My dream job Interview at the Bitmap Brothers

[Tchucolate]

[ Show youtube player ]

In the Summer of 1994 an unbelievable opportunity fell into my lap.
I spotted an advert in a games magazine.
The Bitmap Brothers were looking for a new member of their team.
Bizarrely, I had EXACTLY the qualifications they were looking for.

Join me, as I retrace my steps, from 30 years ago,
when I headed along a road in Wapping, East London,
knowing that if I played my cards right,
I might work at my dream job,
at my favourite game developer, the legendary Bitmap Brothers.

[klx300r]

great vid thanks for sharing

[jotd]

Best game devs ever!

[Tchucolate]

Originally Posted by jotd

Best game devs ever!

Thanks, I have a Tweet about it here

Would be lovely if anyone who likes this story, could re-tweet it, or indeed share the Youtube link ?

[klx300r]

Originally Posted by Tchucolate

Thanks, I have a Tweet about it here

Would be lovely if anyone who likes this story, could re-tweet it, or indeed share the Youtube link ?

done

[aeberbach]

Loved the video, thanks!

[dreadnought]

Bitmaps really were special. They remind me of my 8-bit favourite - Durell Software - and Core later, in that they were always trying something new and yet being able to consistently deliver hit games.

So yes, you were lucky to be able to ge....oh, ok

Also, I didn't realize that Z had destructible terrain. Pretty cool! I only played it briefly on a PC back then...so it's another one for the replay backlog.

[Tchucolate]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Bitmaps really were special. They remind me of my 8-bit favourite - Durell Software - and Core later, in that they were always trying something new and yet being able to consistently deliver hit games.

So yes, you were lucky to be able to ge....oh, ok

Also, I didn't realize that Z had destructible terrain. Pretty cool! I only played it briefly on a PC back then...so it's another one for the replay backlog.

My experience of the Bitmaps was Xenon (very cool actually for early Amiga game) then Speedball, wich was a multi-player fave with friends, then Xenon II, which blew my socks off. Gods again, loved it.

Both Xenon II and Gods suffered a little from engine slow-down. But when you compare these to other games on the Amiga, not unusual. Worst case I ever saw of this was Syndicate, which on end levels actually acheived frame rates of 1 frame per 10+ seconds

Then a bit of a hiatus, as I guess I was in college (working hard!) and then The Chaos Engine was really special. Sadly I missed Cadaver, Magic Pockets. Ill have to dig those out and give them a whirl.

Seeing them make a PC game, was a shock to me. But they DID have their eyes on the road ahead, and they knew the Amiga was fading out. So, good move really.

Z was a great game, I think you can play 4 players at once, which for the time was pretty neato. No resources to mine, just territory. Hold the territory and you gain the resources, which then build X in whatever factories are in your territories.

I loved the way you could grab a factory 2 seconds before it spat out a tank and it was YOURS. Same for snippers, they could shoot a tank driver and you could take it over.

Z was very much under-rated. And mainly because Command & Conquer stole its thunder (and lead programmer 6 months before its launch) really nasty move by Westwood Studios

As ever, they brought a great sensibility to the design.

[jotd]

Sadly I missed Cadaver, Magic Pockets. Ill have to dig those out and give them a whirl.

Those absolutely rock too. Magic Pockets has some Gods DNA in it, and Cadaver atmosphere is stunning. Both great games, even if Gods & Chaos Engine are also my favorites.

[Marconelly]

That was a lovely story. I can echo some of your experience with an experience of my own. I saw an ad posted by a 3D animation studio in my city, and it was the most famous studio there (at least among us who were informed about that kind of thing). They were looking for someone with experience in various 3D software, among them being Imagine - which I had experience with on my Amiga 500, as I was experimenting with it a lot, making all kinds of smaller-scale animations. I knew their team actually used SGI workstations for rendering - the only studio in my country at that time to do so - but I figured they'd never expect to find people who had experience with them, so they were casting a wider net. So I applied, and they called me. Similar to you, I had so many second thoughts about even going there. What they were doing was so painfully obviously beyond my current skill level. They made high end stuff for TV that looked really good, and while my Amiga projects had some charm to them, they were nowhere close to that level. I ended up going for an interview - we talked and I showed them what I had, but sadly, they were looking for someone who could do complex modelling, which is where I was the weakest. One of the guys I talked to even told me that he got the job there off of the models he did on his Amiga 2000 in Imagine, and that if nothing comes out of my interview that day, I shuld try improving in that area, and try again. My focus was mostly on eye catching lighting, texturing and effects, kind of more artful stuff, but they were looking for an experienced modelling craftsman, and that wasn't me. I got to see a bit of their process, saw the SGIs they were using, we shook hands, they said the infamous "don't call us, we'll call you" and that was it.

It's so cool to see that you had better luck, as I can see your name on the credits for Z!
Can't wait to hear the rest of your story!

[Tchucolate]

Originally Posted by Marconelly

That was a lovely story. I can echo some of your experience with an experience of my own. I saw an ad posted by a 3D animation studio in my city, and it was the most famous studio there...

Ah yes, we all have a story to tell about a missed opportunity.
I have a few to tell, which I hope to do so in a video one day.

It's funny, because I also gravitated more to the texturing and lighting side of 3D.
Though I was more of an all rounder, as my original influences into getting into 3D was making models, and then of course painting them.
I was also a fan of airbrushed 3D images of machinery and that was almost a path I trod.

But I enjoyed the whole process of making the model, texturing it, lighting it and by 1993, trying (badly) to animate it.
The only bit I did not like was manual UV Mapping (does anyone) because that was just a chore.

Silicon Graphics machines were a BIG investment for any company.
So I guess that meant that studio HAD to hire people who could mostly hit the ground running.
Its tough when you cannot invest in people. But sometimes industries are too cut throat to allow for that.

The jump from Imagine to something like Power Animator or Softimage was pretty large,
as those tools had such massive budgets compared to the Amiga 3D scene (apart from Lightwave of course).

Glad you enjoyed the video. Seems like I need to get working on the follow up!

[acidbottle]

Brilliant video, thanks for sharing your experiences. There are certainly few of these types of raw and candid videos about, so was interesting to see.