when you hear about people modeling internals that are never seen (the engines in gran tuirsmo) how does that make you feel
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!
How many Teraflops does you new job have? Is it variable or fixed? You think an SSD will help with the morning commute?
Just kidding of course. I hope you are happy with your new job and get to create amazing stuff.
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.
How does it feel not (usually) getting royalties when the companies themselves repeatedly make money off of your work?
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?
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 internalized 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?
If you could choose, do you prefer working in a sequel of a popular franchise or in a new IP?
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?
Do you work with writers at all? How involved are they in the overall process of making a game?
Thanks!
Have you ever spilled something on art you're working on while at lunch? Like accidentally spill a plate of spaghetti on some amazing art. And then what did you do if it did happen?
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!
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.
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
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?
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
Whats the weirdest thing you've been asked to draw on the job?
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?
Hi Raging Spaniard love your work (I've been browsing your website).
Could I possibly send you a PM? I have some questions but it's getting late here in the UK so I'll send tomorrow? Thanks
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.
when you hear about people modeling internals that are never seen (the engines in gran tuirsmo) how does that make you feel
Thanks very much. I've been interested in this subject for a while, because I was told that the task of trying to fit all the art into the budget has long been a nightmare where you're struggling against the show HDDs, and that the SSDs of the next generation won't just make games prettier and more seamless, but also make things genuinely easier for devs because they won't be constantly having to fix mensuration bugs and use every trick in the book to get everything working. I hope that's really the case for you guys.
What's the one game you wish you worked on, and have you made any fanart for it.
I personally wont be touching a PS5 or an XbXbxbsriesxboxx anytime soon but, in my experience, devs just arent that great at optimizing as a whole. I remember looking at how well Nintendo games were optimized when I was ripping them to an HDD and then being shocked at how BIG fairly minor games by third party devs were. Anyways, nextgen will of course make things easier for a little while but then some unreasonable company like Rockstar, Projekt Red, Squenix or Naughty Dog will make something that fires the fucking thing and setting a new standard other companies will feel obligated to follow, fucking it all up in the process.
Woah. Those are really good.I havent made any Xenogears fanart for like, 20 years and I would have LOVED to work on that game. Most recently though, Ive made a ton of Dark Souls fanart and I really, really wish I would have worked on it
I was in AKL. I think there were a couple of occasions where we helped out on NY projects :)ugh, were you in New Orleans? Know Shawn Peters? I was in NY. Hope things are well!
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer this! I've always enjoyed drawing, but I've believed the transition to the digital space to be too daunting. The more I've realized my love of hand-drawn games, I've wanted to create my own animations as well. I'm using a program called Paint Tool SAI to get used to drawing on a computer, but I think I have access to Photoshop on a different computer.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
How many more generations until we have holographic visuals displaying all around us in our gaming caves? Are you looking forward to the that occupational challenge?
Lastly, have you tried VR yet? If so (as an industry professional and a gamer), what are your impressions of it as a medium for interacting with virtual 3D environments, objects, people and SFX as opposed to traditional displays?
I just wanted to say a huge thanks for yor reply. Your answers are amazing and you're putting some serious time into them all.
Awesome thread!
Yes, very much appreciate the reply. It's nice having insight into the industry without the PR filtering that generally must apply.
Is your favorite nba team still the twolves ?
best gaf still remembers <3
Super cool to read Raging Spaniard
Cool to see one of us getting some well deserved attention!
and nice to get some perspective from a different studio (EA), even tho 95% of it is very similar to where I work and is just how the game industry works
A ton of people have little clue how much hard work goes into making a game and what a tightrope walk and miracle it is to get anything out to the public that isn't a roaring dumpster fire, since it surely was months to weeks before gold hahaha.
Being an artist, especially a concept artist is a tough job, and often, even within the industry is misunderstood and not as respected. The amount of backseat driving and general "you are just a concept artist" that goes around is sometimes a bit shit and often gets treated as a necessary evil to go from Idea to final product. That said, I wouldn't trade this job for anything else in the world!
Woah. Those are really good.
Another question, ignore if it's already been answered. (still working my way through the threadmarks!)
Any resource recommendations on getting started on drawing, or animation etc..
I was in AKL. I think there were a couple of occasions where we helped out on NY projects :)
Do you have any experiences with level design?
I'm looking to start level designing as a hobby for HL: Alyx, I'm just curious what skills you think would be most useful there. Any books or resources that you could recommend would be highly appreciated. I know 3D modeling is the first thing that comes to mind.
Do you think forming a union is the solution to fight crunch, why/why not?
