The 2017 Game Animation Microtalks

[Music] hi and welcome to the fifth annual GC animation bootcamp this is the pop art I'm Mike John with lead animator at volition and co-founder of the animation bootcamp and I wanted to reflect on my approach towards creating an animation community it's hard to believe that five years ago there wasn't much of a game animation community presence here at GDC or held really anywhere the only time animation got talked about was by non animators usually about chasing after ever more realistic facial animation which would always lead to a bunch of animators getting salty on line because after marketing that was marketing talk not process after this cycle happened enough times I realized we can't get those people to stop saying what they're selling we needed our own platform a stage and for developers there are a few stages larger than GDC so armed with my naive optimism and my own selfish desire to learn more I reached out to animators that I knew and respected with far more

experience and talent to see what GDC could offer us we put together a pitch myself and seven others and we got a day all to ourselves to define what game animation meant to us after overwhelmingly positive feedback for the bootcamp and more animators wanting to present the next year we knew the train was not only on the tracks but barreling along the next year we had 10 speakers then 11 last year 23 and this year 22 which tells me we've probably hit peak speakers in the day in the span of five years we went from seeing only a couple of people defined while animation means to the industry as a whole to now doesn't speaking on the topic and not just from the purely aesthetic side either it also encompasses tech and design and all of the things that go into making characters come alive and with this platform the community that has grown from it has really been the best part I look out into the crowd here and I see so many familiar faces from years past the boot camp has become as much a family reunion as an educational experience more important than the knowledge we walk away with it's the bonds that make us stronger but growing up beyond just this one day as necessary yes we all have our various social media

networks to stay connected but how do we capture the enthusiasm and inspiration past one day a year how do we get more people involved ideally I want everyone that loves what we love to be in I recently read thank you for being late by Thomas Friedman which really cemented my mindset when it comes to information sharing in a world where everything is accelerating at the speed of Moore's law fully embracing the speed of change is how you adapt and grow in our craft the days of getting good at one thing and living off that thing for the rest of your life are passing us by the rate of how quickly things change means we need to be continually learning and growing our craft you can complain about the good old days when all the animators had to do was just sit down and open up Maya or Max or whatever and animate but that's akin to doggy paddling and whitewater rapids we all need to learn how to ride a kayak hell maybe even a skiff and because all of this can be a scary thing for someone to do on their own and businesses that thrive and make money off of the old approach of taking that knowledge and walling and off and

owning it are often too afraid slow or unwilling to help it's up to us the community to help each other out to provide the tools and knowledge needed to keep us all from gulping down water when there are boats all around us that we can get into and ride this information wave together and this here is where all of that starts at GDC today we have the boot camp which has 22 speakers across ten blocks of talks with five and a half hours of knowledge sharing overall every talk in here speaks to the different approaches and skills need to buy different animators across the industry to bring a character to life and during the main conference there are even more animation talks as you see here since the boot camp is only one day but the enthusiasm to share is so large more and more talks are appearing at the main conference I'll personally be practicing practicing what I preach on Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m. about agents of mayhem in the West Hall and while we're lucky to be here this is only a fraction of the larger game animation community who couldn't be here and democratization of knowledge is a key component of staying afloat the wave of accelerations the first step to

help them all out is to take pictures and notes of everything you see and share those with the hashtag GDC enim the second step is the animation exchange happening tomorrow in partnership with twitch in which we've programmed eight more hours of all new talks with over 30 speakers to be streamed free and live to anyone with an internet connection tomorrow from 2 to 10 p.m. Pacific Time animation is taking over twitch animation exchange is the perfect example of adapting to the new to the community because getting to DS 2 days at GDC hasn't been possible and the outcry for more talks and more affordable options is one that has not gone unheard by all of us and twitch has been gracious enough to fully support our vision of open knowledge sharing and then past that we have an M State comm which we've envisioned as a hub for all things game animation online I know we sort of dropped the ball with this last year so this year we've reached out to more of the community to help because many hands lift all boats if you'll forgive me mixing my metaphors here and if you have a strong vision for what you want this community to be or you want to get more involved there's nothing stopping you this all started with one person reaching out to seven others we

decided to build a boat join in arms and take a ride down the river and now none of us will ever let go Jack so if you feel like you're treading water as it rises all around you this is where you can find your life raft this is where you can find your community come aboard we're expecting you thanks and enjoy the show [Applause] it's so awesome I'm panicking guys thanks I mean I know but how's this work the mouse isn't it's a trackpad I read off my phone again cuz that's how I always practice because I only have one monitor so you'll forgive me here getting set up all right I'm going to be

talking to you about how all students know nothing and all game devs are jerks it's easy to spot a student like Neil finally seeing the code of the matrix you see the pattern the same questions over and over again you get used to being accosted for feedback and in turn used to hearing why that feedback is wrong and in time you'll come to peace with simply tuning the stupid out but students don't be discouraged because you're undereducated everything's okay because all working developers are [ __ ] anyway trust me furthermore they're easy to spot - conversations are tediously one-sided everything you say is wrong in some way and there is no tolerance for your inexperience does spend more time checking Twitter than making eye contact and you start to recognize they're already too salty about the industry to really be worth the time it takes to flag them down you should be at ease knowing that your younger hungrier and typically nicer than they are okay we're off to a bit of a rough start here but can you blame me I can all but guarantee that everyone in

