Category Archives: Productivity

Artist Career Tips, Productivity, smArtist thoughts

The Art of Getting Noticed – video speech and text

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Hi everybody! I spoke at the IGDA Microtalks a couple months ago on the subject of job-getting, being noticed and generally how to market yourself better as an artist. I had a great time and there was a fantastic lineup of speakers, all linked from the video below and all of which are worth watching.

Here’s my ten-minute speech, and below is the text of the speech:

Here are the slides: Jon Jones – The Art of Getting Noticed presentation slides

Last time I spoke at the MicroTalks it was on the subject of how to price and value yourself as a contractor and when to fire your boss. I was going to do another talk along the same lines, but in honor and sympathy of the two layoffs Austin has had this week, I wanted to talk about how to market yourself as an artist — be you contract or full-time employed — to help give you a leg up on the competition.

(SLIDE 2 – WHAT THIS TALK IS ABOUT)

I’m going to go over some techniques for building a great portfolio, standing out in the crowd, and how to increase your chances of getting hired using some basic marketing techniques.

For the purposes of illustration, I’m going to use character artists as an example.

(SLIDE 3 – DIFFERENTIATE)

First, DIFFERENTIATE.

Most character artists I’ve seen make the same four models: Space marine, naked man, naked woman, and character from a recently released movie.

If everyone’s making the same basic character, how is anyone going to stand out? Being an artist that creates high quality assets is important, but quality should not be the only differentiator between you and another artist. You want to seem relevant, but also unique and memorable.

Consider this: If a potential employer is looking for a new artist, in a “market” where there are hundreds of space marines, how likely is it that your space marine is going to be the very best out of all of them? Not very.

I see three ways to strengthen your appeal:

(SLIDE 4 – FIND A GAME AND CHOOSE A STYLE)

1) Find a game and choose a style. Pick specific games that embody a stylistic archetype, and make art that fits it. The more successful the game, the better!

For example, the Battlefield series and all 170 Call of Duty sequels are a good baseline for war game realism.

Mass Effect or Gears of War are good examples of sci-fi — clean and Star Warsy versus gritty, beefy, neckless soldiers in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic hellscape.

Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield Heroes are good examples of carefully calculated cartoon stylization.

World of Warcraft, Dragon Age, Oblivion and so forth are good examples of the different flavors of fantasy. Which, now that I’ve said it out loud, sounds much dirtier than I meant it to.

On the Facebook and iPhone side of things, do a little Googling and peruse the App Store top ten to see what’s most popular, and imitate that. Frontierville and Angry Birds come to mind.

The goal is to be relevant and match the pattern of what an art director or hiring manager is looking for in a candidate. Let’s be honest… most games fall into those categories, and investing too much time in creating art for edge case genres and styles when you’re trying to create a well-rounded portfolio could be a waste of time.

Something that’ll give you major relevancy points is creating a series of characters or environments or objects of a consistent style within one of these styles. If you can show that your work is consistent and you can stick to a style, then great. It’ll be easier for an art director to imagine you as a good fit for an open art position for a game in that style.

Be relevant!

Another option is…

(SLIDE 5: 2) MAKE A MOD)

2) Make a mod. Or at least a new character or level that 100% fully works within a game engine along the lines of UDK Unreal engine. As a side note, I’ve heard designers have gotten great results — in the form of “jobs” — by creating modules for Neverwinter Nights.

The real power in creating a mod and integrating art assets into an actual engine is showing that not only can you tart it up in MAX and generate sexy renders, but you can actually tweak and iterate upon it so it works in-engine. It demonstrates you can take a piece of art to final, make it look great in an engine, and have the technical aptitude to understand the engine’s tools and technical constraints and get great results.

Again, this is another way to show you’re relevant. Honestly, maybe 1 artist in 20 actually does this, which should tell you what a great opportunity it is for you to stand out in the sweeping sea of sameness.

(SLIDE 6: MEN IN GAMES ALL LOOK THE SAME)

Now, what you have to do to balance out being relevant with being unique is to find ways to jazz up or create interesting variations on existing concepts and styles. The state of modern games — particularly action games — is as such that if you’re a male character, they all look like Ben Affleck and the dude from Avatar had a giant bald muscled baby with an angry squint developed through years of staring at the sun and grimacing stoically.

(SLIDE 7: WOMEN IN GAMES LOOK RIDICULOUS)

And if you’re a female character in games, it’s even dumber with broad strokes — no pun intended. You are white, have a 12-inch waist, sport a couple of surgically-attached pumpkins and wear no more than 8 square inches of clothing. Also, you spend a suspicious amount of time running and jumping unnecessarily.

