Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 20:58:04 UTC No. 916217

>>916215
Are you in America?
How much do you make?
how's the job market right now? (specially remote work in america but not the united states)

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:04:10 UTC No. 916218

>>916215
Explain to me color blockouts and do you find them useful.
Also tell me what do to in situations where the environment has lot of colorful props, but you’re going for a desaturated TLOU type of look. How to balance the elements and the lighting when the detail lighting looks great, but with colors it’s messed up and breaks up values, it’s hard to control them. Is it all just about asset placement and color grouping and postprocessing or is there more to it.

Looking forward to your replies, industry man, don’t end up being cris in disguise once again.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:11:15 UTC No. 916221

>>916217
>Are you in America?
Yes
>How much do you make?
Anything between 50k-100k/yr depending on the employer. Salaries can vary wildly, with the big players having the most money to burn on salaries. If you have the skills and experience you can pull 75k+ salaries reliably with US studios, but I prefer working indie so I end up making less.
>how's the job market right now? (specially remote work in america but not the united states)
Other than the uptick in NFT/Metaverse projects (which I don't fuck with) the demand is pretty much the same as usual. For remote, most studios seem very accommodating of the idea, with a majority of studios I've seen moving to a hybrid model, and many accepting fully remote workers if they want your skills hard enough. For the most part they're paying remote workers close to the local workers' salaries too, which is great if you live in a lower CoL area.

This is pretty much the situation with WFH in the tech industry as a whole, offering remote work is such a massive benefit for the employees that your studio will pretty much bleed talent if you don't do it, because your employees *will* find a remote position somewhere else.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:11:31 UTC No. 916222

>>916215
How do you approach texturing for non hero props?

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:12:31 UTC No. 916224

>>916215
I literally don't know what to put in my portfolio. I have some props where I show my HP>LP workflow breakdowns. but thats about it. what are employers looking for? do I show some UE stuff? bigger, more complete environments? what should i include?

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:34:35 UTC No. 916229

>>916218
>Explain to me color blockouts and do you find them useful.
Since you mention TLOU I assume you're talking about blockouts with the art colors, not with LD-coded colors. I personally think they're invaluable, because color affects your composition as much as lighting does. Ultimately, the role of a visual artist is to create a balanced, readable composition with a clear hierarchy and points of interest. It does *not* matter what causes that hierarchy materials or lighting, only that it is present through a combination of the two. I've joined two images to my post: the first is an example of an environment with neutral materials and hierarchy created through lighting. The second is an example of an environment with neutral, flat lighting, and hierarchy created through materials. On most productions you'll be working with both (well honestly, you'll mostly be working with people who don't give a shit), but it's definitely possible to strongly prioritize materials or lighting on a production as an art direction choice.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:35:49 UTC No. 916230

>>916218
>Also tell me what do to in situations where the environment has lot of colorful props, but you’re going for a desaturated TLOU type of look. How to balance the elements and the lighting when the detail lighting looks great, but with colors it’s messed up and breaks up values, it’s hard to control them. Is it all just about asset placement and color grouping and postprocessing or is there more to it.
That's hard to answer because the "correct" answer is: learn and apply *all* the rules of composition as much and as well as possible whenever the opportunity arises. That said, creating a good environment begins with good set design practices. Take a look at how they populate a set in a movie or TV show: The color, lightness, and saturation of every object on set is carefully considered. The actors are gonna be dressed in specific colors, props throughout the set will respect color palettes, items (and people) that aren't important will get a color that will let them blend with their surrounding and those that you want to draw attention to will get a color that makes them stand out.

In games I still see few productions do this properly, and while it's 100% something that goes through the mind of most concept artists, it often gets lost when translated to level art, for a multitude of reasons. Perhaps modelers, texture artists, and level artists aren't keenly aware of those considerations, or often they're stuck working with a limited library of assets (if you NEED a barrel and your game only has barrels that come in ugly green, that's what you're stuck with.)

I personally believe that game productions need to rely more heavily on tintable materials, or produce several variants of their BC textures so the level artists can choose how light, dark, and colorful specific objects should be in order to best suit the scene's composition.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:46:29 UTC No. 916232

>>916218
>Okay, but tell me what I should be doing, though
Have a good understanding of the rules of composition, then change anything that doesn't belong where it currently is. Wrong colors, wrong shapes, wrong textures. Your lighting and post process will supplement that, but you can't carry a scene with schizo materials, good work starts with what's in the scene itself before you even begin to light.

If you wanna show off lighting, it helps to build most of your scene with light materials, because you'll get more bounce light, and see the contrast between lights & shadows better that way. If your scene looks like a schizo mess after lighting, you probably have too many dark and light materials close to each other creating unwanted material contrasts that overpower your lighting. Bring all the values closer together, by replacing your brightest or darkest standouts with stuff that's more aligned with your general color palette.

DON'T fuck with your PBR and make your coal white or your snow gray to reduce your material contrast, though. That stuff always looks dopey, you gotta pick props and surfaces that would *actually* have those colors, and avoid undesirable colors.

Also, dark materials make your lighting less visible, but they're not bad per se. Just different. They actually do help show your specular better (black surface + white highlight > white surface + white highlight) which is why you'll often see reflective floors made of darker mats.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:52:23 UTC No. 916233

>>916218
Here are two examples of great material grouping from the german series "Dark". I like those examples because they're virtually the same, which makes it really easy to understand.

Notice how everything that's on the *floor* of the set is a *light* color, and everything on the *walls* of the set is a *dark* color. If those tarps in the second picture were dark blue instead of white, or if the wood paneling had light accents instead of being made entirely of dark wood, it would completely change the focus of the composition. Instead, having all those elements of similar materials close to each other tells the eye: "this tarp isn't important, please consider everything on the floor as an ensemble".

Then you're free to draw attention to what you want by breaking up the monotony intentionally with something that stands out.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:53:53 UTC No. 916234

>>916222
>How do you approach texturing for non hero props?
"Non-hero prop" is too broad of a definition cause that could be fucking anything, give me specifics and I'll give you answers.

🗑️ Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:57:42 UTC No. 916236

>>916224
Include the kind of stuff you'd like people to pay you to make more of, that's it. If you do it well enough somebody will hire you for it.
If you're a newbie, focus on a specific discipline. It can be prop art, characters, hard surface, textures, environments, lighting (of marketplace scenes), it doesn't matter. Don't spread your skills too thin, employers want a junior who's competent at one thing, not shitty at six.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 21:59:36 UTC No. 916237

>>916224
>I literally don't know what to put in my portfolio. I have some props where I show my HP>LP workflow breakdowns. but thats about it. what are employers looking for? do I show some UE stuff? bigger, more complete environments? what should i include?
Include the kind of stuff you'd like people to pay you to make more of, that's it. If you do it well enough somebody will hire you for it.
If you're a newbie, focus on a specific discipline. It can be prop art, characters, hard surface, textures, environments, lighting (of marketplace scenes), it doesn't matter. Don't spread your skills too thin, employers want a junior who's competent at one thing, not shitty at six.

tl;dr: Focus on getting good at one thing you like, that's the fastest way to get a job.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 22:38:54 UTC No. 916245

>>916237
if you're OP how did you get a job as an environment artist? what did your portfolio look like?

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Sep 2022 22:54:56 UTC No. 916246

>>916229
>>916230
>>916232
>>916233
Awesome, that's some good stuff right there, thanks for taking your time answering these in depth. It's my main "struggle" these days. I ultimately come up with a good composition and color balance in the end, but recently it started annoying me that to achieve that, it takes me a lot of time and tweaking things, which made me feel I may still lack some fundamental information that will allow me to approach it in a better way, and that I'm always sure I'm on the right path.

Color blockouts are something I haven't been doing before, but I'll start incorporating it in my new projects now, yes, I meant about applying base color materials during the blockout stage to get a feeling of color asap, together with a quick lighting pass early on.

I agree about tintable materials, a lot of props are being made in a bubble, especially outsourced ones, artists don't really know how the scene itself will look like and it's not that often that art director has some specific visual rules that every prop should apply. How do they make sure all the props still somehow work fine together and how much do they tweak them later on, idk.

But yeah, if you also know of some good learning sources for that kind of thing I'd appreciate it as well.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 15:00:24 UTC No. 916317

How would you go about making an urban environment (a city) that's not too big but still gives you the motivation to explore it?
Also what to do so the player won't get tired about it?

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 16:45:32 UTC No. 916324

>>916245
>how did you get a job as an environment artist?
That's another extremely broad question, but I'll try to cover it as best as I can.

There's two steps to landing a job, the first is becoming employable and the second is finding a good studio willing to take you.

For becoming employable, focus on building skills in a specialization you enjoy. For me it was environment art, so I had two small environments (one of them was an alley with a single shot and the other was an enclosed room) and 2-3 hero props in my portfolio. They were all of above average quality for a junior (but still shit for a senior), which helped tremendously with getting a job.

How do you build skills? Simple: theory, and practice. You gotta find a good learning resource, and you need to be consistently working on projects so you can put that theory in action and commit it to your brain. That's literally it, there's no secret.

What are good learning resources? It depends on the individual. You can learn the same information from many different sources, so what matters is finding something that "clicks" for you and makes the learning process easier. Some people are fine reading books or watching tutorials and can learn everything on their own (you gotta find the good tutorials and avoid free youtube content because most of it is shit, but there's a ton of good paid resources for learning nowadays). Another thing I heavily recommend is joining and being active in an art community that:
1. Has professionals/students serious about entering the industry
2. Isn't a massive 10000+ user server
Basically, if you're lost, there's nothing better for guidance than somebody who knows what they're doing, can take 10-15 minutes of their week to give you a crit, and point you in the right direction. You don't want to join a huge public server because these get so much noise nobody will reply to you, and chances are the people giving you crits will be as incompetent as you are.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 17:02:10 UTC No. 916326

>>916324
Now assuming you've already got the skills, let's talk about step 2: finding a job.

There's two ways to get interviews. Either people reach out to you, or you reach out to people.

Don't expect the former to happen a lot as a junior, although it can. I used to live in a major gamedev city, so simply having my stuff trending on artstation, facebook groups, and having a linkedin profile led to a few recruiters reaching out to me. That said, you'll get more people contacting you once you have some experience on your profile. Also, people contacting you is great because that means *they're* interested, but you might not like what they have to offer. You'll mostly meet general-purpose recruiters who might or might not know how good of a fit you'd be for their studio, so results may vary.

For doing the reaching out, this is purely anecdotal, but I think you're better off being picky where you apply, instead of casting a wide net and applying to every place you can find. There's no shortage of gamedev jobs, and you don't wanna be stuck in a place you hate, especially after you put years of effort building your skills. For example, as a junior, I don't recommend working with studios that have obvious bad art, or extremely small teams where you'd practically be the sole 3D artist. These places might be eager to hire you out of desperation, but they're a career trap: you can spend a decade at a place like that and never grow your skills, which will eventually leave you unemployable for anything other than more shit jobs.

Being picky also helps you once you make it to the interview. You'll have an easier time explaining naturally why you're interested in the studio, because, well, you have a genuine interest in them and chose them instead of them being just another job that pays you money. Lemme tell you, finding a junior with decent skills, a solid head, and interest in the studio, pretty much makes you a unicorn. They HAVE to give you the job at that point.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 17:24:50 UTC No. 916329

>>916245
>what did your portfolio look like?
Lastly I wanted to answer this, but I genuinely can't find images of my old stuff, and tech + standards have changed so much since then it's basically no longer relevant. Instead I encourage you to look on artstation, sort by new, look for a variety of posts and see if the person has got a job, where, and doing what. You'll find a good amount of junior pro portfolios that way.

One thing you'll see is that the skill "floor" can vary greatly between studios. There's some "leads" out there that have portfolios so bad I wouldn't hire them as a junior. Tempting as it may, you probably don't wanna work with these people, or compare yourself to them. They can do nothing for you.

Here's a few examples of pieces I would consider "acceptable" from a junior. These aren't mindblowing, but they're not bottom of the "hireable junior art" barrel either, and should let you find a place somewhere decent with a bit of searching & luck.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6bBXPx
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zDGV0d
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QnXVLr
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lRQWJo

If you're willing to share some of your own work, I'd be happy to tell you where you stand in terms of hireability and why, as well as tell you what's missing if you're not.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 17:35:38 UTC No. 916332

>>916246
>But yeah, if you also know of some good learning sources for that kind of thing I'd appreciate it as well.
At the core, what you're struggling with seems to me like a composition issue, so it's best to focus on learning material that deals with composition. I'm reminded of a time Ian Hubert said he was asked to do a "lighting tutorial", and he basically did a composition tutorial instead, because what people call "good lighting" is essentially just good composition.

https://www.artstation.com/learning/instructors/wootha
Watch "Composition in Painting" and "Practical Composition" from this guy, they're excellent technical breakdowns of the broad, overarching rules of composition.
Once you're done with Wootha, look up a book called "The Visual Story" by Bruce Block. Wootha covers broad image theory, Bruce Block will help you see how it's applied to film in a practical manner.
With these two you should be good for a while. Come back to them regularly as you won't be able to retain all the information from the get go and will need several refreshers, inbetween doing work and trying to apply what you've learned from them. Feel free to supplement your learning with additional material on composition as there's plenty of other stuff to learn, just try not to spread yourself too thin.


Protip: when you wanna learn ART, don't look for game art resources. People who teach game art overwhelmingly deal with the TECH side of it, but can be pretty clueless when it comes to art. You'll find better resources in cinematography, photography, and (sometimes) illustration teachers.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 17:48:19 UTC No. 916333

>>916317
>How would you go about making an urban environment (a city) that's not too big but still gives you the motivation to explore it?
Your statement makes it seem like you might correlate an environment's size with how engaging it is to explore, which definitely isn't the case. Thing is, a lot of how much long-lasting fun a game provides ultimately boils down to content, but not just art content. Think of games like Prey or Deus ex, which have levels with relatively small footprints, but filled with dense, varied content which makes them feel like a really fun toybox full of stuff to explore. Now compare those to a massive dead open world like release-era No Man's Sky, which simulates the entire universe but gives you nothing to do in it. There's no singular element the success of Prey's levels or the failure of NMS's boils down to, it's about the amount of content that's presented to the player, and how polished that content is.

Visually, though? Prototype your levels with sizes that are good for GAMEPLAY, then build art vistas outside the playable area to give the player a sense of scale. Limit yourself to building a very detailed city block, but have vista art that makes it look like there's a full-size city beyond that and you'll sell the illusion.

>Also what to do so the player won't get tired about it?
I feel that's a game design issue so I won't answer it, but I think lasting player engagement ultimately comes down to your game being mechanically fun, having fun traversal if you're expected to move a lot, and giving the player a sense of progression so they don't notice they're doing the same thing over & over.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 17:53:34 UTC No. 916334

is substance painter necessary? and if so is there any downsides to pirating/ will be noticeable that it is pirated? asking because I am a beginner and the painting in blender seems shitty.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 18:01:41 UTC No. 916338

>>916246
Another magic keyword I thought of for you is "production design". Environment artists are essentially production designers, except most of them don't realize it or even know that job exists (well, those working in games).

https://robbessette.com/2017/10/13/the-power-of-production-design/

There should be some decent learning material concerning the job of a production designer out there. I've never looked for it so I don't have much to provide, but it'd be a good avenue to explore. They deal exactly with the kind of stuff you've mentioned.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 18:06:20 UTC No. 916340

>>916334
>is substance painter necessary?
Yes, it's the only 3D texturing program that's more or less feature-complete for games. Mari might actually be good, but I've never seen anyone use it.
Currently, if you texture professionally for games you'll be dealing with SP and SD files *everywhere*, so it's best to learn it.