this room has felt some semblance of these impressions at this point in their career and if you haven't well this could be the week for you I would like to know who as a developer please participate has been fed up and maybe a little sad after having left a confrontation with a student yeah come on and students past or present who was wound up in a precious conversation with a working dev only to leave thinking [ __ ] that guy where have these sentiments even come from I am in this unique headspace right now where I can vividly recall feeling the crushing disappointment of meeting a developer who didn't give me the time of day and yet I still presently find myself capable of seeing students around and thinking oh I just don't want to deal with this right now does anybody else remember the round tables of three years ago the students versus developers civil war well to me it's painfully memorable as a time I watched a community I longed to be a part of verbally thrash and tacitly label a community I was still a part of as uneducated Millennials without questioning for a second whether or not they may have been a little out of touch

and I've seen many more students harassing developers in the middle of important even private conversations with their peers who have clearly slipped away for five seconds of alone time and felt myself cringe thinking how exhausting it must be to be here and how tragic they no longer get to experience this in a carefree self-indulgent way nobody wants to act like this students are obviously trying to learn and as a dev I know I do want to help but if someone comes up to me asking how do I animate I get annoyed and I've pretty much typecast myself as the permanent freshman around here so what do we do well as Mike just mentioned this community is still relatively new and that means change is possible if not inevitable if I can do something to help even a few people in this room today I'd like to think it'll eventually snowball into a brighter tomorrow so I want to help students or anyone eagerly looking to level up their career talk to other professionals in less confrontational ways and I want to help dev speak to students without being exhausted or inadvertently making ourselves out to be jerks so students get over it

there's no shortcut for hard work that means stop asking for them don't ask about the pencil someone's using with an inclination it's the tools that use that got them where they are I spent my entire education studying Maya and I haven't opened that program for more than one minute in three years meanwhile as a professional there's a certain part of your career you take for granted simply because you're naturally inclined to work hard at it please do your best to have patience aren't you here to learn too how much did you learn only after you got your first job plus if you don't want there to be so many students bugging you then maybe there should be more entry-level jobs I know that's not necessarily up to anyone here but I bet a lot of this grief would go away with opening an appropriate outlet students could be like hey okay I get it I'm new I don't know a lot but I'm not desperate alright at least I'm working we can sculpt these noobs into the kind of colleagues we want to work with I know it's scarce out there but desperations not attractive on anybody learn to read the room there is a time

and a place for serious reviewing leave the tablet in the hotel room for the night definitely leave the 30-pound pro gaming laptop in the room for the night yeah we see you standing at the end of the bar waiting for someone to come get a drink alone so you can pounce on them for feedback and please maybe a job there are other important parts to working as a professional that don't involve your real and typically places like GDC are better for making those kinds of connections and try to remember where you came from I'm not saying you need to become best friends with someone 15 years younger than you but think about what even five minutes of conversation could mean to them where no matter what is on your resume the mere fact you have a job makes you an idol to them don't be the kind they regret meeting obviously this is all rather over the top extreme language into response to this community's collection of horror stories but its first thing Monday morning and what a better way to get the blood pumping than trying your hand at insulting a room of your betters but from this it is my utmost desire that this week you take a look at the

folks around you not just your buddies from years back and maybe make some connections you might not have otherwise made I'm talking meaningful interactions don't just network don't [ __ ] network talk to people be interested in them get to know them talk to me I'm in the first talk of the week and I have nothing better to do after this there were a lot of closed doors in 2016 let's start this year by opening a few in return my name is Lanna Wyszynski I'm an animator at Blizzard Entertainment rehears in the shark thank you very much [Applause] oh right this is I guess the first slide alright okay so I'm Matt kaan I'm CEO of midboss and we do a couple different projects recently our game read only memories just went on ps4 and PC we have to run the gaming convention the LGBT gaming convention gamer X so you know

today I'm going to talk a little bit about just political messaging and kind of you know how you go about pushing your message and if it's better to do it in an overt way or if it's better to be subliminal and what the costs are associated with each basically weighing the best way to get your message out while also weighing the market you know to do so we're gonna be looking at the implementation of marginalized voices underrepresented themes and interactive media and how strongly they're emphasized or prioritized other other mediums are doing this well you know this is not new if you look at at TV shows or comics a lot of other mediums are actually doing subversive work really well for instance with Empire you know on Fox you have AG a POC who's an on-camera lead-in Jamal and despite being a show about hip-hop and and big celebrities it also works in intersectionality and deals with issues like mental health and complex queer issues with Steven universe this is another show that I think is doing subversive political really well up the surface it may seem like a show about a

