Job opportunity: Coder /game dev located in JHB

silvaring

Hi, not sure if this kind of recruitment is allowed on MakegamesSA, apologies in advance if this is the case.

I'd like to get someone on board for a VR project. Its a part time gig / flexi hours, and I can probably pay around R2000 a month. Unfortunately I don't have the time to devote myself to this project right now. The amount is based on what I can afford, and what kind of technical expertise I feel the job requires. I could be under balling this amount, and if so I apologize, but I'm not a coder / have no experience with the Oculus SDKs and building VR content so I had to pick an amount based on a best guess as to what the concept/mechanics of the VR project entails (see below).

Concept: Prototype of a Giant Bomb style community/game database with a more grass roots approach, in VR.
Mechanics: Full Head Tracking with Oculus Rift, with gesture recognition for head gestures (this already is utilized in one Rift demo I'm aware of), and hybrid controller scheme (simple nunchuk in one hand and hand recognition with Leap Motion controller in other) for interaction with environmental objects. That's it mechanics wise, there's no character movement in the world (its not a 'game' perse, more of a virtual space/future internet website).

As its a community / database focused place, there will be a lot of work required on the backend, so someone with experience in web design would be helpful but not a must at this point. Visual flare is also not major at this point, as long as the design is functional and not nausea / headache inducing.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to P.M me or reply with any questions/comments throughout the day.

francoisvn

Are you expecting a dev to work full-time for R2000 per month? If so, that's way too low, even for the most basic of dev work. I haven't worked with the Oculus SDK, so I have no idea how much of what you describe is already done, but VR work can easily be some of the most complicated dev work, which means it can easily demand a higher-than-normal dev salary. I think you should aim for at least 10 times that as a starting point for full-time work, and that is still fairly low. I hope this helps get your estimate a bit closer to something where you'll get a reasonable-quality dev to work for you :)

Kobusvdwalt9

@francoisvn Its a part time gig with flexi hours.

francoisvn

@Kobusvdwalt9: sure, but the value quoted was per month, which made me think it's closer to full-time than a few hours per week, even though that would be more appropriate remuneration IMHO. I should have mentioned that.

@silvaring: Can you maybe clarify how many hours work you expect per month and/or how many months you think the project will take at that rate (to get a better idea of what you think the project scope is and how much time it will take)? It might also make things easier to talk about if you scope the project in terms of full-time work, even if you're happy for things to go at a much slower pace. Alternatively, you can talk about an hourly rate if you want to make sure everything is very clear.

silvaring

@francoisvn, Thanks for the advice. Its hard for me to set a minimum amount of hours req., but its something to consider. I'm not the person working with the SDK or familiar with coding, so my view on hours will probably be way off If it was my decision to make. I picked the Rand amount as a kind of conservative bait, because it implies low risk commitment on both ends to start out and get a feel for the project, after which I can see if the person is someone who'd contribution I value, and they can see if its a project they feel is worthy of their time.

Of course, I'm not expecting vet / genius coders to come on board. I mean, it would be great to get them to do an assessment on the project and help me with production planning / consultancy etc. I'm open to that idea sure.

As for the basics though, i.e getting the mechanics and concept running in a rough concept w/out polish, I imagine It would be a good project for someone just looking to do something interesting in VR on the side, or a student trying to earn some money while coming to grips with some basic VR development.

Kobusvdwalt9

So maybe you could tell people exactly what needs doing and let them work out if they want to do that amount of work for that amount of money.

TheFuntastic

@silvaring Congrats for wanting to put your money where your mouth is, but like francois said it's not really enough to get the attention of a coder. Especially because your ideas sounds very specific and not very sexy (coders have their own ideas they want to work on). From what you've said it also sounds like several months of work, and R2000 will buy you less than a day of an experienced coders time (for reference).

So if you have an oculus, then I suggest you rather ask who wants to come mess with it. Not on your idea, but just on some small VR prototypes. This will better appeal to a coders sense of adventure and fun. Also it gets some collaboration going, and gives you an appreciation of what goes into to VR dev. Then you can use the learning from that experience to decide if your original idea is still good and how to go about getting it made.

dislekcia

Just on the topic of pricing: This sounds like a very specific project without a lot of "fun" exploration to it. That makes me think that there's some sort of expectation to sell or otherwise make a return from it somehow in the future, like this is a business idea about making money. If that's the case, then I would expect the idea to be able to convince someone with money to fund it, either at an angel stage or as part of some sort of incubator seed funding mechanism. That funding would buy you a developer's full-time focus for several months. If that sounds impossible, then that's because the business plan behind the idea is too weak to make return/growth estimates from, which would be the real problem that needs to be fixed.