(SLIDE 8: BE CREATIVE)

Try to make characters or environments that fit within a certain style, but have unique characteristics that make it stand out from the rest of the crowd. Design a believable modular weapon for a sci-fi game and plan out potential usage cases for it, taking into account whether it’s first-person or third-person, how and where to put detail in it based on when the player will be viewing it most often, etc. How does it reload? Can it handle multiple types of ammunition? Are there modifications you can make to it like adding a silencer, scope, or a lightsaber bayonet?

Some other ideas: Design a base character and a series of swappable armor pieces for it, taking into account how other games handle different pieces of armor intersecting. Make a convincing female version of a character race in a game that doesn’t have one. Choose a really interesting setting you haven’t seen in games before for an environment piece and plan out gameplay for it.

Let’s face it; managers hiring artists are going to look through dozens of portfolios to find a worthy artist. If you’re making exactly the same art exactly the same way as everybody else, what reason does this manager have to remember you?

Look at what other people aren’t making or focusing on, look at what games are most successful and large-scale, and tailor your portfolio and personal projects toward meeting those needs. The easier it is for them to imagine you being an artist on that project, the better your odds.

(SLIDE 9: NETWORK!)

3) NETWORK!

Were you the kid in high school who sat alone in a corner, ignored everyone and filled his sketchbook with drawings? Once upon a time, I was That Guy, and that’s one of the fastest ways to fail in this career, second only to having no talent and just above never bathing.

Maintain your focus on art but focus on breaking your shyness, anxiety, antisocial behavior, whatever it is that holds you back. Keeping completely to yourself leads to failure and ruin. Period. You HAVE to network and be social to be able to pursue opportunities. If you’re not, someone else will, because they’re willing to get out there, talk, learn, and sell.

Woody Allen once said that eighty percent of success is showing up. And if you can’t trust Woody Allen, who CAN you trust?

To put this in perspective, every contract and every job I’ve ever gotten was the result of having known a guy that knows a guy. That has always stemmed from my involvement in the video game art community and attending all the game development parties and mixers that I can. No cold calls, no internships, no open assault of job applications. My career was created entirely through networking, though I’ll grant that I have been extraordinarily lucky at times. Still, this can work for anyone, because the more people you talk to, the more likely it is that opportunities will literally come to you.

Find a message board or website that focuses on art and start posting. Comment on other peoples’ work, give helpful advice, be friendly, and make friends. Build a network of friends and acquaintances and surround yourself with them all the time. Be social. Network. Thrive.

So get out there, make friends, and create a presence. Always be there. Always have a voice. Always have a personality. Be yourself. Never make enemies. The guy whose mom you said was so fat that even THX can’t surround her could be your boss someday. I’ve actually heard of this happening many times, so don’t shoot off at the mouth and hit yourself in the foot. And never use mixed metaphors.

I’ll say it again: If you think you can succeed by not networking, you’d better be a world class talent that lays mushroom clouds with every step, or you’re in for unnecessary difficulty scoring a job.

—

So that was a series of steps you can take to improve your professional standing, increase your chances of getting hired, and to make it dead easy to see what a great fit you are for a job.

Thanks very much!

Artist Career Tips, Productivity, smArtist thoughts

The Art of Getting Noticed

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Hello, all! Here’s article for artists seeking employment, contract or full-time. It focuses on using basic marketing techniques to stand out in the crowd, give hiring managers something to notice and remember, and filling out your portfolio most enticingly. This article is based loosely on my Marketing for Artists article from years back, but I’ve developed and refined my ideas vastly since I wrote that, so this is a much better article comparatively.

I gave this ten-minute talk at the IGDA Microtalks in Austin, TX on Friday, June 24, 2011.

Here’s a link to the slides. I’m not really a Powerpoint kind of guy so don’t expect anything fancy, as it’s always been about the writing for me.

The Art of Getting Noticed

In honor and sympathy of the two layoffs Austin has had this week, I wanted to talk about how to market yourself as an artist — be you contract or full-time employed — to help give you a leg up on the competition.

I’m going to go over some techniques for building a great portfolio, standing out in the crowd, and how to increase your chances of getting hired using some basic marketing techniques.

For the purposes of illustration, I’m going to use character artists as an example.

First, DIFFERENTIATE.

Most character artists I’ve seen make the same four models: Space marine, naked man, naked woman, and character from a recently released movie.