young boy fighting evil but actually deals with lesbian space rocks and in non-traditional you know living relationship and you know that definitely something that was not born on the surface even stuff like Young Avengers you know it's a comic book they fight evil they fight crime but also deals with you know there's numerous queer characters and it showcases their lives in a way that is not other it's very kind of like yeah they're just another part of you know the team but you know when you do games and you have to be careful about how you put your political messaging if you do your to over you're only gonna hit a certain audience and when he only hit that certain audience that audience you really you're limiting yourself to a very specific initiative people with games like Mario is missing it's you could say that that their messaging was overt but probably only hit a certain specific audience you with games like my ex-boyfriend the space tyrant this is a good example of a game that's very overt with its political messaging and that it's clearly what the the creator wanted to create but people who might not be

outside of the intended audience probably would not play that game so a good subversive game theoretically is a game like mafia 3 because even though it's a pretty cut-and-dry crime game it introduces themes like racism through the the gaming like play style so like when you commit crimes and white neighborhood is the police come faster things like that games like overwatch you know which is a first-person competitive shooting game also showcases a globalist team of do-gooders their unity and friendship across social and economic bounds is a kind of a political statement in itself and also tracer just came out which is pretty cool even games like Mortal Kombat 10 you know if even though it's a hyper violent game you have female characters that are top-tier fighters and they even have a gay character who is it's referenced in the story and he's still a badass and you know killer like all the other ones but he's just cool and badass but also he's gay and proud of it so really quick I want to show you another so I talked about some subversive games but I also want to talk about post struggle games so these are games that kind of jump

over the political ramifications of a lot of their choices and unusually they're made by younger designers so like in games like Star devalue you you can just kind of marry any one you want or in undertale that they're a sexual character there's asexual characters and gay characters and poly characters a wider range of people and and so while this is great there's definitely some issues in that it doesn't directly address any of the problems it just kind of moves past them and jumps over those issues you know we live in however these can also be great because it shows young people a better world a world where you know there's potential realities so if you look at a game like burrito galaxy 65 they have you know a non-binary lead and they're just treated as another person in the game and that's something that's really cool for young people to be able to look at and be like oh cool I can see that world so that I think there's benefits and negatives to doing Post struggle things so you know we do a couple different things we run gamer X which is the LGBT focus gaming convention and we've learned there's a lot of different ways that you can actually you know bring people in we do stuff like gender-neutral bathrooms and having pronoun stickers and stuff like that it's really low cost and it

actually allows you to a lot of benefit because it brings a lot of people in who might not be interested with our game read only memories we used a lot of the same tactics where you know we have things like gender pronouns and things like that at the beginning of the game that don't really affect the gameplay of most players but for the people that actually use those things they feel that much more engaged and won and feel like they're part of that world and that they belong there generally I say if you're making you know games try to put in a political message because I mean if you want to because people generally like things with a message for the most part there's a very loud minority that say we don't want politics and games but games are art and like any art politics are part of it subversive can be very appealing because you know when we make games and for a lot of people if you want to make things as I was saying earlier if you're gay if your political messaging is too overt potentially it might not reach that same audience so when you make things that are subversive you can kind of reach a wide audience and can kind of slip your message in however service if can be negative because sometimes when you when you're too subversive you're actually perpetuating a lot of the same issues and stereotypes that you're saying that

you you're trying to fight against and a lot of times if you're trying to make your characters to mainstream you're actually kind of taking away what makes them special and at telling them they just need to be like everyone else but ultimately only you know you you got to decide what you can what you want to make and what you met what matters to you and you need to decide you know if you want to try to make a game that makes money or if you really want to make a political message and only you know where you're what you're willing to drop off a little bit and add a little bit more but yeah I mean I think just just have confidence in yourself but you know in general you know make what feels right figure out your goals what you want to say and achieve but also allow for agility and I think you'll have a good time you can reach me at at con ma TTC lnn and I really appreciate letting me be a part of this okay bringing fans into the development frame my name is Mary so I work at lab zero games as the lead animator and art director and at

our studio we've had the experience of crowdfunding a game and a half we funded DLC for Skullgirls and we've got funding for our next game after Skullgirls called indivisible which we're working on now so you might that part of the deal and crowdfunding is that your backers expect a certain level of transparency in exchange for making your game happen many of them want a look behind the curtain to see how it's all done and teams take a lot of different approaches to transparency some provide write-ups and emails some provide gameplay videos some stream their development and some provide nothing and they run far far away with your money for us though we like to stream development whenever someone has a couple uninterrupted hours to spare so we'll stream what ourselves working on whatever it is we're doing to twitch for anyone to come out and hang out and chat for me as animator that means I get to stream myself animating I don't get to

do it as much as I'd like but I actually really enjoy streaming because it helps me focus when I know people are watching no more one minute that turned into maybe ten minute Twitter breaks it also helps people learn exactly what goes into making our games with no actual effort on my part I'm just letting them watch my screen while I do it I think it takes a lot of the mystery out of it so that people better understand our process like for our games art in particular which are 2d hand animated games people would think they're like Newgrounds flash animations or that the computer magically makes in-betweens for us so when i stream it they actually get to see me painstakingly draw every stupid frame and also what's nice about having another dozen or hundred pair of eyes is it sometimes the chat will spot things that you don't which is kind of hard to admit because of course you think you know everything but also I found that there were times that I didn't I was

