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I've been an artist in videogames for 14+ years. I'm between jobs and have a week off. Ask Me (mostly) Anything
- Thread starter XaviConcept
- Start date
How much of your income on average is made via side hustles, ie commissions, part time jobs, odds and ends as an artist like passive income licensed stuff etc?
Also on average what is your gross income after all these years?
Asking because I had to leave the industry super early and work a STEM field or suffer being crippled from student debt as an artist. I make good money now but my heart is always I my art and I wish I'd have been in a place to stick it out longer.
Also on average what is your gross income after all these years?
Asking because I had to leave the industry super early and work a STEM field or suffer being crippled from student debt as an artist. I make good money now but my heart is always I my art and I wish I'd have been in a place to stick it out longer.
I've been working from home during quarantine and using my extra free time to learn Blender.
I could see myself being interested in pursuing 3D modeling as a career, however the extent of my general art foundations are probably pretty lacking.
Any advice on:
a) is it worth taking courses for 3D modeling or should I just continue to watch tutorials and practice at my own pace.
b) is a foundational art background necessary to work in 3D modeling / animating etc?
I could see myself being interested in pursuing 3D modeling as a career, however the extent of my general art foundations are probably pretty lacking.
Any advice on:
a) is it worth taking courses for 3D modeling or should I just continue to watch tutorials and practice at my own pace.
b) is a foundational art background necessary to work in 3D modeling / animating etc?
3rd Batch
OP
OP
3rd Batch, will be afk for a couple of hours after this because I have to go return my equipment at the studio in less than an hour
No beef. I'm not in high level meetings so I cant tell you specifics but I imagine its hard for EA to sell well in Nintendo sytems when the highest sellers are all Nintendo 1st party games
It can change SEVERELY depending on the studio. I see myself more as a game maker than just an artist these days and my number one priority is to always make sure the teams have synergy, especially with the design team, then with engineering. If an artist knows how his/her work is used in game and they have a deep understanding of how the game works, theyll be able to make much better decisions with their work. This is not something that comes naturally to people and, in some cases, can open up a can of worms, such as the artist taking too many liberties or the designer thinking theyre the goddamn art director all of a sudden so clear lanes of communication need to be established. For instance, its not ok for a designer to go directly to the character modeler and ask for things to be changed, they should go through the art lead or director first. I benefited a lot in Star Wars, for instance, when I asked to be included very early in the design sessions for new characters, often being able to say things like "this kit is too boring, she just shoots three times? we need something more unique" or things like "we cant have an ability like that in game, our engine doesnt support it, what about this instead"
Sometimes it can be hard if a person that is used to think very high level gets involved with the production crew. This can happen with new hires a lot! The are used to saying things like "I want this to feel this way" which is fine and good but then when they see how we actually get there their feedback will be not usable because they dont know how the engine works or how our pipeline works. Managing that relationship is important because you can then leverage that knowledge (or lack thereof) to ask for things like "well if we had better tools we COULD have the ship go in and out of Hyperspace at will" shit like that
FF VII R is probably the clubhouse leader but that has a lot of recency bias. I love the blend of old vs new and how theyre giving old fans so many new avenues to explore Midgar. Its not perfect, though, as I think the original was actually a bit more colorful and playful in some spaces. Ori and the Blind Forest is an obvious delight as was (as previously stated) Bloodborne, MHW and BOTW. Zelda in particular deserves a lot of credit though, because it doesnt matter that its hardware is not impressive, its just beatiful.
The games I took the most screenshots of, though, thats a good barometer:
Octopath
BOTW
NieR
Bloodborne
Gravity Rush 2
FF VIIR
Final Fantasy VI
then!
Street Fighter IV
Chrono Cross (duh) which I dont even like, haha
Vagrant Story
FF XII
FF VIII
Splatoon
Monster Hunter Tri
Rival Schools
Persona 4/5
Gravity Rush 2
BOTW
Theres a lot! I like the blend of fantasy and real world aesthetics. Games that I love like MGS I wouldn't be a good fit form but stuff like Street Fighter. Final Fantasy or Monster Hunter are my big loves. I also love urban dirty settings like Tekkon Kinkreet, thats really my lane as well
Cofee with Vanilla Syrup and lot of milk because Im a pansy. I usually do fasting till noon though but this whole quarantine has changed my routine
EA certainly hasnt, our leadership team is comprised mostly of women, which is amazing and theyre amazing. I have seen attitudes shift to more healthy ways of thinking over the years, I have for sure heard some bad, dumb shit out the mouths of a few coworkers in the past. Its hard to pinpoint it as a mentality when in my experience its been a "this dumbass said WHAT?" more than a studio wide mentality. Reading what happened at Riot and other places certainly opened my eyes as well as many others and I have been more vigilant since, making sure I do my part because Im sure theres a lot of blind spots I still have. I have a very strong personality irl and I'll call out people on their bullshit so I think that keeps a lot of drama away from me because people are not so brave with their bullshit opinions when Im around, haha
No beef. I'm not in high level meetings so I cant tell you specifics but I imagine its hard for EA to sell well in Nintendo sytems when the highest sellers are all Nintendo 1st party games
It can change SEVERELY depending on the studio. I see myself more as a game maker than just an artist these days and my number one priority is to always make sure the teams have synergy, especially with the design team, then with engineering. If an artist knows how his/her work is used in game and they have a deep understanding of how the game works, theyll be able to make much better decisions with their work. This is not something that comes naturally to people and, in some cases, can open up a can of worms, such as the artist taking too many liberties or the designer thinking theyre the goddamn art director all of a sudden so clear lanes of communication need to be established. For instance, its not ok for a designer to go directly to the character modeler and ask for things to be changed, they should go through the art lead or director first. I benefited a lot in Star Wars, for instance, when I asked to be included very early in the design sessions for new characters, often being able to say things like "this kit is too boring, she just shoots three times? we need something more unique" or things like "we cant have an ability like that in game, our engine doesnt support it, what about this instead"
Sometimes it can be hard if a person that is used to think very high level gets involved with the production crew. This can happen with new hires a lot! The are used to saying things like "I want this to feel this way" which is fine and good but then when they see how we actually get there their feedback will be not usable because they dont know how the engine works or how our pipeline works. Managing that relationship is important because you can then leverage that knowledge (or lack thereof) to ask for things like "well if we had better tools we COULD have the ship go in and out of Hyperspace at will" shit like that
FF VII R is probably the clubhouse leader but that has a lot of recency bias. I love the blend of old vs new and how theyre giving old fans so many new avenues to explore Midgar. Its not perfect, though, as I think the original was actually a bit more colorful and playful in some spaces. Ori and the Blind Forest is an obvious delight as was (as previously stated) Bloodborne, MHW and BOTW. Zelda in particular deserves a lot of credit though, because it doesnt matter that its hardware is not impressive, its just beatiful.
The games I took the most screenshots of, though, thats a good barometer:
Octopath
BOTW
NieR
Bloodborne
Gravity Rush 2
FF VIIR
Final Fantasy VI
then!
Street Fighter IV
Chrono Cross (duh) which I dont even like, haha
Vagrant Story
FF XII
FF VIII
Splatoon
Monster Hunter Tri
Rival Schools
Persona 4/5
Gravity Rush 2
BOTW
Theres a lot! I like the blend of fantasy and real world aesthetics. Games that I love like MGS I wouldn't be a good fit form but stuff like Street Fighter. Final Fantasy or Monster Hunter are my big loves. I also love urban dirty settings like Tekkon Kinkreet, thats really my lane as well
Cofee with Vanilla Syrup and lot of milk because Im a pansy. I usually do fasting till noon though but this whole quarantine has changed my routine
EA certainly hasnt, our leadership team is comprised mostly of women, which is amazing and theyre amazing. I have seen attitudes shift to more healthy ways of thinking over the years, I have for sure heard some bad, dumb shit out the mouths of a few coworkers in the past. Its hard to pinpoint it as a mentality when in my experience its been a "this dumbass said WHAT?" more than a studio wide mentality. Reading what happened at Riot and other places certainly opened my eyes as well as many others and I have been more vigilant since, making sure I do my part because Im sure theres a lot of blind spots I still have. I have a very strong personality irl and I'll call out people on their bullshit so I think that keeps a lot of drama away from me because people are not so brave with their bullshit opinions when Im around, haha
How do you approach a brief that involves producing concepts for something you may not have drawn or painted much (or at all) before, be it people/places/costumes etc. Obviously having tons of reference is important but for getting it internalised in a manner that can best help the output is there anything you do to help build your visual library in areas where the shelves may be a bit empty?