If everyone’s making the same basic character, how is anyone going to stand out? Being an artist that creates high quality assets is important, but quality should not be the only differentiator between you and another artist. You want to seem relevant, but also unique and memorable.

Consider this: If a potential employer is looking for a new artist, in a “market” where there are hundreds of space marines, how likely is it that your space marine is going to be the very best out of all of them? Not very.

I see three ways to strengthen your appeal:

1) Find a game and choose a style.

Pick specific games that embody a stylistic archetype, and make art that fits it. The more successful the game, the better!

For example:

  • War game realism – The Battlefield series and all 170 Call of Duty sequels are a good baseline.
  • Science fiction – Mass Effect or Gears of War are good examples of sci-fi — clean and Star Warsy versus gritty, beefy, neckless soldiers in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic hellscape.
  • Cartoony – Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield Heroes are good examples of carefully calculated cartoon stylization.
  • Fantasy – World of Warcraft, Dragon Age, Oblivion and so forth are good examples of the different flavors of fantasy. Which, now that I’ve said it out loud, sounds much dirtier than I meant it to.
  • Facebook iPhone – On the Facebook and iPhone side of things, do a little Googling and peruse the App Store top ten to see what’s most popular, and imitate that. Frontierville and Angry Birds come to mind.

The goal is to be relevant and match the pattern of what an art director or hiring manager is looking for in a candidate. Let’s be honest… most games fall into those categories, and investing too much time in creating art for edge case genres and styles when you’re trying to create a well-rounded portfolio could be a waste of time.

Something that’ll give you major relevancy points is creating a series of characters or environments or objects of a consistent style within one of these styles. If you can show that your work is consistent and you can stick to a style, then great. It’ll be easier for an art director to imagine you as a good fit for an open art position for a game in that style. Be relevant!

Another option is…

2) Make a mod.

Or at least a new character or level that 100% fully works within a game engine along the lines of UDK Unreal engine. As a side note, I’ve heard designers have gotten great results — in the form of “jobs” — by creating modules for Neverwinter Nights.

The real power in creating a mod and integrating art assets into an actual engine is showing that not only can you tart it up in MAX and generate sexy renders, but you can actually tweak and iterate upon it so it works in-engine. It demonstrates you can take a piece of art to final, make it look great in an engine, and have the technical aptitude to understand the engine’s tools and technical constraints and get great results.

Again, this is another way to show you’re relevant. Honestly, maybe 1 artist in 20 actually does this, which should tell you what a great opportunity it is for you to stand out in the sweeping sea of sameness.

Now, what you have to do to balance out being relevant with being unique is to find ways to jazz up or create interesting variations on existing concepts and styles. The state of modern games — particularly action games — is as such that if you’re a male character, they all look like Ben Affleck and the dude from Avatar had a giant bald muscled baby with an angry squint developed through years of staring at the sun and grimacing stoically.

And if you’re a female character in games, it’s even dumber with broad strokes — no pun intended. You are white, have a 12-inch waist, sport a couple of surgically-attached pumpkins and wear no more than 8 square inches of clothing. Also, you spend a suspicious amount of time running and jumping unnecessarily.

Try to make characters or environments that fit within a certain style, but have unique characteristics that make it stand out from the rest of the crowd. Design a believable modular weapon for a sci-fi game and plan out potential usage cases for it, taking into account whether it’s first-person or third-person, how and where to put detail in it based on when the player will be viewing it most often, etc. How does it reload? Can it handle multiple types of ammunition? Are there modifications you can make to it like adding a silencer, scope, or a lightsaber bayonet?

Some other ideas: Design a base character and a series of swappable armor pieces for it, taking into account how other games handle different pieces of armor intersecting. Make a convincing female version of a character race in a game that doesn’t have one. Choose a really interesting setting you haven’t seen in games before for an environment piece and plan out gameplay for it.

Let’s face it; managers hiring artists are going to look through dozens of portfolios to find a worthy artist. If you’re making exactly the same art exactly the same way as everybody else, what reason does this manager have to remember you?

Look at what other people aren’t making or focusing on, look at what games are most successful and large-scale, and tailor your portfolio and personal projects toward meeting those needs. The easier it is for them to imagine you being an artist on that project, the better your odds.

3) NETWORK!

Were you the kid in high school who sat alone in a corner, ignored everyone and filled his sketchbook with drawings? Once upon a time, I was That Guy. Hopelessly shy, didn’t understand the importance of networking relationship-building, and just kind of schlepped along thinking my talent is all that I needed. Sadly, that’s one of the fastest ways to fail in this career, second only to having no talent and just above never bathing.

