Specialising questions

[owenrachel7]

Hi,

I'm currently at University of Winchester studying Media Production, and I've chosen to do my Final Year Project on Game Environment Art. I'm currently self-teaching with a view to enrolling at Escape Studios next September.

At the moment I'm focusing on modelling (in Maya), texture creation and UV unwrapping. I've only started teaching myself since June/July, so I'm still ridiculously early on in building my skillset.

Should I look at learning animation too? My tutor is keen for me to broaden my project out and incorporate animation, as this widens my scope for employment and produces a less mundane portfolio.

Hope this is in the right forum, I figured it comes under 'Development'!

Thoughts and opinions appreciated.

[murphz]

At this early point your best bet is maybe to set your self mini projects that cover a few chosen disciplines.

For example set about modeling a game prop.. Unwrap it and texture it and then get it into a game engine.

keep your to your limitations but also push yourself where appropriate .

So when you feel comfortable and you see improvements in your work and the speed of your work flow increases maybe look to model a character ..texture..rig and animate this model.. if this proves to much you could even learn to animate from an already rigged character .. there are loads on the Internet or maybe your tutor could provide one.

As you said your very early into learning.. its a long path but there is also a lot of help to get you to where you want to go (Looks at Game-artist.net for example!) ..most people in the industry are self taught but the right course will give you significant speed in learning but can prove costly.

Once you are comfortable with your chosen package (Maya/photoshop for e.g) you soon realise what you are good at and maybe at that point you will want to focus on one discipline and get very good at it

Very few in the games industry are all rounders.. or not good ones ..
if you go down the path or an environment artist, modelling, texture creation, UVW unwrapping will be your Strong point.

Even lighting is an option if you find you like this..

I always find that animators ..the good ones are focused on animation only but still have a good knowledge of all the other factors.. poly modelling etc. which always helps

Most of all enjoy what you are doing and do projects that you are going to enjoy. If animation isn't your cup of tea after working with it a bit don't worry ..definitely try it out and learn the basics and see where you are then but don't let it cloud you overall goal of learning what you want to become and getting damn good at it and you'll find that out by playing with all aspects of digital design and having lots of fun in the process!

Hope this helps

[Sharvo]

I totally agree with what murphz has said, good read.

So you want to get into the games industry! I am guessing that you want to go in to environment modeling as that is wher you want to go to next year at escape. There are some great tutorials on the internet and especially on games artist forums. But right now you have only just begun and there is so much within games, cgi etc that will make you go mad. So maybe experiment with the other areas such as fx, animation, lighting, but concentrate on one main area for now.

Jobs are normally role specific, especially in games film and tv do have generalists, but i wouldnt worry about that to much you want your showreel/portfolio to be amazing and only your best work! if that is all aspects well then go ahead and put it all in, but if your great in all areas most people will still have numerous showreels, one for animation one for lighta=ing and one for modeling for example.

[owenrachel7]

Thanks to both of you, and to whoever moved this to the right forum!

Animation doesn't carry the same appeal as modelling for me, and I think murphz hit the nail on the head; I'd rather be very good at one thing than average at a lot of things, so to speak.

When it comes to my project I've got from Summer '10 until Spring '11 to get it done. I'm doing three small projects: 1) low-poly modelling, texturing, UV unwrapping; 2) high-poly modelling, lighting, 3) animation. No doubt I'll be posting WIP threads on here as I progress (with trepidation, I should add!), but does this sound ambitious enough to you guys? Guess you can't say too much without seeing what I'm doing, but project 1 is a New York-style alley w/ props and project 2 is an ESP-LTD EX400 guitar. My tutor is looking for a 2 minute animation video for projcet 3, which sounds like a LOT to me.

My course doesn't teach any sort of modelling and, as far as I'm aware, my tutors aren't well-versed in this discipline. My main concern is illustrating the man hours I'll be putting in (which doesn't bother me, for the record. I'm more than happy working into the early hours on this!), the target is 200+ I believe which I'm thinking I'll smash!

Thanks for reading; I posted on a couple of forums last Spring and got some rude replies, so this is much appreciated.

[stocko2k]

as you've said be good at 1 thing instead of ok at several things, learning to model a character might not be the thing you WANT to do but i think i learnt more techniques from my character module than i did from 2 environment modules, i use them all in my environment work and have no desire to be a character artist its just characters are harder work and hard work results in learning more in my experience.

if your 3rd project is going to be a 2 min animation then i would sugest getting a pre rigged character and doing a show reel style vid that shows of a range of game specific animations rather than trying to make an animation that follows a dialogue. You could also think about tailoring all your projects towards the animation project, so project 1 low poly model and unwrap a character, project 2 high poly sculpting then normal map baking and rigging the low poly character, so that in the 3rd project you have your own character to animate.

hope that helps some.