I've been an artist in the industry for a few years now, but have primarily worked in the indie space. I kind of want to look towards AAA studios and working towards being a lead there. However I've heard once you become a lead (or especially when you become an AD) you essentially become a producer.
Have you found that to be true in your experience?
Additionally I love being able to both help define the art style for a game and Be involved with production art. I imagine however that the bigger the studio it is, the less possibility you have of doing both?
Have you found that to be true in your experience?
Additionally I love being able to both help define the art style for a game and Be involved with production art. I imagine however that the bigger the studio it is, the less possibility you have of doing both?
4th Batch
OP
OP
4th Batch
Nah, some stuff for SWGOH leaked in the past and its annoying, for sure, but steps were taken to fix it and that was that. The team is bummed when it happens, of course, especially because the art team is often thinking of "this is how the player will first experience this" and we put a lot of effort coming up with that strategy so its obviously fucking annoying when thats ruined
Its fine! We managed to hit our (crazy) deadlines with no issue. For artists in particular, WFH is a bit dangerous because we work MORE. Its pretty easy to be "always on" because your workstation is always there, tempting you. For the leadership team it was also hard due to how much management you have to deal with, upping the level of communication, changing meeting schedules, etc, etc. For some talent its a lot easier to work for home but for the QA team its actually a fair bit more difficult. However, there has been a silver lining and a lot of the "myths" regarding WFH have been disippated which is a good thing and will enable some talent to be in a much better spot once this is all over.
It affected my new job a fair deal because I could no longer fly to Spain to interview! Im a people person (lol) and was worried interviewing online would be detrimental to me, but it all worked out. The gut wrenching part was to not be able to tell my team in person that I was leaving, that entire process sucked ass and while it had to be done, its definitely not the way I wanted to leave. Thankfully the team was super supportive of my decision so there was no drama but still, after two and a half years of working very closely with people I consider close friends, telling them youre leaving via ZOOM is not what I thought would happen.
Specifically for art, check these out
Dream Worlds
Framed Ink
The Visual Story (Bruce Block)
The Making of Prince of Persia
Figure Drawing: Design and Invention
Perspective! For Comic Book Artists
line-of-action.com
Art books:
Monster Hunter Illustrations
The Skillful Huntsman
Tekkon Kinkreet background art books
I dont know of a lot of resources for strictly game making since I entered the industry so long ago that its mostly learning on the job. I think a lot of the Iwata Asks are incredibly insightful, however
Nintendo! Their ability and confidence in shifting art styles for their products as needed really speaks to their mastery and understanding of the craft. Its amazing that Zelda can go through so many visual styles whenever the agem calls for them .. and what they did with Splatoon was incredible. Obviously I admire what studios like Naughty Dog, Squenix and CD Projekt can do on a technical level, but its the pones that are more willing to be playful and take risks that I always gravitate to. I love how FROM approaches their art as well, if you look at any of their assets closely, theyre not very impressive ... its when you look at them all assembled together, with the right ambience and camera work that their work truly shines above the competition
We had access to some stuff, reference, jpgs and whatnot but no original art. It must be in a vault somewhere, Im sure. I think we did reuse some of the audio but when it comes to dealing with really, really old assets like those, the models and textures would be largely unusable
I know what he meant, its fine
Depends! What you think of as "cool concept art" is probably something you saw as a nice illustration on an art book or something in an ad.
Thats ... not concept art. Those are marketing illustrations. We typically never use shit like that when concepting something. Those are made later on to sell the art book or the game
What concept art typically looks like ... well, its really rough, its basically the middle step in "please give me something as quickly as humanly possible so I can get this shit done" so very often theres no color nor finished lineart, just a scribble. Depending on WHO we have to show it to, however, well go more in detail. Like, if we need a 3rd party to approve a concept art,. well go more finished to make sure we dont have to deal with feedback like "will the background be in black and white, then?" When it comes to that, the amount of time depends on the artist! At EA for SWGOH we have a really amazing one that only needs about 3 days per piece, but his level of quality would take me a bout a week. Most illustrations in my portfolio are about 60 hours of work, more less
Well, on that subject .. seeing the amount of conspiracy theories circling around the SWGOH community has made me realize that most conspiracy theories are bullshit because if even our game suffers from people making shit up out of the blue and running with assumptions in order to validate MORE assumptions ... then really, all of the other stuff must be BS as well
Its a very different problem that requires a different team composition. I do NOT like most remasters. I think they miss out on tons of decision making moments that the original team meant, plus, the OG team that made FFX is a better group of artists than the ones charged with remastering FF X ... so youre always asking lesser artists to reinterpret somebody elses work, often resulting in misaligned expectations ... shit like "oh this is blurry, ill make it sharp!" OK yeah but maybe that was blurry for a purpose and you "fixing it" will make it actually look worse? Id much rather have a full rmekae like RE2 or FF VIIR that tries to recreate the FEELING the original developers had at the original dev time, such as trying to become a visual tour de force like the previous games were and not just the same game but sharper, like the Shadow of the Colossus remake.
For the textures, it depends! Do they have the original textures available AND were they made at a natively high enough resolution? If they were, thats great! Otherwise youd have to remake them from scratch with .. probably, way less skilled artists. Thats a challenge. Alsom those textures even if higher res were probably MADE to be seen at a lower res alongside a low poly character soo the texture might/will look like ass on a low poly character so then you have to redo the mesh as well, meaning you might have to reanimate as well ... ugh, fucking nightmare stuff, just start over. This kind of workflow would permeate the entire development process, even audio, localization, game design, loading times, etc, etc. You need a team of puzzle solvers more than actual game developers
Thats even before we get to the goddamn code. Working on somebody else codebase for a remaster, code that could even being a foreign language, no less ... must be a significant fucking nightmare. I think the MGS remasters were probably the best examples out there along Odin Sphere, for the rest ... I just dont like them in idea and execution
Yeah, artists can freelance as long as its not for a direct competitor. Its kind of frowned upon regardless so keep it to yourself, really. If its outside of games though, yeah, do your thing.
As far as free requests, that happens mostly with younger folks who are trying to get themselves out there and thus are active in communities with many other, younger people who have no money. It also happens a lot more with women artists. Im pretty experienced, dont freeelance all that much and thus mostly deal with legit clients. I think if I had a bigger following, like lets say 50k follows on twitter, that the math alone would dictate I start being exposed to more freeloaders, though.
Most time I hear hoprro stories from people, my honest reaction is "that never happens to me, wtf, how come it never does?"
Nah, some stuff for SWGOH leaked in the past and its annoying, for sure, but steps were taken to fix it and that was that. The team is bummed when it happens, of course, especially because the art team is often thinking of "this is how the player will first experience this" and we put a lot of effort coming up with that strategy so its obviously fucking annoying when thats ruined
Its fine! We managed to hit our (crazy) deadlines with no issue. For artists in particular, WFH is a bit dangerous because we work MORE. Its pretty easy to be "always on" because your workstation is always there, tempting you. For the leadership team it was also hard due to how much management you have to deal with, upping the level of communication, changing meeting schedules, etc, etc. For some talent its a lot easier to work for home but for the QA team its actually a fair bit more difficult. However, there has been a silver lining and a lot of the "myths" regarding WFH have been disippated which is a good thing and will enable some talent to be in a much better spot once this is all over.
It affected my new job a fair deal because I could no longer fly to Spain to interview! Im a people person (lol) and was worried interviewing online would be detrimental to me, but it all worked out. The gut wrenching part was to not be able to tell my team in person that I was leaving, that entire process sucked ass and while it had to be done, its definitely not the way I wanted to leave. Thankfully the team was super supportive of my decision so there was no drama but still, after two and a half years of working very closely with people I consider close friends, telling them youre leaving via ZOOM is not what I thought would happen.