Maintain your focus on art but focus on breaking your shyness, anxiety, antisocial behavior, whatever it is that holds you back. Keeping completely to yourself leads to failure and ruin. Period. You HAVE to network and be social to be able to pursue opportunities. If you’re not, someone else will, because they’re willing to get out there, talk, learn, and sell.

Woody Allen once said that eighty percent of success is showing up. And if you can’t trust Woody Allen, who CAN you trust?

To put this in perspective, every contract and every job I’ve ever gotten was the result of having known a guy that knows a guy. That has always stemmed from my involvement in the video game art community and attending all the game development parties and mixers that I can. No cold calls, no internships, no open assault of job applications. My career was created entirely through networking, though I’ll grant that I have been extraordinarily lucky at times. I don’t say this to brag, just that your chances of getting what you want and succeeding are MUCH easier if you learn to value networking. This can work for anyone, because the more people you talk to, the more likely it is that opportunities will literally come to you.

Find a message board or website that focuses on art and start posting. Comment on other peoples’ work, give helpful advice, be friendly, and make friends. Build a network of friends and acquaintances and surround yourself with them all the time. Be social. Network. Thrive.

So get out there, make friends, and create a presence. Always be there. Always have a voice. Always have a personality. Be yourself. Never make enemies. The guy whose mom you said was so fat that even THX can’t surround her could be your boss someday. I’ve actually heard of this happening many times, so don’t shoot off at the mouth and hit yourself in the foot. And never use mixed metaphors.

I’ll say it again: If you think you can succeed by not networking, you’d better be a world class talent that lays mushroom clouds with every step, or you’re in for unnecessary difficulty scoring a job.

So, that was a series of steps you can take to improve your professional standing, increase your chances of getting hired, and to make it dead easy to see what a great fit you are for a job.

Cheers!

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management, smArtist thoughts, Technology

Cloud Living is the Life for Me #1 – The invincible contact list!

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Introduction to the series

Here’s the first of a multi-part series on how simple and realistic it is to start transitioning into cloud-based computing. I tend to be an early adopter of new technologies, and converting to the cloud has been a focus of mine for the last year and a half. In this series, I’m going to go over a wide variety of tools, apps and websites I use to fully decentralize all my important data.

My end goal is to be so integrated with the cloud that I can access all of my information from anywhere on any device imaginable, it’s all backed up offsite, and that all my computers could burst into flames and none of my data would be lost. You’d be surprised how many of these tools, apps and websites are FREE!

This is how Wikipedia defines “cloud computing:”

Cloud computing refers to the use and access of multiple server-based computational resources via a digital network (WAN, Internet connection using the World Wide Web, etc.). Cloud users may access the server resources using a computer, netbook, pad computer, smart phone, or other device. In cloud computing, applications are provided and managed by the cloud server and data is also stored remotely in the cloud configuration. Users do not download and install applications on their own device or computer; all processing and storage is maintained by the cloud server. The on-line services may be offered from a cloud provider or by a private organization.

In short, all your data is stored online and you can access all of it at any time from virtually anywhere. And that is awesome. 🙂

As I stated before, I’m talking about the specific solutions I use based on my computer usage patterns. Many other solutions may exist, and in many cases some people won’t be able to copy what I do exactly (i.e. owning an iPad, using Google Music, owning the Google Chrome OS laptop, etc), but it’s a short hop and a skip to finding workarounds and substitutions. I am definitely not the end-all be-all authority on the subject… I’m just showing what’s worked so marvelously for me.

Contact lists!

Onto the content! The first part of this series goes over contact list management and how to centralize it and sync to your various devices. My weapon of choice is Google Contacts.

About a year ago, I decided to merge all my contacts into a single access point that I can sync to across all my devices. This is a simple solution to the following annoying situations:

  • I lose a phone. Contact list gone.
  • I buy a new phone. Re-enter entire contact list.
  • I get a call from a number I don’t recognize. It’s a friend whose number I have stored elsewhere, but not in my primary contact list. I don’t answer this unfamiliar number and miss the call.

As it is, my contacts were scattered across my iPhone 3GS, Gmail, Outlook, Plaxo and Facebook. Different bits of data are saved in each location. For example, Facebook has profile pictures, IM contacts, email addresses and so forth. LinkedIn, on the other hand, includes current job information and work email addresses.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have all that data in a single location? I hate fractured data! I like neat, tidy, ordered lists of aggregate data. It helps me sleep at night. Instead of sheep, I count sync points as I drift off into slumber. This is why I want to merge all that data into a single system that I can access from anywhere, and that’s set to sync to all of my various wireless devices.