>is there any downsides to pirating/ will be noticeable that it is pirated?
I saw a studio blast their indian freelancers for turning in work done with a pirated copy. Even then, that was the studio trying to cover their own ass, not Adobe coming after them. If you're not making any money, pirate it, no one gives a shit. If you're making money, then obviously you can pay for the license, it's something like $20/month.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 18:07:39 UTC No. 916341

>>916334
I forgot to add because I thought it went without saying, but texturing 3D assets in Blender/Gimp/Photoshop is utter shit compared to Painter. So you'll have an easier time working in a correct program, too.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 18:30:34 UTC No. 916345

>>916215
What was your gross income in the last 2 years? How mich are you paying for insurance? Are you contract based? Do you always have a job lined up after the contract? How many hours you work? How many of your peers have cgp? Do you wish you had a stable comfy corporate job making 6 figs somewhere?

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 18:40:49 UTC No. 916346

>>916345
>What was your gross income in the last 2 years?
$1 475 000
>How mich are you paying for insurance?
lol I dunno
>Are you contract based?
Sometimes
>Do you always have a job lined up after the contract?
No
>How many hours you work?
40
>How many of your peers have cgp?
lol I dunno
>Do you wish you had a stable comfy corporate job making 6 figs somewhere?
Absolutely not. My work is already stable, comfy, fun, and lacking the corporate part.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 18:45:44 UTC No. 916347

>>916346
Are you larping? Pyw that's not on socialedia.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 18:57:36 UTC No. 916351

>>916347
>Are you larping? Pyw that's not on socialedia.
I don't have anything to prove, because trusting people based on their credentials is a smoothbrain move.
I try to back up my answers with the most substantial explanations I can come up with. From there on, it's up to you to consider the information, and decide if you judge it pertinent or not.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 19:03:30 UTC No. 916352

>>916351
There is no trying. Industry men are sure of their answers. Pros do not Lol they sound professional. And you said you made 1 million gross kek. Sounds like larp to me.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 19:04:40 UTC No. 916353

>>916352
You asked for my gross income. I already said how much I make from 3D, it was the very first question I answered in the thread.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 21:32:47 UTC No. 916379

>>916353
Not that guy, but wow 1.5 mil in 2 years sounds absolutely insane, especially for 3d art. I don’t think even top tier programmers earn that much. How many years of exp do you have in the industry and I assume you’re a lead / director tier for sure? Are you freelancing? But you also mentioned 50-100k a year in the previous post so I don’t get it now. I also wonder what industry, you’re talking about games which is another mystery considering marketing jobs pay much better for example, from what I’ve heard.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 22:26:11 UTC No. 916391

>>916379
Since there seems to be a lot of confusion these gains aren't from my job lmao.
Read the beginning of the thread people, like I said I make 50-100k/yr from 3D.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 22:33:25 UTC No. 916396

>>916391
I won't ask for details but makes you wonder why would you keep doing 3d professionally when you earn many times more on whatever else you got there. I'd just make personal art all day probably. Either way good for you and thanks for all the useful info you're sharing.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 22:42:40 UTC No. 916397

>>916391
yeah keep lmaoing you weren't specific to begin with. Someone who makes 1 million don't have time for 4chin. The fuck are you doing in a dead board of 5 people lol. Larp larp. post your tax documents I would have taken you seriously if you did an AMA on reddit.

Anonymous at Fri, 2 Sep 2022 22:52:48 UTC No. 916398

>>916396
I do it cause I like it. Being paid for it is a nice bonus. Personal art gets boring after a while because you have to make your own fun and never interact with anybody.
>>916397
>yeah keep lmaoing you weren't specific to begin with
Anon asked my gross income for the last 2 years, I provided the answer. Not my fault his question had nothing to do with 3D.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 00:08:45 UTC No. 916403

how long you been in the industry?

Can you show some of your work?

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 02:01:09 UTC No. 916423

>>916351
I appreciate you making this thread, the advice you've given has definitely been useful

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 03:21:10 UTC No. 916436

How do I know if I'm good at 3DCG

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 05:25:56 UTC No. 916441

>>916403
>how long you been in the industry?
7 years now, but I've been doing CG for 9
>Can you show some of your work?
What work? I wish, but seriously, I haven't finished any personal projects in so long I wouldn't have anything to show, and I don't think any of my employers would appreciate me posting their stuff on 4chan.

>>916436
>How do I know if I'm good at 3DCG
You'll never be good, you gotta keep learning, cause if the new technology doesn't surpass you, the younger kids will.
But seriously, ask around, and see what other people have to say about your work. That said, there are probably better places to ask than 4chan... but as long as you ask CG people, you're bound to get some useful feedback on some things.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 07:25:29 UTC No. 916447

>>916441
a better answer would be round up the new 'usual suspects' for what qualifies as good and cool and if you can do that - you are good. you are also good if you cant do that but can do some other shit really well.
also, get paid.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 07:28:18 UTC No. 916448

>>916447
>a better answer would be round up the new 'usual suspects' for what qualifies as good and cool
Can you clarify what you mean by that, how does one "round up the usual suspects"?

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 08:47:33 UTC No. 916452

>>916441
>no personal projects
How do you go about maintaining a sexy portfolio? Do you decline employers whose projects are not up to your standards, or rely exclusively on word-of-mouth to switch jobs?

Asking because I was hired straight out of school with a shit portfolio, job turned out to be cleaning up turbosquid and pajeet assets, couldn't job hop cause of said shit folio, left industry after burnout. This was many years ago and most people I graduated with are still stuck in poverty wage hellhole studios with super outdated portfolios, if they haven't left altogether.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 08:53:33 UTC No. 916453

>>916448
just try to find work you think is good
its harder than it sounds

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 09:33:40 UTC No. 916454

seems like this guy is larping so I'm gonna roll in and offer you real answers
i'm a lead in a eastern europe outsource studio
ama

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 09:37:01 UTC No. 916455

>>916454
you a call center bitch what?

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 14:09:17 UTC No. 916478

How many years of experience do you have?
Of all the 3D jobs, wich one is the most comfortable (economically mostly)?

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 14:33:56 UTC No. 916480

To me it's always a bit sad and strange even to see people in the industry not touching any personal work for years. I would expect from an artist to have this internal need to publish original work. Purely original even, I know there are plenty of people who do personal projects, but they are copies of other people's concept arts. But apparently not, and now someone will again say that 3d artists are more like craftsmen and only getting a job matters. I mean sure, whatever, I know that for me, any personal project of mine means 100 times more than any AA and AAA work I've done for some X company. If anything, I see working in the industry more as an opportunity to get better at the craft so I can do better personal projects later on (besides money ofc), rather than vice versa.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 15:08:17 UTC No. 916489

How many pride flags have you made. How many do you have to make per hour.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 16:59:13 UTC No. 916500

>>916215
When you tell women you're a 3D modeler, what's the reaction?
Are they impressed, disgusted, neutral?
Do you get laid often?

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 17:30:13 UTC No. 916505

>>916452
>How do you go about maintaining a sexy portfolio?
That one is simpler than you think, just don't post work that's not up to your standards. If you look at superstar portfolios, they don't upload all their work done for every client, only what meets their own quality standards. There's even quite a few artists that don't post any paid work, and only use their folios for personal art.

Obviously, as a junior, your main concern should be to have some good art in your portfolio. If your professional work is an upgrade over your student one, I'd put it in. If they're both awful, try to come up with some ideas of simple pieces you could execute at a higher quality in your free time, so you have *something* to show to prospective future employers.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 17:37:56 UTC No. 916507

>>916478
>How many years of experience do you have?
7 being paid, 9 making CG.
>Of all the 3D jobs, wich one is the most comfortable (economically mostly)?
My favorite jobs are at indie studios where other people also know what they're doing. There's something really fun about being on a team where everything goes smoothly, and the project size is small enough that everyone can have an impact. It's like doing a school project with your friends, except people are also motivated and competent.

Financially speaking, tech giants like Nvidia, Facebook, etc. pay the most (I never worked for them but I heard of people getting ridiculous offers), with newly created studios that don't know how to allocate their budget yet coming in second. But I'd take a fun job over money any day of the week, so I'm not the best person to tell you about this.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 17:45:16 UTC No. 916509

>>916507
Thanks. By jobs I meant position (like animators, riggers, tech artists, env artist, character artist, etc.)
What's the proportion of available work between publicity/commercials, movies/films and video games? To be honest with you, I'm a webdev/programer who's thinking of getting into the 3D world. I've been training with CG for 2 years now. I always had this artistic fiber in me so I'm very good at making characters but during these two years I did a lot of modeling, characters sculpting, procedural stuff with Houdini and a little bit of VFX (I love this software btw), rigging, animating and game programing)
I'm obviously not a pro yet on any of these but I'm thinking of specialiazing myself very soon. But I don't really want to significantly lower my salary. I neither want to get into a slave-like position where I'll be in a high competition against thousands of job seachers.

What would you advise to a guy in my position?

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 17:51:15 UTC No. 916512

>>916480
>To me it's always a bit sad and strange even to see people in the industry not touching any personal work for years.
I can understand that. For me, my paid work replaces personal work in a way that I still get satisfaction from. I dunno how other people feel about making art for games, but games *are* a form of expression, and the games we help create will impact way more people, in much deeper ways, than even the best portfolio of still images and short vids will. Is it less glorifying because it's done within a team, rather than being a solo accomplishment? I don't think so. Many of the games we create are only possible because of team efforts.

I still try to do personal art in my free time, but these days I find that most of it ends up being tests and practice, with the end goal of improving my production skills.

>I know there are plenty of people who do personal projects, but they are copies of other people's concept arts
3D, and especially game art, is an incredibly technical field. I only started learning about the more "artistic" fundamentals of CG art several years into my career, and even now, if you look up "game lighting tutorial", you'll find plenty of people showing you how to use Unreal Engine, keep your lighting performant, use physically accurate values... but no one will tell you where to place your lights or how to light a level to make it look good. (You can find that info elsewhere, thankfully.)

>any personal project of mine means 100 times more than any AA and AAA work
If this frustrates you, you should start looking for a more stimulating job where your skills are valued. There's plenty of dull game productions like there's also some very satisfying ones.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 17:53:53 UTC No. 916515

>>916454
Do you have any thoughts on CDPR, and what the hell happens during their productions? I remember hearing shortly after Witcher 3 came out that their studio was wildly inefficient and they were bleeding devs, then CP2077 came out in the state it did. I'd love to know what happened.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 17:57:49 UTC No. 916516

>>916489
>How many pride flags have you made. How many do you have to make per hour.
I've never made a pride flag or "woke" content for games. I hope this comes as no surprise to anyone who reads this, but 4chan vastly overestimates how much gamedevs think about wokeness as a whole. There's a few people at every studio that are very left-leaning, a few that are very right-leaning (it's funny because I've seen equal amounts of both), but for the most part I would say that 80% of people don't care about politics at work and just wanna make games.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 18:00:32 UTC No. 916518

>>916500
>When you tell women you're a 3D modeler, what's the reaction?
Bold of you to assume I talk to people.
>Do you get laid often?
I have not gotten laid since I started this career (I used to get laid regularly before, so take that as you will)

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 18:14:39 UTC No. 916520

>>916509
If you're a programmer going in art, you can always expect to take a pay cut. CG art is naturally paid less than programming, because there's less use for CG artists, whereas there's an absolutely massive demand for programmers everywhere in society. Not only that, but you're also switching from a skilled trade to another, which means you're gonna start over with less experience and mastery, which translates to less pay.

My suggestion would be to go on glassdoor and look at gamedev salaries for whatever city/region you wanna work in. If you're a Bay area programmer, you're pretty much screwed, you're gonna have to either move or significantly downgrade your lifestyle, and that's with taking an art job where you live. If you're a programmer in a low CoL area of the US, your best chance would be to get a remote job working for a CA studio (surprisingly it can even be indie, CA indies can pay really well). You'd need the skills to justify a position above junior, unless you're willing to work as a junior (with junior pay) for a year or two, which imo can be worth it if you're at a good studio and use the opportunity to pick up skills quickly.

As for who makes more, definitely specialists, and the higher in demand the better. Riggers/Technical Animators and FX artists are always in very high demand due to being exceedingly rare. Tech artists would be a close second. Character artists are plentiful, but usually only the best are hired for high profile work meaning they can earn quite a lot. After that, I'd say that everyone else is on an even footing, with seniority, responsibilities, and studio budget dictating the wage way more than specialization.

If you wanna make six figures, aim for lead or director roles. It pays to learn visual design and art theory at this point, Pixar's art director didn't get hired for being good at making chairs and barrels.

But if you're already changing careers, why not go with the art discipline you enjoy the most?

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 18:17:16 UTC No. 916523

>>916507
>Financially speaking, tech giants like Nvidia, Facebook, etc. pay the most (I never worked for them but I heard of people getting ridiculous offers)
Thanks for making me feel even more shit, I've been incredibly jelly of some people getting jobs at nvidia recently, seems like a perfect studio and they seem to even work remotely. But I've also seen some of my coworkers at other gigs getting a job as a 3d artist there, and they are not better than me so maybe there's a chance. Too afraid to apply but I would probably accept instantly if I got an offer from them. The only question is if they're also one of those studios that tune the salaries based on the location, because I've seen a lot of eastern europeans and indians working there, seems a little sus t b h. Because if those indians are getting cali wages, that's some mad shit right there, they will live like literal god kings.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 18:30:30 UTC No. 916527

>>916523
You should apply, last I spoke with them they were paying people 35/hr to make chairs and tables, and their senior artists were making 50/hr. One of my mates lives in Brazil and says they're paying him a full US salary.

Anonymous at Sat, 3 Sep 2022 20:02:22 UTC No. 916534

>>916527
Thx for the info, yeah, my average hourly from all freelance gigs is lower than 35, even though with my current gigs I earn about a mid tier programmer wage for my country standards, working 80-90 hours a month, so it's not that bad. Well, it is bad if you consider half of that income comes from a US client that pays low 20s / hr, but at least through them I work for some very big boy clients, which is nice to have in a portfolio.

But yeah, that half of my job is mostly a prop art, I do have creative freedom and there are some nice hero assets from time to time, but a lot of it DOES end up being "chair and table" tier stuff that is slowly becoming boring. Idk if they just model stuff at nvidia and how many people are doing environment / lighting stuff, but I'm not sure I'd actually want to still continue modeling boring everyday props FULLTIME, no matter what studio it is. And at the end of the day, the stuff Nvidia artists produce, even though it looks great, is pretty damn boring every day scenes like that ramen shop or marbles.

So yeah, if I really think about it, when it comes to those famous studios, I actually think the biggest reason why I get depressed every time I see someone new get a job there is not because of money or interesting projects, it's just because of the big name in your CV and some sort of a "status".

It's almost like I never feel like I'm good enough so I always imagine if somebody ended up there, they must be amazing and I can't compete. I know it's probably not true, because e.g. at ubisoft, I've seen plenty of people with quality below me and my colleagues in my current studio, but that doesn't stop me to get jealous for a minute whenever I see that someone got a job there. So I guess my stupid reasoning is that if I myself go through that experience of working in a really big studio, I would finally feel like I'm ACTUALLY good at this and feel successful. Until then, I'll always feel less worthy.

