Anonymous at Mon, 21 Mar 2022 23:03:58 UTC No. 887768

>>887766

Yes. This + environment art are the best skills. There's nothing more wonderful than creating a world of your own.

Anonymous at Mon, 21 Mar 2022 23:06:07 UTC No. 887769

>>887768
I looked at average wages and enviroment guys literally shit on the rest of jobs for 3D artists.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:35:56 UTC No. 887773

>>887769

Yes environment art is well paid, but because it's really hard. Contrary to what the talentless hacks on this board say, it's more complicated than just dragging assets. It's about believable set dressing, believable terrain (with proper asset placement), complex materials, deep knowledge of Speedtree, substance designer, optimisation... Being both a prop artist and an environment artist will put you in a great spot.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:37:34 UTC No. 887774

>>887773
still easier than character art.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:42:29 UTC No. 887775

>>887766
No, you have more leeway with them than you do with character art or guns. They're way too easy to do and there's multiple approaches to doing them. They're fun and they reward you for working smart instead of hard, but they're nothing compared to waifus, guns, furries, cars, swords, scifi ships, and other AAA characters as those take forever to get right and not fuck up.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:43:22 UTC No. 887776

>>887775
that's why I said is the cobol of 3D art.

Is not sexy, but is a well paid job.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:48:26 UTC No. 887778

>>887776
Cobol is tough or less flexible than other languages, prop modeling isn't really either of those. It's very lenient and forgiving in comparison to character modeling.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 00:52:41 UTC No. 887779

>>887778
>missing my point
cobol is boring boomer shit.

prop modelling is boring boomer shit.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 01:32:22 UTC No. 887781

>>887778
>It's very lenient and forgiving in comparison to character modeling
Can you explain this? Can't compare hero characters to background props though.

Anyway, I thought props are relatively easy as well, but I ended up being mainly a prop artist for the past couple of years now and honestly there's also a lot of depth to it. And I mean creating actually good props. I've been working with various freelancers in my studio and there are many who complete tasks very quickly and use a lot of procedurals in Substance. Their props are still good but they have that look where you see an artist just got the stuff done and that's it. Passable AAA quality with good material definitions, but bland and boring.

And then there are a handful of artists with much more refined skills and their props shine every time. Even the most basic stupid background prop like a painted metal pole can look amazing in a hand of an actually good prop artist. There's still a lot of depth here and I feel like I can still learn so much more even in this field. Not to mention how much that skill improved my environments automatically.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 02:49:40 UTC No. 887786

i think prop and environment "artists" should gtfo. Companies need to devote much more money into actual gameplay and debugging their network code

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 03:47:05 UTC No. 887788

>>887786
>gameplay
>network code
>artists
you know absolutely nothing. hang yourself

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 04:13:03 UTC No. 887789

>>887788
gameplay is art you moron

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 06:23:43 UTC No. 887797

props are the java of 3d art sir

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 10:36:30 UTC No. 887807

>>887773
Now I don’t know why was I ever seeing people talk about how underpaid 3D art positions are. And at the same time I’m seeing people moving to different continents for their new jobs every few years, and I doubt the salary isn’t good if they can make such life changes like it’s nothing.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 11:46:17 UTC No. 887814

>getting paid to kitbash environments
>getting paid to generate trees and rocks

I rather pull my brains out programming than subject myself to monkey labor for a woke AAA sup.

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Mar 2022 12:34:35 UTC No. 887816

>>887814
You only think it’s a monkey labor because you’re not interested in it. Creating custom trees from scratch and sculpting interesting rock shapes is legit fun. More creative than recreating an existing vehicle or a weapon from photo references.

True monkey labor are things like getting a premade hp model and having to make an optimized lp model for it.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:01:05 UTC No. 887920

>>887766
Don't know how it works in other industries (i.e. gaming), but in vfx there's just "modellers".
You do everything from the shitty hydrant to a bicycle to vehicles to cleaning actor scans to creatures.
Only interesting part being the latter and of course on your average vfx show the ratio of stupid shit to cool shit is like 100:1 at best or even 100:0 at worst.

Modelling sounds like the shittiest job in the world, you might get to work a couple of months on one cool asset if you're lucky and 6+ months on dumb filler crap that nobody is even supposed to be able to pick out from the image anyway. Not every show is something like Jurassic World with 50 hero dinosaurs to make.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:25:55 UTC No. 887923

>>887920
>on dumb filler crap that nobody is even supposed to be able to pick out from the image anyway
See, this is interesting with interactive media like games and VR, because even those stupid little objects can be seen from a closeup and sometimes players can even look at them closely if there is some sort of an inspect item mechanic. So all of them can be equally in focus and even if you work on something simple, all the attention to detail you put into it can pay off. So it isn't soul sucking as much, at least for me, and I make plenty of those since I work for an outsourcing studio. But we also work on hero props, as well as vehicles, architecture etc.