animating a taunt for one of our characters in Skullgirls named Valentine where she sucked on a lollipop but then the viewers chimed in and said Valentine her official bio actually says that she hates candy so she wouldn't have a lollipop and I had actually completely forgotten and so I had to change it to a chocolate bar I was animating a wrestling move for one of our characters Beowulf I had keyed out poses that were physically possible but as I started to actually animate them I ended up animating his arms in a motion that wasn't physically possible and I didn't even realize it until the chap kept yelling at me and we have this character cerebellar who has giant sentient arms in our head that when they're not the focus of the animation I kind of fudged what they're doing in one animation I had accidentally started to animate the arms clipping through a hoop she was sitting on and the chat helped me figure out a solution and just generally

opening up your work to let them chime in you can actually learn things that you didn't know about I learned about wrestling moves for Beowulf or someone can chime in and comment on the music I'm playing and I can learn about some mouths but it's not all fun and games and getting work done it's easy to fall under the trap of not getting anything done because you got sucked into the Chad you definitely need to resist the temptation of jumping in to talk to everyone even though it's nice to be engaged you also need to be aware of what you can and can't stream or what's even interesting enough to stream sometimes my work is just organizing files or writing emails and that's no fun and you don't want to stream big spoilers either because you want your players to have something new to look forward to these are just a few of my experiences but the overall impact it's had has been really beneficial to our games and the communities around them we get new people all the time who just saw a retweet of a stream happening and get introduced to our work because of that and our willingness to engage and open up to anyone willing to listen and watch

I think we've built a really solid community around both our games and our team with new people coming in all the time and it's rewarding for me too to see people engaging with our work even when it's boring stuff like me trying to figure out how to draw a hand and it's a nice excuse to tell my co-workers not to bother me because I can shout back that I'm streaming so they need to leave me alone and hopefully by being transparent about our process we can also encourage newcomers to start creating their own games since now they've seen a huge part of what goes into game development by watching us stream and I think that when we get more people becoming interested in creating new and types of games we all benefit whether you're a developer or a fan more games and more communities around them means more stuff for all of us to play my name is Niall Cartwright that was my micro talk thank you okay do

this thing hi everybody I'm Matthew Russell I've made games for valve and epic and now Amazon game studios I'm here today to talk to you about engaging with your community especially when your community thinks something that you've done to your game like an update DLC or a patch really really sucks to do this we need to take a step back and see what community was like way back in olden days before DLC before weekly updates before games as a service before user-generated content held before games were even video games to have a community around back then a person or a group of people made a thing like a movie or a TV show that thing went out into the world to be consumed people bought it why and they consumed it the closest to a back and forth dialogue were abused by people who had their own TV shows to basically tell you if something sucked then in the late 70s and early 80's we finally saw the rise of video games first on consoles and

then on home PCs but like other entertainment content everything was primarily a one-way street a studio made a game shifted off to Game Stop and then they got started on the next one but with the introduction of PCs like the Commodore 64 and Apple - and don't forget basic all of a sudden people like you and me okay people like me cuz I'm old we had the opportunity to start creating our own totally radical video games but and on top of that PC saw the introduction of something called the Internet this let people from around the world who had common interests like video games connect with others not only could people talk about games together but then they can also start making games together and this assured in a whole new world of collaboration but like I mentioned before video games were pretty much status quo when it came to how they were created and shared with the world really just one way bulletin boards and then eventually forums gave players the ability to create and share their thoughts scores secrets and exploits it wasn't until the

concept of games as a service though with both subscription-based and free-to-play games that we saw the relationship between player and developer become really dynamic and kind of dramatic can you say SWAT so today's player developer relationship really isn't anything new though to see where its roots came from we have to take a look back at the concept of art patronage how this worked was a really wealthy benefactor would pay an up-and-coming artist or like a great master to do nothing but create art [ __ ] cool is that am i saying you're the next Leonardo DaVinci or Michelangelo I'm probably not but you could be the face of whatever project you're working on especially if you are part of a small indie team where everybody wears a lot of hats or if you're at a big studio that really pushes for transparent develop the development with their community well you found yourself in a position to engage in this dynamic new relationship what now well first you need to know your potential audience you got to group one trolls leave them under the bridge they

just crave attention group to pretty much everybody else well almost everybody else a thing to consider about everybody else is some of those folks they want to tell you what's wrong with your game and that's fine but then they want to tell you how to fix it and unless you read their comments and you're like holy crap you've got to work here now you can kind of leave their feedback as don't respond to now what well remember you can always say nothing seriously this is always your first best option anything you say is the verbal equivalent of gas on a fire I mean how many times have you seen a developer reply to an email or a forum post only to see it become part of an article on a website if you feel like you absolutely have to respond to someone first find out if you really are the right person to do it unless you're specifically given to go ahead you should never speak on another department's behalf like design art animation marketing marketing people kick your ass if you try to respond on their behalf so it turns out that you are the right person well here we go remember what I said before though and I can't stress this enough you can