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 08:06:21 UTC No. 916595

>>916512
interesting
what are "artistic" "cg fundamentals"

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 08:15:37 UTC No. 916598

>>916215
how to job proof against AI

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 20:05:51 UTC No. 916654

>>916595
>what are "artistic" "cg fundamentals"
Regular visual art fundamentals that apply regardless of medium. Composition and design theory make up two very large chunks of that, but fundamentally they're tons of little rules that lead to more pleasing images. Think things like hierarchy, contrast, value distribution, color palette, 30/70, big to small, etc.
The way our industry is currently set up, most 3D artists don't have a good understanding of those things. If you can't "design", or "come up with your own stuff" without a concept, the very thing you're lacking is visual art fundamentals. Instead that stuff is mostly offloaded to concept artists, who know these rules, and have a very fast method of communicating visual ideas, such as drawing or painting over rough 3d blockouts. Conversely, because these people spent so much time studying what makes things visually pleasant, they generally lack the skills and technical know-how to produce final game assets. Ultimately, it's all a matter of specialization.
If you're a 3d artist and want to make bank, learn visual design. In visual arts for the entertainment industry, people who can come up with ideas are generally better paid than the people who execute them.

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 20:14:38 UTC No. 916656

>>916598
>how to job proof against AI
That's a fun question! I don't think AIs are coming from anybody's job just yet. Most of what we're successfully automating is still tedious grunt work, such as UVs or LODs, which is good: less time spent on that nonsense means more time to make art.

For AI image generation, it's already better than shitty concept art, because the AIs understand the rules of what make an image "pleasing". I actually think working with AI will be a massive boon for our collective visual language, as it introduces us to an infinity of pictures that are all form over substance, which we can definitely use for our personal learning. But the substance is still missing: AIs can't design cohesive images, let alone entire worlds. Will they replace creatives one day? Probably, I personally think so. But there's still a ton of extremely complex processes that go into designing an entertainment product that the AIs have 0 awareness of. For now, I'd think of them as the best visual brainstorming software we've ever built, but nothing more.

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 20:37:23 UTC No. 916657

>>916215
do you like pineapple on pizza

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 20:47:12 UTC No. 916658

>>916656
Are you bald, stinky and speaks a funny accent from an isolated province up north?

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 20:53:25 UTC No. 916659

>>916657
Yes, I ate half a pineapple pizza last night.
>>916658
If you know me you better say something!

Anonymous at Sun, 4 Sep 2022 20:58:58 UTC No. 916660

>>916654
well said

Anonymous at Mon, 5 Sep 2022 00:32:52 UTC No. 916676

>>916654
>If you're a 3d artist and want to make bank, learn visual design. In visual arts for the entertainment industry, people who can come up with ideas are generally better paid than the people who execute them.
What kind of 3D jobs would let you use that knowledge where you would need to come up with designs yourself instead of copying from other concept like a machine? Number 1 think I hear from environment artists for example is to use a premade concept instead of coming up with your original one because you would be working from another concept at a job anyway.

Anonymous at Mon, 5 Sep 2022 02:15:24 UTC No. 916687

>>916676
>What kind of 3D jobs would let you use that knowledge where you would need to come up with designs yourself instead of copying from other concept like a machine?
Literally any art job, unless you're a prop artist making real-world props for the next GTA. Everything is designed, from characters' outfits to the way a scene is lit.
>use a premade concept instead of coming up with your original one because you would be working from another concept at a job anyway.
You've got it backwards, the reason why beginners are told to follow concepts is because they already need to learn how to make 3D, practicing design on top of it would simply add an unneeded level of complexity.
Most productions will love having a 3d artist with design skills. Not only will you be able to interpret concepts better and fill in the gaps properly when the concepts are vague, but if you can do your own designs, it frees up concept artists to do more work for the artists with less design experience.

Anonymous at Mon, 5 Sep 2022 02:22:51 UTC No. 916688

>>916676
>What kind of job, though??
If you want specifics, principal artists (the level above senior) are frequently good visual designers. So are leads - there's a type of lead that's fully focused on being the bridge between art direction and the 3D team, but there's other leads that also act as "art directors" for their department. Also, not everything gets handed off to a concept artist, or gets eyes from the AD/CD. I've frequently had to design my own stuff as a junior, and it sucked.
All that said, you can join *any* indie studio, say you do your own designs, and they'll happily let you as long as you're good and communicate with the directors properly. You can do the same at most AAAs, they'll probably have a more rigid process for validating concepts but they'll find a way to fit you in the team if you're good.

Anonymous at Mon, 5 Sep 2022 06:48:27 UTC No. 916699

>>916676
holy shit people think this?

Anonymous at Mon, 5 Sep 2022 10:41:30 UTC No. 916712

>>916699
I would like to see more original work from 3d artists, like half of the stuff that blows up on artstation is a direct copy of a famous concept art. Many of those “””celebrity””” 3d artists that get featured everywhere never created an original scene. Not directly related, just wanted to say this when you’re talking about concept art. But it does trigger me, probably way too much, because a lot of the work is done for you in that case. People will just defend them by saying that just implementing an existing concept is a respectable skill by itself, which I agree on, but still. And that kind of stuff then proceeds to get tens of thousands of views.

Anonymous at Mon, 5 Sep 2022 12:32:24 UTC No. 916722

>>916688
considering you're an environments artist, do you think architectural skills would translate well into 3d/gamedev world?

>t. underpaid and bored architect

Anonymous at Tue, 6 Sep 2022 06:11:05 UTC No. 916844

>>916722
>considering you're an environments artist, do you think architectural skills would translate well into 3d/gamedev world?
They'll translate to a small degree. Sadly unless you go into archviz (which I find terribly boring since you're doing the same thing over and over), they'll probably only cover a tiny bit of everything you'll have to do in game art. There's quite a lot of 3d-specific stuff to learn, then more game-specific things. There isn't a proper "architect" job at any studios I know of, the closest would be doing architecture modules for a big AAA studio, and even then, you'll have to be a bit versatile because you probably won't just work on building kits your entire career.

If you wanna have a good idea of what people are doing, pick some games with nice architecture/graphics, then look up their art drops on artstation. Environment artists will often upload behind the scene pics of their building kits, or at least, you'll be able to see what the general workload of an environment artist on a game production looks like.

The most valuable thing you could bring from an architect job would be hard art fundamentals, like we talked about above. If you've mostly focused on technical knowledge as an architect, it sadly won't be of much relevance here, for obvious reasons.

That said I don't discourage you from making the switch! I worked with an architect who became a 3D artist and they said they were much happier doing game art.

Anonymous at Tue, 6 Sep 2022 07:24:11 UTC No. 916849

>>916237
can you give some good examples of "prop art", "hard surface" and "textures"? any images that would make you say "this is a good portfolio"?

Anonymous at Tue, 6 Sep 2022 19:16:29 UTC No. 916947

>>916849
What level would you want to see? Employable? Good? The best ever?

Anonymous at Tue, 6 Sep 2022 21:02:08 UTC No. 916966

>>916329
A-any references for what a junior level character artist should be at? Is it literally just copy the studio's style, make it game ready, and send in portfolio?

Anonymous at Wed, 7 Sep 2022 01:15:17 UTC No. 917003

>>916215
Answer any of these if you'd like.
Is there anything you wish you started familiarizing yourself with sooner or made you feel like an outcast for not having?
How do you pace yourself at work? As in how do you make sure you're not working too fast or too slow?
Any trial by fire moments that changed how you feel or think about your work? How do you keep yourself inspired or ambitious? What do you wish you could work on without money or talent being in question? What do you wish others would understand about your job?

Anonymous at Wed, 7 Sep 2022 07:49:17 UTC No. 917024

can i make money doing freelance stuff as an intermediate blender user
i have 300+ hours on blender rn

Anonymous at Wed, 7 Sep 2022 08:40:57 UTC No. 917028

>>916947
employable

Anonymous at Wed, 7 Sep 2022 11:17:59 UTC No. 917035

>>917024
show finished work not WIP then ask.

Anonymous at Wed, 7 Sep 2022 13:27:13 UTC No. 917043

>>916215
How do I go from making VR Chat avatars to working in a company?

Anonymous at Wed, 7 Sep 2022 22:26:43 UTC No. 917119

>>916215
Is 30+ too old to be a junior in this field, from the employer's perpsective? I'm sick of my IT gig.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Sep 2022 22:11:57 UTC No. 917462

Why does it seem like it's easier to make something "photorealistic" by adding more grunge, wear, damage, dirt etc. to it? It's like you have to overdo the texturing at least a bit to make things look as good as real life.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Sep 2022 23:07:39 UTC No. 917470

>>916340
>Yes, it's the only 3D texturing program that's more or less feature-complete for games.
I'm guessing you work on mainly realism-focused content?
Edelweiss textured their stylized Sakuna characters in 3D Coat.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:33:11 UTC No. 918061

>>917028
I'm back from a global ban, sorry for the late replies (let it be known that the mods are fags)

So!
Let's have a look at entry-level prop art. I'm gonna judge hard surface and texturing at the same time since prop art is mostly that.

Here are three props that I would consider appropriate for a "hireable" AAA-junior portfolio:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/X1X48D
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/klnoaA
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xY9gBY
Rather than comment on them individually, I'll look at them together. What I'm looking here is mostly a display of baseline abilities in various aspects of the creation pipeline, which prove that whoever made these understands what a game art pipeline is generally about. From a very basic level, game prop art has two main goals: look truthful to real life, and fit within limitations of game engines.

1.: "Look truthful to real life"
-Whether real or invented, the props look like objects with a believable design and function
-The proportions are correct, for example buttons and handles have the right size for human hands, materials have an appropriate thickness, details have the right size for the way the materials can be worked
-All details are present and reflect the object's construction (for example the radio's body is assembled out of sheet metal and bolts, it's not a magic "metal box")
-The materials respect PBR (more or less) and look like the surfaces they're meant to represent. Color, roughness, metalness and height information are appropriate for each surface.
-Wear and damages are distributed appropriately for surface type, and the expected usage of the item

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:37:00 UTC No. 918062

>>918061
2.: "Fit within limitations of game engines"
-Good polycount distribution means there are no wasteful polys or unnecessary loops, but the object does not look visibly faceted either where it should be smooth
-Bakes (if applicable) are free of errors
-Bake details come through properly: edge bevels are an appropriate width for each material, baked details are mostly small things that would be wasteful to keep as geo, and details that have a greater effect on the silhouette & shadowing are kept as geo rather than baked
-The unwrap isn't wasteful, and the model is textured at a nice resolution
-There's details in the texturework that make the prop interesting both up-close and at a distance. Since game engine lighting is still pretty shit, it's very important to put more visual complexity in the textures so your prop doesn't look like a default lambert material.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:46:54 UTC No. 918063

>>918062
Keep in mind these are all things I'd expect juniors to show *understanding* of, not necessarily be perfect at. Photoreal textures are especially difficult to nail and not something I'd expect a junior to fully achieve without help. Same for modeling, it doesn't need to be perfect, just most of the way there.

The props I linked have some flaws. The radio's green body is way too dark compared to its reference counterpart. The axe's head is missing unique details, the metal base texture is a bit lacking, and the upper segment of leather bands lacks thickness. Some of the cash register's larger forms are a bit too low poly, while some of its smaller details are too high poly and could be optimized or baked down.

But those are manageable flaws, there isn't a *ton* of them, and that's what makes them easy to work with. A more experienced artist could easily point out those flaws and help a junior gradually work on them, which is exactly what happens in an organized production.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:52:21 UTC No. 918065

>>916966
>A-any references for what a junior level character artist should be at?
If you're applying for a mid or large studio, it's as easy as looking up their other junior character artists and seeing what the quality bar is. If you're applying for a small studio and don't have any examples... I'd look at big studios' juniors still and extrapolate.

As for style, I wouldn't worry. If you're doing realistic art, obviously, aim for realism. If you're doing stylized, there's so many different types of stylization that studios won't be looking for "perfect matches", just people who understand the stylization process as a whole and who they can teach their studio's unique style to. Of course there's still some big differences between say, handpainted textures with flat lighting, and stylized Pixar-like PBR.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:02:40 UTC No. 918066

>>917003
>Is there anything you wish you started familiarizing yourself with sooner?
Yes, like I talked about above, actual "art" skills! Composition, design theory, how to use the right colors and shapes, balance out designs, work from big to small, etc. That stuff isn't taught in game art courses and communities, yet it's an integral part of making game art and growing into more mature roles like becoming a director. It's also damn fun to be able to design your own things and have them come out great, instead of constantly stressing that the parts of your design that haven't been touched by a concept artist will come out the worst.

>How do you pace yourself at work? As in how do you make sure you're not working too fast or too slow?
Timelines in most studios are pretty forgiving for the *quality* of work they'll expect. This means they might give you way less time to make something than you're used to, but they'll also be satisfied even if the result is utter shit. Learning where to cut corners becomes a useful skill to have in production. Besides that I'd say be diligent, identify and work on your weaknesses, and your employers will never accuse you of being a slow worker. (You might still strain to achieve your own standards, though.)

>Any trial by fire moments that changed how you feel or think about your work?
Any time I do something new, it makes me reevaluate my perspective and helps me learn a bit more about game production. Before I got my first job I thought I was hot shit for a junior, and working on a game production helped me become conscious of all sorts of challenges specific to devving I didn't even know existed. Every new experience since has been a learning experience. My advice would be to seek out new things to do, as it's the fastest way to grow.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:16:16 UTC No. 918068

>>917003
>How do you keep yourself inspired or ambitious?
This is a very personal question and I think sources of motivation will vary a lot between different people. For me, what keeps me working is the idea of creating an entire game that many people will get to enjoy, and having other talented people working alongside me. I see my art as part of a bigger whole (the game), which makes it a lot easier to accept the many compromises that you have to make on a daily basis when you work in production.
Another consideration that I've had is that working on a game production is by far my best chance of getting some really ambitious projects realized. It's not 100% my dream, but my dream is so crazy and ambitious and something that I alone care about, whereas a game that I work on can contain 20, 30, 50% of that but eventually gets to see light. I also feel bad cutting corners on personal projects, but in production it's not only normal but expected, which helps a lot with finishing things guilt-free.

>What do you wish you could work on without money or talent being in question?
Probably a game that brings people good emotions. It can be joy, sadness, plain old fun, get them to reflect on their lives a bit, on the condition of others, I just want to make a game people can take something away from. A lot of games are surprisingly lacking on that front, and aren't even fun. The best way I can describe them is they lack "soul", you can just feel that they're big-budget productions "by the numbers" sometimes, and it's not clear why the games exist other than to sell you a product.

>What do you wish others would understand about your job?
Honestly nothing lmao, I mostly wish game developers understood their own jobs better themselves sometimes.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:24:18 UTC No. 918069

>>917024
>can i make money doing freelance stuff as an intermediate blender user
Sure, if you can make a model like that in an a-pose and give it a face that's not totally uncanny, you'll get work.
There are two things people might expect you to do as a freelance character artist that will most likely be a major pain in the butt: clothes, and hair. Being decent at those will open you a lot of doors. Being bad will also close quite a few.

