Home General Discussion

Showreel from pros but no wireframe?

interpolator
Offline / Send Message
Francois_K interpolator
Here's something I've been wondering about. A lot of the professional character modellers have showreels which do not show the wireframe. Why is that? Is it because everyone knows they're so good , they can do perfect retopology anyway so they just show off the high poly sculpts? I can't really r think of any other reason. But maybe I'm wrong so I'm asking :)

Replies

  • ZacD
    Offline / Send Message
    ZacD ngon master
    Wireframes are hard to look at in videos, and compression makes it worse. I would assume they are expecting people to look at their wireframes in stills and the video is just to get the full silhouette and see how the materials interact with light.
  • ENODMI
    Offline / Send Message
    ENODMI polycounter lvl 14
    Showing the wireframe makes me feel naked and vulnerable.
  • wizo
    Offline / Send Message
    wizo polycounter lvl 17
    zremesher works for you, almost no need to worry about topo any more! :)
    well, you still need give the animators decent loops for good deformation but imo, 80% of character work should be artistic/sculpting and maybe 20% topo and technical stuff to make efficient work.

    seriously with the new tools and zbrush updates, at some point topo is going to be very easy create, just a click away from perfect topo!
  • slipsius
    I dont think it has anything to do with the stuff mentioned.

    I think it's purely NDA issues. When you work for a AAA company, your NDA is usually massive, and you have to get every picture you post online approved by someone. A lot of companies may not want to show the wireframes for fear of giving away secrets, or because it could lead to copy cats or whatever.

    my 2 cents, at least
  • Pancakes
    Offline / Send Message
    Pancakes polycounter lvl 10
    i like secrets tell me
  • skankerzero
    wizo wrote: »
    zremesher works for you, almost no need to worry about topo any more! :)
    well, you still need give the animators decent loops for good deformation but imo, 80% of character work should be artistic/sculpting and maybe 20% topo and technical stuff to make efficient work.

    seriously with the new tools and zbrush updates, at some point topo is going to be very easy create, just a click away from perfect topo!

    you should never play down the importance of a good low poly cage. If you automate the process, then you will end up with very bad/generic deformation and as artists we should be willing to put the work in to make sure our art looks as good as it can in game.
  • rogelio
    Offline / Send Message
    rogelio greentooth
    What salipsius said about NDA and also.... Some reels are made from character designers as opposed to actual 3D modellers. I know a few great zbrush sculptors who just sculpt awesome stuff, but have no idea or real drive to do a great retopo and get hired than I have seen great modellers who have a great technical ability for loops and topo that are horrible with coming up with designs. So you might just be seeing demo reels on awesome 3D/zbrush sculptors.

    Really I think wireframes on demo reels are not really needed especially if you are seasoned. If you are still new I would still add them in or make sure to link them to your site.

    -RO
  • PixelMasher
    Offline / Send Message
    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    Personally, I think in terms of demo reel/portfolio stuff, showing a wireframe becomes pretty irrelevant once you have a few quality shipped titles on your resume. its always nice to see breakdowns and good for people trying to learn but I have never had anyone in an interview call me out and ask to see wireframes or anything like that.

    I can see it being a bit more important for character artists but if you have work in a AAA game that you can see tons of footage/ingame shots of its pretty obvious they have the fundamentals of deformation down. I would say thats a pretty strong pre-requisite for even being employed in the first place. that and the time it takes to render out wireframe passes, composite it, and have it look good is just usually something that isnt really needed once you get to the pro level.

    even as an environment artists im not sitting there wondering how the wireframe on most env art looks, its usually a jumble of polies, often times some put there for whatever enging requirement there was and sitting there trying to decipher it when you have a handle on env art is not really super important. like it was nice seeing the wireframe breakdowns of uncharted/last of us scenes but it was pretty much what I thought it would be, the real interesting stuff comes down to textures, shaders and lighting setups.
  • Blaizer
    Offline / Send Message
    Blaizer interpolator
    Here, we give serious importance to wireframes (not only for well optimized game art assets, but more for production models). It gives us a lot of information about an artist, like their weak points or how they work :). It's pretty easy to say how an artist will perform for a task watching his/her wireframes. "A wireframe says all about us".

    Too many people don't show wireframes because they suck at modelling, and it's a FACT. Almost all people have one or two nice sculpts in their portfolio, but being good sculpting is not enough for a work, so it's very common to ask for wireframes if we are interested in an artist's service.

    NDAs are an excuse... and it's because when a game/work is made public, we can showcase our work. Wireframes, texture sheets, and all that kind of info are part of our know-how. When an artist is hired, we pay for their services, and when we pay for a 3d app... we pay for a license. Don't forget that.

    Some studios don't have issues with Zbrush only artists, and more for game art. They have their people just only to do the best job with the low-poly model with the best mesh for deformations and mapping optimization. And of course, you must be very good with Zbrush if you don't want to be involved with modelling/mapping.