Google Contacts is the Way!

Google Contacts was a clear choice for me. First off, I love Google and virtually everything they offer. For the most part, all their various apps are well-integrated and have always played nice with each other. They’re making such a bold move into the mobile space as well that Google Contacts has full, simple syncing with both iOS and Android devices, among others.

Second, I’ve been a Gmail user since the first beta in early 2004. All of my emails, contacts and other pertinent information already exist within Gmail and its default contacts list, including most-frequently-emailed contacts, profile photos, etc. I already have a solid base of contacts information, and this is perhaps its richest source. It’s going to be a lot easier importing and merging data from other services into Google Contacts than the other way around, I thought. (SPOILER: I was right. 😉

My goal is now clear: Google Contacts is the endpoint of all my contacts data, and now I need to pick which data sources I want to merge into it and whether they have value. Since I’m an unabashed social media whore, I’m on basically everything so I have a lot of options. Here’s the list of services whose data I exported and what kind of data I’ll be getting from it:

  • LinkedIn – Business information such as company affiliation, job title, work emails, work phone, etc
  • Facebook – Personal information such as profile photos, phone numbers, birthdays, email addresses, etc
  • Plaxo – More work information not provided by LinkedIn, including older alternate email addresses
  • Microsoft Outlook – Additional work-related information to cross-reference with other data sources

In order to accomplish this, I did some reading for what solutions there are for centralizing all contacts within Google Contacts. Originally, I was going to write the entire how-to guide myself, but to my surprise and pleasure, Drew Sikora from gamedev.net pointed me to a terrific guide that LifeHacker wrote on the same subject. I wish I’d found that first! It’s basically everything I’d already written, minus a step or two.

However, it’s very long on explanation and it’s hard to tell at a glance exactly what to do, so I’m still creating my own version. If you want a full writeup on exactly what Google Contacts is and how every site plays with every other site, definitely read LifeHacker’s guide. But if you just want a quick step-by-step that’s pared-down and streamlined, keep reading.

Step One: Exporting ALL Contacts and Information

Naturally, the first step is to export all your contacts and information from all your various services so you can import them into Google Contacts. The only reason I was even remotely comfortable with this was because Google Contacts has a *very* good Duplicate Checker that’ll merge contacts for you once you pump in all the data. Here were the steps I took to pull all my contact information from everybody everywhere:

  • Facebook!
    First, I installed the open-source Facebook Friend Exporter extension for Google Chrome. From there, go to Facebook and look for the new “Export Friends!” button next to your Home button on the top toolbar. This will walk you through exporting all your friends’ contact details (Name, Emails, Phone numbers, Screen names, Websites, Address, and Birthdays) and save it to your hard drive as a .CSV file, also known as Comma-Separated Values, which is essentially an ordered list many apps can import and easily understand. NOTE: This process will probably take a really long time.

  • Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail and MSN!
    Google has an extremely simple, straightforward FAQ on exporting contacts data from all of these emails appsservices, and you can find those instructions here.

  • LinkedIn!
    First, I went to the Export LinkedIn contacts page, selected “Microsoft Outlook (.CSV file)” then saved the file to my hard drive.

  • Plaxo!
    Next, I went to the Export Plaxo Contacts page, selected “Microsoft Outlook (.CSV file)” then saved the file to my hard drive.

Once you’re done with that, it’s time to import and integrate all this information! Most of this will be fairly straightforward and automated, but you’ll certainly have to do some manual trimming.

Step Two: Importing Data into Google Contacts

First, go to the Google Contacts website. In the top right corner, you’ll see three text links: “Import, Export and Print”. In this case, you’re looking for “Import”. Click that, and it’ll ask you to choose a CSV file to import with the “Choose File button” Select your first saved .CSV file from above.

For the sake of being neat and orderly, I’d suggest creating a “New Group” from the dropdown menu below the “Choose File button”. If you’re importing Facebook contacts, for example, call that group “Facebook.” Likewise for LinkedIn, Plaxo, Hotmail, etc. This will keep them organized into separate groups so you can filter them more easily as you’re cleaning up, merging and removing duplicates.