Specifically for art, check these out
Dream Worlds
Framed Ink
The Visual Story (Bruce Block)
The Making of Prince of Persia
Figure Drawing: Design and Invention
Perspective! For Comic Book Artists
Line of Action
line-of-action.com
Art books:
Monster Hunter Illustrations
The Skillful Huntsman
Tekkon Kinkreet background art books
I dont know of a lot of resources for strictly game making since I entered the industry so long ago that its mostly learning on the job. I think a lot of the Iwata Asks are incredibly insightful, however
Nintendo! Their ability and confidence in shifting art styles for their products as needed really speaks to their mastery and understanding of the craft. Its amazing that Zelda can go through so many visual styles whenever the agem calls for them .. and what they did with Splatoon was incredible. Obviously I admire what studios like Naughty Dog, Squenix and CD Projekt can do on a technical level, but its the pones that are more willing to be playful and take risks that I always gravitate to. I love how FROM approaches their art as well, if you look at any of their assets closely, theyre not very impressive ... its when you look at them all assembled together, with the right ambience and camera work that their work truly shines above the competition
We had access to some stuff, reference, jpgs and whatnot but no original art. It must be in a vault somewhere, Im sure. I think we did reuse some of the audio but when it comes to dealing with really, really old assets like those, the models and textures would be largely unusable
I know what he meant, its fine
Depends! What you think of as "cool concept art" is probably something you saw as a nice illustration on an art book or something in an ad.
Thats ... not concept art. Those are marketing illustrations. We typically never use shit like that when concepting something. Those are made later on to sell the art book or the game
What concept art typically looks like ... well, its really rough, its basically the middle step in "please give me something as quickly as humanly possible so I can get this shit done" so very often theres no color nor finished lineart, just a scribble. Depending on WHO we have to show it to, however, well go more in detail. Like, if we need a 3rd party to approve a concept art,. well go more finished to make sure we dont have to deal with feedback like "will the background be in black and white, then?" When it comes to that, the amount of time depends on the artist! At EA for SWGOH we have a really amazing one that only needs about 3 days per piece, but his level of quality would take me a bout a week. Most illustrations in my portfolio are about 60 hours of work, more less
Well, on that subject .. seeing the amount of conspiracy theories circling around the SWGOH community has made me realize that most conspiracy theories are bullshit because if even our game suffers from people making shit up out of the blue and running with assumptions in order to validate MORE assumptions ... then really, all of the other stuff must be BS as well
Its a very different problem that requires a different team composition. I do NOT like most remasters. I think they miss out on tons of decision making moments that the original team meant, plus, the OG team that made FFX is a better group of artists than the ones charged with remastering FF X ... so youre always asking lesser artists to reinterpret somebody elses work, often resulting in misaligned expectations ... shit like "oh this is blurry, ill make it sharp!" OK yeah but maybe that was blurry for a purpose and you "fixing it" will make it actually look worse? Id much rather have a full rmekae like RE2 or FF VIIR that tries to recreate the FEELING the original developers had at the original dev time, such as trying to become a visual tour de force like the previous games were and not just the same game but sharper, like the Shadow of the Colossus remake.
For the textures, it depends! Do they have the original textures available AND were they made at a natively high enough resolution? If they were, thats great! Otherwise youd have to remake them from scratch with .. probably, way less skilled artists. Thats a challenge. Alsom those textures even if higher res were probably MADE to be seen at a lower res alongside a low poly character soo the texture might/will look like ass on a low poly character so then you have to redo the mesh as well, meaning you might have to reanimate as well ... ugh, fucking nightmare stuff, just start over. This kind of workflow would permeate the entire development process, even audio, localization, game design, loading times, etc, etc. You need a team of puzzle solvers more than actual game developers
Thats even before we get to the goddamn code. Working on somebody else codebase for a remaster, code that could even being a foreign language, no less ... must be a significant fucking nightmare. I think the MGS remasters were probably the best examples out there along Odin Sphere, for the rest ... I just dont like them in idea and execution
Yeah, artists can freelance as long as its not for a direct competitor. Its kind of frowned upon regardless so keep it to yourself, really. If its outside of games though, yeah, do your thing.
As far as free requests, that happens mostly with younger folks who are trying to get themselves out there and thus are active in communities with many other, younger people who have no money. It also happens a lot more with women artists. Im pretty experienced, dont freeelance all that much and thus mostly deal with legit clients. I think if I had a bigger following, like lets say 50k follows on twitter, that the math alone would dictate I start being exposed to more freeloaders, though.
Most time I hear hoprro stories from people, my honest reaction is "that never happens to me, wtf, how come it never does?"
5th Batch
OP
OP
5th Batch
Definitely more difficult. It would be great to get a fucking break so the rest of us plebs cant catch up a little bit. A lot of games you play are not even running the latest version of the engine theyre on, because updating it to get that sweet new lighting engine would BREAK THE SHIT out of your game and its too risky, so you have to wait, and wait, and deal with shit tools forever.
Phone upgrades are a definite annoyance, basically the resolution of the screen is too high so we need to supply texture sizes to match it ... but then the phones hardware or engine cant keep up with it. Thats why so many phone games still look and feel like PS2 games technically because since they have to look good on a super hires iPhone screen, we have a limited texture budget. Its much easier to make things look good when you know a CRT TV has a limited resolution
Tech upgrades also are uneven in some areas, all of a sudden faces and textures look amazing but the animation tech hasnt evolved to keep up with it so you get that marionette effect when bodies look realistic but they dont MOVE realistically, so it looks fucking weird
Nickname I got in college when I really wasnt the best at handling my anger issues.
I have! I worked very closely with the audio team in Star Wars, for instance! Amazing group of people :)
The best way? Depends where you live! I think you should find indie games youd like to be involved with either locally near you or online and get in touch, ask if tyhey have an audio person and if they be interested in getting some help. I think being proactive in general helps though, do you play DnD? Roll20? Maybe provide audio for your groups DnD experience? Its a small industry so its not beyond you getting in touch with someone you admire via twitter, asking questions and sending samples. Be polite obviously but people generally like interacting with newer talent, especially audio since it can be a very freelance heavy job.
That is ... kind of my job, haha. As a concept artist, you would be a bad one if you create concepts that cannot be turned into actual game art. When providing a visual target its very important to break it down with a "this is how well get there" guide. For a long cancelled game, for mobile, this was the visual target I proposed
I broke it down to these tiles
and this was how it looked in-game,. pretty close!
It happens often, no worries. This even happens IN studios pretty often, were teams legit do not understand how other teams operate. This is why you always hear that studios often wish they had better communication, we all tend to be insular and worry about our own shit, regardless of discipline
I kind of answered it in a previous batch but for sure how many things about development are taken for granted and just how small the vocal minority is. We all try to be professional and not yell at consumer when they say super obvious shit so instead theyll be quiet only to then hear fans "were not communicating" its like sigh, ok, you do you, thanks for being passionate. ERA is not too bad though, I think for the most part most posters here mean well.
I had talent, for sure. Been drawing since I was 3,4 whatever and now Im 38 and continue to draw almost everyday. Talent matters but so does hard work, tons of talented people reach their peak early on and dont get any better. You gotta learn to enjoy the process or youre not going to make it very far (exceptions aside, of course!) I didnt take real classes until I went to college at The Kubert School
I prefer to draw on paper and to color digitally. If I was around a decade earlier and had to become good at painting with traditional media I probably would have never made it in games, instead becoming a comic or manga artist
A Cintiq these days, I do use CSP on the iPad a fair bit these days but for serious work, its on the desktop with the Cintiq in Photoshop
UV is a goddamn hellish shitscape. Be afraid of it, sure but DO learn it. In college we learned that if youre UVing a single piece for over 15 minutes, youre doing it wrong. It was 20 years ago, but theres wisdom there
Do beware of auto UV wrappers though, they can make it hard for other people to use your UVs or fix your textures and can teach you some pretty bad habits. For instance, most people at Blizzard are MASTERS at using UVs and truly getting the most out of a texture. If you become one of those UV savants nyoull have a big advatnage over other candidates.
Definitely more difficult. It would be great to get a fucking break so the rest of us plebs cant catch up a little bit. A lot of games you play are not even running the latest version of the engine theyre on, because updating it to get that sweet new lighting engine would BREAK THE SHIT out of your game and its too risky, so you have to wait, and wait, and deal with shit tools forever.
Phone upgrades are a definite annoyance, basically the resolution of the screen is too high so we need to supply texture sizes to match it ... but then the phones hardware or engine cant keep up with it. Thats why so many phone games still look and feel like PS2 games technically because since they have to look good on a super hires iPhone screen, we have a limited texture budget. Its much easier to make things look good when you know a CRT TV has a limited resolution
Tech upgrades also are uneven in some areas, all of a sudden faces and textures look amazing but the animation tech hasnt evolved to keep up with it so you get that marionette effect when bodies look realistic but they dont MOVE realistically, so it looks fucking weird
Nickname I got in college when I really wasnt the best at handling my anger issues.