still say nothing it's better to keep your mouth shut and have them think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and kind of prove you are an idiot so despite my previous questions you're committed to responding first thing to do leave your ego at the door it isn't about you your update or patch screwed up a game that they spent 30 or more hours a week playing if you take it personally you've missed the whole point of why they emailed and you've kind of already lost respond with humility and transparency if you treat them the same way you would like to be treated more often than not one of two things is going to happen either first they won't respond at all this happens more often than you think or two they'll do a complete 180 and be like holy [ __ ] I didn't know real people responded to this during your exchange try to find out what actually made them mad like you nerf their favorite character outside of trolls most people are writing because they genuinely love your game which is now kind of really their game too if you can find that thing you'll have common ground this is an opportunity to have a genuine interaction with them you can

take someone who once called you a complete dumbass and it was probably googling how to swat gamedev and turn them into a legitimate like outspoken proponent of your studio and your game but you're not going to make everyone happy it just doesn't work that way and as long as you're humble and transparent and no one to keep your mouth shut that's fine you'll know you're good and you'll be fine when all of that stuff shows up on Kotaku and it will thank you very much have a great GDC hi my name is Gabriel Ojeda and I am a freelance animator and co-director of Dame's making games not-for-profit based in Toronto that supports women making and playing games and I'm here to talk about how important engaging with local communities is so reaching out to a local games community can prove helpful when you're facing times of uncertainty

whether it's learning more about how the industry works wanting to refine skills or simply needing support during stressful times communities can be pillars that hold us up being a member of a local community helps keep that community active and an active community can continue giving back resources to those who need it like myself when I first decided to get locally in Toronto about tears ago when I was still in college as a student I stayed inside my college bubble for a fairly long time but once I stepped out of that comfort zone I found a lot more resources that I used to improve my art and animation skills I wanted to focus on my studies as much as I could to develop my skills and graduated with a strong portfolio in my second year of college I had gotten exempt from a couple of classes so I decided to set aside that time to get to know my community better and prepare for a post graduation life I signed up to volunteer at events throughout the city while also honing my creative skills I immediately

felt very motivated by the people I met artists and designers who had been in games for long a solace less who are in a similar position as me need to the career new to the community not quite sure how or where we fit in this was quite the change for my original plan go to college keep my head down work hard graduate get a job I can be very shy at times I'm definitely not the loudest voice in the room and this is my first time meeting both of most of you so avoiding community stuff seemed ideal if it meant more time to animate but I found out that wasn't challenging or fulfilling enough and even though I am an introvert at heart I was accused to know what I could do to get involved with something well was still a student getting out there and lending a hand that these events showed me their importance in how it builds community during this process of volunteering and trying community stuff out I was also looking to find a particular space in community I could be a part of then sticking to one that felt right which is how I ended up joining and aims making games even though at

times balancing community involvement in college have difficult it was worth it College helped me develop skills getting involved with my community helped me sharpen skills I would need to give back to my community like not being scared of speaking from strangers and as a Latina immigrant my community empowers me and supports my voice as well as others who belong to marginalized groups giving importance to our stories and experiences amplifying these voices will always bring positive changes and both from my personal experiences and experiences within the community supporting marginalized groups makes a community stronger and creates a healthy and inviting space after all we are stronger together to reference an example Dame's making games focuses on women trans non-binary folk working in and playing games offering events workshops mentorships most recently our 15th member game gem fat patel 5 it's a

priority to have a space that is both safe and welcoming collaborating with other organizations is also key running workshops aimed at marginalized groups is great but it's important to work together so all communities move forward and the content is both respectful and benefits those who it is aimed at and teams making games has been organizing and educate for two years program around in partnership with local Toronto group indigenous roots to offer a long form program to indigenous women interested in making games providing them with the space equipment and mentorship to do so if members thrive the community also thrives living the purpose of community in the hands of members gives a chance for everyone to shape community according to its interests and values this also ensures members get the support that they need I realized that I can be dedicated to both my art and my community while I was reluctant at first

to get involved with anything relating to community I very quickly felt its impact in how I communicated with others and how I prioritize my time in general in conclusion reaching out locally is important because it's a chance to get involved in ways that can impact you creatively and an opportunity to find support among artists and developers in your area my personal takeaway is that as a younger artist it has inspired my creativity and my passion for being involved with communities that support marginalized groups communities that give us opportunities to grow inspiring us to keep going and had a dedicated myself only to work and nothing else I would have never had a chance to some of these experiences that influenced me creatively having those very unique connections will never hinder work it will only strengthen it even more thank you okay good morning

good morning holy [ __ ] there's Lottie my name is Gwen and I'm a technical animator I've been in the industry for about a decade now most recently I co-founded a small studio in Boston and we launched the flame in the flood one year ago today we have we're up for two awards at the IGF yeah but I'm not here today to talk about that the topic today is community which is fantastic I'm really glad we get to talk about this communities are wonderful I there's absolutely no negatives being a part of a community and I want to go over some of several of the benefits that there are to being in a community the first thing I want to talk about is how beneficial engaging the community is for your skill as an animator I remember when I started out as a student I thought the time I would spend animating would make me a better animator but it turns out the time you spent on social

