] in New Jersey

[lavender-femme]

someday i won’t have to cry myself to sleep. someday i’ll feel warm and loved and wanted and i’ll be wrapped up safely in my beloved’s arms and there won’t be anything worth worrying over. someday i’ll be loved. someday i’ll be seen.

[jenicon]

sorry if this isn't ok to ask, but how did you go about working for games? do you need to build a good portfolio and then freelance it? or is it a stable job at a certain company? or both? and did you learn 3d by yourself or did you go to some school? do you need to do concept art to do 3d art? i find im not very creative and get so overwhelmed but i'd love to do both, is that a sign i just shouldnt look into it? how did you choose this career path? have a good day

hey anon! It’s totally ok to ask! I’m pretty swamped with work atm so this is a refreshing change haha

How did you go about working for games? Do you need to build a good portfolio and then freelance it? I guess I got my foot in the games industry when I first got into art school. I was in a 1 year program for game art, with the program focusing mostly in 3D art. During that time, I had my first taste of making 3d art, did a bunch of game engine stuff, and even made some assets for movie quality stuff. As for the portfolio, it is extremely important to have one. Every interview I have had they would pull my portfolio up and ask me my thoughts, process, considerations, challenges, etc. for each piece. A good portfolio website to use is ArtStation. I am not sure which part of the game dev career you’d like to pursue, but this is mostly true for the art side. I cannot speak for the software engineering facet of game dev. Is it a stable job at a certain company? or both? It can be a stable job, but it most often is not. This career is notorious for not being unionized, as well as mostly contract work. Work hours can be brutal, depending on the company, time of year, etc. My time at EA was a bit of an outlier, we had amazing benefits (including dental and vision), a gym, physiologists, personal trainers, nutritionists, a VERY healthy cafeteria, extremely diverse teams, and just generally really good with work/life balance. I barely worked any overtime at EA, if I did I was paid and also got free food. If the team was doing a ‘team overtime’ to meet a deadline, our manager would get us catering lol. Also every Friday we had a buffet and drinks (including alcohol). HOWEVER, this was short lived as I was on a 1-year contract. It’s sort of an unspoken thing where everyone is fighting to get that spot for contract renewal. You get this sense of dread the months leading to your contract termination, having to look for a new job as soon as you can, or choosing to rest because of burnout.

Did you learn 3d by yourself or did you go to some school?  Like I said above, I went to school. It was hella expensive, and sometimes it feels like it wasn’t worth it. But I got the connections I needed there, and learned the ropes with much needed support. I never did 3d before I went to school for it. It was more of a ‘fuck it’ moment for me (my mental health was not the best then), and luckily I found myself loving my work. School is good if you need structure, or like you mentioned, if you feel overwhelmed by all the information out there. I think of my time at school as a first step for me. I did not learn everything I needed to know to get a job in the industry through school, but rather, I had to do my own research using the tools I was provided with by my time in school. It is a continuous learning activity; you will be learning new things until you die. Technology improves so quickly, you have to be quick on your feet and be willing to learn entire new workflows.

I find im not very creative and get so overwhelmed but i'd love to do both, is that a sign i just shouldnt look into it? That’s prefectly fine! I have not worked on an original piece in years haha. I find I’m not creative in the traditional sense where I can come up with ideas on the fly and imagine things up. I’m creative in the way I solve problems and think up ways to achieve certain effects/looks, and it bleeds into how I make tools as well. (ever see me posting 2D art? yea I barely do that bc I suck at it) You should absolutely look into it if it gives you joy. The thrill of seeing something you make move or come alive on screen is amazing.  Being overwhelmed is normal, and is completely expected. There’s so much information out there, it takes a lot of time just to sort through it, so take your time. Just be careful of being paralyzed by it into inaction; this has happened to me so many times. Just remember to take baby steps. One tip I can give you that I haven’t seen said out there: make your own documentation. I have a whole ass google doc of just everything I know about 3D art. It’s got sections for Zbrush, Maya, Unreal Engine, Marmoset Toolbag, Arnold, Python, etc. I add to it every time I learn something new. And believe me, you will learn something new almost every day. How did you choose your career path? What can I say? I just love making things pretty :) I come from a third world country, and the prospects for making art were... bad. I did not want to get stuck living a life working a job I hated, so I came to Canada to get into this career. Starting salaries vary, but to me, they were good enough and I had my eyes set on that. If tuition was X amount for me, my starting salary was close to 2X :)

I started in games, but am now working on a TV show for [redacted]. It’s been such a fun (but very stressful ride), and I hope to continue doing this for the forseeable future.

feel free to shoot me asks, I’m always happy to help a fellow dev / aspiring dev!

[altprobono-blog]

Trump’s Letters to Former Girlfriends Unearthed

(Philadelphia, PA, Oct. 20, 2017) — Just days after the release of eight letters President Barack Obama wrote to a former college girlfriend in the 1980s — after he had transferred to Columbia University from Occidental College in California — several women who claim to be former girlfriends of President Donald J. Trump have come forward with letters they say they received from Donald Trump when he was in his twenties.

