Specializing in low poly...

MainManiac

Cant high poly artists just make low poly characters etc too? I personally see the only selling point of low poly is if you can do high poly textures.

So in reality is there only 1 type of character artist and thats it because they can do everything?

Justin Meisse

yes, most places will expect you to go from nothing to a finished asset ready to rig - so if that involves making a high poly model and baking normal maps, that is part of the process.

by the way, I'm a 3D artist that does low poly models and paints textures in photoshop & 3dcoat, my studio doesn't use normal maps.

Kwramm

a very very few studios just have "sculptors", usually folks who're so damn good that it's okay if they don't know the low poly stuff. Those guys usually come from a sculpting background too. But those positions are super duper rare as this is extremely specialized and there's no need to hire lots of those folks...it's really an exception. In general it's what Justin says.

In my company we separate people by skill, both production wise but also when it comes to a certain type of asset. Some folks are better with realistic stuff, some are better with cartoony, some have more experience modeling hi poly props'n'gear (which is often actually hard surface stuff, either modeled in ZB or in max/maya). While everyone has a working knowledge of hi and low poly modeling (and texturing), not everyone can make every character.

MainManiac

Oops I should have been more specific. I mean low poly for games similar in quality to CSS or WoW or possibly the mobile market

Shiniku

I personally see the only selling point of low poly is if you can do high poly textures.

I'm still not too sure what you're trying to ask or say here. The quoted text is especially baffling, do you think you could elaborate?

Everyone has certain areas they excel at and tend to do what they're best at. Most people who work on high-poly sculpting or next-gen type characters CAN do low-poly work you see in mobile games and such, but there are different skill sets involved. just as an example, things so low-poly are more likely to require some expertise in hand-painting textures. Someone making realistic film-quality character models may rely almost entirely on edited photosourced textures, and might not be very good at digital painting and probably wouldn't make very appealing low-poly characters. And vice-versa, of course.

Kwramm

keep in mind that technology advances. People working in mobile games a few years from now will probably have other skills than people who work on mobile games now. Mobile GPUs will be able to push more polies, offer better lighting models, etc. And there will be studios who will want to make use of this. Look at unity, look at UDK, look at the iPad's retina display. Eventually mobile assets will become more complex, will require normal maps, and so on, and pixel art and "low" poly assets will remain for indie and homebrew mobile titles.

I'm not sure what the aim of your question is, but if you're thinking "I can specialize in mobile art and not bother about hi-poly stuff", think again. Tech advances. You might just s well learn some of the skills now to be ready for the future. Otherwise get steamrolled like the character artists who felt so safe that their skill would always be in demand and who never bothered learning ZBrush

MainManiac

@ Shiniku, I don't even know what I meant there. I think I backspaced and didn't completely delete the sentence and said something else.


Thanks kwramm. Its just I really love taking advantage and pumping tons of detail into something that really can't support it like low poly characters. But I have a much harder time pushing detail on high poly characters. Thats probably why im better at painting people and objects instead of landscapes.

I still really want to learn more about high poly characters. I just usually can never find that great of good ref for stuff I want, or theres so many variations its hard to pick one, like soldiers with all their gear.

What about the step between humans, creatures, and sci fi? Id imagine your portfolio would be more aimed at a specific studio that makes a specific type of game. But what if im great at making creatures and humans but I can't make a full mech sci fi soldier at all? Does this start to come into the entire specialty zone and youd be assigned to make what you do best?

Justin Meisse

currently you can get work doing low poly, no normal map art. I don't know if that will always be the case.

Now is probably the best time to learn, it seems like artists are making a bigger deal about having synced tangents between the baker and engine so we can hopefully do away with the current broken workflow of compensating for normal errors. I'd compare it to low spec stuff, when is the last time someone had to worry about working with a 256 color pallete? What you paint in photoshop is what you get in game.

JacqueChoi

frell wrote: »

Oops I should have been more specific. I mean low poly for games similar in quality to CSS or WoW or possibly the mobile market

You listed some pretty massive examples.

IMHO I can't speak for certain, but I think most of the games industry is still on hand painted textures.


BTW in your example you forgot to mention Wii, which is still the best selling console by a pretty significant margin, and Facebook.


Diablo 3 is also the best selling PC game right now, Torchlight 2 is out soon.

ericdigital

Where I work our focus in on casual mmos, and expanding into the growing browser game market and everything we do is low poly/hand painted textures. While the high end games are certainly moving away from this stuff it's still alive and well in the more casual markets.

seforin

I dunno I think you shouldnt limit yourself to just 1 thing like that. Right now I work in a studio where I dont do a ton of artwork but more techy stuff and getting things working and moving etc.

Previous job though was in a outsourcing studio and everything I worked on was a high to low process. I only had 1 project that really was super duper simple low poly>paint stuff and even then that was more on a artsy level then it was a practical level (meaning the amount of time they spent on it they could have made 3 high poly>low poly assets..but apples and oranges)


I like to think of games and consoles like this...hand helds are dummied down or previous technology basis of what it can do... so this is why you see a ton of simple style games on IOS and markets for hand helds (cheaper to producer and quality isnt expected to be as crazy high) With the newer generation of stuff we are seeing that this is shifting.

Next generation of consoles will hit a plateau of movie quality (if e3 wasnt Bullshiting us with all those pretty videos) that means that the other markets are going to jump up eventually..if not soon in a few years.

Its fantastic to know how to paint and low poly but I dont say I would just specialize in that because in a few years when your looking for work again, your skill set might not reflect for it.

I would just suggest learn the high to low...games are only going up in technology not reverse...