Ok, let’s crowd-source this biyatch. Please post topics you’d like to discuss at the GDC 2011 TA Roundtables.
[ul]
[li]How to deal with artists always wanting new things but simultaneously being resistant to change?
[/li][li]Should technical art be a total crutch for artists or is it reasonable to expect them to have the drive/desire to learn everything about the DCC packages we give them?
[/li][li]Is Rob relevant?
[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Ideal team structure, eg, juniors vs seniors, directors and designers vs implementers, specialists vs generalists, etc
[/li]
[li]Tech artists as engineers, software dev best practices vs tech art best practices, eg, performance vs maintainability
[/li]
[li]Rob is a tools programmer now and therefore no longer relevant, discuss
[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Middleware animation, physics, and cloth engine pros and cons from T.A. point of view.
[/li][li]Rob as admin of this site contributes to minor relevancy in our community
[/li][/ul]
[QUOTE=Count_Zr0;9177][ul]
[li]Middleware animation, physics, and cloth engine pros and cons from T.A. point of view.
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]
Let’s save that one for the Tech Animation roundtable. Screw those other guys 
Actually on the subject of engineering, here’s another thought inspired by a couple of posts:
http://tech-artists.org/forum/showpost.php?p=9149&postcount=4
And then this site cribbed from a RiggingDojo discussion:
https://sites.google.com/site/mayariggingwiki/pymel
Relevant quote here being:
“…I tend to build my own package of tools… This way you learn the most :]”
Got me thinking, is that really true? Context being that I’m a maya guy, i want to learn Python, so i’m going to learn python in the scope of maya tools development. Now while some folks may actually go those extra steps and really explore the language, it seems to me like most people only go so far as replicate MEL behaviors in Maya, something i’m sure you guys have seen me rant about elsewhere. To press it even further, often times people tend to assume things about a language based on their knowledge of the learning scope, eg, i do something in Maya Python that’s not really Python, but it works, so i make an assumption that that’s how Python works.
Topic being, value in learning a language as a language, and how do you schedule/structure that learning?
It’s mentioned in the summary on the GDC page but I did want to mention this anyway: “Increasingly, the lines between programmer and artist are blurring for technical artists.”
I’m finding this myself with my present project, and it’s only been a year since it began. So I don’t know if this is a suggestion so much as an emphasis that I am eager for this particular subject during the discussion.
In my case, I started originally as a shader artist and maya generalist and have since metamorphosed into UI and tools c++ programmer. But more than that… I find myself evaluating and deciding on 3rd party libraries for our engineers (incl. the legal implications), managing automated nightly builds, and designing the project file structure for everything from art assets to source code. I’d love to hear from other TAs and TDs in the industry on their experiences of how their roles have changed over the course of their careers and individual projects.
*is there supposed to be smoke?
*the decoy nut
EDIT - also,
Why we shouldn’t have a mobile accessable site.
Are there challenges and difficulties that come up as a result of the discipline becoming larger?
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.