media makes you a better animator and so I think I'd like to talk about how to do that I think the first thing everyone here should do is to go on Reddit and find all the sub reddits they have to do with gaming animation and follow them then I think you should find like several hundred people to follow on Twitter there's Pinterest boards websites tumblr blogs as people twitch streaming in themselves and there's YouTube videos with tips and tricks and shorts and you need to look at all these resources because the reality is resources are what's gonna make you a better animator and every now and then you're gonna find some resources that are truly fantastic like no [ __ ] Christians YouTube videos are actually really good like they're fantastic and they might inspire you like if you watch these videos you might be inspired to make better animations or something better might happen you might be inspired to make your own YouTube videos and this is great because if you're doing this then you're engaging the community directly I mean you're engaging the community as a youtuber rather than as an animator

but that's what you want because in reality it's the likes you get on your videos and the number of views and the content you make that's not animation that really determines your skill as an animator you'll know you're making it when you're making Twitter polls and podcasts I mean I can hear you I know what you're thinking you're like but Gwen I want to animate I want to be an animator shouldn't I be animating no that's the wrong idea it's talking about animation it's thinking about animation it's reading about it that's what makes you a better animator and the community will help you get there there's other benefits to being in community as well for instance the collaborative problem-solving we do as a community is really beneficial when you're looking through all these YouTube videos you're gonna realize that we've already got a lot of these things figured out like if I want to animate a character landing I know exactly how a character should Lynn it's been drilled into my head I've seen it over and over and I think that's fantastic because we troubleshoot these

problems together we save so much time and energy as developers and honestly I think the best-case scenario is when we all come together as an industry and we turn gaem development into a collaborative experience you have to understand I'm an Indian even when I was in triple-a like the hardest part about making a game is pre-production bring out exactly what it is you should be making you have all these goals and like you want to eat and if you you can't you just can't figure out what to do and it's very stressful but fortunately last year we came together as an industry and we realized we just need to make a character-based shooter with MOBA elements and it's really comforting when your livelihood comes from your art to know that we have all come to this conclusion because that means it's probably right oh god I forgot the best part about being in a community is of course the feedback you've got and I don't just mean like the animation community though the animation community and the game development community will give you great feedback but the gaming community man they go above and beyond they're

great at reaching out and letting you know what they think they'll find you they'll they'll write you emails they'll write you reviews they'll find you on Twitter they'll find you they'll find you a LinkedIn that's weird oh here's a fun thing they can't on so when somebody on Steam decides they want to return your game and they want to refund they can write you a little note to let you know why like here's some of the things people have written us the letter T characters so ugly I shat my pants Wow we had an impact there they and and and some some people get a little stressed out by this I know because it seems like when people give you these reviews what they say they want an actual metrics and purchasing data don't align it all but that's the community doing you a favor really and I think the best case say for this is warfarin warframe is a game that one of the highest-grossing games on Steam last year did super well and the reviews are quite negative but the gamers put so much time and energy into reviewing that game they really did the

research and I think that's why warframe is such a good game really and I think the Deaf's appreciate that and so in conclusion I hope you've learned three things from this talk I hope you know that you should research as much as possible use social media for this I think you should know that you don't need to reinvent the wheel the community has made the perfect wheel use the wheel and I think you should immerse yourself in the feedback directly from your gamers I hope you're a part of all these communities and I hope you go ahead and follow me if you'd like to be part of my community I'm Jared goldfish on Twitter I have a podcast called the dialog box on iTunes and obviously I have a youtube account with tips and tricks videos check them out have a wonderful conference [Applause] [Applause] yeah it's making sounds okay there we go um I talks I guess how I figured out how

to be part of a community it took me a long time so here we go alright I am at majors a loner a rebel I attended Cal arts to become an animator nearly 20 years ago it worked and now I am I've worked at a few places rhythm in hues and Wetty and now for the last 14 years I've worked at Pixar I love working at Pixar now but there was a time I didn't and I couldn't figure out why I spent my first 10 to 15 years both in and out of school so obsessively focused on being a great Pixar animator that I neglected nearly everything else I was finally part of a community that I'd wanted to be part of so badly but I wasn't feeling a part of it by the end of my tenth professional year I was burnt out tired of animation tired of the wonderful community I was so fortunate to be part of tired of not understanding what my voice was in the art I was making if I'm gonna make something geez where we going here [Music]

there we go alright sorry yeah you wouldn't realize that I work on computers all day every day alright so anyway if I'm gonna make something it damn well better be good otherwise it's not worth the effort I'd love to improve and I love to see the before and after difference question was how do i improve if I feel like I'm done so I started asking what next am I gonna be a park ranger I knew it invested more time and effort into this than anything else in my life even skateboarding and I spent way too much time doing that so there must be something I love about animation I just needed to find it I needed to make something different of my own I love games so I decided to try developing one imagine you're all deeply aware of this developing games is really damn hard but it was great I was talking to a lot of new people who had different talents I was using my animation sensibilities and design skills to answer questions I hadn't asked answered before I hit ER ated the ever-loving hell out of that game a full twenty three versions of three