Personally what advice would you share to people trying to practice effectively? Also do you personally have an opinion on what order art students should tackle their fundamentals(Structure, Composition, Values, Perspective, etc)?
Thank you so much for taking the time to answer this! I've always enjoyed drawing, but I've believed the transition to the digital space to be too daunting. The more I've realized my love of hand-drawn games, I've wanted to create my own animations as well. I'm using a program called Paint Tool SAI to get used to drawing on a computer, but I think I have access to Photoshop on a different computer.
Congratulations on your new gig, and enjoy the time off!
That would be really awesome, thank you!Outside of making stages in Smash and a few Mario Maker levels, cant say that I have. I've certainly met a few level designers and learning how to block out a level in 3D can be very useful and a good learning tool. Do you have mod tools available? Maybe it would be easier to start by modding some other games with a more robust level editing set? Technical skills can be learned at any time but level creation skills need repetition and playtesting, so find out which communities have a good mod scene. I can also ask some designer friends of mine and check back with you, if thats alright?
Thank you for your time12th Batch
I own a PSVR unit and use it sporadically! Tetris Effect was really my jam for a good few months. Unfortunately, the barrier of entry needs to drop significantly, it needs to be twice the resolution, it needs to be completely wireless and it needs to be way more fully integrated into a consoles OS. I want to watch wrestling in VR or to recreate famous soccer matches in VR. I want every games to all have basic VR functionality because its not going to be all gimmicks, having a traditional game with a VR headset as a means to look around would be great, Id be happy just with that!
It has a bright future but another quantitative jump needs to be made still
Thank you! Glad it was helpful :)
I wanted to be as honest as possible, not that Im usually not, but a company filter always happens when you work for someone, even if you dont actually have it, people place it on you sometimes. Obviously you never want to reveal too much, because people can often weaponize that information but as far as general "heres how the industry actually works" theres a lot fans could learn
In my last two and a half years at EA nobody, at any point, has ever mentioned Dino Crisis in any capacity
My Wolves hype died exactly the second Rubio's ACL tore trying to defend Kobe
Havent watched much NBA since, to be honest. Those were good times, though!
Hi! Thanks for dropping by and sharing your experience! I should have made sure to say that these are only MY experiences and that I can still be wrong about a lot of the things I say but I am glad you found some common ground.
The root problem artists face is that they dont have enough artists in leadership positions to influence decision making. Most companies I go for I'll go to leadership meetings to find 4 managers, 3 producers, 2 designers, two engineers and one artist ... so that person will get downvoted all the time. When I left EA I made sure that in those meetings we had at least 3 art reps at all times which greatly reduced the number of annoying art requests that were coming down the pipeline
No problem! Here at ERA we have the excellent Art Self Study thread with TONS of resources, give it a look!
Art Self Study |OT| Drawing and Painting 101
(Text and images based on the thread by DeathTM on the old forums) Welcome to the ResetERA Art Study Thread! This thread’s main purpose is to help the ERA community improve their art and get a better understanding of fundamental concepts. We hope that this thread will inspire you to take up art...www.resetera.com
Yeah, Gameloft was my least favorite job by a country mile. I hope youre somewhere you enjoy now!
Outside of making stages in Smash and a few Mario Maker levels, cant say that I have. I've certainly met a few level designers and learning how to block out a level in 3D can be very useful and a good learning tool. Do you have mod tools available? Maybe it would be easier to start by modding some other games with a more robust level editing set? Technical skills can be learned at any time but level creation skills need repetition and playtesting, so find out which communities have a good mod scene. I can also ask some designer friends of mine and check back with you, if thats alright?
Complicated question and unsure answer. Maybe? The game industry already deal with the voice actors guild so its not as UNHEARD OF as they like to think it is ... but good luck. Videogames is basically carny bullshit and I dont think youre ever going to find the kind of mass agreement you need in order to actually make it happen. Even if the US government stepped in and laid out some ground rules, what would stop companies from outsourcing to companies in some other country? I see a lot of blind idealism from younger gamedevs on this issue and I wish them the best but .. I just dont see a feasible way to get where they want.
The one thing that can fix crunch is more rules, more transparency and more accountability. A more educated userbase will make better decisions and a more transparent process will bring out these shameful practices to light.
I find a lot of people dont know how to practice very well, often drawing the same thing over and over and over again. Practicing art is like working out, you cant just do pushups forever, the body will get used to them and youll get stronger much slower. Same with art, try drawing different things from different perspectives with different styles! That will give you less high quality art at the beginning but a MUCH higher return on investment! I personally get a little embarrassed when I see people draw the same thing over and over again, then try to hide the fact that they cant draw a chair to save their lives or draw a character with a different facial complexion. Its VERY important to step out of your comfort zone and draw the things youre AFRAID to draw! The SECOND time will be SO MUCH better than the first! You have to be a bit courageous about it, but so many artists are sooo sensitive that they only do that stuff when being forced to.