I have! I worked very closely with the audio team in Star Wars, for instance! Amazing group of people :)
The best way? Depends where you live! I think you should find indie games youd like to be involved with either locally near you or online and get in touch, ask if tyhey have an audio person and if they be interested in getting some help. I think being proactive in general helps though, do you play DnD? Roll20? Maybe provide audio for your groups DnD experience? Its a small industry so its not beyond you getting in touch with someone you admire via twitter, asking questions and sending samples. Be polite obviously but people generally like interacting with newer talent, especially audio since it can be a very freelance heavy job.
That is ... kind of my job, haha. As a concept artist, you would be a bad one if you create concepts that cannot be turned into actual game art. When providing a visual target its very important to break it down with a "this is how well get there" guide. For a long cancelled game, for mobile, this was the visual target I proposed
I broke it down to these tiles
and this was how it looked in-game,. pretty close!
It happens often, no worries. This even happens IN studios pretty often, were teams legit do not understand how other teams operate. This is why you always hear that studios often wish they had better communication, we all tend to be insular and worry about our own shit, regardless of discipline
I kind of answered it in a previous batch but for sure how many things about development are taken for granted and just how small the vocal minority is. We all try to be professional and not yell at consumer when they say super obvious shit so instead theyll be quiet only to then hear fans "were not communicating" its like sigh, ok, you do you, thanks for being passionate. ERA is not too bad though, I think for the most part most posters here mean well.
I had talent, for sure. Been drawing since I was 3,4 whatever and now Im 38 and continue to draw almost everyday. Talent matters but so does hard work, tons of talented people reach their peak early on and dont get any better. You gotta learn to enjoy the process or youre not going to make it very far (exceptions aside, of course!) I didnt take real classes until I went to college at The Kubert School
I prefer to draw on paper and to color digitally. If I was around a decade earlier and had to become good at painting with traditional media I probably would have never made it in games, instead becoming a comic or manga artist
A Cintiq these days, I do use CSP on the iPad a fair bit these days but for serious work, its on the desktop with the Cintiq in Photoshop
UV is a goddamn hellish shitscape. Be afraid of it, sure but DO learn it. In college we learned that if youre UVing a single piece for over 15 minutes, youre doing it wrong. It was 20 years ago, but theres wisdom there
Do beware of auto UV wrappers though, they can make it hard for other people to use your UVs or fix your textures and can teach you some pretty bad habits. For instance, most people at Blizzard are MASTERS at using UVs and truly getting the most out of a texture. If you become one of those UV savants nyoull have a big advatnage over other candidates.
Were Quinlan Vos and Mister Bones ever considered for Galaxy of heroes? How do you guys balance units on that thing? I was playing it a few years ago around when Nihilus was launched and the sith teams that were popping up because of him and that sith trooper tank were super obnoxious. I thought it was really weird that the sith had a bunch of anti-jedi skills or passives but there were no equivalent anti-sith stuff.
I don't have any questions of my own, but thank you so much for taking the time to do this! Your answers thus far have been really insightful, and I'm learning a ton about an often-overlooked segment of game dev. Thank you!
What do you think about Red Dead Redemption 2 environments and world? Can be replicated in smaller games in the future?
This is a great answer, I really appreciate the insight!
Also, I'm currently a college student who is semi-notoriously working through some anger issues... maybe it's a CG thing
Do you work with writers at all? How involved are they in the overall process of making a game?
Thanks!
Thanks!
This is super cool and very kind of you. Spanish dev highfive! :)
Have you ever made a game in a pixel art style? Would you want to, since (like myself) you cherish Chrono Trigger and FFVI so much, or do you consider this art style better left in the past?
Also, I wanted to point out that one of your answers in the very first batch (the one about crunch) got sandwitched and hidden between the quote tags of its question, which is a shame! :)
Have you ever made a game in a pixel art style? Would you want to, since (like myself) you cherish Chrono Trigger and FFVI so much, or do you consider this art style better left in the past?
Also, I wanted to point out that one of your answers in the very first batch (the one about crunch) got sandwitched and hidden between the quote tags of its question, which is a shame! :)
I have a few educational resources on this I'd be happy to share with you! Feel free to DM me and I can send you a couple links to sources. Don't want to derail this thread since it's so awesome.
Loving the insight, Raging Spaniard . I don't necessarily have a question but I'm appreciating soaking in the info. Thanks for doing this!
6th Batch
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6th Batch
Sure thing! Look me up on twitter, get one if you dont have one yet! Its useful
I use Photoshop. Maya and Unity as my big 3. For fun I also now use Clip Studio Paint because I think its a better program for drawing, many people use Procreate now as well but Im pretty meh on it
For animation, a lot of people make do with Photoshop, actually! Kinuko, of Skullgirls fame, actually animates in Photoshop. I know pixel artists use Aseprite but UI dunno if then animate with it as well. The Premium edition of Clip Studio also has animation tools but I havent used them. There is always Toonboom as the "professional" option, but I havent used it in 20 years so I wouldnt be able to give you a solid rec
To newcomers I always say to lower your goddamn expectations. Youre not gonna work on GTA right out of school and your Kickstarter that is Mario but with Zelda and with Megaman boss fights and weapon swapping will NEVER GET FUCKING MADE. We do a pretty poor fucking job of letting fans or talent what to expect when they enter the industry because saying "youre the next Miyamoto" is a really fucking good sales package. Start making SMALL games, try to learn what games making actually IS and stop saying you want to be the idea person, that just means you dont actually want to do the work. You run into a lot of inflated egos in this business so we always react negatively to the people that think they know how to make a game because they play them a lot
Also, copy/paste doesnt work in videogames, it just doesnt. 90% of game design is not the ideas, anybody can do that, its the pacing, the ins and outs of how systems work, the balancing of what youre doing moment to moment and how the player experiences it. Its a very unique, very complex, very hard medium and the way newcomers and fans see it is extremely reductive
Pretty well and I dont mind being honest about this stuff. Being a fulltime artist in videogames pays well and its steady income, ESPECIALLY if youre a VFX artist, Tech Artist or Rigger/Animator. Those positions are highly sought after and well rewarded.
You gotta move your way up though, my first job as a texture artist (in Utah) paid 31k which, at the time, felt like more money that I knew what to do with. Later we got bought out by EA and my salary got adjusted and raised to an eventual 45k which was fairly nice so my wife and I bought a condo since she was also at EA making a similar salary. I was fired a while later and suddenly making mortgage with her salary was challenging. Soon we both got jobs in NYC at the same games company, each making around 70k combined income which was OK since our rent was 2k a month and NYC is expensive. It wasnt bad but NY being limited in game studios made it a bit risky. When I moved to CA it was still around the 75k space which, again, good enough to rent a place, buy videogames, hang out and not have to stress over living wages but not "big money" for the Bay Are by any means. A few promotions later and I finally broke the 100k barrier, making it up to 110k which ... was great and is great but my wife quit the business at that point so our double income disappeared and suddenly we were not nearly as liquid. Once we moved to Sacramento making around 95k we settled in nicely and now, moving to Spain with a very similar salary in Euros will be pretty huge for us, its going to be very good for us there, provided the job itself goes well.
When you freelance you can struggle more though. In San Bruno I freelanced for a year, 1400 rent a month on a basement and having to pay for insurance ourselves, 600 dollars a MONTH for Obamacare was ridiculous and the coverage sucked. That was a hard year, for sure.
The starving artist stuff is more at play for people who do the con circuit or dont have a fulltime games job. Those folks do struggle while theyre trying to build a name for themselves and you should support them as much as possible. I'll be fine.
Already answered. It sucks. We get over it though, on to the next thing and all.
Well the "no loading" stuff sounds exciting but ... its bullshit, right? Like, dont we say that every generation? Devs will just take the extra room and jam it full of shit or not optimize their games so the system will quickly have to resort to giant loading times again. I think the audio improvements are HUGE, however! Tech wise though, I feel like tech is not stopping us very much anymore when it comes to being able to crate compelling and unique gameplay. Once VR becomes fully wireless and the specs become higher, thats the really exciting prospect for me
Basically, tech is nice but if games are mostly going to continue to be Halo but 5% better instead of actually new, fun, never before seen stuff. I think games back in the Amiga to N64 era were a lot more ino taking chances and creating new genres
lol yep, no worries I know how it goes
Hola hola, gracias!
