Are character artists higher skilled than Environment artists?
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I'm studying games art at uni and have been tasked with studying the phrase 'Character
artists are higher skilled than Environment artists'. The topic is based around modelling in 3ds Max and ZBrush. I am required to gather opinions from outside sources.
I myself think that character artists have more skills as they need to pay closer attention to details. They have an important job role as they are creating the main focal point of a game. Even in 1st person games there are cut scenes where the model is used.
I myself think that character artists have more skills as they need to pay closer attention to details. They have an important job role as they are creating the main focal point of a game. Even in 1st person games there are cut scenes where the model is used.
Replies
But both need to pay attention to details. For ex. a Environment artist needs to pay attention to the overall lighting, it needs to go great along with textures and modell so the whole scene breaths life. I've seen many great modellers out there doing great 3D artwork but their overall presentation in game engine has been lacking.
I've seen shiitty modellers, doing great texture work and great lighting and their piece looks magical!
So many small details in both envo and Char needs to fit in together as whole to capture the eye. If you fail with one thing it will be noticable.
You need to be extremely good with characters to land a main Char job though.
And i know a lot of Char artist that can't and wont do environment art because they feel it's to much and a lot of hassle.
And the other way around
In what areas are character artists supposedly better skilled at? Do they produce work with a greater attention to detail? Or are they better at understanding shapes and silhouettes than environment artists? What about colour and composition, which discipline can that be better applied through?
Let's take another step back - what about other skills the artists require? Do environment artists tend to have better technical skills if they interact with game engines more? Or is rigging more technically complex? What about communication: does an environment or a character artist need to communicate more with other co-workers, and what kind of back-and-forth communication do they need? Who will they be interacting with?
I hope you get the idea. If this is a uni research question I imagine you're meant to explore the question. Break it down and look at all sorts of different aspects. Work out all the different ways a character artist might be more and less skilled compared to their peers. Good luck.
(minor grammatical edit)
i don't think character artists are more skilled than env artists. their focus is just different. They have individual things they need to study. Knowing the ins and outs of archtitecture is no less complex than knowing anatomy. There are many topics that are the same, proportions, wear, materials. or even just the plain modelling and sculpting skills needed to do one or the other, baking, texturing etc. In those technical regards the job is not so different.
Especially in first person games, how much of the screen esate is the character you worked on? The hands... wow
So yes character artists are more skilled than enviornment artsts - when it comes to character art and the things specificly involved in that. No surprise it is the other way around too.
The other thing is that probably there are more environment artist jobs out there and therefore the entry-level requirements are a bit easier to achieve. But this doesn't mean that environment artists have a smaller or lower skill set. Just a different focus and different production needs.
And no. Characters are not automatically more important than environments. Priorities differ from project to project. Sure, Tetris would have been a much bigger success with proper characters, but that is a different story...
Look at what the jump from PS2 hardware to HD gaming brought. It mean every object had to be created twice. One for the high poly and another for the low poly.
If every prop doesn't look as good, there is an outrage by gamers and the press.
Even in terms of attention of detail, the move to physically based rendering means 4x as much work in bringing out detail compared to the last. Nobody is slapping on a single color and calling it a day. A single chair may require having to hand paint all the dirt, fingerprints, decayed paint, wood chip detail that has to look good from all angles.
When you add organic shapes to characters of environments, that's when things get more complicated.
I think this complexity is more evident in character art at first glance, then again depends on who's looking.
I've know both sides to be in awe of each other, however I do see a lot of environment and prop artists considering character artists to be god tier, like if they eventually do characters in a game, they're better than all the others that don't.
Mind you not everyone who works on characters does all of a character. Some "character artists" make props for a character without ever touching anatomical detail. So they are basically environment/prop artists in the character team, though their linkedin says "character artist"
I feel that a truly skilled character artist should be experienced enough to tackle every organic form or shape with minimal references. Though when it comes to the job market, I've seen companies demand this and tons of experience and then put the artist on work that doesn't require all this knowledge.
@OP - There is no distinct advantage in terms of artistic acuity either through aptitude or otherwise, both skillsets are equally viable, so really learn to qualify your reasoning which obviously at this point is purely based upon supposition.
What kind of educator can't form a proper sentence?
I hope you correct it to "more highly skilled than" in your final paper. Poor language will weaken your point.
When it comes to specifics its probably going to be a side job for them. They are character artists after all.
Depends on what you think about art wise first thing in the morning.
I find a lot of environment artists to be more techincally oriented than creatively inclined by comparison.
Like the focus on node based mapping in substance designer seems to be more appealing to them.
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There was a great thread last year that talked about how to design hard surface props by studying how practical engineering works.
http://polycount.com/discussion/190796/studying-machinery-for-hard-surface-art
Of course, that's not to say every Environment Artist is walking around with a Bachelor Degrees in Mechanical Engineering, but dissecting and putting together something as complex as a Main Battle Tank has its own sciences going for it just like how dissecting and putting together a body requires an understanding of human anatomy and more biology.
environmentartists dont get nearly the amount of credit they deserve. working on scenery is a super complex task and involves a lot of knowledge and skill. there are parts of the workflows which are the same, others are entirely diffetent and you cant just swap out one for the other.
I don't believe anything I said was naive, disrespectful, elitist or bullshit.
Could you point out what gave you that impression?
edit: Is it because I didn't specifically say environment "assets" when I mentioned that,
" most character artists could create better environments?"
