Gabriel Betancourt is a former lighting artist at Treyarch and of course Naughty Dog. We cover his career at Naughty Dog and various other topics on the game industry.

#thelastofus #lastofus #lastofuspart2

WEBSITE - https://gabereel.com/

CALORIE GAME - https://www.caloriequest.app/

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro/Gabriel Watches Kiwi Talkz & Lists His Favourite Guests

01:44 - It’s Hard To Find Info On Lighting Artists/Early Days As A Lighting Artist

03:00 - Naughty Dog Has A Designer First, Speciality Second Philosophy

06:25 - Naughty Dog Devs Had Huge Arguments During The Last Of Us

09:17 - Game Development Requires The Risk Of Offending People

13:00 - Delivering Negative News In A Positive Way

14:54 - Game Devs Being Passionate & Emotional

18:45 - Naughty Dog Changed As The Studio Got Bigger/AAA Team Sizes Are Too Big

24:43 - The Brilliance Of Nintendo/Making Your Game Fun

27:35 - 60 People Worked On World Of Warcraft/Small Teams Make The Best Games

29:38 - Graphics & Gameplay Were Even During The Seventh Generation

31:00 - Art Is Used To Cover Up Gameplay Issues

32:34 - Everyone At Naughty Dog During The Last Of Us Was A Monster In Skill

33:00 - How Gabriel Joined Naughty Dog/New IP’s Increasingly Are Risky

36:20 - Bruce Straley & Neil Druckmann Risked Their Careers For The Last Of Us

37:45 - Uncharted 2 Put Naughty Dog On The Map

38:42 - Last Of Us Happened Because Bruce & Neil Were Influenced By Robert McKee Conference

43:44 - Why Gabriel Left Naughty Dog

46:49 - Last Of Us Part 2 Pre-production Ran Like Clockwork

49:58 - Gabriel Was Surprised By The Last Of Us Part 2 Controversy/Gabriel’s Suggestion Was Shot Down By Neil

52:19 - Neil Druckmann’s Specialty/Problems With The Last Of Us Part 2

55:00 - Dubar’s Number/Bureaucracy

01:01:40 - Changes At Naughty Dog That Impacted Last Of Us Part 2

1:06:30 - Specialists Left Naughty Dog Which Created Gaps In Skills Needed In The Teams

1:07:50 - A Game Will Be Good If The Director Has A Vision

1:09:54 - Gabriel Was Initially Skeptical Of The Last Of Us

1:11:39 - On Gabriels First Day Neil & Bruce Had A Special Presentation About The Last Of Us

1:16:35 - Q+A - How Did The Lighting Change Between Uncharted & The Last Of Us

1:30:22 - Q+A - Is Baked Lighting Better Than Path Traced Lighting

1:35:00 - Lighting On GTA 6 Trailers

1:36:03 - Closing Comments/Where To Follow Gabriel

Benson Russell was a former designer at Naughty Dog on The Uncharted Trilogy and The Last Of Us.He has now started his own consulting firm to help game developers navigate a lot of the pitfalls in game development.

#uncharted #thelastofus #naughtydog

WEBSITE FOR CONSULTING

https://www.unhandledexceptions.io/

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:32 - The Most Important Aspect Of Design/Player Fantasy

02:50 - Why Games Take So Long To Make/North Star You Need For Development

05:45 - Why Naughty Dog Games Are So Well Made/Story Is Their North Star

08:18 - Games Shouldn’t Take So Long To Develop/Wandering

13:30 - Scope Neglect/The Doomsday Clock

16:00 - Why Intergalactic Crunch Happened/Naughty Dog Treats Internal Deadlines Like External Deadlines

18:23 - Bureauacracy/How Games Differ From Other Creative Outlets

23:13 - Naughty Dog’s Work Structure

26:20 - Planning/Core Mechanics

27:00 - Flexible Working Hours At Naughty Dog/Crunch At Naughty Dog

29:00 - Why Benson Left Naughty Dog

32:45 - Benson Was P!ssed Off With Naughty Dog Deleting His Work On Last Of Us Part 1

46:01 - Working With Evans Wells & Neil Druckmann

47:00 - Clashing With Neil Druckmann

50:14 - Working With Amy Hennig

51:20 - Uncharted 2’s Introduction/Creating Introductions In Games

56:00 - Focus Testing At Naughty Dog/Companies Interpret Data Wrong

1:02:30 Q+A - How Much Naughty Dog Looks At The Competition When Designing Games

1:06:10 - AAA Studios Pivoting When They Are Too Deep/Games Should Be Cheaper

1:10:00 - Cost Of Game Development On The West Coast/China’s Meteoric Rise

1:16:04 - Uncharted 2 Was Influenced By Resident Evil 5

1:16:48 - Q+A - What Is Naughty Dog’s Hiring & Training Process

1:24:00 - Why Naughty Dog Started Losing Talent

1:26:00 - Is Game Development A Young Person’s Game/Knowledge Isnt Being Passed Down

1:31:00 - Closing Comments

Rob Carr is an audio designer who is best known for his tenure at Rockstar Games on L.A. Noire, RDR1, GTA 5 and RDR2. He is currently living in Finland working on his game Nyrkkipöytä

#rockstargames #gta #gta5

WEBSITE - https://audioexpat.wordpress.com/

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intro

00:30 - How Rob Went From Being A Music Teacher To Working At Rockstar Leeds

07:51 - Moving From Handheld Games To Console Games/Rockstar Have Unlimited Resources

08:30 - The Psychology Of Sound/Finding Sounds That Sound Like Other Sounds

11:19 - There Are No Constraints On Audio With Rockstar Open World Games

13:10 - In Audio Everything You Can Use Is Recordable/Rob Has A 3TB Audio Library

15:17 - Tools & Workflow

19:50 - Technology Evolution/AI

23:51 - Rob Has Been Unemployed For Over A Year/Problems With The Game Industry/

25:50 - Learning A Coding Language

27:40 - Difference Between Numbers People & Creative People

30:30 - Working On Audio Bugs For Red Dead Redemption 1/Why It’s One Of Rob’s Favorite Games

34:30 - Playing A Game And Not Disecting It

37:30 - The Cost Of Buying Games

39:10 - GTA 6

43:21 - Why Rob Left Rockstar

45:24 - Crunch Culture/Europe Has Better Work Life Balance

46:45 - Moving To Finland/Rob’s Brother Has Motor Neuron Disease

51:35 - Rob Can’t Relocate For Work Anymore/Dire State Of The Game Industry

53:10 - Working From Home Has Ceased Because Of Security Reasons

55:20 - Why Rob Worked At The Office During Covid

56:51 - Dealing With Ear Fatigue During Crunch/How Audio People Deal With Crunch

1:05:30 - Q+A - Do You Physically Go On Location To Get Raw Recordings

1:08:00 - Q+A -What’s Rockstar Setup To Test Audio Systems

1:10:48 - Q+A - Is There A Particular Idea That Had To Be Cut

1:13:52 - Robs Game - Nyrkkipöytä

1:21:19 - Where To Follow Rob