Ive dabbled in pixelart for fun, however it is very much not my thing as a production artist. I think you gotta learn to delineate what you like vs what youre good at, then using the two as a means to grow and find new styles and approaches. I like games that look good regardless of style, plenty of pixel games out there that I think are visually very meh, like Rogue Legacy (fun game though) and plenty of beautiful games people like whose artstyle I just dont care for like Dont Starve or even Cuphead where the art actively gets in the way of gameplay
Also, good catch! Fixed it, paging Bonki for visibility
Sure thing! Look me up on twitter, get one if you dont have one yet! Its useful
I use Photoshop. Maya and Unity as my big 3. For fun I also now use Clip Studio Paint because I think its a better program for drawing, many people use Procreate now as well but Im pretty meh on it
For animation, a lot of people make do with Photoshop, actually! Kinuko, of Skullgirls fame, actually animates in Photoshop. I know pixel artists use Aseprite but UI dunno if then animate with it as well. The Premium edition of Clip Studio also has animation tools but I havent used them. There is always Toonboom as the "professional" option, but I havent used it in 20 years so I wouldnt be able to give you a solid rec
To newcomers I always say to lower your goddamn expectations. Youre not gonna work on GTA right out of school and your Kickstarter that is Mario but with Zelda and with Megaman boss fights and weapon swapping will NEVER GET FUCKING MADE. We do a pretty poor fucking job of letting fans or talent what to expect when they enter the industry because saying "youre the next Miyamoto" is a really fucking good sales package. Start making SMALL games, try to learn what games making actually IS and stop saying you want to be the idea person, that just means you dont actually want to do the work. You run into a lot of inflated egos in this business so we always react negatively to the people that think they know how to make a game because they play them a lot
Also, copy/paste doesnt work in videogames, it just doesnt. 90% of game design is not the ideas, anybody can do that, its the pacing, the ins and outs of how systems work, the balancing of what youre doing moment to moment and how the player experiences it. Its a very unique, very complex, very hard medium and the way newcomers and fans see it is extremely reductive
Pretty well and I dont mind being honest about this stuff. Being a fulltime artist in videogames pays well and its steady income, ESPECIALLY if youre a VFX artist, Tech Artist or Rigger/Animator. Those positions are highly sought after and well rewarded.
You gotta move your way up though, my first job as a texture artist (in Utah) paid 31k which, at the time, felt like more money that I knew what to do with. Later we got bought out by EA and my salary got adjusted and raised to an eventual 45k which was fairly nice so my wife and I bought a condo since she was also at EA making a similar salary. I was fired a while later and suddenly making mortgage with her salary was challenging. Soon we both got jobs in NYC at the same games company, each making around 70k combined income which was OK since our rent was 2k a month and NYC is expensive. It wasnt bad but NY being limited in game studios made it a bit risky. When I moved to CA it was still around the 75k space which, again, good enough to rent a place, buy videogames, hang out and not have to stress over living wages but not "big money" for the Bay Are by any means. A few promotions later and I finally broke the 100k barrier, making it up to 110k which ... was great and is great but my wife quit the business at that point so our double income disappeared and suddenly we were not nearly as liquid. Once we moved to Sacramento making around 95k we settled in nicely and now, moving to Spain with a very similar salary in Euros will be pretty huge for us, its going to be very good for us there, provided the job itself goes well.
When you freelance you can struggle more though. In San Bruno I freelanced for a year, 1400 rent a month on a basement and having to pay for insurance ourselves, 600 dollars a MONTH for Obamacare was ridiculous and the coverage sucked. That was a hard year, for sure.
The starving artist stuff is more at play for people who do the con circuit or dont have a fulltime games job. Those folks do struggle while theyre trying to build a name for themselves and you should support them as much as possible. I'll be fine.
Already answered. It sucks. We get over it though, on to the next thing and all.
Well the "no loading" stuff sounds exciting but ... its bullshit, right? Like, dont we say that every generation? Devs will just take the extra room and jam it full of shit or not optimize their games so the system will quickly have to resort to giant loading times again. I think the audio improvements are HUGE, however! Tech wise though, I feel like tech is not stopping us very much anymore when it comes to being able to crate compelling and unique gameplay. Once VR becomes fully wireless and the specs become higher, thats the really exciting prospect for me
Basically, tech is nice but if games are mostly going to continue to be Halo but 5% better instead of actually new, fun, never before seen stuff. I think games back in the Amiga to N64 era were a lot more ino taking chances and creating new genres
lol yep, no worries I know how it goes
Hola hola, gracias!
Ive dabbled in pixelart for fun, however it is very much not my thing as a production artist. I think you gotta learn to delineate what you like vs what youre good at, then using the two as a means to grow and find new styles and approaches. I like games that look good regardless of style, plenty of pixel games out there that I think are visually very meh, like Rogue Legacy (fun game though) and plenty of beautiful games people like whose artstyle I just dont care for like Dont Starve or even Cuphead where the art actively gets in the way of gameplay
Also, good catch! Fixed it, paging Bonki for visibility
7th Batch
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7th Batch. Thats it for page one! Phew!
Next Street Fighter, next Final Fantasy, next FROM anything, next Nintendo new IP or Zelda game
In theory I do always prefer new IP, however, getting the chance to contribute to legendary franchises is incredibly appealing
or when Square finally remakes Chrono Trigger :P
Gotta get my Japanese skills up first!
During my first time at EA I was the character concept artist on Nerf N-Strike for the Wii and I did about a million takes on the characters there, I dont think anybody was ever happy with anything. Problem with original IP is that people want PERFECTION even if the first concept is already perfect so its a losing proposition for the artist. It was a very sobering AND humiliating project for me, having some other artist do the designs and then me having to redraw them later was truly fucking awful.
On my second sting at EA with Star Wars some characters do get a bajillion number of revisions, I think my Bastila Shan concept took a good 6 tries before we were done with it
I think its a useful tool for the people who want it or need it. If you want to make a game and it can help you because you dont have other means, then awesome! Does it risk games looking more "average" sure it does, but those games were never going to look visually unique anyways. If you invest in a talented art team, they know how to grab work like that, edit it and remake it to fix your needs more quickly so that they can work on more unique content. As games get more and more complex in AAA you need agile solutions like that so you can stop wasting your time on a trillionth rock texture and start thinking about cooler shit.
No prob, fun way to spend a Monday :)
For companies like EA, we have internal teams that handle that stuff ... you also have companies that take on clients like 8-4 but theyre probably too busy to take on new clients. If I were you and had limited time and money (presumably) Id headhunt the people who make fan translations through the romhacks site and get in touch with them directly
There a big difference before your game gets greenlit and another big difference once your game is out and transition to a "live" service which is what I got most experience on
If youre working on AAA console as a concept artist, depending if you have skills that translate to art production you might get moved to another project ... or maybe like at Insomniac your contract runs out because they dont hire concept artists, they only do so for the beginning of the project.
The production team, though, will be heavily involved until the game releases because games have SO. MANY. BUGS. up until release that everyone is just full steam ahead trying to help as much as possible, even after release working on patched and upcoming content
For a Live game like SWGOH though, we still have the full team on the game even 5 years after. We launch content every few weeks and its a full time job for everyone involved because were constantly working on keeping the machine running (characters, packs, etc) AND new content like new game modes, big feature drops, etc
Splatoon definitely made an impression! A shooter that isnt a shooter that is more than just "shoot people in the head to win" I have seen people who would NEVER play that kind of game get really immersed into it by just focusing on painting the level without really engaging .. its genius! It's exactly the type of gameplay experience I would have never thought of. Im constantly impressed at how Nintendo can enter a genre and find ways to make themselves completely distinct. Its like how every single fireball in Smashbros is different, thats crazy
Very recently I was very surprised that the goddamn squats minigame in FF VIIR was so well done! Like, what?
Next Street Fighter, next Final Fantasy, next FROM anything, next Nintendo new IP or Zelda game
In theory I do always prefer new IP, however, getting the chance to contribute to legendary franchises is incredibly appealing
or when Square finally remakes Chrono Trigger :P
Gotta get my Japanese skills up first!
During my first time at EA I was the character concept artist on Nerf N-Strike for the Wii and I did about a million takes on the characters there, I dont think anybody was ever happy with anything. Problem with original IP is that people want PERFECTION even if the first concept is already perfect so its a losing proposition for the artist. It was a very sobering AND humiliating project for me, having some other artist do the designs and then me having to redraw them later was truly fucking awful.