I've never done "commission-based" freelancing, because it doesn't seem as attractive as working for a studio. Studios pay you to sit around whether they've got work for you to do or not, while if you do little contracts for individual character models, you'll always be running after your next $2-3k and running the risk of ending up with a difficult client. Something to consider.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:27:20 UTC No. 918070

>>917043
>How do I go from making VR Chat avatars to working in a company?
You're basically asking how to get good at character art. I'm sure a lot of people online have posted answers to that question. Look for tutorials on things you want to make (with good-looking results!), join mid-size art communities based around your focus that you can be active and get good feedback in, and work diligently and smartly so you can improve.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:30:41 UTC No. 918072

>>917119
>Is 30+ too old to be a junior in this field, from the employer's perpsective?
The employer literally doesn't give a shit how old you are as long as you're not 85 and about to keel over from a heart attack. I would say that at least a good quarter of the people I've met in game art are doing it as a second career.

The biggest challenge you'll face is finding the time and energy to put down the ~1-2 years of dedicated, focused work it takes to grow from nothing to junior artist level, while also working your day job.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:40:08 UTC No. 918075

>>917462
>Why does it seem like it's easier to make something "photorealistic" by adding more grunge, wear, damage, dirt etc. to it? It's like you have to overdo the texturing at least a bit to make things look as good as real life.
That's a great observation, and while I'm not sure if a general consensus has been reached in the gamedev community, I can say with 100% confidence that it happens because realtime engines render like shit.
UE5 (and a couple proprietary engines with decent lighting solutions) are the main exceptions right now, and you can see that there's a lot more scenes in UE5 that look decently good while still using the same crappy assets that look a ton worse in UE4.

Basically, our bounce light sucks, our AO sucks, we don't get microshadows, half our shit is baked, we don't get accurate specular lighting, we don't really get specular occlusion... and all those flaws become more visible the simpler your models are. When people add tons of (good) details to their textures, it takes away attention from those flaws and makes the viewer see them a little bit less.

That's why game textures need to be hyper complex, but a vray user can get away with using basically flat materials and still produce something photoreal.

Anonymous at Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:54:17 UTC No. 918076

>>917470
You got me there, I'll admit that I've briefly looked at many other texturing programs (Mari, Toolbag, 3DCoat, Quixel... whatever they call it now) but have never bothered to make a full comparison.

That said, Substance is definitely *the* standard to learn if you want to learn a texturing program. There will always be some exceptions, especially the weirder your workflow's requirements get, but I've seen very few things Substance isn't capable of handling well, other than extremely high resolutions (which still aren't common in games). Combine that with the fact that it's ubiquitous across the entire game industry (seriously, if you look at Artstation, 95% of game art pieces are done with it) and it becomes easy to see how learning it could become an asset.

Off the top of my head, some of the nice things about Substance Painter that are hard to find or outright missing from other programs are:
-Anchor points, which let you generate more complex data on the fly instead of having to manage all of your layers one by one
-Great synergy with Substance Designer, which can create complex height maps, base textures, and serve as a swiss army knife for all sorts of cool texturing utilities
-An ability to generate new curvature and AO maps from height details on the fly (criminally underused by most artists)
-A great management & sharing system for your resource libraries
-Tons of documentation, tutorials, and resources

Anonymous at Thu, 15 Sep 2022 18:53:53 UTC No. 918187

Cheers mate

Anonymous at Fri, 16 Sep 2022 19:57:08 UTC No. 918335

>>916215
Have you ever read Chris Brejon's guide to lighting, computer graphics and cinematography?

> Link to website
https://chrisbrejon.com/

Anonymous at Fri, 16 Sep 2022 20:06:00 UTC No. 918337

>>916215
What do you think is the best way for an artist to do commissions? Should they use a work for hire site like Fiverr or make their own website and advertise their work? Personally I think it should be the latter since I've seen a decent amount of scammers on Fiverr where they use Animschool tutorials as their "portfolio" or some other short film made by 45+ people and then return some 3D character they made using some free software with the premade assets. What's worse is you can't cancel your order since it's against Fiverr's TOS and they tend to stay at the top of the page for their category.

Anonymous at Sat, 17 Sep 2022 00:28:48 UTC No. 918388

>>918335
Funny you mention it, I'm actually using it as bedtime reading right now
It's absolutely the best modern primer on CG lighting you can find, and I love how passionate the guy is about sharing his knowledge. Some of the warmest, most helpful people I've met in the industry have been lighters, and especially colorists. (Shame the profession still doesn't get the recognition it deserves in games.)

>What do you think is the best way for an artist to do commissions?
Sadly I couldn't tell you, I've always worked for corporate clients because commissions don't seem to pay much in comparison.

Anonymous at Sat, 17 Sep 2022 00:29:49 UTC No. 918390

>>918388
Derp, forgot my tag for >>918337

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 08:54:17 UTC No. 918641

Game industrie fulltime Fag here. I work as a 3D Artist in an area with lots of smaller indie studios and only few big companies. Should I learn rigging and animation to be more employable? I do not enjoy it to much and therefore avoided it so far. I am pretty good at modelling, texturing stuff. Also what is your opinion on homeoffice? Is it more common now after covid?

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 14:16:49 UTC No. 918675

>>916215
is crunch a big issue? do you feel less motivated to sit at a computer and make 3d stuff In your free time now that you are also working with it? and finally, do you have any creative freedom or is everything dictated by others?
thank you for any answers

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 17:45:10 UTC No. 918688

>>918061
>>918062
>>918063
thanks! really helpful and i think i now understand what i am supposed to do

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 21:54:20 UTC No. 918705

>>918641
>Should I learn rigging and animation to be more employable? I do not enjoy it
No, animation and rigging (executed at a competent level) are entire careers of their own. Don't tack on more specialties you don't enjoy and can only hope to execute badly as a crap generalist, focus on what you like and get better at it.

>what is your opinion on homeoffice? Is it more common now after covid?
It's overwhelmingly more commont, most studios I know off are still working hybrid with no plans to get rid of the hybrid model. Some have transitioned to being entirely remote for good.
Art jobs can be done from anywhere, and not being restricted to hiring locally or having to convince people to relocate opens up a gigantic pool of talent companies had no access to before.

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 22:06:04 UTC No. 918707

>>918675
>is crunch a big issue?
Depends on the studio, but in my experience crunch only happens when the studio is blatantly mismanaged and producers hit the panic button in a desperate attempt to fix a failing production. I've only had to crunch at dying indie studios, and most people I know have never had to crunch. Crunch is easy to avoid if you want because it hapens in a certain type of production and you can spot those from miles away, especially after having a few years of experience.

Basically, the more competent the higher ups are, the less crunch there is. But if you interview for a place and the art director and head producer seem more clueless than you, crunch is way more likely.

>do you feel less motivated to sit at a computer and make 3d stuff In your free time now that you are also working with it?
Well, yeah, you're already doing creative work for most of your day so that takes a toll. It's like if you were already working on a passion project for 40 hours/week, putting an extra 20 after that would be more difficult than working fresh. Tho one nice upside compared to working a non-art job is you're practicing your craft and improving on the clock. It is art, after all.

>do you have any creative freedom or is everything dictated by others?
This depends heavily on the production, I like to make myself useful and come up with ideas that take away pressure from the directors (the people who call the shots). If I tell my director I can design an area, and have proven that I'm a capable designer and understand the style of the game, they'll usually be glad to let me do it because it takes some work off their plate.

Some studios have specific needs, though, and they're not always creative. If a studio needs you to come up with 200 weapon skins, they won't care that you can, say, completely redesign their main character. They just need those 200 weapon skins.

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 22:07:35 UTC No. 918708

>>918688
No problem, feel free to post your work if you ever want quick pointers on what to focus on to bring up the quality of your art the most.

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 22:09:39 UTC No. 918710

>>918641
Forgot to add but if you live in the US, it's basically open season for you right now. There's tons of very respectable studios hiring across the whole country, you just need to have a skill that fits their needs.

Anonymous at Sun, 18 Sep 2022 23:59:52 UTC No. 918728

kino thread, thanks op

Anonymous at Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:47:02 UTC No. 918797

>>918708
not him but my school needs us to send our portfolios to a bunch of companies in a few days. I'm not sure I want to work in the game industry but do you think this is decent enough to get an unpaid internship?
https://imgur.com/a/E03PNWT

Anonymous at Tue, 20 Sep 2022 20:53:50 UTC No. 918924

>>916215
If you had to pick a different career, what would it be?

Anonymous at Tue, 20 Sep 2022 23:38:27 UTC No. 918952

>>918797
>https://imgur.com/a/E03PNWT
not OP but working in Games.
Don´t work for free Anon...
WIth a bit of luck you should be able to get an internship yes, for a Junior you are not there yet

Anonymous at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 00:49:15 UTC No. 918961

>>918061
>>918062
>>918063

>>918065
Ahh great, so I'm mostly on the right track, just gotta start manually cutting up and placing uv's. Shooting for stylized so that's great to hear that there's a "range of coverage". And yeah, been looking at artists from the big companies, I figure if it's good enough for them it'd be good enough for most studios. Thanks anon, feeling pretty damn close to making it.

Anonymous at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 19:35:34 UTC No. 919077

>>918797
Another anon said you're somewhere around intern level but below junior, and I'm tempted to agree with him.
Your two most recent pieces show a decent (but still incomplete) understanding of basic anatomy, with your newest character (the fantasy one) being miles ahead of the other in terms of proportions and forms. It's also good that it's a full-pipeline character (from the initial sculpt all the way to a textured game-res model), as it's important for prospective juniors to show they can take an asset through the full pipeline. I would also add breakdowns of your topo and UVs to prove they were done properly (you *can* do them properly, right?) It's gonna give you a slight edge over the next clown with mystery topo and potentially bad unwraps.

What you need to do next is create an even better character. Take your fantasy guy as a benchmark, and aim to create a piece that surpasses him in as many aspects as possible. There's no particular aspect in your recent work that stands out as being significantly above or below the rest, which means you can improve pretty much anywhere and start seeing decent results. But I'd focus on sculpting first as it's the building block of everything that comes after (a bad model with great textures is still bad, but a great sculpt with bad textures remains a great sculpt.)

Get yourself some decent sculpting tutorials, ideally some paid courses from industry pros who know what they're doing, Rafael Grassetti's tutorial is a few years old but it's a really great primer for sculpting human anatomy if you can't find anything better (or check out Artstation learning if you can't afford courses and don't want to pirate, maybe).

(cont.)

Anonymous at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 19:46:45 UTC No. 919080

>>919077
A couple tips on things you can study in sculpting:

Facial anatomy is a big one you need to push more, remember that even stylized characters are built on solid anatomical foundations so you can't take stylization as the easy way out, you have to learn that stuff. Raf Grassetti should help here (but there might be even better tutorials, I'm no character artist so idk.)

Work on your confidence in form definition. This is really important! I really like how your arms have good form definition. You can see actual 3d shapes with volume that represent the major muscle groups of your shoulders and forearms, your deltoids, your elbow bones, the flat bit of tendon from the triceps, and so forth. Now compare those to your character's boots - the form is all mushy! It looks like someone took a boot model and went over it with the smooth brush until it turned into a boot-shaped blob with no shapes or planes. This is an indication you need to think about form more for these parts. You can't smooth away forms, and sadly you can't pull them from your ass either, so this is something you'll have to study from reference, both real life and other people's art (to see what forms good artists use to represent something, and what they choose to put emphasis on).

You can work on your detail. Study real life clothes and armor to figure out where to add stitching, buttons, ornaments, functional pieces. Figure out how to do a rope belt out of splines and separate mesh pieces for the braid, instead of a mushy sculpt with no form definition. Some parts of your design look too simple, like they're a level of abstraction away from the full detail you'd see in a real world outfit.

(cont.)

Anonymous at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 19:50:49 UTC No. 919083

>>919080
Lastly, you can get hired with one good art piece! In fact, for most junior character artists, that's exactly what happens, because full characters are such a long-winded project and skill progression is so fast as a junior that whatever character you made last will likely be the *only* good representation of your current skills.

I wouldn't worry about the rest of your portfolio. You'll probably wanna scrap everything pretty soon (except the fat alien dog/slug, it's pretty cute), you're already capable of doing better art than what you have there! So don't leave that old stuff in. Trust me, employers don't want to see some shitty art that you made just 6 months ago, if you can make better art now.

Anonymous at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 20:01:04 UTC No. 919085

>>918952
>Don´t work for free Anon...
Alright, I do have some thoughts to share on that:

1. Most companies offering unpaid internships are scummy and see interns as a free source of menial labor
2. The true value of an internship isn't in the (usually meager) salary they pay, but in the knowledge/training they provide
3. The paid/unpaid state of internships thus becomes a way to weed out studios that respect their interns and see them as an investment, from those that are just looking for cheap labor

Would you take an unpaid internship at Naughty Dog? I bet most people aiming to break into the industry would. A proper internship, where you actually LEARN with industry professionals who directly mentor you and help you address your weaknesses, can kickstart your career MASSIVELY, especially if you're feeling a bit lost and lacking in direction. (This doesn't mean Naughty Dog treats their interns well, you have to use your judgement and figure out if any given studio is a good place for you to grow as an artist.)

What you need to do is find an internship at a *good* studio. Paid? Unpaid? Doesn't really matter, unless you have urgent bills to pay. You weren't getting paid when you went to school, hell, you were paying them. What you *don't* want is to intern at a studio that says "great, you can model, do some cheap work for us, we'll use it as-is and send you on your way". That's how you end up wasting months of your life for near-minimal wage, and realize you aren't any further along in your career path than when you begun.

Anonymous at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 20:14:23 UTC No. 919086

>>918924
>If you had to pick a different career, what would it be?
Writer or game designer, I adore storytelling, and the reason why I ended up in art was because I wanted to tell stories. The visual aspect just clicked for me first, so that's what I ended up picking as my career path.
That, plus I'm flabbergasted by how terrible a lot of writing in games is, considering "videogame writer" is a professional job. Yes, a few games are well-written, but the general standards for videogame writing are so, so, so, so, so very low compared to what's being put out in basically all other realms of entertainment.

🗑️ Anonymous at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 21:47:45 UTC No. 919094

>>916346
>>What was your gross income in the last 2 years?
>$1 475 000
Fuck off.

Anonymous at Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:36:14 UTC No. 919115

>>916215
What's your exterior lighting/post production workflow?

Anonymous at Thu, 22 Sep 2022 22:12:58 UTC No. 919276

>>919077
The other Anon again. I just want to add an example how high the bar for Junior character artists is, as these positions are very rare. Here is an example of a friend of mine who got her first real gig with this piece:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3o2r6v

not saying don´t aim for it, just want you to know that your success propability is higher if you aim for one of the other fields (probs, environments and the like).

Anonymous at Thu, 22 Sep 2022 22:25:00 UTC No. 919279

Test >>/v/>>612969040

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 03:35:30 UTC No. 919695

>>919115
>What's your exterior lighting/post production workflow?
Finally a question I can properly answer. Though now I won't have enough room.

First, you need to separate your lighting process in two parts. Technical execution, and artistic execution.

Technical execution is making sure your shit works properly, and is as physically correct as possible. This means using your engine to the best of its capacity, making sure all the features you need and can afford are working properly (AO, bounce light, reflections, shadows, so on.) This might seem like a "duh" thing, but a lot of people aren't using their game engines properly, for example tons of people using UE4 don't know how to get clean lighting bakes, how to unwrap lightmaps and build scenes so they don't break, etc. Another example could be shadows - if you use a directional light with shadow cascades, you need to enable contact shadows to get near shadows and distance field/far shadows to get distant shadows. Some people legitimately don't know about this and leave their directional with default settings, then wonder why their open world level looks so bad (because nothing is casting shadows past a couple hundred feet).