When you’re done, you should have an absolutely absurd amount of contacts, many of which are duplicates. Return to the main Google Contacts page, look for the “Find Duplicates” button and click it. Google’s duplicate checker is surprisingly good, but not perfect. You’ll find yourself having to do a fair bit of manual editing, but even that is straightforward. If you click two or more contacts in the contacts list on the left, you can click the “Merge Contacts” button to tidy it up.

Something else worth mentioning that’s quite important is what “My Contacts” means. This list is automatically generated by Google based on who you contact the most, and this is the specific list that will be synced to your mobile devices. It’s very important to select who shows up in My Contacts because nothing sucks more than accidentally importing over 2000 people (in my case) into my phone’s contact list.

Most of the time, for me, My Contacts starts out by default being half full of people that got on there for no readily apparent reason. To remedy this, you can remove people from My Contacts by clicking on their contact, clicking on the “Groups” dropdown above their contact card, and “Remove them from My Contacts”.

Likewise, you can add someone to My Contacts by going to the All Contacts group on the left column, selecting a name, and clicking on the “Move to My Contacts” button next to Groups under the contact card. Conveniently enough, you can make large selections and move them to My Contacts en masse.

After some pruning, trimming and massaging, you should have a very robust and complete contacts list. Now let’s move onto the next step…

Step three: Syncing to devices!

The real value of having a single integrated contacts list is to have it automatically synced to your phone. Fortunately, Google has made this very easy, and you can do it without paying for a service like Apple’s MobileMe. Granted, yes, MobileMe does a lot more than just that, but it is one of their more convenient and notable features that had never been successfully imitated until Google Sync, which I prefer. It’s free, extremely simple to set up, and it also syncs your GMail and Google Calendar in addition to Google Contacts. Perfect!

Google Sync has a list of setup instructions here that tell you how to set up Google Sync for the iPhone iPad, Android devices, Blackberries, Windows, Nokia devices, and SyncML (which I admit I’ve never heard of). If you follow that link, it’ll show you how to get it set up completely, and that’s the last thing you have to do in order to sync your contacts with all your devices, all the time.

Step 4: You’re done. Gloat!

Now, all your contacts and their associated information is stored in one place, you’ll NEVER lose them again when you lose or break a phone, you can access the list from anywhere, and if you ever get a new phone you can be re-synced to your contact list in mere seconds.

Barring Google suddenly going out of business and shutting down all their services, your contact list is now effectively INVINCIBLE! It’s also instantly accessible forever, and you really don’t have to go through this process ever again now that you’ve done it once.

Ta-daa!

The next installment of the Cloud Living is the Life for Me series is coming soon…

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management, smArtist tools

Productivity Tip #16: VisiPics for duplicate image search!

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I’d like to introduce my readers to a wonderful tool I was introduced to some time back — VisiPics!

Ever wanted to clear out your reference folder of duplicate images? Or clean out duplicate photographs you’ve downloaded to your PC? Or simply to clean up your project directories of dupes? If so, then VisiPics is what you need. Here’s the blurb from their site:

If you get too many pictures on your harddrive, downloaded or photographied, from several different sources, it may happen that you have many duplicates. In that case you need a quick and easy to use program that finds and deletes all your duplicates.
VisiPics does more than just look for identical files, it goes beyond checksums to look for similar pictures and does it all with a simple user interface. First, you select the root folder or folders to find and catalogue all of your pictures. It then applies five image comparison filters in order to measure how close pairs of images on the hard drive are.

It’s incredibly fast, the settings are easy to customize, and it can even discover different images from the same set based on how strict you set it to be. It’s able to detect the same images that have been resized or cropped, which is awesome. It’s surprisingly powerful, and free! I strongly recommend it for keeping everything tidy.

Here’s a link to the VisiPics website: http://www.visipics.info/index.php?title=Main_Page

Do any of you use VisiPics, or apps similar to it? I’m always on the lookout for good dupe checkers filesystem cleanup tools. Cheers!

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management, smArtist tools, Technology

50 tips, tweaks and hacks for Google Calendar!

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Hi guys! I’m coming out of a post-Germany haze of sickness to link you to some handy tweaks for Google Calendar. I’m a total nut for Google Calendar and basically run my entire life through it now. Here’s the link:

50 tips, tweaks and hacks for Google Calendar!

My two favorites from the list are as follows:

16) Facebook Integration: If you’re a fan of the social networking program Facebook you’ll love this script. It allows you to easily transfer your Facebook events to your Google Calendar so you’ll never miss a get together.
25) Better GCal: This script combines several helpful scripts including skins, collapsed headers, secure connections, text wrap and more.

Enjoy!

Productivity, smArtist tools

Productivity Tip #13: PathCopy for fast pathname copying!