On my second sting at EA with Star Wars some characters do get a bajillion number of revisions, I think my Bastila Shan concept took a good 6 tries before we were done with it
I think its a useful tool for the people who want it or need it. If you want to make a game and it can help you because you dont have other means, then awesome! Does it risk games looking more "average" sure it does, but those games were never going to look visually unique anyways. If you invest in a talented art team, they know how to grab work like that, edit it and remake it to fix your needs more quickly so that they can work on more unique content. As games get more and more complex in AAA you need agile solutions like that so you can stop wasting your time on a trillionth rock texture and start thinking about cooler shit.
No prob, fun way to spend a Monday :)
For companies like EA, we have internal teams that handle that stuff ... you also have companies that take on clients like 8-4 but theyre probably too busy to take on new clients. If I were you and had limited time and money (presumably) Id headhunt the people who make fan translations through the romhacks site and get in touch with them directly
There a big difference before your game gets greenlit and another big difference once your game is out and transition to a "live" service which is what I got most experience on
If youre working on AAA console as a concept artist, depending if you have skills that translate to art production you might get moved to another project ... or maybe like at Insomniac your contract runs out because they dont hire concept artists, they only do so for the beginning of the project.
The production team, though, will be heavily involved until the game releases because games have SO. MANY. BUGS. up until release that everyone is just full steam ahead trying to help as much as possible, even after release working on patched and upcoming content
For a Live game like SWGOH though, we still have the full team on the game even 5 years after. We launch content every few weeks and its a full time job for everyone involved because were constantly working on keeping the machine running (characters, packs, etc) AND new content like new game modes, big feature drops, etc
Splatoon definitely made an impression! A shooter that isnt a shooter that is more than just "shoot people in the head to win" I have seen people who would NEVER play that kind of game get really immersed into it by just focusing on painting the level without really engaging .. its genius! It's exactly the type of gameplay experience I would have never thought of. Im constantly impressed at how Nintendo can enter a genre and find ways to make themselves completely distinct. Its like how every single fireball in Smashbros is different, thats crazy
Very recently I was very surprised that the goddamn squats minigame in FF VIIR was so well done! Like, what?
Not sure if it's been asked yet, as I'm having internet problems, but is there anything in particular that you've designed for a game that you absolutely loved, but wasn't used?
Do you think Pre Rendered backgrounds could make a comeback? What's the main constrain in preventing that? Financial? Lack of interest from the market?
Are there any AA single player projects in EAs pipeline? Asking on behalf of the massive Non sports/Online FPS audience here.
Are there any AA single player projects in EAs pipeline? Asking on behalf of the massive Non sports/Online FPS audience here.
Working with games for so long do you still enjoy video games in your free time or do you just prefer to do the art for them? Also what inspires you?
Side note LOVE your work keep it up
Side note LOVE your work keep it up
What's the biggest AAA title you've worked on?
How relevant are all the heated tech discussions for next gen at the end of the day?
How relevant are all the heated tech discussions for next gen at the end of the day?
Have you played Hollow Knight ? What's your opinion about it both as a gamer and as a professional
How involved are the corporate executives of a publishing studio when it comes to the finalisation of the art you create?
is the industry as bad a place to work in as all the stories say? you read the stories and think "I understand following your passion but wow at this cost? no way"
I'm in the computer graphics part of my degree and honestly it's really interesting so far. seeing how much work goes into making even the most simple polygons, seeing with raw math how much processing power you need to make all this stuff a reality. it's so mindblowing. the issue is that no matter how interesting graphics is, as soon as I think about working in the industry it's just "nope nope nope" from the stories I read
I'm in the computer graphics part of my degree and honestly it's really interesting so far. seeing how much work goes into making even the most simple polygons, seeing with raw math how much processing power you need to make all this stuff a reality. it's so mindblowing. the issue is that no matter how interesting graphics is, as soon as I think about working in the industry it's just "nope nope nope" from the stories I read
8th Batch
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OP
8th Batch!
lol I like it better than Basecamp ill tell you that much. Its fucking buggy though, thats fir sure
I learned how to draw Comic Books and how to animate in 2D at the Kubert School, then I learned 3D modeling, animation and texturing at Fullsail. The combination of the two landed me my first job as a 3D generalist. I wanted to be a concept artist at Blizzard (never happened) but knew that the easiest way in was to pursue the jobs that were nost available, hence becoming a 3D environment guy first
Fullsail tackled a bit of everything so you could feel each side of the industry. Back then it was an accelerated course of a year and a half though, it has since evolved to a much more expensive 4 years bachelor which ... uh, no thanks
Hard to say, Ive been drawing since I was 4 ish and am 38 now. Started art school at 18 and got my first job at 25. Depends on your level of talent, dedication and wether youre practicing the right things or not ... but if you do the work, youll get in
Blame Gears of War or The Lord of the Rings movies. What a goddamn shitshow. There is always going to be some sort of graphical trend in games and that was the worst. I remember being pretty angry at it back in the day as well.
next
For me Id have to be a LOT more freelance minded. I have worked with animation studios here and there, Starburns being a recent example (character designs on some pilots they were going to pitch) but I would also have to revamp my portfolio. Id have to make a lot more storyboards and my character designs would have to be a lot more thorough. Once I did that I would have to do a lot of submissions, get in touch with contacts in the industry and see what the right position would even be since Im too old for a starting job but too inexperienced to be put in charge. If youre a concept artist in your late twenties its a lot easier to move back and forth, Ive seen it happen. Its when you start being a leader that your options actually get more narrow.
While at Kiwi, a small company that made social games on mobile, its when I felt the most limited. We didnt have an engine and all of our engineers worked remotely from India and had zero game experience. That means that we literally had to email them our art, wait a day and see how badly they implemented it in game. Imagine that! This permeated the entire process btw, including game design. Imagine having to explain to a coder, in India, who doesnt play games, how the poison status effect should work ... he had never done anything like that and eventhough they meant well and worked hard, every single creative decision was wrong not just the first time, but the first 10 times
My favorite result is what we accomplished with Steambirds Alliance from the the first batch of questions. We pulled some creativity straight out of our asses in order to solve some truly, truly difficult problems and, once I left and a different art team took over, they continued the groundwork I laid out and shipped a game that still very much feels like the one I directed. It makes me very happy and proud of it all
half full, for sure. These are just videogames, im sure well figure something out
If we dont, thats ok too, just try and give a shit, it goes a long way
Sounds like it, theyre saying all the right things
We all need an outlet. Do I have a NSFW side account? ... yes
Pretty closely, for Star Wars I would storyboard and compose the cinematics myself so I would collaborate with our audio artist with the technical difficulties (and there are many) as well as having alignment on the audio cues "I meant for this to have silence, here I left more room for you to put something intense" and she would ask things like "we need to make this scene last 2 seconds longer so I can get this part in" Nothing in games ever truly feels alive until audio gets in there and we owe them so, so much. I didnt truly, truuuly feel like I was working on Star Wars until my first cienamtic had audio on it, it was like a tidal wave of happiness.
Thank you! More on my site, if youre into that :)
Oh yeah, theres many but it entirely depends on your skill, motivation, desire and .... location
A degree in business would definitely be very useful if you want to enter games as a producer and handle in-game economy. There re PLENTY of jobs there. QA is definitely a way in and a good way to eventually get promoted to bigger stuff, thats because QA's tend to have a pretty good understanding of how the games are built so they become more reliable ... but then again, QA burns the most people out of the industry as well. I myself never wanted to enter the industry that way as I saw it as a distraction from what I needed to focus on which was my portfolio
I dont think game companies actually give a shit about college degrees though. Theyll put that in the opening just to weed out candidates who are not very confident. You should always apply for what you want and dont give a shit about the wall of text in the opening itself.
Many companies have all kinds of openings at any point, just really find what it is that you want to do, get good at it and start your search. Do be flexible about travel though, its a big help
EA certainly feels like they deserve it and Lucas certainly seemed very happy with the arrangement last I checked. The numbers are a great, great ally when you want to get real data on this and not vocal minorities online. It also doesnt help that EA is actually honest about SW games getting cancelled. Games get cancelled all the time at every single company youve ever heard of, EA just happens to be honest about it.