It's true that the separation of a modeler in games is usually: characters, props, weapons, vehicles etc.

It's kinda surprising how many people here apparently don't like asset creation, but I think it isn't that boring as some of you describe it.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Mar 2022 02:10:57 UTC No. 887928

>>887774

No shit sherlock

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Mar 2022 05:37:58 UTC No. 887942

>>887920
that's why is well paid because every fucking kid and pajeet wants to make the cool character shit.

nobody wants to make the boring random hidrant and street pole in the middle of the level.

cope.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Mar 2022 10:39:35 UTC No. 887959

>>887942
Plenty of people enjoy doing those street assets as well. Everything can be a challenge in a certain way, e.g. texturing them. If you can’t understand that, you probably don’t know what’s an actually good texturing. Yes, the model is boring and simple, but the materials can still be a good study, especially if it’s an old worn down asset.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:53:22 UTC No. 888032

very competitive because the skill barrier to entry is low (as opposed to character art), but at a high level it's about workflow development and management. Things have to be made to specification and asset pipelines can be lengthy, delivering on time with consistent quality is key. It's extremely important to continue learning and keep track of emerging techniques, standards, and software.

>>887920
There are senior positions at a good amount of game studios that focus solely on hero assets. If you get very good at prop creation you can get a position like that. There are also a number of boutique out sourcing houses that focus on vehicles, weapons, characters. There's a lot of scope for doing interesting work in that industry. Not worked in film though.

Anonymous at Sun, 27 Mar 2022 02:10:47 UTC No. 888643

>>887766
you always need more enviroment/prop artists than character artist, this shit will pay your rent

Anonymous at Sun, 27 Mar 2022 02:44:40 UTC No. 888646

>>888643
it is shit and you will be living in absolute poverty

Anonymous at Sun, 27 Mar 2022 11:34:12 UTC No. 888701

Being a prop monkey isn't glorious or exiting but somebody has to do it. Can't have all people work on hero assets.

Anonymous at Sun, 27 Mar 2022 11:36:22 UTC No. 888702

>>888701
>ESL hands

Anonymous at Sun, 27 Mar 2022 15:24:01 UTC No. 888728

>>888701

I fucking love modeling props. More than hero assets.

Anonymous at Sun, 10 Apr 2022 15:58:55 UTC No. 891114

>>887766
yo what up man

Anonymous at Sun, 10 Apr 2022 16:14:51 UTC No. 891120

>>887797
this, 90% of studios outsource making these basic props to indonesia and india

Anonymous at Mon, 11 Apr 2022 09:03:13 UTC No. 891362

>>891120
If you say it like that, what environment props aren’t basic then?

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 11:20:09 UTC No. 892658

>>887928
No sher Shitlock.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 11:30:41 UTC No. 892659

>>891362
most people say that no env props matter and they thus outsource them to the sweatshops.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 12:50:24 UTC No. 892669

>>892659
Most people also notice and play a game because of its beautiful environments and not "hero" characters. And what are environments without props?

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:13:12 UTC No. 892675

>>892669
that isnt true though. The vast majority of people play games for the licensed characters only

>And what are environments without props?
we're not saying you're going to get rid of props, we're saying that we're going to give those jobs to the sweatshops

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:15:51 UTC No. 892676

but sir the environment needs props

>I SAID NO PROPS

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:19:02 UTC No. 892677

>>892675
>The vast majority of people play games for the licensed characters only
lol

>we're saying that we're going to give those jobs to the sweatshops
Who's "we"? Are you a hiring manager at some big company? Nice undermining of prop artists btw. And again, environments can't exist without props.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:21:52 UTC No. 892678

Yeah if you really want to get anywhere, learn to do it all. If you can model props, you can put in the extra time and model characters. you can make weapons. You can make vehicles. A model is a model and they're all made of polygons.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:23:07 UTC No. 892679

>>892677
Again, we are not going to get rid of them, but you wont have a job anymore unless you live where i can pay you cents on the dollar

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:25:02 UTC No. 892680

Pretty soon most art in games (props, characters, vehicles, even whole levels even) will be done by an ai given a brief description of what the developer wants. Every modeller in /3/ will be out of a job.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:37:58 UTC No. 892683

>>892679
Nice larp.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:38:26 UTC No. 892684

>>892680
Fake and gay. Keep on dreaming bud

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:49:38 UTC No. 892686

>>892684
Don't say that to him, it's all he has. How else will he feel superior?