As business ideas go, trying to build something on the cheap or with a low level of commitment is usually a terrible idea and a sign that there's little certainty in how something is going to return. At least, that's what this looks like to me and will probably look like to other experienced devs in the space. If your project doesn't want to look like that, I'd suggest either making it more fun like @TheFuntastic says, or practicing pitching your project to investors and startup panels to make it a really solid business idea first.

silvaring

@Kobus, thanks. In a nut shell - I'm looking for a proof of concept, built in Unity with the mechanics listed in the original post (head gesture recognition, and single hand tracking). Graphics wise, a few floating text boxes (similar to the menu screens in a lot of current VR demo's). I could elaborate more, but that's the minimum work required for a functional prototype.

@dislekcia, thanks for the advice, you are so right, the project will need major investors to reach its full potential. Right now though I'm thinking of building a prototype, and seeing how things go. John Carmack famously said that only when he went to Valves offices and experienced a low persistence VR display did he realize just how groundbreaking the concept of low persistence was (he was assuming 120HZ OLED panels would be the way forward at the time). By building a proof of work it should make the growth process easier, or like you said, it will show the failure of the concept to get decent returns (the 'big' problem). I really value your contribution, as I've told you before. You have loads of experience in the field of game conceptualization, marketing, and long term development, and you also have a realistic look on the industry and how much work it involves, so thanks for your contribution.

@TheFuntastic some great suggestions there. I think to build the proof of concept it shouldn't take longer than a few months, depending on the persons experience / hours put in. Like I said previous, there's no movement in the world, so no object scaling, perspective warping, or any other tricks that coders are using in current VR to get good results. As for the fun element, that comes from working with new technologies like the Rift and Leap Motion, seeing your hands in Virtual Reality for the first time and going 'wow', this is a whole new way of not only playing games, but also working with information. Anyone who is involved in this project, and if successful, will be able to say that they were part of the beginning in this shift in how we interact with our PCs. That is 'if' the concept works. Lets see.

dislekcia

@silvaring: Why should building the prototype not be a thing that investors pay for, instead of it eating out of your pocket and maybe not hitting the point that it needs to hit? Do a business case analysis, if the potential profits are worth it, then there's money to risk trying it.

Also, I was involved in this "shift in how we interact with our PCs" over 10 years ago during that wave of VR. People still haven't really come up with information presentation methods that trump non-face-mounted screens. And there's tons of money involved in trying to figure this stuff out: Oil companies and stock-market trading firms are always keen on any kind of visualisation that might grant them a slight competitive advantage. There are also huge problems with unsupported (mid-air) hand positions for interface usage for any period of time, but yeah, that's known. Basically, for a business case to be meaningfully made, I'd expect it to reference both historical and current UI and information vis practices to show how they got it wrong and why your approach is better than, say, a browser window.

That might be a hard ask though :(

francoisvn

One angle you could try aim for is: a training simulator for technician work. I think there is a fair bit of money for a piece of software+hardware that streamlines the training of technicians, which I imagine is a very costly process.

We were in some very early talks to do something like that for Eskom, but those fell through due to unrelated factors at Eskom. Also, our angle was less of the VR environment and more of the training simulator thing, but that was more because of our experience with the latter.

CodeCthulhu

@silvaring, while I'm not 100% clear on what exactly it is that you would like to achieve, I do have some spare time and would love to see if I can help you out.
I also read in your initial post you would like to incorporate Leap Motion control support. I have a Leap and I've been looking at the SDK for a while, so maybe I can help you in at least that part.

PM me if you're interested and we can set up a meeting.

silvaring

@dislekcia, you've thought about the subject of how these interfaces would translate, which is great and thanks for adding these points, because tbh I didn't even consider the support /comfort factor for the hands in mid air. re: the last wave of VR you mentioned, I imagine a lot of the failure of VR had to do with the limited FOV, latency issues, and the fact that web was a much better experience on a smaller monitor (the resolution was too bad in those days amirite?)

I don't mind putting money into a prototype, but you're right, its not an ideal situation. I need to do some work on the business side of the project (not my strongest ability but nevertheless).

@everyone else, thanks for the responses and positive feedback.

dislekcia

silvaring said:

I imagine a lot of the failure of VR had to do with the limited FOV, latency issues, and the fact that web was a much better experience on a smaller monitor (the resolution was too bad in those days amirite?)

Nope. The HMDs were pretty high resolution AFAIR, easily 768 vertical res, probably more. Latency was a thing, but not if you had things set up right. Remember, we're not talking consumer equipment here - this was Silicon Graphics machines running dedicated hardware. It wasn't exactly plug-n-play, so it performed well at what it was supposed to do - and that was just the hardware that I got to do research on here in SA. Overseas people had much beefier, full-room immersion setups and CAVE systems going. The biggest difference these days is that tracking is based off of IR grids and depth-scanning instead of the old custom-built magnetic systems, so you don't have to be holding something to have your hand be tracked.

Higher resolution doesn't fix a usability bottleneck. If it's faster to do something on the same machine setup you read your email on, then it doesn't matter how great something looks if you have to put on your HMD and wave your hands about to make it work.

silvaring

Hey everyone, this project is still in the works, I've just been busy moving place and setting up life in Johannesburg the past week or so. Thanks for all the interest and positive feedback.