As I have progressed through this course I have taken an interest in games animation and wondered if this was a route that I'd like to go down. My brother is a games animator and has quite a lot of contacts within the industry so having a talk with him would be a great place to start. I have been looking at companies like Eurocom, Travellers Tales Games and Blitz Games, as I have noticed they had a few junior/graduate level jobs going. In anticipation of this, I have got hold of 20+ hours of tutorials for the Unreal Game Engine UDK. With this I hope to expand my knowledge of gaming animation and what is possible with the limited power of consoles these days.
Eurocom is a games giant based in Derby, they have worked on titles such as Crash Bandicoot, Golden Eye and Mortal Kombat. Realistically I could only apply to be an animator there, as they have very strict modelling poly counts that I have not been taught how to stick to efficiently. However I think it would be great fun and a great challenge to be involved with such a big company. I would be able to learn from a variety of people and really expand my knowledge. However it doesn't seem to have the close-knit intimacy of a smaller studio. This could lead to me getting lost in a corporate giant of a games company.
Located in Knutsford (not too far from my home town of Crewe) is games company Traveller's Tales. They have more recently made all of the Lego series from Star Wars to Harry Potter and Indiana Jones. These games have a great pace and can be played by any aged audience. Whilst predominantly being a games company Traveller's Tales has a TV animation branch and have produced a childrens' TV series called 'What's your news', currently airing on Nick Jr. UK, Nick Jr. Australia and other channels and has achieved great success in Canada. Being part of a company that I grew up with would be great, as they made a lot of the games that I played as a kid. I could also learn a lot from them as I obviously know little about games but have some knowledge of animation.
Rockstar Games has studios all over the world, predominantly in the UK, Canada and NYC. In the UK there is a studio in the North in Edinburgh where they currently have a few vacancies going, however I don't really feel qualified to do these as they are asking for experienced animators who have animated specifically for games before. This is things like walk cycles and run cycles or any other sort of cycle that will loop and always come back to the same position, enabling the cycles to blend seamlessly in between on another. However I am going to start practicing things like this so that I can increase my knowledge a bit more and all practice is good practice :)
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