I assumed that that was understood which is why in the next line I said,
"When it comes to specifics its probably going to be a side job for them. They are character artists after all."
meaning its unlikely that they would drop characters or be made to drop character work by management to jump on making a full environment while at a large studio. They might contribute to a portion of it.
For example,
Consider if an environment had greek statues, would you hand that portion of the environment to an environment artist skilled in modelling generic buildings and set dressing with little to no experience doing characters?
Doesn't mean they shouldn't be encouraged to do so or what they are doing isn't worthwhile, but in a studio several departments work together to realise a concept depending on deadlines.
What I wrote was an opinion on my experience working with both sides, not meant to discredit one or the other.
I never said that environment artists aren't getting enough credit or that their skill is lesser overall.
When you consider the sheer amount of artists required for environment work and that they vastly outnumber character artists in most major studios its either that there's a lot more work for them, or many are required to realise the scope of things.
Some work on specifics, like an artist that makes different variations of rocks for a biome.
Then again even character teams are diversified depending on the complexity of the model. There are prop artists that work in the character team making accessories etc depending on deadlines and workflows.
If you consider outsourced freelance work, then you're looking at a more focused skillset and each side has its own challenges. Usually it benefits freelancers to be as versatile as possible.
All in all it comes down to what you like doing more I think. Atleast that's how it worked out for me where the characters I create determine the environments to go with them since I'm focusing on the character model first.
giving an environment artist a character to build, they are probably gonna struggle with anatomy, form and topology for animation, because they don't have the thousands of hours of practice to create something with competence, its not they are a weaker artist, its their time and energy have been deployed learning a vastly different set of technical and artistic skills.
I would say 99% of character artists would balk if asked to create a modular set of pieces that work efficiently, snap on a grid and use a minimal set of textures. Their skillset and the way they have been training their brain to get good is completely different.
comparing environment and character artists as if one if more prestigious/skilled/better than the other is ridiculous.
in general environment artists are required to zoom out and take the macro into account (especially in open world games) while character artists spend a lot of their time deep in the micro. breaking down and creating a 200 piece modular building kit and using that to create a city is a totally different skillset than focusing in creating the folds and stitching on a jacket for an entire day. one isnt better than the other, it just requires a vastly different mindset in general day to day tasks.
Is there crossover like the greek statue example above? Oh hell yea, but thats just being practical and deploying the right people for the right task.
I have actually been in almost that exact situation, getting a highres sculpt/baked lp of a statue, but telling the character artist "oh hey, dont worry about anything other than the normal bake, this is going to use a tiling texture/material for everything else" and they didn't understand how to use a tiling texture properly....it just wasn't part of their skillset. the concept of not having 0-1 UV's was just uncommon to them.
this is where the value and power of a team comes into play, they could do what they are pimps at and then hand it off to other people to implement what they are not specialized in. The best teams I have been on worked smoother by embracing this and not trying to shoe horn people into doing stuff they don't excel at.
never underestimate the money burning potential of having someone in a role they don't do on a daily basis.
there is no better or worse because of the job title, its just a completely different mindset/skillset in the execution. just pick something and focus on working towards mastery of that.
One interesting tidbit I thought I'd share that might be relevant to why there are more artists drawn to environments/props than character art.
Back in game dev school, I remember almost every single student wanting to be a character/concept artist at the beginning.
By the end only 2-3 had a decent (industry standard) character in their portfolio. The rest was props and 1 environment piece.
This isn't because they lacked skill or talent, eventually it came down to what according to the market would get them the job quickly, with a decent enough portfolio that they wouldn't struggle at simply because they couldn't afford the time or rather it wasn't high enough on their list of priorities.
This didn't work for everyone though and to be perfectly honest for the one's it did work, they were happy being a part of the games industry getting a few $'s more than minimum wage.
They are still relevant to a team and have the opportunity to pick up skills as they go along. For the ones not as fortunate, lot of resources online and in communities to better yourself as an artist.
As an artist (character/environment/prop/animator/lighting.etc) it is important to keep developing skills required to make art you're passionate about.
Its difficult to compare one to the other since they are different disciplines and work off each other especially on larger projects.
Better to compare with your past self.
Holy crap, what a straight up waste of time.
lets frame it the other way around.
"Environmentartists could create better characters because of their knowledge in whatever"
it is of course not true. But sure character artists can help creating props and in some cases they might also be more suitable. A greek statue is a great example. It's a prop, maybe a hero prop but yes sure usually that is something you would give a trained specialist.
I think if the OP would have worded the thread a little more subtly, for instance
"How would you compare the most skilled environment artist to the most skill character artist, rather than giving environment artists the boot, I think the topic wouldn't have come across as controversial as it did.
Still the discussion didn't get as charged up as I thought it might.
I think appreciating an artists work really depends on the outcome of the project, for instance this artist is skilled in creating environments (small diorama) props and characters for this particular scene and then painting over said render to achieve final result.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zq4KL
Not quite sure about his ability to game res everything and render in engine with texture maps knowing all the latest technical stuff etc. Or where he'd fit in the game industry or how a recruiter would react if he applied for a character/environment artist position (Though I have a fair idea but won't go into that.)
Every artists is unique in their skill and approach.
However,
Is he skilled for the task at hand - yes.
Can he get more skilled - sure.
Is there anyone he should compare himself to? - himself! (Atleast it should come back to him and his art)