#PortfolioDay again, eh? I'm Nick, and I do all manner of animation in games! I'm currently on the lookout for my next project (along with... everyone) so let me know if your project needs an animator!

We're feeding our oceans and economy into this tech so that we can override thoughtful art direction with this bullshit, and so that idiots can ask ChatGPT what their favourite colour is. What are we even doing here?

"you need to learn how to use gAI or you'll get left behind!" counterpoint! the absolute fastest way to render yourself unemployable is to build your skillset around a tool that does your thinking for you, that everyone has access to, and that one company can change or take away at any time

Today's Load-bearing Tomato addresses the age old question: "why don't the devs just [SOCIAL MEDIA OPINION]" It turns out, "a lot of reasons", but if you never have to test your ideas, you never have to discover why they're not any good. loadbearingtomato.com/p/why-chasin...

Muppets replace everyone on Bluesky but keep Menswear Guy as himself

*young me, developing a strong sense of justice* This is gonna be great, what an asset, this will never drive me insane

Am currently enjoying the very cool Mexican National Anthropology Museum. Lots of great info on the ancient people of America pre-European colonization. On the other hand, there’s one guy in here taking pictures of stuff and asking ChatGPT what it is. Dude, just read the wall. It’s right there.

I often think about Jonathan Cooper's posts about TLOU2, that the studio ran out of seasoned game animators because its reputation was so bad and thus had to hire film folks who had to be taught how to put games together.

Fucking incredible dystopian shit, comparing super rich people risking millions if not billions of lives just to make more money to people that risked their life actually building incredible things that would then make millions of dollars for super rich people.

Heartbreaking, but the Jays had a great run #bluejays

I’ve been working for 15 years as an animator and I can tell you without a doubt, the best fix I ever found for imposter syndrome is living a full life where your days and worth don’t hinge on whether or not you were a good animator today.

Two guys just sat down near me in a cafe and started worriedly whispering to each other about cooking the books, and I’ve never been so immediately invested in a conversation

game does bad: layoffs game does about as expected: layoffs game does great: layoffs

The idea that 'AI can speed up dev cycles' would require a premise that dev cycles are long because people are taking forever to make assets (so you could replace them with shoddy slop and it'd go faster), which you could only believe is true if you've never actually tried to make a video game

Other people have better imposter syndrome than me I bet

Sniping's a good job, mate. It's challenging work. Outa doors. #animation #3Danimation #animator #gamedev #maya #3d #3dart

Sniping's a good job, mate. It's challenging work. Outa doors. #animation #3Danimation #animator #gamedev #maya #3d #3dart

#PortfolioDay again, eh? I'm Nick, and I do all manner of animation in games! I'm currently on the lookout for my next project (along with... everyone) so let me know if your project needs an animator!

🏃💨 #animation #3Danimation #animator #gamedev #maya #3d #3dart

Pew pew pew #animation #art #gamedev

The word around town is that the next big thing is Artisanal Imagery, hand-made visuals that you simply have to own if you don't want to be left behind

Every time I read a new pitch for what AI can do for games, I just see, "I haven't spoken to anyone who does this, but I have imagined incorrectly what the bulk of their job is and I have an idea of how to automate it."

I fucking love working with juniors No group has more passion, drive, desire to do their best, and love for the medium Every time I've had input in hiring, I've always pushed for junior positions because they're absolute knowledge sponges and delightful to work with

Staying up until we see what happens in Carleton.

This is the ‘disruption’ playbook. I have really bad news for anyone stupid enough to be building reliance on generative AI into their processes. It’s so cheap!

Disco Elysium is the greatest game ever made because it basically explained how it was going to die and then did it

The hardest I've ever crunched in my life were the times I was given animation tests by studios I didn't work for yet You can tell the applicant not to spend more than X hours on it, but they will do it anyway because OF COURSE they will. They want the job. All the incentives point toward crunch

This is something I’ve been thinking about constantly since visiting Tokyo. More dense walkable neighbourhoods please.

This is so fun!

It’s great to see the community continuing to grow over here!

This feels worse than it did in 2016

I’m currently in Japan and know with absolute certainty that I will experience public transit withdrawal once I return to Toronto

Looking forward to fully getting to abandon the dumpster fire app

Even the subline is 10/10

It's almost like the people who are commenting on how games are made but aren't in industry or games consulting don't know how games are made 🤔

Some more personal work from this week:

Weekend animation doodles

Microsoft has a market cap of 3 TRILLION dollars

When rich and powerful executives greedily make the decision to grow a business unsustainably, they’re never the ones who pay the biggest price. To those affected: this isn’t your fault

Nothing describes The Game Awards better than rushing winners off the mic after 30 seconds while letting Kojima talk about his new game for minutes while having nothing to actually show

Hey, I’m Nick! You can see my work in Assassin’s Creed Mirage and soon you’ll see it in Blackbird Interactive’s Earthless