[owenrachel7]

Yeah, I've been thinking about learning character modelling, although it might have to wait until next year. I'll have time over Summer when I'll be earning money in preparation for Escape, so maybe then? On the subject, how did you learn character modelling?

For the animation my tutor is keen for me to get a theme or narrative into it. I was thinking of using the 'Luxo Jr.' Pixar short as a big inspiration and doing 'Luxo Sr.' but nothing's definite yet. Is animation/rigging the same discipline, or are there individuals for each aspect? It's daunting because it feels like I'm learning multiple skillsets in a short time!

[SkwigglesWorth]

your project seems fine , however 2 min animation seems alot with story/theme behind it. cause your gonna want that story/theme to be good and that alot of concepting to get right and for you to be happy with

I'm liking stocko2k idea of tayloring it together, but i would probably do it slightly differnt, low poly enviroment (new york scene), high poly character then re-topolozie the high to make your low then UV and bake and texture (that gonna be more work than you orignally had), then rig and walk the charcter through the scene, and light the scene (may also get a bit of game engine stuff in there) the animation wouldn't be 2 mins though.
You could also ditch the charcter and just do some high poly baking on parts of your new york scene and do a fly through (animation would maybe lacking and best idea there would be if it empty new york then say bird flying about (bird wings not fun to rig for close to open) and litter to animate (still not loads) (may effects could be added instead a bit (mist))

Rigging and animating are differnt, character modelling wise if you know rigging you have a better idea of how areas will defom when animating so this will help when animating but will also help when createing your low poly and creating your edge flow. The way I see it is animation is the study of movements. Rigging slightly harder to exsplain as a one liner but its a lot more technical, can involve a bit of problem solving and coding (not sure how much coding there is in games for rigging) (I have only rigged for non games based stuff, i belvie there are limits to the rig in games)

[owenrachel7]

That's a really good idea actually, thanks for that! I'll think about it a bit more and ascertain the timeframe and what I can learn/do; I've also got other modules which I've got to work on, including a TV Studio Production group project.

I'm trying to find a balance between 'attainable' and 'pushing myself'. For the NY scene I want it to be as detailed as possible, but then I've got to consider the texture creation and how long that will take, as well as the UV unwrapping and the fact I'm learning as I go.

Thanks for your help though, getting me thinking and it really helping!

[owenrachel7]

Ok kinda bumping my own topic, but figured it'd be better than making a new one.

I'm looking at funding for my course at Escape Studios, and was just wondering if anyone from the UK knows of any organizations that would help with my course fees. I've got the option of a Career Development Loan, but with a student loan from my uni course it's not exactly desirable!

Any help is much appreciated, I've been cracking on with other uni work so haven't looked into this at massive amounts of depth. If anyone could give me a headstart that'd be great!

[Elliott]

Hey Owenrachel, I have asked a friend who also studied at Escape and is here at Derby University but unfortunetly he funded his own studies there. But I believe Escape will teach you all the problem solving issues in Maya, from accidently clicking and hiding your toolbar to modelling with great speed, that's what I've picked up and gathered from my friend who studied there, It's a definitive plus and will boost your career and ability.

In terms of specializing, think about what you want to do. For me, I can't draw or model characters to save my life, but when I did my assignments on prop / texturing / lighting and level design, they were the highest grades I got, and I started to love it.

Character artists can usually model everything after a while, they deal with all sorts of shapes and materials when they model a character (damn you! :P) so if you're interested in that route you will learn alot.

I went down the environment route because I found I had a natural nack for the UDK and lighting, my modelling is alright, but the ability to texture and light well can make your scene look brilliant, story-telling and show a good form of art. If complex modelling is a weakness, It's one you can build up over time by giving yourself new props to work on.

What Derby does over here is attempt to cater towards a specialized area in every module. I'm not, and don't plan to be an animator, but the module now caters not only for character animators, but for artists who want to do animation for their environments or props. My point is, you can train a specialized area in most aspects of 3D, which will help sell you in that profession.

Try and do one project every 5 projects that you don't feel comfy with. You will go through alot to get it done, but you'll come out stronger then you would making a comfortable project.

Anyways, best of luck with it all! Find out your nack, keep on training, sorry about the loan stuff, I'm useless with it >_<;!