I LOVED working at EA, theyre an amazing company full of really high quality individuals. Id work there again in a heartbeat and they have some really cool projects
EA will also EA all over themselves every now and then, thats for sure ... but I can vouch for the teams Ive worked with, the great leadership shown when this whole pandemic broke out and the level of care and ambitions my teams possessed. Ive been pretty good at outlining how dumb we can be on occasion, but its a giant company with a lot of big IP's and just because people are nice and they try their best it doesn't mean the job is any easier or riskier
lol I like it better than Basecamp ill tell you that much. Its fucking buggy though, thats fir sure
I learned how to draw Comic Books and how to animate in 2D at the Kubert School, then I learned 3D modeling, animation and texturing at Fullsail. The combination of the two landed me my first job as a 3D generalist. I wanted to be a concept artist at Blizzard (never happened) but knew that the easiest way in was to pursue the jobs that were nost available, hence becoming a 3D environment guy first
Fullsail tackled a bit of everything so you could feel each side of the industry. Back then it was an accelerated course of a year and a half though, it has since evolved to a much more expensive 4 years bachelor which ... uh, no thanks
Hard to say, Ive been drawing since I was 4 ish and am 38 now. Started art school at 18 and got my first job at 25. Depends on your level of talent, dedication and wether youre practicing the right things or not ... but if you do the work, youll get in
Blame Gears of War or The Lord of the Rings movies. What a goddamn shitshow. There is always going to be some sort of graphical trend in games and that was the worst. I remember being pretty angry at it back in the day as well.
next
For me Id have to be a LOT more freelance minded. I have worked with animation studios here and there, Starburns being a recent example (character designs on some pilots they were going to pitch) but I would also have to revamp my portfolio. Id have to make a lot more storyboards and my character designs would have to be a lot more thorough. Once I did that I would have to do a lot of submissions, get in touch with contacts in the industry and see what the right position would even be since Im too old for a starting job but too inexperienced to be put in charge. If youre a concept artist in your late twenties its a lot easier to move back and forth, Ive seen it happen. Its when you start being a leader that your options actually get more narrow.
While at Kiwi, a small company that made social games on mobile, its when I felt the most limited. We didnt have an engine and all of our engineers worked remotely from India and had zero game experience. That means that we literally had to email them our art, wait a day and see how badly they implemented it in game. Imagine that! This permeated the entire process btw, including game design. Imagine having to explain to a coder, in India, who doesnt play games, how the poison status effect should work ... he had never done anything like that and eventhough they meant well and worked hard, every single creative decision was wrong not just the first time, but the first 10 times
My favorite result is what we accomplished with Steambirds Alliance from the the first batch of questions. We pulled some creativity straight out of our asses in order to solve some truly, truly difficult problems and, once I left and a different art team took over, they continued the groundwork I laid out and shipped a game that still very much feels like the one I directed. It makes me very happy and proud of it all
half full, for sure. These are just videogames, im sure well figure something out
If we dont, thats ok too, just try and give a shit, it goes a long way
Sounds like it, theyre saying all the right things
We all need an outlet. Do I have a NSFW side account? ... yes
Pretty closely, for Star Wars I would storyboard and compose the cinematics myself so I would collaborate with our audio artist with the technical difficulties (and there are many) as well as having alignment on the audio cues "I meant for this to have silence, here I left more room for you to put something intense" and she would ask things like "we need to make this scene last 2 seconds longer so I can get this part in" Nothing in games ever truly feels alive until audio gets in there and we owe them so, so much. I didnt truly, truuuly feel like I was working on Star Wars until my first cienamtic had audio on it, it was like a tidal wave of happiness.
Thank you! More on my site, if youre into that :)
Oh yeah, theres many but it entirely depends on your skill, motivation, desire and .... location
A degree in business would definitely be very useful if you want to enter games as a producer and handle in-game economy. There re PLENTY of jobs there. QA is definitely a way in and a good way to eventually get promoted to bigger stuff, thats because QA's tend to have a pretty good understanding of how the games are built so they become more reliable ... but then again, QA burns the most people out of the industry as well. I myself never wanted to enter the industry that way as I saw it as a distraction from what I needed to focus on which was my portfolio
I dont think game companies actually give a shit about college degrees though. Theyll put that in the opening just to weed out candidates who are not very confident. You should always apply for what you want and dont give a shit about the wall of text in the opening itself.
Many companies have all kinds of openings at any point, just really find what it is that you want to do, get good at it and start your search. Do be flexible about travel though, its a big help
EA certainly feels like they deserve it and Lucas certainly seemed very happy with the arrangement last I checked. The numbers are a great, great ally when you want to get real data on this and not vocal minorities online. It also doesnt help that EA is actually honest about SW games getting cancelled. Games get cancelled all the time at every single company youve ever heard of, EA just happens to be honest about it.
I LOVED working at EA, theyre an amazing company full of really high quality individuals. Id work there again in a heartbeat and they have some really cool projects
EA will also EA all over themselves every now and then, thats for sure ... but I can vouch for the teams Ive worked with, the great leadership shown when this whole pandemic broke out and the level of care and ambitions my teams possessed. Ive been pretty good at outlining how dumb we can be on occasion, but its a giant company with a lot of big IP's and just because people are nice and they try their best it doesn't mean the job is any easier or riskier
Can i just quickly point out how talented you folks are? Especially when i see some concept artists and art directors realizing worlds that are trapped in some people's heads.
Also, genuinely tho, you feel like with proper training someone could achieve the necessary for storyboard/screenplay work?
I'm horrible at drawing but i really wanna get better with practice, so some advise/recommendations are deeply appreciated.
9th Batch
OP
OP
9th Batch. Keeping busy!
Hard to not sound like a cynic here ... everything is hard, friend. Actually, scratch that, making the art is really the easy part, implementing it and making all the different parts work together is goddamn dystopian nightmare
Depends on your dev style. Some places leave that part, which is the budget, up to the last point. Kind of like "ok we got everything in, looks awesome, game runs like shit sooo lets optimize and try to achieve these target goals before this deadline"
That way you get to the awesome stuff and then compromise. Another way is to set a tight budget from the beginning and, depending on what type of game youre making, is definitely the way to go. Lets say youre making a gacha game with 200 playable characters, then you NEED to set clear limits on the maximum number of polys, texture size, number of bones for animation and draw calls, otherwise youll never ship anything. A strong tech team is key and a great partner to have when it comes to this, make friends with your tech team, people!
My current dream game that isnt a redo of anything is to create an outdoor soccer game that really feels like it did when you were a kid playing soccer outdoors, none of that fifa street shit. Uneven terrains, uncertain rules, pick your own teams, maybe one of them has to leave early for dinner, you scout different neighborhoods, maybe an adult joins in ... The art style would be inspired by Tekkon Kinkreet, the cast would be extremely diverse, the gameplay modes would be man. SKATE but soccer is the closest facsimile and even then, not quite close
Yeah sure, even when dealing with a license you gotta realize you got the job for a reason, to be creative, not just to trace someone elses work. Plus, when you redo some really old stuff, like I recently had to with KOTOR, I had to reconcept his boots from scratch because his original design didnt have anything to work with there ... or like Bastila Shan, her original outfit had textures so compressed you couldn't see the pattern so I had to make a new one that we could work with and stayed true to the original
When you get to in-game assets though, its usually going to lose some spark because the element of roughness is gone at that point. Thats why some artists see more success with their sketches than with the polished pieces because when its done all the discovery is gone and maybe the final thing isnt what you were imagining early on. Plus, the more people that get involved in the asset creation pipeline, the more it might get averaged out and lose its uniqueness. Its fairly common!
I mean, there can be a million reasons. One I can give you is because it might not fit into the overall strategy or because a particular character if done a certain way may clash with another future character in the pipeline as well. This is a very different answer depending on the specifics, sometimes its just because one higher up didnt like a concept and that was it. Oh, oftentimes cool shit doesnt make it in because "in order to do it justice, wed need to do all this other shit" so that usually amounts for a lot of cut content ... and it makes sense, Ive certainly made that argument before, because if you want to do this cool idea then we should do it right
Ive never heard that reason and it sounds like bullshit lol
It was just a sign of the times, I thought it was fine for Gears ... not so much for Smash Bros, lol Just a dumb art trend because people thought its what people wanted.
Once I was told a character design "wasnt Black enough"
Ill leave it at that
Oh wait, you wouldnt fucking believe how many penises people see in things. NO, NIC, EMBO'S HAT DOESNT LOOK LIKE A PENIS, ITS HIS GODDAMN HAT
For a long time it was this Chrono Trigger piece, now all I can see are the flaws though!