The second part of technical mastery is making your shit true to life. Things like having a realistic sun angle for the time of day, date, and distance from the equator (a northern winter sun will have long shadows while a summer sun near the tropics will have very short ones), making sure your surfaces have the correct albedo value to bounce enough light around, giving your lights correct intensities relative to each other (you can barely see most manmade lights under daylight, but at night they overpower moonlight almost completely).

(cont.)

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 03:39:16 UTC No. 919696

>>919695
Back in my day, I learned the technical side of CG lighting through Daedalus51's UE4 lighting series, which was one of the first widely available tutorial that covered a proper PBR lighting workflow in a time when everybody was still doing random shit. Nowadays, I'm not as informed on learning resources, but William Faucher's channel seems to have become the newest resource for realtime lighting/rendering, with a special focus on making use of UE4/5's snazzy tech. You might also want to check out Chris Brejon's book (technically a blog) if you want to delve deeper into the technical aspects of lighting (he's a film guy so he doesn't talk about game engines, but that's what William Faucher and the official documentation is for.)

I'm leaving links to all of these here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/51Daedalus/videos
https://www.youtube.com/c/WilliamFaucher/videos
https://chrisbrejon.com/cg-cinematography/introduction/

(cont.)

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 03:53:19 UTC No. 919699

>>919696
>Okay, what's the artistic side of lighting now? And I specifically said *exterior* lighting.
Yeah I gotcha, we're getting to that.

So the secret of lighting, is that it's really just a tool for composition. There's no such thing as good "lighters", only people who know how to use light to compose a good image (or scene, which is a series of images viewed from multiple angles). Ian Hubert said, "people asked me to do a lighting tutorial, but really I'm gonna do a composition tutorial because that's what lighting is" (that video is on his patreon by the way, there's lots of cool CG knowledge there and the stuff he explains is almost always things no one has documented before.)

So, composition. Good composition is made through contrast, and hierarchy. 60-30-10, big read to small read, focal point, all that jazz. What makes exterior lighting look *bad*? Well, usually, it being flat. (And the scene not having a good distribution of colors, >>916229 contains a great example of successful composition done with very flat lighting).

Why is it flat? Usually because you're not lighting your subject with a light and shadow side. Lighting from the front flattens, and can be a killer if you're not extremely careful. Lighting from the side ensures half the planes of your subject are lit and the other half are shaded, which is a very good way to describe form. Lighting from the back usually works well too, as it puts more accent on silhouettes, and makes cast shadows come towards the viewer, which not only looks really cool, but gives you more dark zones to build zones of value contrast with.

Remember, the point of lighting is to come up with a readable composition. An eye-catching focal point, nice framing through blocks of values, a light angle that describes form, and keeping things things outside the focal point simplified so you don't draw the eye away with lots of unnecessary contrast.

(cont.)

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:06:12 UTC No. 919702

>>919699
When you're indoors, or working with manmade lights, you can create zones of light and darkness (= blocks of values and zones of contrast, for your composition!) quite easily. But when you're outdoors, you run into a problem: The sun is a directional light, which casts light on every surface equally no matter the distance, caring only about surface angle.

Yes, you can create compositions through varying your surface materials (think of a landscape painting that's 70% sky, 20% field and 10% mountains), or by having some big shapes to create variation, though while that's gonna work at the level of an alley, it won't help you light something the size of a city.

Enter picrel: cloud shadows.

These can be done as Gobos, either as shadow casters set outside of the camera's field of view (for cutscenes and stills), or in the case of a walkable game environment, a simple light function that dims the directional with some fake panning clouds. A few open world games do this. Quite surprisingly, several others don't. A couple prominent examples of games with great cloud shadows are Witcher 3, RDR2, and most recently AC: Valhalla (where they took advantage of the British setting to go hard with the cloud shadows, I don't think I've ever seen a clear day in that game.) Nowadays some game engines (Unreal included) are able to cast cloud shadows from volumetric clouds, so that's a cool bonus because the placement of your shadows will be physically accurate (though since cloud shadows - on the ground - come from something that's offscreen - in the sky, viewers generally aren't too picky about their accuracy and you most likely won't be able to notice if a shadow in a shot is being bullshitted.

(cont.)

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:12:20 UTC No. 919704

>>919702
If you take a look at the image with the cloud shadows, and compare it to the one without, you can see that the composition with them is much better. Without them, the whole city is an uninteresting mass of near even noise. With a couple shadows in the right place, we're suddenly starting to draw a focal point on certain parts of the image, and we can even see individual building roofs stand out as interesting elements.

If you look at master shots or concepts for exterior scenes, a tooooooon of them, and I really mean a TON will use the difference between sunlight and shade to create their main value zones. This can be done with cloud shadows, or simply shadows of other objects. A forest clearing with a ray of sunlight passing through is another execution of this concept. So is a room with a ray of sunlight coming through the window.

(cont.)

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:25:48 UTC No. 919708

>>919704
>>919704
>So what do I do when I have no sunlight?
If you're dealing with overcast or dusk, there's 3 things you can do:

1. Use a sky with a faint light direction. This can work if your lighting is baked, but most realtime engines still struggle with hyper soft shadows, so your skylight's shadowing might not have any directionality. You can also add faint directional light with a very wide shadow radius that simulates some of your sun coming through the clouds, but good luck getting soft shadows with standard shadowmaps. Do note that using extra point lights/spotlights to enhance the direction of ambient light in cutscenes/stills is totally valid, and works well.

2. Use fog to create zones of interest.

3. Use the color of local surfaces to create zones of interest.

#3 is where your skill as a set designer really comes in. With a good color palette, interesting shapes, and an expert distribution of features, you can make even a flatly lit environment interesting. This is why the job of a lighting artist is more than just placing lights.

Finally, the pic I added is a WIP from Matthaeus Luef in 3 stages, showing different approaches to creating visual hierarchy in an image. The first has most of the variation come through lighting, the second through fog, and the third through surface color.

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:31:35 UTC No. 919710

>>919708
Another thing I didn't mention but should probably touch on is fog cards. They're like the cloud shadow's cousin, and are equally abused by landscape artists. Basically, they're just fog that's thicker at the bottom and lighter at the top. When placed in front of a layer of your environment, it helps accentuate the separation between that layer and what's in front of it. Notice the part of this image I circled in red - without the fog cards, the back trees would be nearly the exact same value as the foreground trees, and you couldn't see these beautiful tree groups that make up the focal point here.
You can have fog cards in games, you just fade them out when the player gets close (and kill them when faded so you don't pay the overdraw!)

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:34:23 UTC No. 919711

>>919276
You won't get into character art by making environments, and once you're locked into environments, your chances of doing character art at work (with your junior skills) is pretty much zero.

I'm not saying it's a one-way trip, but if you want to respecialize, you're gonna have to do it in your free time, and start your art career over with reduced responsibilities and pay.

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:48:13 UTC No. 919714

>>916215
Do you like your job?
Is there a personal "trademark" you leave on your work?
Is there a certain theme of the environments you make?

Anonymous at Mon, 26 Sep 2022 04:57:50 UTC No. 919716

>>919714
>Do you like your job?
Surprisingly, yes. It was hard at first because I didn't know what I was doing and had to work under people who were just as artistically retarded as I was, so it led to a lot of struggling and frustrating moments. But in a way, having terrible bosses pushed me to figure out a lot of stuff myself, and now that I'm capable enough to survive on my own, most of the job is really fun.

>Is there a personal "trademark" you leave on your work?
I usually try to put as much dumb shit as I can as easter eggs. Made a sticker on a piece of heavy machinery that almost got a game flagged with a higher ESRB rating cause it said "do not operate under the influence of cocaine" (I think it actually shipped because legal lost their asset cleanup todo list midway through production), I had a vending machine with a bunch of cooked chicken in the tray, silly stuff like this.

>Is there a certain theme of the environments you make?
Photorealism was the thing that originally drew me towards CG because a lot of hyperdetailed photorealistic pieces have that "wow" factor, think something like Cornelius Dammrich, or Alex Roman's The Third & The Seventh. Nowadays though, I have a lot of respect for stylized work, even if I don't do it personally. Most of the cool stuff gets done in stylized art, for some reason there aren't a ton of digital artists who mix photoreal graphics with true artistry.

Anonymous at Wed, 28 Sep 2022 20:36:15 UTC No. 920065

ok softball question: i want to game from my pc - what controller should i get?

Anonymous at Fri, 30 Sep 2022 16:28:56 UTC No. 920343

>>919710
Any tips for finding work as a freelancer? Thanks for all the advice.

Anonymous at Tue, 4 Oct 2022 08:15:44 UTC No. 920879

>>920343
>Any tips for finding work as a freelancer?
I'm not a career freelancer, so I don't feel comfortable sharing tips for this when they might be wrong or not the most efficient method to land good contracts (I have freelanced, but never really had to hustle for it).

That said, finding jobs is one thing, *getting* jobs is another. You can find plenty of CG jobs online, there's even websites that aggregate remote job postings. Once you find that sweet gig though, getting the contract is 80% up to how strong your portfolio is.

We're visual artists, which means anyone can judge the quality of our work with a simple glance. Experience, attitude, and how you behave yourself in interviews do count, but ultimately it's your portfolio that's going to get studios to reply when you send in an application. Bit of a non-advice maybe, but if you can't land any jobs, git gud. Git better. Seriously. Take a couple months to brush up on your skills, get some talented friends to give you feedback, or ask for feedback in groups with industry professionals (so not here or Facebook). Work on a piece, make it *better* than anything you've done before, and show the world you can blow their socks off with your art. Get a strong enough portfolio, and everybody will want to hire you.

Anonymous at Tue, 4 Oct 2022 08:47:58 UTC No. 920880

can i use gradient descent coupled with slope limits to create a procedural road system for hilly and mountainous terrain?

Anonymous at Tue, 4 Oct 2022 14:13:38 UTC No. 920899

>>916215
how many retards fell for Your larp?

Anonymous at Tue, 4 Oct 2022 19:20:26 UTC No. 920930

>>920880
>can i use gradient descent coupled with slope limits to create a procedural road system for hilly and mountainous terrain?
What?

>>920899
>how many retards fell for Your larp?
One as of your post.

Anonymous at Tue, 4 Oct 2022 21:26:10 UTC No. 920946

>>920880
Depends on how many tris your normal map has. Remember - no overlapping islands visible in your height map! Otherwise Lumen doesn't bake your texture properly.

Anonymous at Tue, 11 Oct 2022 12:11:40 UTC No. 921688

>>918075
To continue with this topic, do you think one can showcase their skills with relatively clean props? I feel like it's easier to get good boy points if you present a messy prop with all kinds of wear because there is so much to show there in terms of skills. But I've been thinking about how to improve my textures when it comes to props that have to be relatively new and not some postapocalyptic garbage. Whenever I see some unique textural detail on clean stuff like that IRL, I make sure to save it, I think that's the key here - becoming good at noticing interesting things like that in everyday objects and adding and enhancing it in the texture. But it's pretty hard sometimes.

For example I'm working on some plastic equipment now and there isn't much freedom to fuck it up, so I'm trying to find ways of still making it interesting with a minimalist approach to texturing. One thing I'm trying to perfect is a layer of dust over objects, adding a few fingerprints or lines like someone wiped away some dust can create a really nice contrast in that area. Other thing are some light specs and other height microdetails, but I'm looking for a few more larger visual elements that can be added to a relatively clean plastic object, that can make it stand out.

But yeah, so in general that's what I think makes props stand out, those unique details. I'm just tying to find out what kind of stuff like that is still usually seen on clean objects.

Anonymous at Wed, 12 Oct 2022 22:11:36 UTC No. 921810

bump

Anonymous at Thu, 13 Oct 2022 00:34:48 UTC No. 921819

>>921688
If you want photorealism then you need to make it look like it fits.
Interior Archvis can get away with using perfect assets etc because people expect photos of houses that are advertising to buyers to look immaculate.
But if the same scene was instead to look like a teenage boys bedroom, you'd expect to see rubbish, scratches on paint or wall, carpet scruffy in places, chips on desk or some paint missing around the edge of the door where it's been closed too hard or he's carried shit through.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Oct 2022 22:42:22 UTC No. 922401

>>921688
Sorry for the late reply, I caught another global ban. Looks like the mods on this site don't like when you act racist towards british people, nevermind that being british isn't a race.

>do you think one can showcase their skills with relatively clean props?
Can it be done? Yeah. Is it going to be harder? Definitely.
This is where I would look at a mix of real-world refs, and art pieces with a similar execution, to look at what other artists have done to make "clean" work.

I think in CG there's always going to be a demand for "gently aged" texturework. If you're making something that's literally spotless, then... why do you need a texture artist at all? Just slap some tileables on it, render in Vray, and it'll look like a photo of something factory-new. No challenge involved there.

>I'm trying to find ways of still making it interesting with a minimalist approach to texturing. One thing I'm trying to perfect is [blah blah]
There's one piece of advice I'll give here that's been a guiding light for me for everything photorealism, which is, "make it how it looks/works in real life." That mindset does not miss, and when photoreal artwork fails, it's usually either because you don't have the experience and eye training to recognize features from reality your work is missing, or because you lost the plot so much you're doing complete nonsense in a misguided effort to "hack" realism (think of people putting their curvature in their roughness, or any amount of stupid crazy "tricks" I've seen people do over the years). There was this great talk from Naughty Dog TAs not long ago, and when asked about their next steps for next-gen rendering, they basically said "well we're gonna look at adding more features from the real world we haven't been able to fit in our render pipeline yet".

So yeah. Don't forget to look at real life.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Oct 2022 22:54:44 UTC No. 922406

>>921688
>>922401
To demonstrate a bit what I mean about clean being boring, here's a CG monitor next to a picture of a real CRT.

You legitimately can't tell at that distance that one of them is a 3d render. Maybe the large, flat surfaces of bare plastic look 1 or 2% too perfect (getting the right albedo variation for those is a fucking challenge), but overall, it might as well be a cutout of a photo on a black background and I'd be bullshitting you about it being a render.

Yet, despite being a near-perfect simulacrum of a real thing, the render has near zero artistic value. It's boring. Not cool.

You can make them look cool if you present them in extremely specific ways. Macro photography. Close ups. Insert shots. But in a production context, 95% of the time, you're gonna be looking at props from the same angle as picrel, and in these situations, your textures will barely have an impact.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Oct 2022 23:16:41 UTC No. 922408

Here's one last tip!

If you have a relatively clean, high-res reference image with some really subtle surface detail, you can bring out that detail by using the camera raw filter in PS or LR. Crank up the Texture, Clarity and Dehaze sliders while bringing down the contrast until you get the desired effect. Sometimes, it can really accentuate small details if they're present in the original pic. Other times you might just deepfry a lot of camera sensor noise, I dunno.

Anonymous at Tue, 18 Oct 2022 23:19:02 UTC No. 922411

>>922408
This is obviously a tool to train your eye to see more detail in your reference pictures. I'm not suggesting you deepfry your actual assets.

Anonymous at Wed, 19 Oct 2022 01:27:49 UTC No. 922422

>>922408
This is an amazing tip, thanks for that, it will definitely be helpful. If you have more stuff like this to share, please do.

Anonymous at Wed, 19 Oct 2022 01:45:14 UTC No. 922424

>>922401
>think of people putting their curvature in their roughness
Yikes, I do that sometimes, not a lot, but it helps make certain things stand out when there's a contrast in roughness.

