Changing Focus - 3d Artist to Designer

jfitch

Hey guys, hows it hangin?
I've been feeling this slight paradigm shift in my own focus lately.

I've been studying character art (modeling, texturing, sculpting) for a few years now and I'm getting close to graduating from university and finishing up a year and a half program with the Game Artist Academy. I love 3d and all of the processes involved with character creation for games, but I'm starting to feel this intense desire to design my own characters and not just bring concepts into 3d.

I've been listening to Chris Oatley's podcasts and studying up a bit, and I'm just sort of starting this mental journey into figuring out if I can or want to move into this professionally. Personally there's really no question, I'll do it on my own time at least, but the big thing is that I don't want to abandon 3d.

I haven't seen a lot of 3d character designers, most of the time it involves 2d art and concepts, though I'm sure some 3d designers exist. I'm not the best at drawing and I usually prefer to jump right into 3d.

I'm curious to know what you guys think about this. Is 3d character design a viable option? Should I start drawing all the time and just sort of explore? Have any of you experienced a similar situation? I'm hoping to do some research and discuss it in this thread as well, feel free to join in!

Finalhart

I'm almost in the same spot as you, started to experiment with 2d some months ago and everything was scary because i didn't know anything about drawing or painting. Now i have an idea of where i need to go and my 2d skills are better than i would have never imagine, even when university keeps getting on my way and strangely enough i haven't draw as much as i would wanted to. There's still a loooong way to go.

I don't feel like abandoning 3d at all, after watching Michael Pavlovich GDC talk i think there is a great future for making character concepts in 3d. The best of all is that you can use both mediums to design your characters.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Don't think you'd need to give-up both. You'll just be making the usual time sacrifices. Time that you're drawing means time not spent doing anything else, etc.

Kevin Albers

Doing simple preliminary designs is much quicker in 2D than 3D. Once a design evolves well beyond the thumbnail stage, finishing it up in 3D seems like a fine approach. It's fairly common these days for a 3D proxy model to be supplied to a modeler who will create the final asset. If the character design was finished up in 3D, then that design can essentially BE the 3D proxy, so the time spend on it doesn't go to waste.

Just keep in mind that if you try to design fully in 3D, you will probably be super slow at certain things compared to a good 2D concept artist, and therefore not competitive at all. For example - 'hey, can you give me 12 thumbnail brainstorm ideas for a character'.

pior

I think that Kevin is right on this. There's quite a bit of a difference between the kind of stuff that 3d artists do in their free time (very cool models made straight in 3D, based on the specific tastes and imagination of an individual artist free to do his/her own thing) and the realities of the day tasks of a concept artist, which indeed relies a lot on ideation and iteration, and can also require one to become familiar with a wide range of styles and visual vocabularies.

Now of course there are always special cases, especially in small teams. At the end of the day, any tool is valid, and being flexible and willing to use all the tools available will always be a good thing. But if a certain tool is used as a way to avoid tackling fundamentals that should be mastered in the first place, then I think there is a problem to address. For instance, if two concept artists were to apply for a position at a studio, the one artist who sat down and put the time and effort to master fundamentals like perspective and accurate anatomy will likely be a more interesting candidate than someone using photo bashing only . But of course it all depends on what the AD is looking for and the nature of the project.

Also, while being "technically minded" can be a plus on the job market, being able to create 3d models is by no means a requirement for a design job. It sure is a great skill to have, but it doesn't replace the years necessary to develop a strong design sense. It's a fine balance to find between being versatile by trying out new techniques, and spending one's time wisely on what really matters. I would say that just being confortable with Zbrush basics is already more than enough.

Lastly, as a side note : many if not all 3d artists thoroughly enjoy the process of taking a 2d design and "making it work", as this is precisely what they were originally hired for. While shifting that aspect of the art pipeline to the designer can be a time saver, it can also create weird situations. This too highly depends on the specifics of a project and team dynamics, but that's certainly something to keep in mind.

And by the way - good luck ! You're going to have fun

Noren

Tidal Blast wrote: »

I'm affraid that to be just a 3D artist or 3D modeler or a texture artist won't be enough in a few years from now. But ultimately, it's a good thing, because that will give more power to the creative people.

You sure have a way with words...

I don't agree, though. While it does make things easier for all of us, there will always be specialization. (Not going into detail, here.)
We just have more tools at our hands now (which also brings new opportunity for specialization) and can work more efficiently. Also, if we look at the past, this will result in more and better content and not less jobs.

pior

There sure are great automation tools out there for rapid prototyping, but it's a bit misguided to think that any of these will ever make the knowledge of optimisation and clean workflows obsolete any time soon. It can take a full month to create a set of assets for something as apparently simple as a moba game, using extremely specialized software (with some of these tools relying indeed on some level of automation), so that should put things in perspective a bit. Also, the reality of production at a studio requires one to do the things that one is best as, rather than becoming a jack of all trades spanning the whole pipeline. Indie is different though.