completely different mechanics over the course of five months as it started to wrap up I didn't really feel I had anything viable but I've learned a lot and established ties to a new community and was realizing that maybe animation was in my future meanwhile at Pixar I got lucky and landed a spot on the inside out team I decided to take four months and focus on nothing more than animating and getting to know people with more people with the intensity I used to pursue my game that way I could really answer the question do I want to be an animator I focused on making every bit of animation the absolute best I could I struggled to find the same truth in my work as I had in my game I ate lunch with different people every day because I did enjoy me enjoyed meeting new people while working on my game I communicated as clearly and concisely as I could about every aspect of my job my takeaway from those four months animation is [ __ ] amazing finding the truth in your work is the best way to enjoy it interacting with a variety of people is great critical thinking and problem-solving or everything but I still felt I didn't necessarily

understand my voice I love to cook I do it every day on a weekend weekends I go nuts it's physical it's mine the sear on a piece of meat might call ingredients I use my choice however cooking for yourself isn't really that much fun I'm feeding people their reaction matters it's communication I love writing scapes writing skateboards to Rampur Street skating today up to me throw myself off this massive flight of stairs if I really want to however I like to skate with friends I like to be part of a community for some reason I'd never asked myself this but one day I realized how do I know when and what to do in these other pursuits that I love it's what I like that's how I know how do you think that should be done that's the most important question that's what sets your work apart from everyone else's before becoming burnt out I worked in a vacuum of my own making I was so focused on trying to be great I was ignoring everything else including myself you can't become great by trying to be great you can however find the truth in your work that thing that gets you excited and used that to make your work the best

it can be whether you thought of as great or not is not up to you the only thing you've got is yourself your mind your thoughts your actions and so it's a weird message for a taco community I know but it's true if you're approaching a job your friends your communities from a point of view other than your own you're not giving much and you're getting even less so it's your decision however when you're working on someone else's project that work is only yours to a point how the hell do you deal with that well your first passes everything this is your moment to make your work what you think it's supposed to be do that make damn sure it's clear it communicates your ideas about both physics and feelings and fits well with the work around it by doing this when you get direction you'll know where you've been and it makes it that much easier to talk about where the work needs to go you have a point of reference if not you'll be chasing someone else's ideas through a void so get the hell out of your read learn something new maybe it's about animation maybe it's about architecture just do and learn other things you'll gain new knowledge and you'll gain the

ability to observe what you do through a new lens this will help you understand what you want out of your work more once you understand what you like and where you're coming from interacting with your community will be a hell of a lot easier because you'll have your point of view as a starting place you'll be a point of reference instead of a part instead of part of a mob so I love cooking skateboarding developing games animating and I love the community of Pixar all those things I thought I was doing by myself as a loner a rebel I was doing them within for people I finally understand what I need out of it and what I need to give and I finally understand how to be part of the community so anyway thanks everybody [Applause] hi I'm timber Ellie animation animation director while that's a good start at first drag games and Lana asked me to share a personal story about GDC last year and so I hope I don't [ __ ] this up every year like many of you here I look

forward to GDC and specifically this boot camp last year was no different except for one minor difference and if I could write a letter to myself about any one thing that day it would be this you suck and that's okay hey past him right now you're probably on the phone talking to your boss you'd been enduring your repeated text from work all morning the boot camp is more important than work you thought to yourself but what you didn't realize though was that does those texts were mostly from your team they were telling you that they had just been laid off and want to know what the hell just happened so there you are listening to the voice on the other line about to find yourself in the same boat as them laid off over the phone with no warning and no severance soon you'll get a ton of texts asking what happened and realize that you should probably call your wife before she finds out through Facebook her only reaction will be to say I just got my knife sharpened can I go to your office and pick up your stuff it'll be a

good reminder of why you married her after getting off the phone you'll keep it to yourself and bury yourself in the talks of the day you'll even keep live tweeting for the folks here not there that's what this community means to you it's stronger than any layoff that said the layoff will still affect you but you won't see it coming you'll freak out a lot crying in your room more than once says it's the first layoff you've ever experienced you'll even run the animation roundtables and think you did a pretty good job when you get their reviews in a few weeks Tim this will be your first sign you'll also learn that getting laid off during GDC isn't the worst thing that could happen the people around you will put you in touch with recruiters and friends and friends of friends looking to help you'll make new connections and rekindle some old ones and try your best to help others do the same once home you'll start sending out your real to the places you spoke with during GDC you'll be fine you say you're not a dick and your reel is pretty good right but it's been two days and all

you'll think is why are they knocking down my door yet at this point you will not yet realize that you suck but that's ok as soon you'll get started getting extra work requests you'll be asked to take a test and say sure I'll do a two-minute cinematic sequence with two characters acting and interacting and it's due in two weeks fucking-a I need a job you'll also be asked about tech art roles something you hadn't done in years and Tim as much as you like posting Instagram videos of yourself all the [ __ ] time talking about your pythons is the last thing you'll want to do you'll have lunches with studio heads to see what you're looking for and that'll make you realize that you have absolutely no clue the people you are with right now will reach out to help often one will give you an amazing critique of your reel and you'll tell him next GDC that you felt like you'd let him down like you'd let a lot of people down because your reel wasn't as good as he and others had hoped it would be but don't worry though eventually that will light a fire in you but not before you finally realize that you suck