Anonymous at Wed, 19 Oct 2022 02:42:45 UTC No. 922429

>>922424
It's great when it actually happens on your subject. The real "trick" here (if there is one) would be to look for sources of local roughness variation, because obviously, that's interesting. And these will often happen around the edges and cavities of your model, because grime gets in cavities, and edges get worn down (which can make some surfaces rougher, or others glossier as a rough surface gets polished or dirt gets rubbed away).

But it needs to be done with intent, and if you're doing anything that's not stylization, that intent will usually be "yes, this is something that actually happens irl, and looks cool". Cause if you're not careful, you'll end up with a material that has 30 layered random effects, and none of them work together or make sense within context.

Anonymous at Wed, 19 Oct 2022 02:48:44 UTC No. 922430

>>922424
>>922429
And because I just thought of it, a good example of a "trick" that's technically cheating but truly makes up for a shortcoming of CG rendering in an attempt to emulate real-life is putting micro shadow/occlusion detail in your albedo. Game engines with LP-baked models especially, but anything without micro displacement is really bad at capturing shadowing on these very small details, so putting a bit of them in the color can help a model look better. (And it used to help tremendously before AO maps and PBR were a thing).

Of course, some people don't understand *why* we do this and what missing aspect from real-life we're trying to reproduce, and that's how you end up with people who overlay their entire model's curvature in their base color at 50%.

Anonymous at Wed, 19 Oct 2022 11:14:33 UTC No. 922448

>>916215
>>916221
>Are you in America?
>Yes
any chance of making it in the industry in europe?

Anonymous at Wed, 19 Oct 2022 20:40:42 UTC No. 922502

>>922448
>any chance of making it in the industry in europe?
What? No, there's no game studios in Europe. Games are only made in America and Japan.

Anonymous at Thu, 20 Oct 2022 10:10:59 UTC No. 922541

>>922502
kekd

Anonymous at Thu, 20 Oct 2022 15:07:36 UTC No. 922557

>>922502
I have a feeling he wanted to know how hard it was for an american to get a job in a EU studio. Idk personally, but from what I've heard it isn't too simple, but it can be done and I know some people from US that have been working in EU based studios for years. You'll probably need a decent working experience beforehand I guess.

Anonymous at Thu, 20 Oct 2022 16:05:09 UTC No. 922564

Got any tips on how to give feedback to people and deal with sensitive ones?

I've noticed some respond to praise really enthusiastically, but as soon as you have any sort of feedback to give on something that can be improved, it's like they shut down and become less talkative, stop asking questions, stop asking for help, sometimes ignore parts of your messages, excuses start pouring in for no reason etc.

I feel like some take it too personally. I'm talking about the smallest things, I'm not roasting anyone at all so it's kinda strange to me and I wonder if I can do something about it. I'm also aware of the tip to combine both praise and critique at the same time, again, I try to be as friendly and easy going as possible, but I can't ignore problematic parts that need to be fixed.

Anonymous at Thu, 20 Oct 2022 16:10:47 UTC No. 922567

>>922564
Oh also another thing about feedback dealing with another topic - what to do about artists who consistenly need a ton of feedback and handholding? Every time, there's a lot of things that can be improved so I'm giving feedback for the same thing over and over again. When does it become pointless and a waste of the time? I'm providing text, image examples, references, overpaints, sometimes link video tutorials and other learning sources, don't know what else to do besides straight up taking their work and fixing it myself.

Anonymous at Thu, 20 Oct 2022 17:36:32 UTC No. 922586

>>922564
Not OP but I'll weigh in.

Don't ever give feedback without an explicit invitation to do so, especially in an informal public setting like a forum or discord server. If something is too irksome to let slide point it out in a way that doesn't require affirmation or commitment from the other person, like a "shower thought"/rhetorical question that can be responded to with a simple "haha".

Even if it is plainly obvious it is still rude to strongarm yourself into a presumed position of seniority in a conversation. Always be empathetic and try to make the other person look good, remember it's not just you two having a conversation, many eyes are reading your exchange and making silent judgments. Better to give a wide berth.

Anonymous at Thu, 20 Oct 2022 18:03:33 UTC No. 922589

>>922586
Guess I didn't mention the most important thing, and that is that I'm supervising contrast artists, that's part of my job.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 03:34:44 UTC No. 922686

>>922557
>I have a feeling he wanted to know how hard it was for an american to get a job in a EU studio.
"Making it in Europe" implies already living in Europe I think, in which case, go for it. I can't speak for Asia, but the game industry is very mature in both NA and EU. I would expect most people to know that if they did a quick Google search or played videogames before, though.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 03:50:41 UTC No. 922687

>>922564
>Got any tips on how to give feedback to people and deal with sensitive ones?
Yes. Ultimately, making people receptive to feedback is a human problem that requires a human solution. If you want people to trust you and listen to you, befriend them. Nothing sucks more than being told how to do your job by a stranger. On the other side, I'd happily welcome most advice coming from a friend, sometimes including completely random shit they have no particular expertise or authority on!

As far as easiest to hardest methods of getting someone to do your bidding, it goes like this:
>They'll do it because they like you
>They'll do it because they trust you/respect your expertise
>They'll do it because you're forcing them via authority
Conversely, the most effective method (befriending someone) is also the hardest to carry out and takes the longest, whereas forcing someone to do something gets you immediate results but has negative long-term consequences. Not to mention in most cases you can't force people to do things, unless you happen to be their boss, so you're gonna have to learn to win people's affection (or at least establish yourself as reliable) if you want them to listen.

All of this is especially useful to keep in mind in a team setting, but even when giving feedback to randos, it helps to get on their good side and present yourself as a friend *before* you give them the information you want them to act on.

4chan is, quite obviously, the worst place for good relationships leading to constructive criticism to develop, with everybody calling each other retards as a greeting and whatnot.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 03:53:56 UTC No. 922688

>>922586
This is also excellent advice, and I can't stress the
>try to make the other person look good
part enough. Homies prop other homies up, they don't bring them down.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 04:09:10 UTC No. 922690

>>922687
>>922688
Lastly, being nice has NOTHING to do with being "objective" or being "critical". It took me a while to understand that. They're pretty much two completely separate concepts that interact together in a weird way.

Think of it this way:

>You meet someone who starts by giving you shit. They nag the way you dress, how you talk, how you cook, how you draw, everything. It could be all *true*, you're still not gonna be able to listen to that person. Realistically, you're not gonna want to be around them AT ALL, cause they'll always bring your mood down.

>You meet someone who claims to have found a major flaw with your process, and provides a detailed explanation of it. Keep in mind, at this point, you don't even know if this person's right or not. You only know that they claim there's a problem.(there might be, there might not.) You might read their explanation, you MIGHT make sense of it, and you MIGHT decide (and be able) to implement the feedback they're giving you. Alternatively, it might be a tough pill to swallow, and rather than truly consider the advice at face value, you might look for reasons to throw it out (it's not true, this person doesn't know what they're talking about anyway) so you don't have to face that problem.

>You meet someone who's super cool. Brings your mood up, makes you shine in front of others, legit drinking buddy material. We haven't even started to talk about criticism or feedback yet - at this point, this person is simply your friend. Now, you're gonna want to hang out with this person as much as possible. And, if they've shown themselves to be knowledgeable about art, and they start giving you art tips...

In all 3 situations, a stranger comes in with the same goal (to give you feedback so you can do something better), but their approach is very different. When you give feedback to others, you *are* that stranger.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 04:15:03 UTC No. 922691

>>922690
>"But that doesn't sound fair! Why should I have to spend valuable time getting on a retard's good side just so they'll accept my feedback? They should be grateful I'm giving them advice at all!"
Yeah, it's not "fair". It's also the way humans work. If you want people to listen to your feedback, you're gonna have to lube em up a little.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 04:20:17 UTC No. 922692

>>922567
>What to do about artists who consistenly need a ton of feedback and handholding?
This one is interesting, because in a professional context, this is usually where I'd go to a higher up and say "okay, things aren't working with this person". But often the people in charge of hiring/firing others aren't aware of these people's shortcomings the way you are, so you can be stuck dealing with a terrible employee for years.

In these situations I'd still refer to >>922687
Basically, get on their good side. You couldn't get through their brains, get through their hearts. If someone's a big fucking retard, whether you are nice to them or not is gonna affect their willingness to pay attention to you way more than how much sense you speak.

And eventually, with a bit of hope and a looot of time, they might grow into better artists.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 04:23:52 UTC No. 922693

>>922567
Also, try to focus on improving one issue at a time, as much as you can. No human has the brain capacity to address 15 systemic issues at once, especially if they've managed to acquire all these issues in the first place.
Sometimes, you need to let certain things go so you can make a bigger impact on others.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 04:49:08 UTC No. 922697

>>922589
Since we got other pros on here, can I ask you a question as well?

What was your favorite unexpected "thing" a colleague (both a higher-up or a subordinate) did at your workplace that surprised you in a good way? I'm talking about workflows, workplace ethics, social, just any "job" stuff besides "this guy did art really good". As an example, when I was a junior, I had a lead that let me try some really bad ideas and fail (including crashing the build) as a learning experience, and it got me to understand and be mindful of how some things worked way faster than it would have if I'd been handheld and prevented from failing at every step. I always thought it was a neat approach to supervising.

Anonymous at Fri, 21 Oct 2022 12:23:27 UTC No. 922723

>>922697
See, when you say it like that it really hits me that I actually miss these kinds of relationships due to working fully remotely for a few outsourcing studios. Almost all of communication is through messages and nobody is working fulltime on a particular project. I'm partially doing production work and more recently I've been in a managerial position for one of the studios, which in a way makes me feel like a hack a bit, because I'm responsible for an entire branch of the business, I'm reviewing portfolios, I'm the one hiring, and I'm the one superivising the work, giving feedback and directing the look, so it's a generalist - QA, lead, art director, outsource manager type of thing - because it's a small studio. I'm trying my best and constantly improving workflows, and overall it's going well, except this one thing I asked about feedbacks.

So given all of that, I can't think of many things that stand out atm, maybe it's also because I haven't been doing this for more than a year, but what you said about a lead letting people try things out by themselves is definitely something I've did as well - "try it out, see if it works". I'm giving them that freedom. But they are juniors more or less and I haven't seen too many things like that that would stand out, you can see some difference in their workflows based on how they were taught in school and some tend to stick to the one approach and try to fit it into everything so I need to show them the alternative ways to achieve something etc.

But yeah, a lot of the things that have been said here are useful and I'll try to incorporate them in my work.

Anonymous at Wed, 9 Nov 2022 23:22:38 UTC No. 925361

I don't know if OP is here anymore, but I wanted to ask how do you guys feel when you see one of those people that posted their first project on artstation like a year ago and now they're creating godlike art with 1k+ likes. To me it hurts a lot, these are rare, but damn do they make you question yourself. But then again, they're usually focused on one very specific thing.

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 08:41:59 UTC No. 925697

>>922586
feedback isnt "strongarming" you dumb ass discord bitch
YOU are the problem
good artists respect feedback and good feedback is tough
FUCK YOU
respect the peole that can own their ideas with actual content and information
and FUCK YOU for your bullshit

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 08:48:01 UTC No. 925699

>>925697
Kek, here's your (you).

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 09:45:07 UTC No. 925703

>>925699
fuck you, dumb ass bitch raven of mediocrity

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 10:00:36 UTC No. 925704

Do your sexually harass your female coworkers?

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 10:04:44 UTC No. 925705

>>925703
A tryhard artist == a gymcel manlet.

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 14:44:18 UTC No. 925732

>>916329
>https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6bBXPx
>https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zDGV0d
>https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QnXVLr
>https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lRQWJo

>this is only "acceptable"
I'm so blackpilled

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 16:12:33 UTC No. 925745

>>916516
>it's funny because I've seen equal amounts of both
lmfao if that were true it would be reflected in game content. you just outed yourself, faggot, and you don't even realize it. makes sense that you wouldn't even realize how far left you lean, since gaming is mostly for troons anyway (escapist fantasy, much like trooning out)

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 16:18:49 UTC No. 925746

>>922586
cry, bitch

>>922564
"shit sandwich" method. say what you like, add your critique as a caveat, then restate the good parts.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Nov 2022 05:03:04 UTC No. 925799

>>925705
not interested in your private life bub

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Nov 2022 13:25:09 UTC No. 925945

Do you think stylized art is easier? Do you hate that term as much as I do btw? It's like there's either one cartoony style and then there's a photorealism. Pretty dumb, and you can especially see how dumb it is when you try explaining this to artists from other fields or even random people.

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Nov 2022 14:02:20 UTC No. 925946

>>925945
Also what's up with all the medieval buildings? What's up with everyone using a premade concept art? What's up with everyone using the SAME "stylized style"? I thought you become a """"stylized"""" artist because you want more creative freedom, but apparently a lot of them are less original than """"""photorealistic"""""" artists.

/rant

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Nov 2022 15:19:49 UTC No. 925950

>>925799
not projecting but pointing out others' perception of you, friend.

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 04:34:05 UTC No. 926016

>>925950
i think your boys in gyms folder is a little low y not go scout /b/ for some new content

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 05:04:55 UTC No. 926019

>>926016
thanks for the tip friend, i'll be sure to consult (you) if i ever need to assess the gayness quotient of my meme folder

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 05:16:57 UTC No. 926022

>>926019
no need.
its gay.
very gay
like you.

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 05:48:48 UTC No. 926024

>>926022
i think it's a funny mog meme but thanks for your appraisal mr. /3/ homo expert in residence

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 06:26:03 UTC No. 926027

>>926024
i dont have a folder of boys in gyms just sayin

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 06:40:22 UTC No. 926028

>>926027
what a weird thing to say but ok

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 06:44:32 UTC No. 926029

>>926028
lol its not even a nude
nice cope gay friend

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 06:50:03 UTC No. 926030

>>926029

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 10:00:21 UTC No. 926039

>>926030
oh switched to the anime loli folder huh?
gross, but you do you I guess

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 10:26:53 UTC No. 926041

cringe. only witty replies earn (you)s

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 10:38:14 UTC No. 926042

>>926041
have a (You) for such desperate cope

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 10:40:58 UTC No. 926043

sneethe

Anonymous at Thu, 17 Nov 2022 00:53:07 UTC No. 926227

>>925361
>how do you guys feel when you see one of those people that posted their first project on artstation like a year ago and now they're creating godlike art with 1k+ likes?
These people are rare. So rare that I've personally only met *one or two* of these people in my entire career. From a career perspective, this kind of stuff should have no impact; it's like worrying a fine restaurant in Paris is gonna stop you from opening a LA burger joint. From a "I want to become the best artist in the world" perspective, it should motivate you, and light a fire under your ass.

With a large enough sample size, you're always gonna have a few standouts. The bigger the sample, the more incredible the standouts. With more people doing CG art now than ever, it should be no surprise that you'll see absolute gods if you look at the top.

What makes these people improve the fastest is a combination of everything (duh), all at once:
>They work hard every day
>They have access to the right resources and learning material
>They focus on improvement

"But I can't do that, I'm lazy" Well, that's why you're not improving fast like them. Thankfully you don't need to just to live and have a career in CG, but you *could*. You could totally become one of those people if you wanted. You know that, right?

Anonymous at Thu, 17 Nov 2022 01:06:20 UTC No. 926231

>>925732
>this is only "acceptable"
>I'm so blackpilled
Don't be, anon. The difference between a good junior and senior is all in mastery, not effort or time spent.
Those pieces are each the result of at least a year of fulltime study, sometimes a couple, and required the learning of dozens of different technical *and* artistic concepts. Composition, lighting, texturing, game engines, modeling programs, baking, game mesh optimization, color theory, PBR rendering. There is a LOT of shit you need to learn to make game art.

