How to Love Outsourcing

1. Jon Jones presents… How to Love Outsourcing Now in HD, with high-res normal and specular maps!

2. Who’s this Jon Jones guy? • Art Outsourcing Manager. • Builds and manages outsourced art teams • Worked with 2K Games and NCsoft • Blogs about it at www.TheJonJones.com • 3D Art Producer. • Runs a team of artists at Conceptopolis • Contractor. • Offers expertise on outsourcing, building and managing remote teams, art pipeline development, troubleshooting and more

3. Outsourcing Art: Benefits • Can be cheaper than inhouse • No overhead costs • Not burning money while artists sit idle • Access to a global talent pool • Your pick of the world’s best artists • Ease of scaling production up or down • Firing slackers has never been easier!

4. Outsourcing Art: Drawbacks • Lack of project familiarity • Time zone differences • Cultural and language barriers • Collaborating remotely is tricky • Keeping everything organized is hard • Bait-and-switch tactics • Unfamiliarity with game development • Some artists just suck

6. Don’t worry, there’s hope! • Many problems are preventable. • Setting proper groundwork is crucial. • I will show you how.

7. Documentation is EVERYTHING. • Know your pipeline. • Document your pipeline. • Don’t outsource until you do. • This will save you time and money. • Every minute you spend writing good documentation now will save you ten minutes later. • Poor documentation breeds poor art. • Don’t pay for art twice! Write good docs!

8. The Contractor’s Disadvantage • Art studios make art, not games • Large knowledge gap between making art, and making art that works for games • Less in the Americas, moreso overseas • No institutional knowledge • No frame of reference for your team’s preexisting tips, tricks, scripts, and workarounds • Good documentation fixes this.

9. Information Creates Its Own Context • Everything in one place • Don’t make them hunt down info across many documents, emails and IMs • Avoid vague pronouns • “he” “she” “it” “that” “they”

10. Prepare, prepare, prepare • Spend 90% of your time up front. • Plan for all contingencies. • Plan for them to happen. • Plan your way out. • Create conditions that show a clear direction when decisions need making. • Good process forbids indecision.

11. The New Guy Mindset • You’re new. What do you need to know? • Go through the entire process yourself. • Step. • By. • Step. • In detail. • NOT from memory. • All of this goes in an Outsourcing Kit.

12. Animation Outsourcing Kit • Comes in two pieces: • General Information • Technical specifications, reference, etc • Reusable! • Specific Assignment • Concept art for the job, description of job, etc

13. Animation Outsourcing Kit • Contains the following: • Documentation • Overview of animation work required • Style, Sequences, which skeleton, who rigs it? • Technical specifications • Master list of animations • Style guides • Scale \ units reference • Exporter • Tools • FAQ

14. Animation Outsourcing Kit • Reference: • Animation source files from 3D package • Samples of every type of animation • (idle, run, attack, death, etc) • Animation sample videos • Add captions to the video noting what you like • Use a popular codec, OR include the codec

15. Pre-built Animation Lists • Four creature types: • Melee, Ranged, Caster, Boss. • Sequences in common: Idle, Walk, Run, Pain, Die • Unique animations: Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, Caster Attack, Boss Attacks. • Make each type its own list. • Describe each sequence and cite the references. • Copy-paste the descriptions of common sequences. • Put those four lists in the Animation Outsourcing Kit. • Copy and paste into new Specific Assignments. • Time savings ahoy!

16. Take A Minute To Do It Right • It doesn’t take that much longer to turn a good job into a great job. • Take the time. It will save you time later.

17. Documentation Should Evolve! • A document is never finished... Just mostly complete. • Whenever a contractor asks a question, document the answer. • Why answer the same question twice?

18. Frontload all negotiation! • Now the documentation is done. • Most risk is now minimized! • Next step: Contract negotiation. • Establishing rates • Creating a flexible contract structure • Setting expectations of behavior

19. Partners vs Hired Monkeys Yes. No.

20. Partners vs Hired Monkeys • Hire a partner, not a trained monkey. • Partners want you to succeed. • Partners will try harder to to ensure each others’ success. • Good partners are worth keeping long-term. • Monkeys don’t care.

21. Benefits of finding a good partner: • Faster turnaround • Lower prices • Better art • The studio’s best artists • Preferential treatment

22. Negotiate a fair rate • Be flexible on cost on the first contract • If the work is harder, negotiate a higher rate. • If the work is simpler, negotiate a lower rate. • If you change the specs, adjust the price. • Karma aside, there are very practical reasons for this.

23. Dividing work into units • Separate into as few meaningful divisions as possible. • First, Asset type • Then, Difficulty • Small Creature, Medium Creature, Large Creature • Divisions should only be as large as it makes sense. • Too small becomes too granular to organize. • Too large feels like nothing ever gets done.

24. Define what comprises an asset • Price out the different phases • Character: • Model • Texture • Rig • Round that total up to the nearest $100 – 200, depending on variable difficulty between assets. • That’s your per-asset price.

25. Pricing Ambiguous Work • Chunk it out into 1 – 2 day segments. • Artists LOVE finishing subgoals frequently

26. Hot Tip for Contract Structure • Make it invoicable bi-weekly. • Artists LOVE getting paid on a 2-week cycle • If they’re finishing something every day or so and getting paid like this, productivity will skyrocket.

27. Benefits of Modularity • Pricing out everything per asset in advance saves time amending the contract midstream. • “Oh crap! We need five more creatures! Quick, let’s renegotiate all this now!” versus“Let’s add five more Large Creatures.” “Done!”

28. But What About Revisions? • Roll a preset revision number into the per-asset cost. • I like 3 revisions per asset. • Price out extra revisions as a separate percentage of that. • If asset costs $1000: • 25% of asset changed = $250 revision fee • 50% of asset changes = $500 revision fee • 75% of asset changed = $750 revision fee

29. Revisions as a performance metric • If you document well and chose good contractors, no asset should need more than two revisions • Three revisions or more means: • I failed to spec well • The contractors failed me • If it’s my fault, I pay for rework. • If it’s their fault, they fix it for free.

30. The Payoff of Expectation-Setting • Setting expectations early and planning for everything makes a problem’s cause obvious and its solution simple: • 1) You screwed up and need to fix the spec, or • 2) They screwed up and need to shape up. • No time is wasted pointing fingers. • Honesty, humility, candor and fairness have been maintained from the beginning. • If the contractor can’t meet that standard, you cut them loose.

31. Ease of Amending Contracts • Contractor succeeds, contracts can be expanded quickly. • Contractor fails, contract terminates just as quickly. • Bickering over how much to pay for a partially-completed asset when you’re cutting a contractor loose is not fun. Speccing well makes it unnecessary.

32. Questions? • Feel free to contact me offline via email: • jonjones@gmail.com • Or via my website: • http://www.thejonjones.com Thanks for listening! - Jon Jones