    Give yourself a favor, show at least some wires/uv maps if you want to be considered for a job.
  • thomasp
    Offline / Send Message
    thomasp hero character
    whenever i've been involved in hiring decisions, we were more interested in seeing artistic talent and applied skill in a portfolio. for characters it's usually hard enough to find suitable people.

    wireframes - that's more of a pipeline consideration. we also did assume that if you show us a character in shippable quality that it won't be constructed in some weird meshing technique with 500 tiny texture snippets attached, really. ;)
    everything else can be learnt and adapted on the job.

    i do disagree with the notion that you can just one-click it all in zbrush however. and generally speaking there's a lot of technical stuff going on for game characters to make them shine in the engine. last one you want to hire is somebody who is only comfortable working in the sculpt software. that's maybe what - 30% of the job? what can you use this person for when it's polishing time?
  • Francois_K
    Offline / Send Message
    Francois_K interpolator
    Question to you thomas or to everyone in general here discussing this. I haven't even gotten into the games industry yet. Should I as a newcomer trying to break in show the wireframe or should I stick to the character designs as a whole in high poly form?
  • Shiniku
    Offline / Send Message
    Shiniku polycounter lvl 9
    Francois_K wrote: »
    Question to you thomas or to everyone in general here discussing this. I haven't even gotten into the games industry yet. Should I as a newcomer trying to break in show the wireframe or should I stick to the character designs as a whole in high poly form?
    Whether you show the wireframe in your reel or not, you should defintiely be producing game res models, not just high poly sculpts and concepts. I would say only the biggest studios would have dedicated high poly sculptors, in the majority of studios artists are required to complete the whole process - from high-poly to game-res model, sometimes even the rigging. basically, you have to be a top dog to get a job solely as a high-poly sculptor at a game studio, so for someone looking at entry level positions I would not advise only doing sculpts.

    For your reel: show whatever looks best. I think you should include things like wireframes and texture flats on your website for sure, but in the reel itself it's optional. I think a reel is actually completely unnecessary in most cases, unless you're showcasing something like animation or effects.
  • thomasp
    Offline / Send Message
    thomasp hero character
    Shiniku wrote: »
    Whether you show the wireframe in your reel or not, you should defintiely be producing game res models, not just high poly sculpts and concepts.

    this exactly. as a game artist your job will be to produce assets that can be put into game. show textured, shaded stuff. make them look the best you can - after all your primary job is to make stuff look cool. i personally don't think it matters if it's shown in a realtime engine, viewport screenshots or rendered offline. it's important that you come as close to shippable quality (i.e. stuff that is comparable to what you can find in today's games).

    a wireframe or texture-flats might be requested from a newbie just to make sure but first your folio needs to pass the quality test.

    i'd rather hire someone who hits visual quality to be honest. the rest can be force-fed on the job. but you don't want to hire button pushers who get the technical side right but are lacking in the artistic talent department right from the start. :)
  • neilberard
    Offline / Send Message
    neilberard polycounter lvl 17
    thomasp wrote: »

    i'd rather hire someone who hits visual quality to be honest. the rest can be force-fed on the job. but you don't want to hire button pushers who get the technical side right but are lacking in the artistic talent department right from the start. :)

    I totally agree.
  • Justin Meisse
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    My reason - it's a pain in the butt :P
  • skankerzero
    Another thing to take into consideration is that if you're on a larger project, chances are you will not be the one designing the characters. Chances are they're looking at your portfolio to see if you can translate 2d ideas into 3d models.

    Personally I would never hire a 'sculpting only' artist. To me its almost as if they purposely want to stay ignorant about the game pipeline. That's not an attitude I want on my team.

    Over the course of my career, I've encountered more artists that can sculpt beautiful, complicated things, but even less that can make a proper EFFICIENT low res cage for it. Throwing tons of polygons at your low mesh is not the answer.
  • Justin Meisse
    Offline / Send Message
    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Guess it just depends on how badly you want a job, and whether or not you're willing to cover all the bases :)

    Yeah, I'm running an experiment to see how successful I can get disobeying every Polycount truism. I'm gonna crash and burn!
  • binopittan
    Blaizer wrote: »
    NDAs are an excuse... and it's because when a game/work is made public, we can showcase our work. Wireframes, texture sheets,

    I can't show any wires/texture etc. from any of my works even the game is already released ( ex :GRID 2 ). because of NDA.

    Am i alone in this situation?
  • wizo
    Offline / Send Message
    wizo polycounter lvl 17
    ..Personally I would never hire a 'sculpting only' artist. To me its almost as if they purposely want to stay ignorant about the game pipeline. That's not an attitude I want on my team...

    I totally agree man, I would not want that too, just saying that shape and texturing comes first went it comes to checking out portfolios imo. There is still a good chunk of that person qualification which should be technical. But after a few years, artists can learn that on the job anyways.

    For the best chances of getting hired, I would agree that showing good topo and clean UVs is very important as Shiniku mentionned.
  • Blaizer
    Offline / Send Message
    Blaizer interpolator
    binopittan wrote: »
    I can't show any wires/texture etc. from any of my works even the game is already released ( ex :GRID 2 ). because of NDA.

    Am i alone in this situation?

    Cghub is full of artists showcasing their work, and Zbrush Central too. You may be alone, or maybe, in a small collective that don't know their rights.

    Working as Freelance we should don't have that problem. Sometimes there are several points in the contract agreement, more than the needed, and if we don't agree with one or various points, we MUST ask for a change or don't sign the contract, easy.

    But, if you work onsite, in a studio, and you previously signed a contract in which you sold your soul to the devil... that's your problem.

    A wireframe is not a trade secret of a company :), it's the know-how of an artist and are a MUST SEE.
Sign In or Register to comment.