Now consider that the industry is just that. THE industry. There is no second industry for better people, that's it. The best artists on Earth are making game art (honestly, sometimes they're quite bad), and that's what you're being compared to.

When I say those are "acceptable" for a junior, keep in mind the AAA standard is *not* for juniors. It's for intermediates and seniors, a level which takes years of mastery to obtain.

Anonymous at Thu, 17 Nov 2022 01:07:23 UTC No. 926232

>>925704
>Do your sexually harass your female coworkers?
I try not to as much as possible.

Anonymous at Thu, 17 Nov 2022 23:40:45 UTC No. 926370

>>926231
>The best artists on Earth are making game art
This is very interesting and I'd like to know why do you think that's the case. Not disputing it, it's just something I don't think I would ever say.

I would agree that this field requires vast knowledge in many different things, but at the same time I can't say I've seen a lot of meaningful art from game artists, or 3d artists in general. Maybe that's the reason, maybe you're talking more about the technical quality and I'm talking about something else. I feel like people are seriously lacking originality, I can count unique art styles I've seen on one hand. I shitposted here a while ago and I'll say it again, but somehow I see even less originality from "stylized" artists because everyone seems to only copy concept art and focus on popular topics like medieval buildings and ghibli vegetation. You can't make 2 scrolls on stylized art feeds without seeing at least one of these themes on your screen.

Anonymous at Sun, 20 Nov 2022 00:23:11 UTC No. 926593

>>926370
Yeah, I guess I should proofread my posts better because I straight up misspoke. The best CG artists on Earth are making game and film art. The best visual artists period are... probably spread out among many disciplines, with a smattering of them existing in CG.

This industry definitely isn't the peak of artistic originality or expression. Which isn't to say people working in CG aren't capable of true artistry, but we are so driven by technical and marketing/product constraints that visual artistry ends up taking a backseat often.

Anonymous at Mon, 21 Nov 2022 05:26:01 UTC No. 926734

>>916215
Hello, not really a 3D artist but as an industry man your insights could be valuable. How's the market for concept artists and illustrators particularly 2D now that AI is improving?

Anonymous at Tue, 22 Nov 2022 22:45:23 UTC No. 927022

>>925732
Speaking from personal experience, getting close to that level isn't too difficult as long as you're diligent and work on a few pieces while recieving good feedback.
Really, keep at it, learn the basic workflows for gameready assets, gather a lot of references, iterate on your models until you have made a thing as close to ref as your current skill level allows, and texture it to your best ability. Add dirt, add some more dirt, grime and wear and tear, and continue to next model. Get constructive critique from a non-/3/ 3d community while at it.
I have seen people improve like a skyrocket in right environments. Their 1st and 2nd models being quite shitty, but 4th, 5th and onward their stuff already matching and exceeding average junk you see by randomly browsing sketchfab.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 07:55:07 UTC No. 927062

I spent my final term of school working on the first piece I've truly been happy with in it's entirety but haven't found luck in any job applications thus far. Is it possible to find entry level positions in the industry with no professional experience and a single environment as my reel?

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 08:53:20 UTC No. 927067

>>916215
this is my recent work, would love some feedback. also i want to get into environment design for games but i heard arch viz is a field where there is constant demand and good pay. unfortunately i am in a place where i need to start specializing so i can start to support my family within the next 2 years. should i just work on environments on the side and go full arch viz or pursue environments?

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 08:55:26 UTC No. 927068

>>927062
post work

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 10:46:08 UTC No. 927073

>>927068
It’s on my artstation too though is it worth doxxing myself lol

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 10:47:59 UTC No. 927074

>>916215
Just installed the cracked version of Marvelous Designer and they ask me if I wanna update, I should never press yes right?

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 10:50:59 UTC No. 927075

>>927074
fuck me wrong thread

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 11:17:13 UTC No. 927076

>>927074
dosent sound like its cracked,

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 11:18:58 UTC No. 927077

>>927076
what do you mean?

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 14:28:31 UTC No. 927088

>>927062
Not OP, but imo you likely won't find work with only a single piece in your portfolio.
You don't necessarily need many pieces, but you want a few to showcase that you understand how to make things related to the field you are applying to, be it modelling, texturing, whatever.

Take my words with a grain of salt, what I do is a bit gray area of if it can be considered game industry or not, maybe industry-adjacent, but when I look at recruits' (mainly prop and character artists, rarely environment though) portfolios I like to see at least 3-5ish pieces of alright/good quality.
Preferably their portfolio is also curated so blender tutorials etc that you can recognize a mile away aren't showcased alongside your best work. Also low-poly and stylised stuff rarely elevate your portfolio either.
Of course there can be exceptions, if your piece is of exceptional quality, it alone can be enough if it fits precisely for what we're looking for, but that's super rare. It's more likely that we need to see at least a few pieces to build confidence that a recruit actually knows what they are doing and is able work for us without us needing to spend too much effort handholding them.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 14:46:39 UTC No. 927090

>>927088
>stylised stuff rarely elevate your portfolio either
What do you mean by this? Kinda doesn't make sense as it depends on what you're looking for.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 15:48:47 UTC No. 927098

>>927090
Oh, I was talking through lens of personal experience.
Mainly I mean that usually, stylised stuff looks very bad. It is a skill to do stylised art right, and most often new artists aren't anywhere near that level and instead actively shoot themselves in the foot by including low-poly art.
I personally don't look for it in applications either, as we don't need it and it's useless to our needs.

It is not to say that all stylised art is bad, there are some amazing artists who can do really good stylised art, but if they applied to a studio, that studio would most likely have to be one that really focuses on that specific style.

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 19:32:21 UTC No. 927117

>>927088
Thanks for the insight. That’s a pill i was definitely needing to swallow since my school really primed me up to think i only needing one piece. The piece itself was a very detailed realistic medieval interior+exterior. It’s a nice piece i was pretty happy with and shows all my necessary skills but I guess I’ll have to get back to work

Anonymous at Wed, 23 Nov 2022 21:48:44 UTC No. 927142

>>927117
If you have a very detailed interior and exterior filled with several models you've created yourself, who knows, that could be enough. As I said, take my words with a grain of salt, I'm not an authority on environment art and focus more on individual assets.
Though it's always a good idea to keep working on your portfolio to expand your skills and not put all eggs in one basket. In the meanwhile you might find the following link interesting, it's a forum thread where newly hired people link their portfolios.
https://polycount.com/discussion/187512/recently-hired-in-aaa-show-us-your-portfolio

Anonymous at Thu, 24 Nov 2022 00:37:33 UTC No. 927159

>>927117
I'll add my opinion here as well, and I'd say (many people woud actually agree) that 1 piece CAN be enough, as long as it covers all things you need to show in a portfolio. Interior + exterior is a great example, you can showcase level art, lighting, composition, cinematography, modular buiding, all kinds of workflows with uniques, trims, tileables, landscape, foliage, but also props themselves as well. I also got an offer from a studio when I only had 1 piece in the portfolio, it was an exterior building with some props around it. I know of more examples in the same situation. It just needs to be good enough.

Anonymous at Fri, 25 Nov 2022 06:22:31 UTC No. 927273

>>916326
>There's two ways to get interviews. Either people reach out to you, or you reach out to people.
oh wow! Who would've thunk it!

Anonymous at Fri, 25 Nov 2022 06:30:02 UTC No. 927275

>>927067
>should i just work on environments on the side and go full arch viz or pursue environments?
You do whatever you have a passion for.
Get of ShitChan and go on a actual community.

Anonymous at Fri, 25 Nov 2022 15:31:01 UTC No. 927306

>>916215
What practice would you recommend to a beginner in 3d with 4 daily free hours?

Anonymous at Fri, 25 Nov 2022 22:31:18 UTC No. 927348

>>916215
Here's one question directly to you, maybe somebody else will know, didn't want to ask in questions general because I know nobody would answer.

I noticed this ground blending on Stray and am trying to figure out how did they pull this off? I'm assuming this is some combination of blending materials and decals, or some special high res masks, but it seems pretty complex. Notice how precise are the borders of the puddle and where the edge of the ground is broken. Also notice those gray cracks around the puddle. I'm assuming these may be decals, but I have no clue how did they create this transition.

Now that I'm thinking - could it be that actually the entire puddle is a just decal, placed on top of a tileable ground material, with additional gray decals for broken cracked concrete? The whole thing is completely flat after all, maybe it's just a photo? That would also explain really high quality texturing.

TL;DR - I'd like to understand how this entire area was blended together.

Anonymous at Fri, 25 Nov 2022 23:55:16 UTC No. 927355

>>927348
a) vertex color multiplied with a tiling texture mask
and/or
b) decals.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 01:33:44 UTC No. 927357

>>927355
Pretty sure it's a decal actually, noticed it in other places with less noise around it so it was easier to see its edges and it was exactly the same. Seems like they're using photo decals literally everywhere.

This brings me to other thing I have never been sure about, and that is - what should be the ideal ratio of decals : vertex painting : splat maps etc. Sometimes it seems to me it would be easier to just use decals for everything instead of setting up complex material blend shaders. Ofc, it would obviously lack one thing, displacement, but it's not like you see it often anyway.

Oh and another question - I understand the benefit of a "splat map" or channel packed masks to be used on buildings where each channel affects a certain thing, like dirt, moss etc. However, I wonder how would that work with modular walls where every wall is different and has its own UVs and they are assembled inside the engine. Would that require a unique mask for each modular wall? That seems like a shitton of extra textures. But idk how else would you do it.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 02:39:58 UTC No. 927366

>>927357
this is something that depends on a project's visual needs and should be profiled, but performance rules-of-thumb are generally a good guideline.

vertex color costs only fetching a few vectors from memory.
splat or detailmap costs a whole texture fetch.
a decal costs an extra drawcall + texture fetch.

BUT

decals take up less screen space, so if the engine can batch them in a single drawcall it's much faster than paying for invisible texture fetches in a 3/4/n-way blended material for every pixel.

so when in doubt, profile.

>every wall is different and has its own UVs
>modular wall

these seem conflicting, but if you mean identical modular pieces they are generally made to look unique by vertex color masking, projecting a texture mask in world space, using data the engine may provide like AO, or some combination. using unique vertex color means losing instancing which can be a big consideration.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 07:11:43 UTC No. 927378

>>927275
>Get of ShitChan and go on a actual community.
like what? i wont lie wip has helped me a lot. sure there are shitposters but there are genuine people who can give feedback on that thread, i am not really sure what other communities to try.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 12:22:12 UTC No. 927397

>>927366
Thanks, what I mean is that you would have a set of e.g. 30 modular pieces, empty wall, wall with a door, wall with a window, longer, shorter wall etc. And their UVs are not the same. But I see people unwrap each building piece on its own for a 2nd channel splat map, but it’s always an example with a handful of pieces. How would that work on a large modular set without requiring a ton of textures?

And about instancing, are you saying that if I paint 2 exactly the same versions of a wall differently in a level, they’ll be separate instances? Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of vertex blending when otherwise you would see the repetition if every wall has the same vertex colors?

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 17:34:04 UTC No. 927415

>>927378
[spoiler]try discords[/spoiler]
He's right though. /3/ is awful for getting consistent high quality feedback. Just like /ic/ this place is filled with /beg/s, crabs and coomers telling bad advice. Better than nothing? Sure. But in the kingdom of the blind, one eyed man is king.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:10:07 UTC No. 927422

>>927415
i cant find any good ones

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:17:14 UTC No. 927423

>>927422
Experience points.
Dinusty Empire

Im on Experience points a lot. Biggest in the industry.

🗑️ Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:20:35 UTC No. 927424

It's just this decal over a 3-material height blend (Concrete, dirt with plants, and moss).

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:28:40 UTC No. 927425

>>926734
>How's the market for concept artists and illustrators particularly 2D now that AI is improving?
I'm neither a production concept artist nor an art director, so my perspective will be limited. Personally, I think AI art is great and I use it a lot, but it has limitations that make it a tool for concepting rather than a full replacement. For example, AI-generated results are generally cool-looking, but they're rarely precise. If you need something highly specific, the AI might not understand what you want, at which point you're SoL unless you can design yourself. You also need a designer's mind to clean up, translate, and polish the concepts the AI gives you without fucking them up.

I haven't seen any studios fire their concept artists to go full AI yet, though quite a few people have taken an interest in the tech (it really is an amazing tool for designers and everybody should be checking out what it can offer). But if anything, I've actually seen a couple studios explore AI art, then go "fuck that, we need to hire a real concept artist".

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:32:07 UTC No. 927426

>>927062
>Is it possible to find entry level positions in the industry with no professional experience and a single environment as my reel?
Multiple good folio pieces will be better than one.
Professional work experience will be better than none.
But you can still totally get hired with a good folio piece and no priors. Do you really think an art school graduate who makes the Artstation frontpage with an amazing thesis project gets passed up because "he only had one piece"?
Portfolios are about showing you can do the work. If you can make one good environment, you can probably make another.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:33:09 UTC No. 927427

>>927348
It's just this decal over a 3-material height blend (Concrete, dirt with plants, and moss).

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:34:31 UTC No. 927429

>>927397

>How would that work on a large modular set without requiring a ton of textures?
typically the idea is to combine a low res splatmap (or just world space noise) with a high resolution tiling detail mask, so no need for a ton of textures, just 2.

>if I paint 2 exactly the same versions of a wall differently in a level, they’ll be separate instances?
yes, this is unfortunately the case. if gpus were smart we could do things like have instanced assets share geometry data in memory, but have completely unique uvs per instance. gpus are sadly not flexible this way, when it comes to instancing it's all or nothing.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 18:38:03 UTC No. 927430

>>927429
This person is not me.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 20:41:03 UTC No. 927438

>>927427
Jesus, is it really straight up from Textures.com? Lol that's amazing. I should probably use more decals, it always felt like cheating. Also, edge damage decals, idk why I haven't used those much. They have this edge decal on literally every wall, but it's interesting that it doesn't have any info besides low res / or just flat gray albedo. Not sure why they went with that approach.

I played around with it a bit and I get the same result if I just reuse the same material and scale down the islands. I wonder if it had something to do with that kind of optimization so it saves one material or if it was an artistic choice. Also I noticed they're not using transparency and edges are just modeled, which makes me think it really did have to do with the optimization. Because that way it wouldn't use any additional material at all, at that point it's just a part of the wall mapped to the same texture.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:46:54 UTC No. 927457

>>927438
Yeah, almost all of the decals in Stray are from Textures.com. Some of them have generated normals but others are straight up the photo texture with nothing except maybe roughness.
You'll start seeing less and less of this as the demand for fidelity increases, you pretty much can't slap a photo texture with no geo or normals on things anymore without it standing out.

If you're talking about Stray's edge decals, they're straight up broken. I think they used to have a different material earlier during production, they broke at some point, and nobody who noticed cared enough or had the time/knowledge needed to fix it.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 23:09:33 UTC No. 927461

>>927357
>what should be the ideal ratio of decals : vertex painting : splat maps etc
First of all >>927366>>927429 provides a great technical overview.

From an artistic side, I personally end up using almost everything together, as are much most games who are concerned with visuals these days (unless they can't for some reason).

