Science-Fiction 3D User Interface Designer

Jobs Paid Work
1

Hey folks,

My teammates and I are looking to contract a very creative and self motivated 3D user interface designer immediately. The user interface assets produced will be used as part of a website for a game.

The candidate needs to have an appreciation and understanding for the look and feel of user interfaces found in real mission critical flight system environments. This can be picked up quickly through examining the reference material we will provide. They need proficiency in some advanced 3D modelling package like Blender and probably a 2D imaging tool like GIMP.

Our project is a very original and exciting low budget indie / libre science fiction game currently in active development. This game is of the dystopian, hard science fiction, genre. It is primarily targeted towards users of the GNU operating system.

Our game is in no way influenced by anime, steampunk, fantasy, or cyberpunk, but strives for realism in the tradition of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and the like. This game is very much influenced by reality and contemporary scientific understanding. As such, qualified candidates will be provided with our game’s internal design bible and precise specifications after returning our NDA to us.

We have no time for people that jump into things without doing research first. A qualified candidate should ask questions, lots of questions, whenever they need to and to take pride in their work. They should be comfortable reading and writing in English, but spoken does not matter, as they will be working remotely anyways.

Candidates need to be comfortable having their work critiqued and sent back for further revision incrementally as necessary. Candidates need to be able to follow instructions, pay attention to detail, study our artistic requirements, and deliver in a timely and reliable manner. We expect a turn around time of no more than 2 weeks at most.

The project maintains the copyright to the resulting work as well as working project files, but the selected candidate is given full attribution and listed in the game’s credits. Unlike proprietary games, they can showcase it in their personal portfolio when we are ready. We have a fairly large project following, a lot of original fictional work and technology, and their work will be presented to the world. Qualified candidates that are progressive with respect to libre culture are especially appreciated.

We are looking to get them started as soon as possible. Candidates can contact us by email, but must follow the following guidelines. THOSE WHO DO NOT FOLLOW THEM OR AUTOMATED BOT RESPONSES WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.

* Email subject heading: Job Applicant: Science-Fiction User Interface Designer
* Encode mail in plain text, not HTML.
* Propose cost of task, not hourly, but for accepted deliverables after reading specifications we will give you;
* approximate time required to completion;
* link to relevant portfolio (do not attach, unless not hosted);
* candidate's location;
* and, lastly, any formal or informal education / training they might have.

On that last point, we won’t hold it against candidates if their experience was not through formal training. Portfolio matters more.

2

Hi,

Can I give you a tip (I’m a full time Blender generalist freelancer, BTW)? If you want to attract the top talent, and avoid the spam, I appreciate that you need to tread a fine line. But as I read through your post my initial reaction was: “These are HORRIBLE people to work for, which is exactly why I went freelance; to avoid them”.

Your post makes a very, very poor impression of your company. Rigid, unbending taskmasters who have no comprehension of the creative muse, who expect everyone to march to their slave-driving time-tables. All in all, something to be marked down as “avoid like the plague”.

You might be very nice people to work with, even fun! But that does not come across. Which is why, despite having read over 100 of Asimov’s works and thrill at the art of Chris Foss even today, you could not convince me to work for you on the basis of this posting.

3

I agree with @danilius above. Moreover, my 2 cents for you are to modify your logo, by adding a sort of smile.
Games are for fun.

4

I would just like to say that I have done some work for this small company, and they really are a pleasure to work with. While it might sound a bit rigid, it is because they want professional people that are serious about their work and who can do a good job. If you meet the requirements above, then don’t worry about it being “slave driving”, because it’s not at all. If you don’t meet the requirements, don’t apply. Just like any other job.

I agree with @danilius above. Moreover, my 2 cents for you are to modify your logo, by adding a sort of smile.
Games are for fun.

I’m sorry, this is just absurd.

5

It’s a for-profit company, guys. You follow the rules of the employer, as he’s signing the check. It’s an outmoded principle, I guess. While there are expectations for the employer, we also need to realize that the employee (prospective or actually employed) has obligations, as well. While the wording did seem a tad stringent, this is actually a pretty generic recruitment statement, as far as my experience goes, and as far as I can see, is a pretty certain sign of their professionalism and therefore better guarantee of good, reliable pay.

Cooperation and flexibility in the end will at least make even a barely tolerable employment opportunity into a more pleasant experience. If it gets too much (I’ve had a couple of bosses which I simply had no ability to interact with in a way that made the job go smoothly), you attempt to quit congenially and move on, hoping to have retained enough goodwill to be able to use them as a reference for future job applications.

It’s a shame I have no UI experience. I’d apply to this if I did.

Dan

6

Thanks for the info, Jonathan L.

JDaniels, you are quite right. However, you want to cultivate a good relationship from day dot. The very reason I went freelance is so that I could avoid working with awful people. I would expect that posting an ad in Blenderartists should be more relaxed than in most environments, largely because of the culture of the website, and that the signal to noise ratio is going to be very much lower than on regular freelance websites.

In my opinion, they went too far with this one.

Being relaxed and simultaneously professional are not contradictions.

7

I work, for free and for pay, based on if I like people…

If my heart is not in it… neither am I :slight_smile:

8

I work only free. Hell, I’m open source!