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:50:43 UTC No. 892687

>>892680
ai by definition cant make art, it can just make patterns that are biased due to built in racism

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 19:41:49 UTC No. 892723

>>892680
>>892684
>>892687
pretty much ^

all AI generated 'art' is just a collage of shit plagiarised from google images.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 20:45:04 UTC No. 892736

>>892684
I think it'll happen in five years. 3d point cloud style transfer is a very active area of research, a big player like Epic with Quixel's scan library could definitely bring a product to market.

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 21:05:43 UTC No. 892740

>>892736
why would they spent millions of dollars in computing, time and research to do something that a pajeet could make in 5 minutes for pennies? the research should be done for automatic texturing

Anonymous at Tue, 19 Apr 2022 22:14:58 UTC No. 892746

>>892736
>>892740
We're not even close to automating prop creation yet, there's too much shit to deal with, no matter how much you're trying to push this "even a pajeet can make props!!!" idea.

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 01:16:38 UTC No. 892768

>>892746
What are geometry nodes for $500.

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 09:45:36 UTC No. 892818

>>892768
Clueless hobbyist detected, prop creation workflow can vary a lot for different projects, much more than you might think. Geo nodes are useless for it, getting a nice looking high poly is only the first step.

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 10:16:36 UTC No. 892822

>>892818
You sound like yesterdays texture artist.
>B-but muh hand-painted artisanal scuff marks! Nobody paints wood grain like me!
Bake a color id and slap smart materials on it and call it a day. Cristóbal can stay, the rest go.

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 10:23:28 UTC No. 892823

>>892818
>Geo nodes are useless for it
Anon...

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:04:51 UTC No. 892843

>>892822
You will never be a good texture (or a prop) artist with that texturing method though. You might not want to be that in the first place, but stfu then and don't spread misinformation. Slapping smart materials and calling it a day is pathetic and wouldn't get approved by any competent lead in your team.

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:40:22 UTC No. 892847

>>892843
Eh, the standard really isn't very high. My lead gleefully rubs his hands and says billing clients four-to-five figure sums for basic box modeling and flipped marketplace assets is a great business model. Smart materials are unheard of, just google a texture and swap it. The fuck is a DWG? Here's a PDF from the realtor's site, just trace the 512px floorplan.

This is archvis. YMMV in games or tv.

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 16:09:09 UTC No. 892852

>>892847
>This is archvis. YMMV in games or tv.
You could have said this right away, because yeah, there's probably a huge difference there. I thought it is simpler than it is as well, until I actually got into the industry and started making props for various clients and AAA projects. I remember that boost of confidence at one point, but it soon dropped again when I noticed what some of my peers are doing which made me realize I still barely know the basics. Yes, good enough to contribute to such projects, but still miles away from leading prop / environment artists.

It's not the most complex job, but there's always something to learn and improve on and it can get pretty deep if you want to become truly great at it. Workflows are different depending on a type of a prop so people even specialize in certain things.

I agree that sometimes it can be enough to just use quick smart materials, and I occasionally do barebones texturing for certain things in my personal projects as well, but my clients always expect unique high quality assets that can sometimes require many days of work.

And that is mainly for games, I can imagine for film it's even harder as there are people there that are only doing texturing, or only modeling, so it's even more specialized. No matter how much you try to bring this whole craft down by saying every dumbass can do this, you can't beat the quality of those people who do it all day every day.

Anyway, I kinda ended up here by accident, prop art wasn't the most interesting area of 3D for me, but I learned to appreciate it much more once I got into it professionally. I don't want to stay here forever either, I'm still making environments and playing around with different art styles on my personal projects, but it seems like a pretty stable and sought-after job position, which isn't THAT hard to get into.

Anonymous at Wed, 20 Apr 2022 16:52:50 UTC No. 892857

>>892852
>You could have said this right away, because yeah, there's probably a huge difference there.
There might very well be, but it's hard to imagine after delivering so many hack jobs to clients. I've turned pretty cynical toward the industry, good craftsmanship and the pleasure from a job well done are self-indulgences the bean counters and gel-haired suits won't accommodate. I think archvis is the sector of 3dcg that's gone furthest down this road but vfx, games etc. are following fast. Quality minded ADs are being squeezed harder as onshore headcounts shrink and their work is more visible to partners and other purse string holders.

This is part venting, part honest opinion.