HELP!!! Demo Reel/Specification HELP!!!
Hey PC! I`m having a bit of a crisis and looking for some advice from people in the industry. I am currently just starting my last year of college in Game Development and for one of my classes I must begin developing my capstone which will be the flagship of my Demo Reel. I love character design and hope to one day become a character artist & rigger. From the things that I have heard it is practically impossible to get a junior position as a character artist, and hope to be able achieve employment by getting an evironment or prop artist postition
I had hoped to be able to do a highly detailed character, rig it and bring it in engine into a small detailed environment to show my ability to do both as my capstone. I have been advised by my teacher that this will just hinder my demo reel and should stick to a specification of either character or environment.
Is it practical and helpful to my demo reel to add a character to show my potential for future employment as a character artist? Or am I only going to take away from the environment and turn art directors off because I havn't specified?
Would it be wiser to concentrate on the environment instead figure out way to rig the environment and as a different project create a character to rig and put in, or just stay away from characters all together?
Any experienced advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks!
I had hoped to be able to do a highly detailed character, rig it and bring it in engine into a small detailed environment to show my ability to do both as my capstone. I have been advised by my teacher that this will just hinder my demo reel and should stick to a specification of either character or environment.
Is it practical and helpful to my demo reel to add a character to show my potential for future employment as a character artist? Or am I only going to take away from the environment and turn art directors off because I havn't specified?
Would it be wiser to concentrate on the environment instead figure out way to rig the environment and as a different project create a character to rig and put in, or just stay away from characters all together?
Any experienced advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks!
Replies
2. It's an unfortunate side effect of how development works in this industry that you're going to have to specialize unless you're a tech artist. If you get hired as a character artist, you may be pulled onto making some props during a crunch or something, but you're generally going to be making characters as per the job description. The same goes for environment artists, only flipped around. If you want to get hired, you have to show that you're really good at something, and the best way to do that is to focus on one area and ignore or do very little of others while you're learning. If you want to be a character artist, make cool characters and don't worry about environments so much.
3. It's not impossible to get a job as a junior character artist, but you're going to have to be prepared to not get work immediately. Getting a character job is a cutthroat business that everybody and their cousin is trying to do. If you want to get hired, you have to be really fucking good at what you do. This certainly applies to environment art as well, but environment artists have it slightly easier in a couple of areas because they're often tasked with making stuff that looks dirty and ugly, or stuff that's based on real locations that you can reproduce without being exacting down to the slightest wrinkle. Whenever you're making a character, it has to be appealing and well-designed even if it's supposed to be an ugly bad guy.
4. The best way to get good at something is to do work. The best way to improve that work quickly is to get feedback from people who know what they're talking about. Post some shit, get some feedback, update, post, lather, rinse, repeat. Polycount University's enrollment period is always RIGHT NOW, and class is always in session.
Although, I think enviro stuff is easier to break into for different reasons:
1: It's not as glamorous, so there's usually less competition...
2: Environments require a lot more non-aesthetic decisions to be made. It's certainly not any easier overall than making a character (though, I think the difficulty lies in different places), but there's simply more work for juniors to cut their teeth on: collision, mesh/UV optimizations, making lightmaps, kitbashing new props, making LODs, batching things together for drawcalls, making ruined/snowy/burned/etc variants of existing stuff, as well as there's a whole range of hard/easy props to make before you ever get to worrying about the more aesthetically challenging aspects. For character work, things are usually straight forward and each an isolated project, meaning juniors have to really step up to contribute something on-par visually with the mid and senior level guys.
3: Depending on the company/project, there's often a lot more enviro guys than character guys. My last company had a dozen character guys and about 50 environment guys. That's an MMO for you, though.
All that said, if you're GOOD at doing characters, there will be places in the industry for you..but it'll be a decently high bar.
And, yeah, back to Swizzle: he's right. It's all about Polycount University
Swizzle: Unfortunetly it's a requirement of my program to do a demo reel but it's good cause we get to do a showing for reps from bioware, ubisoft and a few more in Toronto. But I'll be sure to make my online portfolio a priority for sure. About having to specialize I was just curious if that detail needed to make a good looking character could be seen as transferable to the env asset side of things, or if it's usually overlooked. It's good to hear thar there is some sparkle of a chance to break into character artist, I'll have to take advantage of polycount university
Blankslatejoe: The fact that there is less competition is what has led me to think that if I want a job right out of school it is the better route to go. There is that logical side of my brain tellin me to do that but my artistic side is saying go for characters! Lol make the voices stop:P haha! Thanks again!
For the character - You need to find a way to sell your work in a way so that an employer sees that your organic modeling skills are transferable to env work. Env artists with good organic modeling skills definitely have a plus over people who can only do hard surface well. Maybe the choice of character can help? Some character that has something to do with a statue, or nature, or integrates with a building or environment... this probably requires some good brainstorming to come up with something solid.
Honestly, you can make that work if you ditch the rigging and dont bring it into engine. Well, Maybe rig it a bit for posing. But build a character, pose it, then do a small little pedestal enviro around it. Kind of like this, but with more around him / her / it. Add foliage and barrels and stuff like that. Whatever suits the style of the character.
Your demo reel can easily just be turn tables. Close up turn tables, full body. mesh, no mesh, shaders, textures, etc. And if you add props and stuff to the pedestal, you can break those down in the demo reel as well.
Also, for others reading, the demo reel is required because they do an end of the year screening, where they show a bunch of industry people all the reels, and have a beer night, kinda thing. Very social and fun. It's also a way to promote the college. Last years was a good time. Bunch of studios showed up. Bioware, ubi, gameloft. I think arc was there. And a few VFX studios I believe. I know a few students got interviews with some of the larger studios as well because of it. If I didn't know about all this, I would totally be with everyone else saying dont do a demo reel. Focus on your website. But ya. It's for class, so just make it shine.
Kwramm: Thanks for the advice! I'll have to do some intense brainstorming sessions:)
Slipsius: Yes I do go to Durham! small world :poly124: I really appreciate all the ideas though and I am going to definitely take what you said into consideration.
Thanks again!!