Claims of magical workflows always pop up here and there (and to be fair, can be very relevant to some titles/genres and pre-production in general) but overall having a team of very knowledgable and technically minded 3D artists fully aware of the limitations of the medium is and will always be the key.

Put differently : I'd rather hire a 3d artist well aware of the problems and limitations inherent to, say, normalmapping hard surface models, rather than hiring the one an artist who just clicks "bake" without noticing (and foreseeing) shading artefacts and seams.

But regardless, that's way besides the point of this thread

Finalhart

I haven't watched this tutorial but it seems to cover a lot of character design aspects, it may worth watching it looks pretty solid: http://eat3d.com/cyborg_design

jfitch

Finalhart – I’ll have to check out that GDC talk if it was recorded. Knowing I’m not the only one helps! I’ll have to check out that tutorial as well. I’ve seen quite a few from Dominic Qwek and Bryan Wynia, though those are almost exclusively creature oriented.

Panda –you’re right. It’s all about sacrifice sometimes and how much you’re willing to let go to get that career or skill or what-have-you.

Kevin—True! It is faster to get those concepts out on paper first, especially when it’s just thumnails and the like. I will have to get into some drawing and study up if I want to pursue this path. It wouldn’t hurt anyway, even if I was a 3d artist trying to communicate some ideas with the concept artist.

Pior—You have a lot of good points there. Luckily I’ve started to grow the technically minded bit as well as the sculpting and all of that, and it really is the path I’m more interested in. The idea of “making it work” and the love of doing working on another artist’s concept and even adjusting it in some ways may be what I’m feeling at this moment. And you’re totally right about the difference between on and off the job.

Tidal –We’re definitely heading in a direction close to that at least, but I think it will be some years until we finally hit that and I’m heading into the job market pretty soon . Though I do like the idea of combining some jobs, I think that designers will definitely still exist separately in some sense for visual development before any production actually takes place. If we do in fact head in that direction we'll need more technical artists to write all of these nice tools! Especially with the gaming industry's current NDA culture.

With all of this I’m starting to think that character design might be a great hobby to have on the side. Or I could head in the direction of a smaller, indie studio where I might get some design and 3d work. All depends on where I want to end up and how much work I want to put in on top of everything I’m doing to level up in 3d skills.

Pavlovich

One thing that I don't think changes with the ever-updating tech in our industry is the concept of "failing fast" (an Andrew Stanton phrase I think, Ed Catmull discusses it in his book Creativity, Inc.; excellent and quick read)

You're not always going to make the correct decision right out of the gate. Get something in and iterate towards success-- no amount of hand-wringing and trying to front-load the "perfect" story/process/mesh/tool/material/texture/brush/whatever has ever worked in the history of a game pipeline from beginning to end that I'm aware of.

On that note, it's going to be especially difficult to evaluate and make good decisions on all available information if you are limited to a 2D medium (and therefore limited to only questions that a 2D image can answer) to dictate what is going to be experienced in a 3D environment. I'm not making the argument that we need to replace 2D art or artists, but there's certainly value in being able to evaluate a concept (and maybe change our definition of what concept art is).

Anyway to answer your question, absolutely 3D character design is an option, and I see more of it every day all over the place. And if the goal at the end of the day is to get something in and iterate to make sure it covers every department's needs, the only way that's going to happen is in 3D, assuming the end product is a three dimensional experience.

There's certainly an interesting talk to be had going further down the gradient from mood painter to poly noodlers and discussing the value and cost of everything in between, where lines possibly get drawn, "magic" pipeline solutions, etc... but it's outside the scope of your question I suppose.

Pavlovich

I’ll have to check out that GDC talk if it was recorded

Gamespot live streamed it, you can check it out here instead of the vault. Some people like it, some people not so much, your mileage may vary:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6pdeECc5d4[/ame]

VShane

hey - i definately found myself in the same place after graduating from my CG course . Straight after the course I started a long ass journey into traditional art to strengthen the foundations. Now im coming full circle back into 3D , only this time I can design shit much more intuitively.

I say pick a path and own it. I switched to 2D to strengthen my 3D . But eventually when you get awesome at 2D its super addictive as you can churn out concepts super fast (that 3D cant currently do as of yet). Just Own one path. then afterwards you can explore others.

For me, Ive re-trained over the past year or so in 2D and loving every second. 2D just makes you address the foundations from scratch, and forces you to think of everything in picture/model making.

Good luck !
-V