Based on Experience

1. Reasons you should be aware of
Creator Schools in Japan
Matumit Sombunjaroen
2015/01/11

2. Introduction
I came from Thailand,
And had receive education from
Thailand, Japan, UK, USA, and Australia

3. Introduction
By Creator School,
I`m not referring to Christian Creationism
I`m referring to schools that educate
students to join the Creative Industry

4. Here lie the issues

5. The Issue
Japanese Creative industry is such a
Gargantuan that there has never been
enough supply of personnel

6. The Issue
As such,
Creative Schools sprang everywhere
to feed the industry

7. The Issue
HOWEVER
Even the School itself require Personnel
that the industry don`t have enough of

8. The Issue
Therefore,
It is a common practice to prioritize and hire
people with field experiences
…. Regardless of teaching skills….

9. The Issue
This, +Japanese highly praised level of
tolerance and perseverance,
Result in under-average teaching staffs
Being hire occasionally

10. The Issue
With the objective of joining
Japanese Creative Industry,
There are also large number of foreign
students who enrolled in these schools

11. The Issue
Bad Mouthing School
amongst foreign students
Became a common conversation topic
Because Foreigners
don`t have as much tolerance

12. The Issue
Even though they are caused by minority,
They are enough to bring bad reputation to
Japanese education system

13. The Issue
BTW
I happened to be the same kind of person
with bad teaching skill,
which is why I will no longer pursue a
teaching career

14. Personal Experiences

15. Personal XPs
Originally a reason why I created this slide,
a teacher was complaining why I did not
participate more in his class and online
community

16. Personal XPs
I was tired at the time,
so I gave out a nonsensical answer that
I can`t even remembered what I said.

17. Personal XPs
Now that I think about it…..
Fine!
I will participate in his community,
With this Slideshare

18. The Reason
1st and foremost,
The reason that I did not
participate in his community is this……
I have better things to do with my life

19. Here are the List of things that happened

20. Statement No.0
“You have knowledge,
Participate with the class community,
it will be good for you”

21. Statement No.0
Problem No.1,
I participate in Professional Community
and
The class was below Amateur level
As a matter of Time and Priority,
It has little attending value for me

22. Statement No.0
Problem No.2,
It must be done in English
If it`s in English, there are people out there who
can say things much better than I do,
And you should go see those people instead of
being in there or listen to me

23. Statement No.0
Problem No.3,
The teacher didn`t know what he was
talking about
Problem No.4,
Most student just study to pass

24. Statement No.1
“If you use Game Engine like Unity making
Game will be easy”

25. Statement No.1
……………….

26. Statement No.1
Even if you don`t use Unity,
if you`re a Game Developer you should
know how laughable that statement was

27. Statement No.1
Game Engine make things easier,
But Game Production itself
is still nowhere near easy.
Common
production components
provided by Game Engine
Things that you still have
to manually created no
matter how useful the
engine is
For those of you who are not Game Dev,
Here`s the reason

28. Statement No.1
I posted it on a Pro Dev community,
and it became a popular laugh of the day.

29. Statement No.2
“Pre visualization is something that you do if
you have lots of money”

30. Statement No.2
……………………………….
…………………
………
………I might be wrong……….
I could misheard things,
But I will assume that is
actually what I heard.

31. Pre-Production
Let me give a lecture about
Production plan

32. Pre-Production
There are several production methods
available
Waterfall
Complete
things in step
Iterative
Review and
fix often in
short
intervals
Anything else in between

33. Pre-Production
Regardless of which one to use,
They were all designed with a common
objective in mind
To Maximize Outputs while
Minimize Production Loss

34. Pre-Production
Here`s the thing,
Human make mistakes,
It is near impossible to
always get a perfect production result

35. Pre-Production
HOWEVER,

36. Pre-Production
A Proper production Plan
will result in minimize loss

37. Pre-Production
Let me show you a common misconception
Client
Production
Team
Please
fix this
WHAT!?
When a client asked for something to be fix,
They usually thinks its an easy task
It`s just a
few fixed
It`s only
10%
WE HAVE TO
RE-DO
EVERYTHING!
!!

38. Pre-Production
In the case of Game Production
Light Works
Design Document
Conceptual Design
Heavy Works
CG Models
Scripting
Making Programs, going smoothly
Nah, we don`t want it anymore change this
MY ENTIRE WORK JUST GOT WASTED!!!!

39. Pre-Production
For this reason,
something like this will happen
Final
Production
Result
Production
Loss
Due to poor
Production
process

40. Pre-Production
Why is this bad?
IT`S BECAUSE
EVERYTHING COST TIMES AND
MONEYS DAMN YOU INCOMPETENT!!!!

41. Pre-Production
Production
Team
THAT`S IT! I QUIT!!!
IT ALSO MENTALLY STRESS OUT
PRODUCTION TEAM!!!

42. Pre-Production
SOMEONE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND
THE IMPORTANCE OF PREPRODUCTION
CANNOT BE TRUSTED!