Decals, vertex color, world space textures, layered materials, RGB-packed ID masks... these are all tools that come with their unique uses and sets of constraints. For example, you wouldn't texture a building with JUST decals, but if you want to add some unique details to one made with VP+Material blending, decals are the way to go.

Picking which technique(s) to use gets easier when you realize that you basically have two things influencing all your decisions: art needs, and technical constraints. For art needs, you should be look at your reference, and ask yourself: "What kind of damage/wear/variation am I seeing across this object, and what technique(s) would be best to recreate each of these features?" For tech constraints, you need to look at your budget and make sure whatever you're doing isn't blowing it completely.

It gets better as you develop a sense of how easy each technique is to use, but that's something you can only get a feel of by using them, or seeing others work with them.

Anonymous at Sat, 26 Nov 2022 23:10:42 UTC No. 927462

>>927461
Sorry for the frequent typos and nonsense phrases, I swear I'm not just ESL, the 4chan text box is tiny and makes it hard to proofread.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:18:39 UTC No. 927960

Do you usually do the first lighting pass immediately after the blockout and before detailing any props? If you do, I'd like to hear about the process, if it's in UE4, how do you test baked lighting when blockouts won't have UV maps yet - do you maybe just let unreal auto unwrap the lightmap channel? Do you add colored shaders and possibly some normal or roughness info as well or keep the blockouts flat gray?

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Dec 2022 13:15:24 UTC No. 928018

What are hourly rates for prop artists in US? I'd like to know just how much should I cope with the fact my US based employer is probably underpaying me because I'm in EU.

Also if you know how often do studios in US tweak salaries based on a country their remote contractors work from. I heard they would sometimes not care and just pay a regular US salary, but I don't know which case happens more.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Dec 2022 23:13:49 UTC No. 928070

>>927960
>Do you usually do the first lighting pass immediately after the blockout and before detailing any props?
Yeah, if you care about your composition looking good you should. It's the same as a 2d artist doing thumbnails before jumping into the full picture.
>if it's in UE4, how do you test baked lighting when blockouts won't have UV maps yet
If you have a DXR-compatible setup, use the path tracer to preview lighting. If not, auto-unwrap your meshes and get unreal to generate lightmap UVs for them, quick and dirty should be enough (it's still really fucking annoying, and baked lighting should be avoided as much as possible for visdev, it really slows you down)
>Do you add colored shaders and possibly some normal or roughness info as well
Yes! Absolutely do this! People will light a scene where everything is pure white, then wonder why their lighting looks like shit once they start replacing some of these white materials with 0.35 albedo.
Same for roughness, having floor reflections will produce a completely different composition from one where the floor is matte. You should think about material values (color, roughness, patterns) in the blockout stage, they're as important as lighting. Remember the final look of your image is determined by lighting + materials combined.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Dec 2022 23:37:44 UTC No. 928073

>>928018
>What are hourly rates for prop artists in US?
Pre-pandemic I mostly saw rates of around $15-30 USD/hr for juniors, with salaries climbing up to $50/hr for experienced people working in the Bay Area.
Post-pandemic I have no clue, I've seen someone pull $100/hr fully remote while living in bumfuck nowhere with only 4 years of professional experience, but I also still see guys getting shafted working for peanuts.
How much are you getting paid, and to do what?

>how often do studios in US tweak salaries based on a country their remote contractors work from
From personal experience, most studios still seem to pay out the full rates or something close to them. They could actually totally lower them if they wanted, and I find it really interesting that they haven't (so far), especially since wages are such a big cost in game development. There's multiple factors that go into this decision, though. It's a very interesting question to think about.

Personal anecdote, but I only ever saw two studios straight up going "well if you live in Argentina we're gonna give you Argentina pay instead of whatever our budget was before" and both of these studios gave me super scummy vibes for multiple other reasons.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Dec 2022 23:42:52 UTC No. 928077

>>928070
Nice, thanks. Also:

What if you're working from the concept, do you think it's still equally important to do things in this order?

I always feel like path tracer will throw me off because it is somehow hard to achieve the same result with baked lighting due to all the tehnical shit that can be messed up, from lightmaps to reflection probes. So what could happen is, I manage to achieve great results with path tracer but then can't recreate that lighting with baked lights.

But on the other hand, realtime lighting provides a completely different result, so how are you able to previs final result with it when there will be no proper shadowing and depth to the scene unless you combine another full set of movable light hacks available in engine?

Maybe I just never understood baked lighting in unreal fully, I watched every free and paid tutorial in the existence and the workflow is still annoying and confusing for me. Thank god for lumen.

Anonymous at Thu, 1 Dec 2022 23:57:41 UTC No. 928078

>>928073
Interesting, I actually expected more for US juniors from the start.

Anyway, my current rate is in low 20s, prop art (some environmental work as well), outsourcing studio based in US. I'm not from US so that hourly is great for my area, but I read so much shit on EXP discord about wages and always end up feeling like I'm being completely ripped off (together with most people in the industry).

I've been at it for around 2 years, I'm not really sure if they ever plan to increase the rate and do they ever even do that without artists directly asking for it. If it matters, the contract type is not fulltime but you get paid for however many hours you did per month.

Anonymous at Thu, 8 Dec 2022 18:43:01 UTC No. 928988

>>928078
Bump, you still here, OP? Also, again I'm depressed about the fact I keep seeing new young people getting jobs at NVIDIA, even though it's strange that so many of them are from 3rd world. But at the same time, I think I still prefer the flexibility of my current contracts and being able to work like 100 hours while earning 3 times the average national wage. That's what's keeping me from accepting and appyling for other fulltime gigs.

From what I read you mentioned a similar thing where you prefer interesting projects over more money. I hate this feeling that I got recently, that I need to earn more and more, but so far I've been keeping it in chains because I don't want to fuck myself up and get into stressful jobs when I'm thankfully financially fine. 35-50 USD sounds nice though. FUCK.

The main problem I have is that I just don't want to realize I'm being way underpaid for my skills, I've worked for NVIDIA tier projects and clients already with my studio, I'm pretty sure at this point I could get a job there if I wanted to. I mean, I still feel below other artists by nature, but at this point at least my portfolio and past projects are making me confident by themselves.

Anonymous at Thu, 8 Dec 2022 18:47:22 UTC No. 928989

How do you artists feel about the deliberate uglification going on?
I saw some slav comment on an artstation piece and getting veiled threats about blacklisting for even mentioning it. (it's also no longer furtive, horizon devs admitted they felt she wasn't ugly and masculine enough in the first one, where she was already plenty ugly compared to her model, and requested her to be even uglier in the sequel)

Anonymous at Fri, 9 Dec 2022 04:56:30 UTC No. 929042

>>928989
I mean, I get wanting to show beauty and perfection, but I also get wanting to do the opposite to be more grounded. it's kind of culturally ingrained that we should seek to be absolutely perfect and beautiful people but it's not a healthy mentality for people to have when it's impossible to reach their imaginary standards and that's why people are trying to change things

Anonymous at Fri, 9 Dec 2022 09:39:02 UTC No. 929050

>>929042
>it's not a healthy mentality
Alright so you people are actually that evil and fucked in the head and it's not just orders from above.
Good to know.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:30:02 UTC No. 929109

>>929050
all things will decay, nothing is objectively perfect, a rock or a tree or a bear does not have any requirements they have to fulfill and neither does a human

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 01:08:14 UTC No. 929116

>>929109
>neither does a human
Fuck you they do, a human female is by design made to be attractive to males, that implies feminine traits that we think are hot. Ofc not all females are hot but most of them are also NOT fucking uggos that I'm seeing pop around in 3D shit recently, the average human female is attractive enough to make you wanna fuck her. Exceptional beauties and uggos are exceptions.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 02:15:39 UTC No. 929121

>>928077
>What if you're working from the concept, do you think it's still equally important to do things in this order?
Absolutely. It's the equivalent of doing sketches and thumbnails as a 2d artist.
When you create great images, all you really do is make a composition (either on a 2d plane for a render, or a 3d space for an explorable environment) using light. The properties of the light that hits the viewer's eye are the result of the *combination* of light sources and material properties (color, roughness, height variation, texture, etc.), so you want to block these things out together.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 02:21:44 UTC No. 929123

>>928077
>I manage to achieve great results with path tracer but then can't recreate that lighting with baked lights.
A proper baked lighting setup should give results that are pretty close to the path tracer, bar some extremely rare and specific cases, and reflections from probes + SSR being a bit more limited (but they should still look good). If you're struggling to match the look of the path tracer with baked lighting, chances are you're doing something wrong.
>realtime lighting provides a completely different result, so how are you able to previs final result with it
You can't, it's not really practical because you have no GI. That's why iterating with baked lighting (without the path tracer) sucks, either you accept you'll have no idea what your lights will look like until you hit bake, or you do a bunch of test bakes with low settings which still have a ridiculous iteration time of at best minutes, rather than the instant feedback lighting in pretty much any other modern program provides.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 02:24:27 UTC No. 929124

>>928988
>I'm depressed about the fact I keep seeing new young people
My favorite artist is 20 years old and recently started a youtube channel which I'm learning tricks from. Don't let it get you down, the race to get really good at a young age isn't as important as the race to reach the very top, plus there's no arbitrary time limit on that one.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 02:34:55 UTC No. 929126

>>928988
Also I'm not sure what else to reply to that since there's no questions, but I'm sure you can always push your art more, especially if you're the kind of person that comes to 4chan for advice on 3d modeling. (My first piece of advice for everyone seriously looking for modeling advice on /3/ is to leave and find a Discord where some actual industry people can answer your questions.)
If you're looking to progress in your career, take a good hard look at yourself, and find your weaknesses. Things that prevent you from taking on better contracts. It could be lack of art skills, specific expertise, people skills, you haven't sent the right applications... No one is in a better placed than you to do a bit of introspection on your career. If you're really not sure what the problem is, you can *always* level up your art. Share some stuff with knowledgeable people, and try to get some targeted critiques.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 02:46:14 UTC No. 929128

>>928989
>How do you artists feel about the deliberate uglification going on?
Assuming you're speaking of how videogame characters look, this is the result of how Western and Eastern devs have different approaches to "realistic" character art.
In the west, (near) unaltered scans have become the standard for realistic graphics. In most western art directions, the goal is for humans to look like regular everyday humans, and regular humans... aren't all supermodels. Throw in a fair bit of uncanny valley from imperfect tech and bad artists fucking up the scans while trying to art-direct them, and you end up with 6/10 models downgraded into 4/10s with down syndrome.

Eastern studios seem to have their own thing going on, with very idealized beauty standards being the norm in tons of Japanese, Chinese and Korean games (Final Fantasy is a great example of that specific style of characters). They ain't even trying to make them look like real humans, which saves them from the uncanny valley when they can pull it off.

I do find it hilarious whenever /v/ calls devs pozzed for making a game protagonist ugly and... it's a straight scan. Like that's actually just how the person looks irl.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 03:05:55 UTC No. 929130

>>929124
>My favorite artist is 20 years old and recently started a youtube channel which I'm learning tricks from
nta but please share

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 03:09:08 UTC No. 929131

>>929124
>My favorite artist is 20 years old and recently started a youtube channel which I'm learning tricks fro
Care to share the link?

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 03:50:11 UTC No. 929137

>>929130
>>929131
https://www.youtube.com/@maxhay5426

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 12:37:23 UTC No. 929171

>>929109
>all things will decay, nothing is objectively perfect
He says while working on fucking 3D models that do not in fact decay.
Utter pseud idiocy.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 12:40:06 UTC No. 929172

>>929128
>In the west, (near) unaltered scans have become the standard for realistic graphics.
That can't be the case.
We know what the models look like and it's significantly better than the game models.
Horizon even went out of it's way to say that their first ugly model wasn't ugly enough and that they made her look worse for the sequel.
>to look like regular everyday humans
The average american game model today looks worse than the people in my dinky-ass town. Are american gamedev capitals just goblinized hellholes now?
>it's a straight scan.
I mean we can compare and see that the real life person often looks significantly better and we have devs on the record of making them uglier on purpose.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 17:07:52 UTC No. 929197

>>929172
I'm sorry anon, there's no conspiracy, you're just delusional.

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 21:47:29 UTC No. 929225

>>929197
>devs admit it
>muh conspiracy
Be more transparent why dontcha

Anonymous at Sat, 10 Dec 2022 22:46:07 UTC No. 929232

>>929225
Link me the soundbyte where the horizon devs said they intended to make Aloy ugly.

Anonymous at Sun, 11 Dec 2022 03:18:33 UTC No. 929262

>>929171
you are fucking retarded if you think data lasts forever. they are not magically preserved in the ether but are stored on hardware that will decay and then lose that data permanently.

Anonymous at Sun, 11 Dec 2022 08:53:03 UTC No. 929282

>it's an unaltered face scan
>it's more realistic

Anonymous at Mon, 12 Dec 2022 01:28:38 UTC No. 929389

>>929282
I don't know what happened here, but they took the actress' face and put it on a completely different head.
Everything in the face (nose, eyes, lips, cheeks) is a good match for the actor, everything else goes fucking tits.

Anonymous at Wed, 28 Dec 2022 18:21:37 UTC No. 931353

[email protected]

Anonymous at Sun, 1 Jan 2023 19:58:00 UTC No. 931785

Does anyone know how were these wood edges made? Apparently it's not a 2nd uv set but a tileable wood material. Is it a vertex painted texture, or decals? I'm not sure if vertex painting could create such sharp narrow precise results given the density of the mesh.

Anonymous at Mon, 2 Jan 2023 19:00:14 UTC No. 931897

>>931785
um, I think each panel is probably its own object with a unique texture, and the worn edges are usually just made with black and white stencils like this. (this is the only size that I could upload, but you get the idea)

Anonymous at Mon, 2 Jan 2023 19:32:34 UTC No. 931901

>>931897
Hmm, yeah, I'm not sure because that seems like it would be way too many unique textures / draw calls per wall, in that case a single uv set with 1 rgb mask for the entire modular set seems like a better idea.

But he just said the walls are using tileable wood, whatever it means. Like, I can see that one small piece of light wood wear in the middle is right on top of the vertex where the edges meet, which makes me thinkg the wear really might just be vertex painted. But I wonder how would the shader be set up so the entire thing is so precise along the edges of the panels and how would that texture which is combined with vertex colors look like if that's the case.

Anonymous at Mon, 2 Jan 2023 19:37:49 UTC No. 931902

>>931901
>in that case a single uv set with 1 rgb mask for the entire modular set
To be more clear, what I mean is that the entire modular set could potentially have 1 additional RGB mask to be used for details like this, and all the walls would be packed uniquely on a second uv channel* But he's not using it in this case, nor is it a trimsheet.

The black grunge can easily be vertex painted and it's so blurry, but the sharp edge wear is confusing me and I have a feeling I'm overcomplicating it.

I'm also wondering about the top section with that plaster wear, I see a repeating pattern, so also can't tell what method has been used there. But the variation on the left has less gray grunge between those holes with height info - could it be vertex painted grunge + those holes as decals on top?

Anonymous at Thu, 5 Jan 2023 20:47:53 UTC No. 932320

>>931785
OP here, it's a vertex painted mask.
>I'm not sure if vertex painting could create such sharp narrow precise results given the density of the mesh.
Well, you're looking at proof, there you go.

Anonymous at Thu, 5 Jan 2023 22:19:33 UTC No. 932327

>>931785

...whats so special with this? it looks pretty ordinary!

Anonymous at Wed, 25 Jan 2023 02:47:08 UTC No. 934787

what is better csg or binary space partioning?