The largest collection was released by a woman who was a classmate of Mr. Trump’s at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Like Obama, Trump also transferred from one college to another, and a handful of the letters were written to women he knew when he was a student at Fordham University in New York. Others were letters he wrote to women he had met in the New York City club scene.

Researchers have found surprising parallels between the letters penned by Obama and Trump, as both of them struggled to forge their identities as young men.

Excerpts from Obama’s letters, in italics, are juxtaposed below with similar excerpts from some of Trump’s letters.

“School. What intelligent observations can I glean from the first two weeks? I pass through the labyrinths, corridors, see familiar faces, select and discard classes and activities, fluctuate between unquenchable curiosity and heavy, inert boredom.”

“School is harder at Wharton than it was at Fordham. I have to go to class, which is really boring, but luckily I don’t have to do anything. Dad knows the Registrar so I’m not worried about passing.”

“I think of you often, though I stay confused about my feelings. It seems we will ever want what we cannot have; that’s what binds us; that’s what keeps us apart.”

“We broke up so I don’t know why you keep writing to me. I never think of you anymore. I’ve always gotten whatever I’ve wanted in life, and what I want now is for you to stop writing to me.”

“The only way to assuage my feelings of isolation are to absorb all the traditions, classes, make them mine, me theirs. Taken separately, they’re unacceptable and untenable.”

“College is boring. I can’t believe Dad is only giving me a million dollars to graduate college. He’s so cheap!”

“I’m treated with a mixture of puzzlement, deference and scorn [when visiting Indonesia] because I’m American, my money and my plane ticket back to the U.S. overriding my blackness. I see old dim roads, rickety homes winding back towards the fields, old routes of mine, routes I no longer have access to.”

“Over spring break Dad took me on a trip to a Middle Eastern country he said I can’t name. There was a prince or a sheik or something like that and he had a huge harem and we got our pick. Don’t be mad, you know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women, I just start kissing them. I grab them by the pussy. I don’t even wait, just like when I met you at Studio 54.”

“Salaries in the community organizations are too low to survive on right now … so I hope to work in some more conventional capacity for a year, allowing me to store up enough nuts to pursue those interests next.”

“I heard about a guy I knew at military school who decided he wanted to save the world, so he went to work for a nonprofit. What a chump, he can barely pay his bills. Sad!”

“One week I can’t pay postage to mail a resume and writing sample, the next I have to bounce a check to rent a typewriter.”

“Remember that guy, [Name Redacted], who was in my Econ class, the one we liked even though he was on financial aid? He was a perfect fit for this job that I told him about, but I heard he got his resume in late because he couldn’t pay the postage. Why didn’t he just ask his parents to give him more money?”

“I trust you know that I miss you, that my concern for you is as wide as the air, my confidence in you as deep as the sea, my love rich and plentiful.”

“You’re a 10. Come to my place next time you’re in the city. I’ll show you a good time.”

“I feel sunk in that long corridor between old values, actions, modes of thought, and those that I seek, that I’m working towards.”

“I didn’t understand what you wrote in your last letter about values. Call me next time, reading is hard. But don’t worry, the values of the stocks Dad gave me are just fine.”

“I don’t distinguish between struggling with the world and struggling with myself.… I enter a pact with other people, other forces in the world, that their problems are mine and mine are theirs. … The minute others imprint my senses, they become me and I must deal with them or else close part of myself off and make myself and the world smaller, lukewarm.”

“I hate people.”

“I am not so naïve as to believe that a distinct line exists between romantic love and the more quotidian, but perhaps finer bonds of friendship, but I can feel the progression from one to the other (in my mind).”

“You looked a little fat the last time I saw you. I’m breaking up with you. Bye!”

“When I sit down to write, I no longer feel the need to bleed for brilliance on the page; I trust the strength of our relationship enough that I can show myself with curlers in my hair, my will sapped, my confidence shaken, a bit peevish perhaps, a bit dull.”

“Someone told me you made fun of my comb-over. I’m breaking up with you. Bye!”

“The resistance I wage does wear me down — because of the position, the best I can hope for is a draw, since I have no vehicle or forum to try to change things. For this reason, I can’t stay [at this job] very much longer than a year. Thankfully, I don’t yet feel like the job has dulled my senses or done irreparable damage to my values, although it has stalled their growth.”

“Working for my father is fine. He’s teaching me things like how to keep black people from renting apartments in his buildings. I can’t wait until I have my own buildings and can keep them all white just like Dad’s.”

“My ideas aren’t as crystallized as they were while in school, but they have an immediacy and weight that may be more useful if and when I’m less observer and more participant.”

“I think I’d like to be President of the United States someday, but Dad says that’s for politicians that have something specific they care about, other than hating black people. But I think hating black people is enough. I need to make a few billion dollars first, but then instead of retiring I might give the president thing a go someday.”