Yeah its a good living, for the most part. Definitely underpaid though
Me? For the duration, especially at this time in my career. Games are not really "once youre done youre done" affairs anymore, but some teams, like audio are not there from the beginning, same with VFX. The intial team before a team gets greenlit tends to be pretty small, once its Go time though, you make the budgets and start hiring for all positions
Ugh, I worked on a Hollywood shootemup type of game, some Pokemon ripoff they had and Ice Age 3.
Never worked for Pop Cap, no
yeah thats a long one, lol, maybe some other time I can go in depth. Depending on the size of the company it can really change, as well! Some people are hard to please, some good concepts are just bad fits too, like, yeah cool drawing but can the modeler pull that off? Is the texture artist going to fit that much detail? Is the animator going to be able to bring this cool idea to life? A good concept artists understands his team and makes concepts that they can truly shine with, otherwise it can be pretty detrimental. It also depends on the Art Direction, can he make sure the artists deliver on the vision? Can he make sure the higher ups are on board and not force dumb changes that will ruin the character?
Theres a bit of a dance you need to make in order to make sure everyone is on board with stuff, you cant just make cool shit and throw it into the void ... thats not how a successful pipeline works
Sure do
line-of-action.com
and look up Figure Drawing: Design and Invention
Mistakes? Lots like not wanting to learn how to draw backgrounds, not learning different styles, etc. In terms of making games, theyre too damn abitious, just make something small and learn.
Awesome! Im pretty excited for the next batch of content, specifically the next client update.
Rigging by about a million miles
He would have been if those hacks had finished the damn game and not release that rushed, incoherent mess
Im a plain cheese kind of guy, then I go at it with the red pepper flakes
Sometimes, though ... I go with anchovies! Only in Spain though, anchovies in the US are an affront to God
I dont like pineapple on pizza, its too heavy and watery for me. Cool if youre into it, though
Hard to not sound like a cynic here ... everything is hard, friend. Actually, scratch that, making the art is really the easy part, implementing it and making all the different parts work together is goddamn dystopian nightmare
Depends on your dev style. Some places leave that part, which is the budget, up to the last point. Kind of like "ok we got everything in, looks awesome, game runs like shit sooo lets optimize and try to achieve these target goals before this deadline"
That way you get to the awesome stuff and then compromise. Another way is to set a tight budget from the beginning and, depending on what type of game youre making, is definitely the way to go. Lets say youre making a gacha game with 200 playable characters, then you NEED to set clear limits on the maximum number of polys, texture size, number of bones for animation and draw calls, otherwise youll never ship anything. A strong tech team is key and a great partner to have when it comes to this, make friends with your tech team, people!
My current dream game that isnt a redo of anything is to create an outdoor soccer game that really feels like it did when you were a kid playing soccer outdoors, none of that fifa street shit. Uneven terrains, uncertain rules, pick your own teams, maybe one of them has to leave early for dinner, you scout different neighborhoods, maybe an adult joins in ... The art style would be inspired by Tekkon Kinkreet, the cast would be extremely diverse, the gameplay modes would be man. SKATE but soccer is the closest facsimile and even then, not quite close
Yeah sure, even when dealing with a license you gotta realize you got the job for a reason, to be creative, not just to trace someone elses work. Plus, when you redo some really old stuff, like I recently had to with KOTOR, I had to reconcept his boots from scratch because his original design didnt have anything to work with there ... or like Bastila Shan, her original outfit had textures so compressed you couldn't see the pattern so I had to make a new one that we could work with and stayed true to the original
When you get to in-game assets though, its usually going to lose some spark because the element of roughness is gone at that point. Thats why some artists see more success with their sketches than with the polished pieces because when its done all the discovery is gone and maybe the final thing isnt what you were imagining early on. Plus, the more people that get involved in the asset creation pipeline, the more it might get averaged out and lose its uniqueness. Its fairly common!
I mean, there can be a million reasons. One I can give you is because it might not fit into the overall strategy or because a particular character if done a certain way may clash with another future character in the pipeline as well. This is a very different answer depending on the specifics, sometimes its just because one higher up didnt like a concept and that was it. Oh, oftentimes cool shit doesnt make it in because "in order to do it justice, wed need to do all this other shit" so that usually amounts for a lot of cut content ... and it makes sense, Ive certainly made that argument before, because if you want to do this cool idea then we should do it right
Ive never heard that reason and it sounds like bullshit lol
It was just a sign of the times, I thought it was fine for Gears ... not so much for Smash Bros, lol Just a dumb art trend because people thought its what people wanted.
Once I was told a character design "wasnt Black enough"
Ill leave it at that
Oh wait, you wouldnt fucking believe how many penises people see in things. NO, NIC, EMBO'S HAT DOESNT LOOK LIKE A PENIS, ITS HIS GODDAMN HAT
For a long time it was this Chrono Trigger piece, now all I can see are the flaws though!
Yeah its a good living, for the most part. Definitely underpaid though
Me? For the duration, especially at this time in my career. Games are not really "once youre done youre done" affairs anymore, but some teams, like audio are not there from the beginning, same with VFX. The intial team before a team gets greenlit tends to be pretty small, once its Go time though, you make the budgets and start hiring for all positions
Ugh, I worked on a Hollywood shootemup type of game, some Pokemon ripoff they had and Ice Age 3.
Never worked for Pop Cap, no
yeah thats a long one, lol, maybe some other time I can go in depth. Depending on the size of the company it can really change, as well! Some people are hard to please, some good concepts are just bad fits too, like, yeah cool drawing but can the modeler pull that off? Is the texture artist going to fit that much detail? Is the animator going to be able to bring this cool idea to life? A good concept artists understands his team and makes concepts that they can truly shine with, otherwise it can be pretty detrimental. It also depends on the Art Direction, can he make sure the artists deliver on the vision? Can he make sure the higher ups are on board and not force dumb changes that will ruin the character?
Theres a bit of a dance you need to make in order to make sure everyone is on board with stuff, you cant just make cool shit and throw it into the void ... thats not how a successful pipeline works
Sure do
Line of Action
line-of-action.com
and look up Figure Drawing: Design and Invention
Mistakes? Lots like not wanting to learn how to draw backgrounds, not learning different styles, etc. In terms of making games, theyre too damn abitious, just make something small and learn.
Awesome! Im pretty excited for the next batch of content, specifically the next client update.
Rigging by about a million miles
He would have been if those hacks had finished the damn game and not release that rushed, incoherent mess
Im a plain cheese kind of guy, then I go at it with the red pepper flakes
Sometimes, though ... I go with anchovies! Only in Spain though, anchovies in the US are an affront to God
I dont like pineapple on pizza, its too heavy and watery for me. Cool if youre into it, though
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As someone who also worked at Gameloft, can confirm.
We once had to revert our art repo to 6 months earlier because someone saw what our art looked like 6 months earlier and said "oh, just make it like that"
Completely different style of making assets, different characters, different rigs, anims etc.
Good times :\
After seeing how almost all the leaks from cancelled games from WB have come from concept art, I've been really curious: as an artist, how much of your work is spent on pitches/conceptual stuff and how much of it actual makes it into the game?
Secondary question: how often do you work on projects/pitches that never see the light of day?
Secondary question: how often do you work on projects/pitches that never see the light of day?
Thanks for the answer, that was very interesting and informative. :)
What do you think of the recent growth in the Spanish Games Industry? Games like RIME, Temtem, Gris, Deadlight, Aragami, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Blasphemous, Moonlighter have all got mostly favourable receptions and it's certainly a country which is moving forward in the industry.
It's interesting contrasting this with my country (Portugal) where the industry is pretty much non-existent (it's completely behind most European countries).
It's interesting contrasting this with my country (Portugal) where the industry is pretty much non-existent (it's completely behind most European countries).
Instead of sitting down and coding they sit down and make models and assets. I get the impression OP is more of a concept/character design artist (could be wrong though), but games have just as many artists working on asset production as they do programmers these days. HD assets require a TON of manpower, to the degree that many smaller studios who used to build games from the ground up now just make assets for other games fulltime.
OP
OP
Edited in the answers for the 9th batch (doh!) Retagging the people I quoted in case they missed them Maximus Odinson BreakAtmo bob100 Eon Bold One AuthenticM Roadhou5e Kamaros pixelpatron Zukuu jroc74 Zojirushi GameDev jesu xir SolVanderlyn Xita
Gonna take a small break, be back in a bit!
Gonna take a small break, be back in a bit!