Beginner artist your opinion

Astralart

 I want to start developing a 3d art and animation portfolio I need help from you more experienced artist for the best software for me and which game engine would be best for an artist. Would it be 3ds Max or Maya I know I need zbrush. I believe substance painter is optional but good. Also is unity or unreal better for me if I wanted a portfolio for a triple AAA game company. Thanks 

Brian "Panda" Choi

Max or Maya (or Modo as a personal recommendation) is fine.  There's no substantially significant difference in quality between the software, just workflow differences.  

What does change is that Maya, across games and VFX, has been the preferred animation software.  There are Max animators, but my impression 6 years in was that its only the case because early game modeling was done a lot in Max, so many just used the Max animation tools.  (Games like Evolve had Max animators).

Unreal if you want realistic rendering out of the box (as well as scripting, etc.) or Unity if you're willing to get your hands wet to find plug ins, etc. (if Unity 5 is as equipped as I think it is).  Lumberyard is solid as well.

Substance Painter is . . . well it almost feels necessary unless you want to use Mari instead.  Photoshop is the foundational painting software, but Substance Painter makes texturing in 3D amazingly easier and fundamentally more Photoshop like than Photoshop can.

This is admittedly frustrating since there's no clear winner in several categories.

For myself I use Maya/Modo interchangeably, and Substance Painter is 90% of my 3D texturing.  I use Substance Designer to support my Substance Painter work.

Astralart

Brian "Panda" Choi said:

Max or Maya (or Modo as a personal recommendation) is fine.  There's no substantially significant difference in quality between the software, just workflow differences.  

What does change is that Maya, across games and VFX, has been the preferred animation software.  There are Max animators, but my impression 6 years in was that its only the case because early game modeling was done a lot in Max, so many just used the Max animation tools.  (Games like Evolve had Max animators).

Unreal if you want realistic rendering out of the box (as well as scripting, etc.) or Unity if you're willing to get your hands wet to find plug ins, etc. (if Unity 5 is as equipped as I think it is).  Lumberyard is solid as well.

Substance Painter is . . . well it almost feels necessary unless you want to use Mari instead.  Photoshop is the foundational painting software, but Substance Painter makes texturing in 3D amazingly easier and fundamentally more Photoshop like than Photoshop can.

This is admittedly frustrating since there's no clear winner in several categories.

For myself I use Maya/Modo interchangeably, and Substance Painter is 90% of my 3D texturing.  I use Substance Designer to support my Substance Painter work.Thank you so much for the response and yes just found out for unity I would pay alot of money to match unreal.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Regarding modeling, fight to figure out new high level methodologies and theories.  Jsut this year I just became aware and comfortable with the boolean-dynamesh method that has opened up my flexibility as a hard surface artist.

Astralart

Will do thanks for the help.

Stuart Campbell

First, think about what role you want to have. You say you want to start developing an art and animation folio but is that actually what you need?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to know everything to succeed. You don't. Instead, niche down and choose which discipline you want to tackle to get your first break in the industry.

A good route for many is environment art as the teams are larger so you have more chance of making it.

For an environment artist I would recommend learning the following:

Essential

• 3dsmax (or Maya)
• Photoshop.

Recommended

• Substance Painter - amazing tool for texture creation but don't skip on Photoshop knowledge. Photoshop is still a fundamental tool in most studios.
• Substance Designer 
• Quixel - more specifically NDo as its currently a better choice than Substance Painter for precision normal map creation as you get access to all of Photoshop's tools including vectors.

Optional

• Zbrush. As amazing as it is, I don't see this as a critical tool for this particular role. You can still create a lot of environment art without ever needing ZBrush. It is a lot of fun though and, with Zmodeler, is improving its modelling tools all the time.

As for game engine. Unity or Unreal. Unreal is generally thought of as having better rendering but Unity 5 is perfectly capable of achieving AAA results and there are a ton of studios using it.

Hope this helps.

PixelMasher

Don't focus on the tools as the thing that will get you a job. The skills and being able to demonstrate you know how to make awesome art is what will land you a gig. 

Tools on the belt are interchangeable, and if you only know 3ds max but the studio looking to hire you is a maya studio...if your content creation skills are awesome, they won't mind and you will be able to quickly learn the tools with all the experts at the studio around to help you, it rarely takes more than a week or 2 to feel comfortable with new software.

Just pick one of the industry standard packages and get started pumping out art. having technical knowledge of every single piece of software doesnt mean shit if you dont have a stunning portfolio of finished work to show. The end product is what matters. Don't overthink it and just start executing towards your goals  

Astralart

Stuart Campbell said:

First, think about what role you want to have. You say you want to start developing an art and animation folio but is that actually what you need?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need to know everything to succeed. You don't. Instead, niche down and choose which discipline you want to tackle to get your first break in the industry.

A good route for many is environment art as the teams are larger so you have more chance of making it.

For an environment artist I would recommend learning the following:

Essential

• 3dsmax (or Maya)
• Photoshop.

Recommended

• Substance Painter - amazing tool for texture creation but don't skip on Photoshop knowledge. Photoshop is still a fundamental tool in most studios.
• Substance Designer 
• Quixel - more specifically NDo as its currently a better choice than Substance Painter for precision normal map creation as you get access to all of Photoshop's tools including vectors.

Optional

• Zbrush. As amazing as it is, I don't see this as a critical tool for this particular role. You can still create a lot of environment art without ever needing ZBrush. It is a lot of fun though and, with Zmodeler, is improving its modelling tools all the time.

As for game engine. Unity or Unreal. Unreal is generally thought of as having better rendering but Unity 5 is perfectly capable of achieving AAA results and there are a ton of studios using it.

Hope this helps.

 Would I be able to get a triple AAA job without experience or start out in indie? Also thanks for all the help guy's.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Yes, but your portfolio will be the judge of that qualification.

Astralart

Brian "Panda" Choi said:

Yes, but your portfolio will be the judge of that qualification.OK thanks