What sort of tools are used in Obsidian?

[NoKKiE]

I am a prospective game developer and have been working on my own game for the past 2 or 3 months. I have been developing under windows using Visual Studio 2008 with cross-platform GUI library wxWidgets and OpenGL. I'm also working on learning Maya/MEL but I always wondered what kind of tools Obsidian used? I know if I was looking to work at Obsidian, knowing the right tools might give me that slight edge since I have less of a learning curve working there:).

 

It also gives me some insight in how to submit sample work. I sent an email a week ago asking the best way to submit work (without wxWidgets or VS2008 the game can't even compile), but it seems they are too busy to answer which is understandable.

[Nightshape]

Visual Studio is pretty much a standard for games development, as for API's well that depends on the platform.

 

As for 3D art, 3DS Max/Maya/XSI are all very popular throughout the industry, they all have pro's and cons.

 

2D art tends to involve photoshop.

 

Companies such as Obsidian will also have alot of inhouse tools for doing inhouse things . While I personally would be interested in what kind of approch they've taken towards problems such as the content pipeline, for in house technology I'm doubting that they're about to spill the beans on all their processes. I do know they have a cool dialogue tool which uses a flow diagram like approch.

 

Other tools that spring to mind are visual FX tools, particularly if the company has a VFX department, these tend to be in house, with some kind of cross-over with the chosen 3D package to aid prototyping of layering.

 

hmmmm The you have world editors like unrealEd, NWN World Building Tool, and Hammer editor...

 

And finally scripting languages such as unrealScript, NWNScript, and Lua.

 

The tools you learn depend on what kind of job you're aiming to do.

[Adam Brennecke]

You will find most of the folks at Obsidian use these applications for day to day work: Visual Studio 2005, Max, XSI, Motion Builder, Photoshop, Perforce, Source Safe, ZBrush, Unreal Ed, MS Word, Sharepoint, MS Excel, Outlook and our own proprietary tools (Onyx Engine Tools & NWN2 Electron Toolset, etc.)

 

-Brennecke

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

XSI... isn't that freeware? Or at least, isn't XSI Mod Tool freeware?

[Gorth]

XSI... isn't that freeware? Or at least, isn't XSI Mod Tool freeware?

XSI just got acquired by Autodesk for 35.000.000$ so I wouldn't really expect it to be "freeware". Maybe they have something like the GMax thingy?

[Montgomery Markland]

XSI... isn't that freeware? Or at least, isn't XSI Mod Tool freeware?

 

XSI Mod Tool is the free/student version of the XSI software. I've not used the mod tool but its basically a reduced-feature version of the real software. I think there might be limits on the complexity of your exports as well (vert or face count limits or something).

 

XSI Mod Tool

 

Level designers, environmental artists, character artists and animators on Aliens use the XSI Essentials or XSI Advanced versions depending on what they are working on.

[Nightshape]

XSI... isn't that freeware? Or at least, isn't XSI Mod Tool freeware?

XSI just got acquired by Autodesk for 35.000.000$ so I wouldn't really expect it to be "freeware". Maybe they have something like the GMax thingy?

 

****ing Autodesk.