you suck at wanting to look for a new job at even trying to find a new job you'll find yourself caring more about helping o co-workers land on their feet than than you on your own and soon Tim you'll get depressed and you'll start drinking a lot too much to the point where you'll get sick and you'll need to stop for a while you'll step away and start concentrating on yourself and your family you'll do other things like photography lifting and helping your wife and it'll work through your wife's company you'll talk about their talk to game devs almost alien remember that feeling of community that you had a GDC when this all started you'll spend time outside of that lifting [ __ ] and hang out with your dog picking up your [ __ ] importantly you'll start to care again and one night you'll decide that you're gonna animate one thing every day and post it on Twitter you're blocking Xand breakdowns will be absolute [ __ ] at first but keep at it you'll get feedback from this community and be motivated by everyone's encouragement you'll still suck but at least now you'll know it and Tim you

won't believe it but not long after you'll get a message from Mike Bissell he's been following the hashtag and will ask you to join his next project just wait till you see the concepts it's a Boyan is dawn you're a boy with a dog so yeah you'll say let's animate some [ __ ] dogs you'll give him your rate and he'll take it right away you should probably learn how to negotiate that [ __ ] better you'll pick up more alert work like that and realize that freelances is something that everyone should do before working in a studio that learning how to divorce your emotion from your work can only help you in a team environment and you'll tell them during next year's GDC your old team will drag you to coffee weekly Brad Clark will help with tech heart problems and you'll learn to value those relationships more through all of this you'll watch others going through layoffs and to make sure you do what you can to help reach out because you'll remember what it was like to be where they are and while freelancing will be great you'll miss the daily interaction with teammates you'll soon you'll be approached to join a new company with an incredible team who reminds you of everything that you love about making games and you'll take the leap it will be perfect and you won't expect it to be

but it won't suck and that's okay PS Tim next year make sure to let everybody know that this letter wasn't just for you but it was for them any one of them could find themselves feeling like they suck at work at life at giving GDC talks tell them that yes things might suck now but the community that we build up around ourselves will be there to make sure that it's okay thank you [Applause] thank you - all right so like I said my name is Siobhan Shaw I'm a senior animator at telltale games now if you've played Telltale's games you're familiar with the story driven game play where you the player are given a choice to interact with an event that's taking place on the screen or to interact with another character in the game now what's so compelling about this gameplay is that we make those choices in our lives every day and every day is

a new opportunity to choose how you interact with others now I had an old animation supervisor and maybe he'll end up hearing this Jeff shew he brought the animators together before a production one time and I'm gonna paraphrase here but he said something pretty awesome he said to us he said that this job wasn't about you or your demo reel and that what this production was about was working towards creating the best possible product that we could together now what I thought was so great about this was it was a reminder that when we put our work first we focus only on our work we put our egos before everything else we fail to create these collaborative communities within our teams and within our companies what we end up doing is we forget that everybody around us equally has an opportunity to affect our careers or our lives in some way we end up failing to see is that everybody around us has a valuable lesson to teach the company and that

everybody around us can teach us something you you know you're gonna work with people from amazing Studios from across the country from all walks of life and from even across the world and you yourself are gonna be one of those professionals now this experience is invaluable and what we can do is we can find these opportunities to share this experience and to share that knowledge so here are some ideas on what we can do to build collaborative communities within our teams and within our companies doing animation demonstrations what our new member of the team gets up and presents a lecture on a workflow or a tool we can have after our type animation challenges for animators to work on their craft as well as provide feedback to each other even doing social more kind of casual meet ups and events where animators can get to know each other and even allowing

time for animators to get involved in R&D so they can collaborate with other departments as well it's important to remember to be inclusive and proactive in this company in your company and also within your industry and working collaboratively means getting out of your chair unfortunately sorry that's the sad part about it but what we want to do is I'll let you decide who the beauty is and who the Beast is but it's important to remember that we need to develop relationships outside of our departments as well start collaborating with TDs and effects artists and programmers and designers and producers these collaborations greatly increase the value of our final products and it means not relying as I mentioned on chat and email and getting out of your chair and starting those conversations and creating those opportunities attending company events getting to know your co-workers and remembering to always

behave and in a professional manner of course now the thing is that experience they can't be taught and that the connections that we make in this room in in events like this within your company the collaborations that we create are just as important as working on your specific skill for your career now Stephen King once said that we never know which lives we will influence or when or why and I think that this is so true especially when it comes to our co-workers Bill Nye once said that everyone you will ever meet knows something that you don't and it's a great reminder to keep a humble attitude in our careers as we recognize that everybody around us has something that we can learn from so to close I just want to tell you guys that we're all in

this together and that the the collaborations that's creating these collaborative communities within our teams and within our companies helps us push this industry and continue to make it great it allows us to have these fun exciting jobs but it also helps us build lifelong relationships thank you [Applause]