I attribute this quote to Miyamoto but I believe he was citing someone else when he said that growth always hurts. Even when your body is growing, the act of your bones extending is physically painful so no matter what you do in life, the process of growing and learning will always come with pain at the beginning. I think about that often, especially when Im trying something new and I, a longtime pro, am NOT used to art not looking like my standards! Then I remember to just get the fuck over it, try again and boom, always better
That being said, and speaking as a bit of a devils advocate by nature. I always tell people to draw what interests you first and expand later, because you should drain all the fun out of your process for the sake of learning. For instance, once I learned about perspective, I started laying out perspective grids before drawing and holy shit, thats the "right" way to do it but it suuucked for me, my art looked incredibly lifeless and boring. What I do now is Ill draw the scene loosely the way I want it to look THEN Ill lay out the grid and see what I have to fix. Same with anatomy, I studied anatomy the boring ass, necessary way first, then I reverted to drawing shit the way I used to but with the knowledge that at any point I could break it down and apply anatomy fundamentals to it. Thats a great way to develop your own personal style without sacrificing the fun out of it.
Ive also mentioned tracing as an effective learning tool when needed. Look back at my other replies and you'll find that bit of advice. Lots of ways to go about it depending on your interests, talent and dedication
All the fundamentals you mentioned are important, we can take this privately and I can tell you, depending on your work, what you should first focus on (hint, it'll be your weakest!)
Thank you! I highly recommend Clip Studio, then! Frenden (look him up)makes some GREAT tools for that prgram that are very, very good and should help you make the transition to digital
yeah the studio went under during the whole Vivendi thing, but been working for an indie company the last 4 years and its been awesome.Yeah, Gameloft was my least favorite job by a country mile. I hope youre somewhere you enjoy now!
oh Hi Mark.
I'm an environment artist (finishing up schooling this year)! Could I get some general feedback on my real-time environment work? 🙂My portfolio
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
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.
Seriously, every game out there is held together by pins and needles and was probably crashing every ten seconds a week before release.
Man I'm the same exact situation, I've ALWAYS struggled with color.Man, color and volume in art. Can you please-please direct me with this in any way? I've been trying to deal with color for the last 3 years and I just can't. Shape and volume design gradually improved as I practiced more and more, but my color remains horrible, atrocious. No amount of reading about color theory seems to give me any push in the right direction. Most tutorials and videos also appear to be superficial when dealing with color (or plain suck at color too). It really seems like some sort of dark secret in art. Like seriously, I understand the color schemes, importance of volume in driving eye's attention, vectors, 70/30, whatever. But whenever I come to any practice I suck so bad. Some 4 years ago it was the reason why I deleted all of my work and scrapped all of my paintings. I was so pissed off. Thousands of hours wasted. Pretty much gave up. I still remember how, when I was dealing with shape design, the guy that helped me was an artist from 343 who directed me to his teacher from South Korea, who often posted lessons on Facebook which were so much more useful and practical than anything I had read or studied before, it was silly - pretty much made it possible for me to finally advance in my sketches after drawing shit for 1 year. I'm still waiting for something like that in color. No amount of just "continue practicing and studying" seems to cut it. Any advice would be really-really appreciated.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. 5 years ago I wouldn't have even considered myself an artist honestly. I was in business school and the only art I did was music related. Then i decided to make a big life upheaval and change my direction towards something more creative. Definitely the right move for me I believe! :)Not OP but I've seen your work featured around the web (especially that last piece, don't remember well where but I've definitely seen it) and you're clearly very talented, definitely gonna keep up with what you put out for people to see (am a big sucker for stylized environments)!
As a programmer myself (in a field which has nothing to do with video games), I wish more people would get that. I know firsthand that it does help in dealing with bugs, even "gamebreaking" ones, as knowing how much it's a freaking miracle the game even worked up to that point just makes you happy :)Can confirm this.
Also, since 99.9% of your development time is spent working on something that's a complete mess (because once it's not a mess, you ship it), my memories of our games are of them in that broken, not ready-for-primetime state. When I watch someone play one of our games, it stresses me out because I assume it's about to break at any moment. I can only imagine how much more this is the case for games that are made by more than a handful of people.
I hear a lot that some devs dont play their own games. Is it true a lot of the time?