New to EVERYTHING
polycounter lvl 2
Howdy. I'd call myself a complete beginner at this point with learning 3dsmax. I really want to make assets, textures, foliage, etc. for video games at some point. I've been reading up on a lot of things concerning PBR mats and I can grasp the concept but I dont even know where to begin to make these specific maps.. I've been looking at Substance Painter/Designer and being able to add those programs into a PBR workflow would seem like the most reasonable thing to so. But I've also seen where a lot of people use photoshop and Quixel programs or xNormal to generate the maps and stuff. I "plan" on working towards getting a job as an environment artist one day but I dont even know what programs to use to make my grey models look neat lol. I tried to UVunwrap the other day in Max and literally was confused as soon as I saw the checkerboard layout! :poly136: I've dabbled in UE4 and thats not terribly hard to use. I know about making low poly objects for games and using the high poly normal map to add details...but that's as far as I've gotten. I'm trying my best to keep up with what the industry uses so I can be able to keep with with the technology as well, but I'm aware in just a year from now a lot of things will be different. I would really love any kind of advice or pointers on what I should be focusing on learning at this point. By the way: I'm a freshman in college studying animation, where maya is taught with a focus in character rigging and VFX.
Replies
The biggest and most important thing you need to learn is how to teach yourself, with the rapidly changing nature of 3D work and video games a lot of what they will teach you in college will be antiquated, as well, knowing how to teach yourself will be a necessity once you get out into the industry, it'll help you keep up on trends and stay relevant as an artist.
The second biggest thing you can learn is the technical magic behind all of the pretty art, artists that are able to communicate with different disciplines, are able to do small scripting jobs and understand rendering tech are way more valuable to a company.
I would find a tutorial below that speaks to you and try to follow it. The Joe Harford Tracker Knife series is what I might recommend. Just start doing it is what I can say, you're just a freshman now which means you probably have plenty of time. Once you start feeling comfortable with pipelines and the software you are using then I would start on your first environment.
Check with your college, they may have some or all of the paid for services that are listed below.
Online learning resources
DigitalTutors
Gnomon Workshop
UArtsy
Eat3D
3DMotive
TDU
Polycount Tutorials
Gumroad Tutorials
Youtube
Joe Harford
Arrimus 3D
musashidanmcgrath
FuturePoly
Andrew Maximov
Substance Designer oriented
Allegorithmic
Richard Piper
James Sky
sRich3D
Arvin Villapando
Hugo Beyer
They also do a fair amount of character modeling and animation content, specifically for Maya users, with entire game workflows in mind. If you search around enough you'll find the same assets being used in different contexts, even if the DT guys haven't "linked" the tutorials together.
They're definitely worth your time, especially as a beginner. Over time though, you will find yourself outgrowing the site, which IMO is a great measure of your knowledge and skills.
(PS - not affiliated with DT in any way. Just a satisfied subscriber.)