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One of my favorite and most-used apps that I might not have talked about before is PathCopy. It copies a filename with full path info to the clipboard *instantly*.

Ever wanted to be able to instantly click on a file and copy its full path to your clipboard? For example, let’s say you want to send a link to a file on the network to someone, or perhaps you’re trying to open a file in MAX and don’t want to click through all the dozens of subdirectories to find it. Now you can do it with PathCopy! It’ll let you copy the long filename, the short filename (DOS 8.3 style), the entire pathname, the entire URL, anything.

Since it’s a Windows shell extension, you can right-click a file OR folder inside any Windows Explorer window and quickly click through it. It even handles multiple files and copies them all to your clipboard with appropriate linebreaks! It’s tremendously useful, and I wish I’d had this years ago! Maaaaajor time-saver. I use this dozens of times a day.

PathCopy overview: http://home.worldonline.dk/ninotech/freeutil.htm#pathcopy

Download link: http://www.simtel.net/product.download.mirrors.php?id=57104

Now I’m curious: What are YOUR favorite productivity widgets? Be they websites, hacks, plugins for preexisting apps you use every day, or useful little applications that brighten up your life, I’m curious to see what you guys use to wring that extra little bit of productivity out of every minute of the day. 🙂

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management, smArtist thoughts

Tracking To-Dos, Calendar and Contacts the smArtist way.

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A good chunk of the articles I write are inspired by people that ask me specific questions about stuff I do on a daily basis. Then I realize my answer to them was long and pretty detailed and worth making a blog post about, and then I do. 🙂 This is one of those.

A friend asked me recently, since I’m “always looking for a better mousetrap,” what do I do to manage my contact information, calendar, appointments, todo lists and notes? As a matter of fact, I have two nifty little applications for doing so! Click on the jump to read more: Continue reading Tracking To-Dos, Calendar and Contacts the smArtist way. →

Artist Career Tips, Interesting links, Productivity, smArtist thoughts, smArtist tools

The Freelancer’s Toolset

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I found something awesome on LifeHacker a moment ago that smArtists may appreciate. It’s called The Freelancer’s Toolset. It’s a list of 100 web applications to enhance freelancers’ productivity.

It looks like a fantastic list! Here’s a few highlights from it:

  • Stikkit is a central sticky note repository that interfaces with apps like Outlook. It stores names, addresses, birthdays and other snippets of information. It’s also open for collaboration even for people that don’t have or use Stikkit… and you can email it notes, too, which is pretty cool.
  • NetVibes which I use. Basically it’s the ultimate customizable homepage, much like My Yahoo, except more flexible. You can turn any RSS feed into its own window, as well as drop all sorts of kickass productivity applications onto one page. It even has separate tabs you can load up with different categories of information. For example, I have a tab that contains a calendar, my personal life todo list, upcoming holidays and weather. On another tab, I have a series of small boxes that contain RSS feeds to every major news site I visit. On another tab, I have useless crap I waste time with. 🙂 There’s a huge, thriving community of amateur developers that make modules and custom applications for it to make it infinitely extendable. I highly recommend checking out NetVibes.
  • Google Calendar – I use this as an embedded window in NetVibes. It’s simple, straightforward and fun to use. I also set it up to email and text message me on my phone anytime I have an upcoming appointment so I never forget. It’s indispensible!
  • FreshBooks – The Fastest Way to Invoice! This is a really cool and well-positioned company. Invoicing can be a bit of a bitch and this can help you keep track of it more easily. You can manage a huge series of invoices, send them by snail mail through the website, track the time spent on the job, accept payment online, manage work orders and generate reports. What a kickass idea!
  • ConceptShare – An online visual collaboration tool. Basically, add notes or paintovers to anything you need to, and have small sticky notes that can turn into miniature discussion threads that float on top of the image and have pointers everywhere. This is so damn cool, I may try using it myself with my contractors.
  • Meebo – Gain access to every single IM app on the planet through their website without downloading or installing anything. This is such a mind-bogglingly great idea. smArtists, listen up — IM communication is incredibly useful, and offering it can often be a good thing. Whenever possible, offer it as a quicker alternative for email for smaller, quicker questions. Even if you don’t use that app normally, Meebo can help. 🙂
  • K7 – A terrible name but an awesome service. This will set up a temporary phone number for you to receive faxes and voicemail messages, which are emailed to you. What a great idea!
  • Nolo – Got a legal question that pertains to contracting? Have it answered here and check out their articles and how-tos.