43. Pre-Production
FIX ALOTS,
FIX OFTEN ON
LIGHT WORKS,
SO THAT
FIXING HEAVY WORKS
WILL BE MINIMAL

44. Pre-Production
Let us get back to
Pre-Visualization

45. Pre-Production
Invented by great pioneers of the industry,
Basically,
They are methods to minimize production loss.

46. Pre-Production
“Pre visualization is something
that you do if you have lots of money”
THEY WERE MADE TO MINIMIZE SPENDING!
THEY ARE ESSENTIALS AND NOT
SOMETHING THAT YOU CHOOSE TO DO
OR NOT REGARDLESS OF FUNDING!!!

47. Level Design
This one came from an American student
“Please do Level Design in 3D”
( @ the point in time )
( Game Mechanic and visual theme was not yet decided )

48. Level Design
Before I continue to talk about
Level Design,
Let me say this 1st

49. Level Design
Peter,
I`m sorry for being an asshole
and pissed off at you,
When I should be an asshole and pissed of
at the teacher for not teaching you instead

50. Level Design
Level Design came in 2 major parts
Final Level Design
Game Play
Mechanic
Visual
Mechanic

51. Level Design
Game Play Mechanic
Super Mario Bros Stage1-1 is a Masterpiece
that was Design to teach Gameplay system
based on established Gameplay Mechanic

52. Level Design
Visual Mechanic
The Last of Us was a prime example of how
Visual design is not simply made for Aesthetic, but
got integrated into Gameplay itself

53. Level Design
Level Design CANNOT BE DONE,
Until these 2 parts received preliminary approval
Game Play
Design
Visual Theme
Concept Art
Game Play
Mechanic
Visual
Mechanic

54. Level Design
An experience from a Professional
Got told to do 50Level Designs by a French
Producer with absolutely no preliminary input
beside being told “It`s a Tower Defense Game”

55. Character
Character Design
The same goes for Character Design,
Game Play
Design
Visual Theme Settings
Telling the Artist to do character design WITHOUT
Preliminary inputs,
Will result in rework and production loss

56. Statement No.3
“Is Character and Story Important?”
My Answer =>
“It makes the Game better but is not necessary”
=>
He paused and asked someone else
then talked about how
using [One Piece] minimize Marketing Risk

57. Statement No.3
Here is why I got pissed off
using [One Piece] minimize Marketing Risk
<= This is Correct
But my answer was not Wrong

58. Statement No.3
“Is Character and Story Important?”
<= This was asked in relation as
A Product Design Question
Using One Piece minimize Marketing Risk
<= This is a Marketing Answer

59. Statement No.3
If he would asked
“Please explain the benefit of utilizing IP”
Then I would have give him the answer that
he was so eagerly waiting for
to prove his point

60. Statement No.3
Furthermore,
The session that this statement was made,
Was a few weeks after the initial design already started
Meaning that
REGARDLESS of what was design,
Characters and Story
must be put in there to satisfy his class

61. Statement No.3
Tetris doesn`t need Character

62. Statement No.3
Unblock Me doesn`t need Character

63. Statement No.3
Even Mario was design through
Game Mechanic reasons!!!

64. Statement No.3
If story and characters were
mandatory for the class,
TELL IT BEFOREHAND

65. Statement No.4
Half way through semester
“I`m sorry, what`s your Name?
Do you follow me on Facebook?
Yes, oh Good
I happened to have 4000 friends,
so I couldn`t see your posts”

66. Statement No.4
……………..…..
….
Do I even need to explain
how annoying and fucked up
that statement was?

67. Statement No.4
Problem No.1
His posts were totally irrelevant to my cause
I saw them, I know
Problem No.2
He expected me to care about his class when it
hardly gave me anything beneficial
Problem No.3
I don`t mind him about not caring who I am,
but that gave me no reason to care about him

68. GDD
Now that I`m at it,
I would like to talk about
Game Design Document
Because the lecture was insufficient
And taught so little about it

69. GDD
GDD - Game Design Document
Is a document use to communicate the
ideas to others regarding the project

70. GDD
In Japan, it commonly came in 2 levels
企画書 – Kikakusho
Contain general ideas and concept design
仕様書 – Shiyousho
Contain more specific data and designs

71. GDD
GDD has no set format
They are made on a Case-by-case basis,
based on the
Project itself
and circumstances

72. GDD
HOWEVER!!!

73. GDD
If you intend to use it to apply for a job,
Then it`s a different matter

74. GDD
Things to consider

75. GDD
You will have to compete against
thousands other people,
Who are also likely to apply to
same places as you are

76. GDD
As such, many companies utilize the 5pages rule
Meaning that,
no matter how good the contents are,
If you cannot explain it in 5pages,
They will not bother reading the rest of it
It`s too
thick!!!

77. GDD
As well as the contents itself
How you present and communicate make a
major differences in selection processes
Too much
words!!! ----------------------
----------------------
-------
This is
Easy to
understand

78. GDD
The contents itself also matter
Just Designing an interesting Game,
Is simply not enough
What`s it about?
Who`s the Target Audience?
Production Cost?
Etc, etc

79. GDD
Level5`s Recruit Seminar in 2010
Was so damn entertaining, BTW

80. Experiences by other foreign students
CG Painting Class - “Paint in A1”
“I have 10years experiences,
You are nobody”
Told to just create something
Without teaching
Etc, etc

81. To Japanese Creator Schools
You should do something about these
before Japan`s education
got regarded any worse
Even though there are plenty of good
teachers out there,