Any other gems I might have missed?

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management

Learning In Progress #8: Rigging change lists

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I’m dealing with contractors that are rigging models now, and I was thinking, what would be the best way to illustrate the problems I find?

“Just look at the shoulders” is too vague. Saying “the knee looks funny when it’s bent” is a little better but not much. It seems like it’d be most useful to create simple markers to show when, where and how the rig is broken. How can I do that?

What I ended up deciding to do was create a test animation (if one didn’t already exist) and scrub through it to spot issues. Whenever I spot an issue, I do the following:

  1. Take a screenshot.
  2. Note the frame number.
  3. In Photoshop, circle the problem area.
  4. Next to the problem area, write down the frame number.
  5. Below the problem area, write a brief description of the issue. (if needed)

From there, I send the contractor the separate screenshots I take as well as the MAX file with the test animation. That way they can open up the MAX file, scrub to the correct frame, look at the screenshot, find the problem and quickly fix it. It minimizes the amount of written communication by being direct, visual and simple. Saves me time, saves them time.

This is the best I’ve got so far. Anyone else have any ideas? 🙂

Outsourcing Management, Productivity, smArt Management

Learning In Progress #6: Contractor Kits

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I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and a fair amount of work lately building perfect modular kits for my contractors so they can get started quicker and have to ask fewer questions.

The idea is that I’d like to have one single ZIP file that contains everything a new contractor needs to get started on his asset type.

So that leads to the question — what does a contractor need to be able to do his job? That’s a big list, so let’s give an example. If I were to hire a new animator, this is the type of data I would put in a contractor kit for him:

  • Technical specifications. For each asset type in my game, there is a guidelines document with detailed technical specifications. For animators, I made another post called On Contracting Animators that has a good list.
  • List of animations. There’s a complete list of animations for characters, creatures and other animatable objects that I store in another, separate document. I break down each type of asset into characters, creatures, animated objects, and miscellaneous. From there, I break each down into structured lists divided by their role in the game. For example, creatures are either Melee (hand-to-hand combat), Ranged (attack with guns or bows), and Caster (magic user). Each role has a unique animation set, so I list all the animations in each set. This is especially useful for when I want to create a new creature, before I even outsource it I can say “Okay, Fat Ogre 3 is going to use the Melee and Ranged Animation Sets.” I don’t have to decide which animations it has one by one every time I want a new creature, because I already figured it out beforehand. Then when I send the list of animations to the animator, I can simply copy and paste those pre-made animation lists. Time savings ahoy!
  • The exporter. I include a copy of our proprietary 3DSMAX exporter plugin, along with simple installation and usage instructions.
  • The tool. I include a copy of our proprietary Model Editor, along with simple usage instructions so the animator can create usable assets for our engine. Why should I have to?
  • Animation samples. I have directories set aside that offer example animations of every sequence for each type of creature and animatable object. There’s a directory for the Melee Animation Set that has sample animations for every sequence in that set, and so on for everything else that needs an example. I *never* leave gaps in reference for things like this.
  • Style guides. I include the style guides relevant to the race of creature he’ll be animating, so he can see the other members of that race, their size in relation to each other, and get a sense of their attitude.
  • Scale guide. I have a MAX file demonstrating the scale of the object in the world so the animator can get a better sense of scale and how to animate what it is I’m giving him.
  • FAQ. I’ve assembled a brief FAQ full of common questions I’ve been asked by my contractors. One very important note I’d like to make about the FAQ: It was a huge breakthrough to me to realize that every time I talk to one of my contractors to explain something or answer a question, I’m generating documentation. Everything I say is usable. So I just remember to write it down in one document, organize it, give it a coat of spit-shine, and my project is better-documented. 🙂 Documentation doesn’t have to be a big ugly mess that I have to sit down for hours and do… it can be incremental. (why answer the same question more than once?)

I have all these files set aside in a special ‘contractor kits’ directory under another subdirectory specific to them. For example in C:workcontractor_kits you would find Character_Art_Production_Kit, Animation_Production_Kit, Environment_Art_Production_Kit, etc. Zipped copies exist in each of these directories so any time I have a new hire, I simply copy and paste the ZIP and that’s everything they’ll need to know, in detail.

This is an awful lot of preparation and organizational work, but considering my circumstances (straddling art directorart managerproducerartist roles simultaneously) it saves me a LOT of time. Or, it will, once I finish putting all of them together. 🙂

To the contract smArtists out there — what kind of information and resources do you wish YOU had from your clients?