Is programming necessary to both acquire and maintain employment in the industry?
I would like to clarify this once and for all, and this is the place to do it. I am currently wrapping up the second year of my advanced diploma in Game Development. It's about 80% art and related technical skills (animating, rendering, rigging, etc). The other 20% or so is programming. We do scripting and coding in Flash Actionscript and C# For Unity.
Now, I want to be an environment artist/3D modeller, eventually working my way up the hierarchy to a senior position or director. These programming assignments really intrude upon student's focus who want to spend more time on work they could show in their demo-reels. Having done a bit of research, I have found that there are not really any people working in the industry doing what I want to do, who utilize these skill sets, or even display them in their work or resumes for that matter. What bothers me more is that the people teaching these programming courses are not artist, that seems hypocritical.
I'd like to get your thoughts on this. There's a saying, if you chase two rabbits you'll catch none. Art and Programming are very different rabbits, why should a curriculum force students to be a jack-of-all trades yet master of none?
Now, I want to be an environment artist/3D modeller, eventually working my way up the hierarchy to a senior position or director. These programming assignments really intrude upon student's focus who want to spend more time on work they could show in their demo-reels. Having done a bit of research, I have found that there are not really any people working in the industry doing what I want to do, who utilize these skill sets, or even display them in their work or resumes for that matter. What bothers me more is that the people teaching these programming courses are not artist, that seems hypocritical.
I'd like to get your thoughts on this. There's a saying, if you chase two rabbits you'll catch none. Art and Programming are very different rabbits, why should a curriculum force students to be a jack-of-all trades yet master of none?
Replies
Usually this position is called technical artist.
However, 20% programming courses is hardly "pursuing" programming...it sounds like it's just a couple of intro courses.
As for who teaches them: Generally I would trust the material in a programming course taught by a focused programmer much much more than a focused artist, who (generally) would see things from a much narrower perspective.
Anyway, back to the main question: I've never worked with an art director who knew how to program. I've only met a handful of leads or senior people with any programming experience at ALL (usually minor scripting/tech art experience). But does that mean that coding classes are a bad idea?
I think a survey class or two is absolutely a GOOD idea--you might not learn much about implementation of cutting edge things, but being able to communicate with more technical disciplines is one of the most crucial skills of a lead/senior, and most leads/seniors have had to learn that as a pseudo-skill on-the-job. If you're at this school to become a well-rounded game artist, a class in the fundamentals of coding will take you much farther than a class of "how to bake your texture maps using the flavor-of-the-month, 2013 edition", which will *likely* be outdated by the time you graduate.
Skylebones, can you tell me a little more about what you do in the industry?
Making games is a team effort (unless you're going solo, and then YES you need to program) and understanding what your colleagues can and can not do is a very helpful piece of information.
You don't need to be able to program AI, but knowing what kind of things can be done and how computationally expensive they are can definitely influence your game design. You don't have to know how to build a particle system, but knowing what kind of effects alpha blending, sprite size and layer count have, will help you design a good effect.
Schools teach coding for a few reasons:
1 - promote teamwork (see above)
2 - give people a wide base of knowledge to specialize in. Maybe you THINK you wanna art, but then you do some coding, and it turns out to be much more interesting.
3 - eventually you will probably have to make one/several actual games in a team effort, and therefore you must have some coders
What's important is the ratio. Do you have 2 classes of how to make pacman? Fine. Is half your time spent writing lines and half on art? You're in the wrong place.
A random junior artist doesn't need programming knowledge, but as others have mentioned, having a basic knowledge of how programming works, why technical limits exist etc is helpful when interacting with programmers. There are plenty of Leads, Art Directors and such who don't know anything about programming, but it's not exactly to their benefit that they don't know about programming. The knowledge would be helpful to most people.
I've been in the industry about 17 years, and I've never been required to do any coding. I've had plenty of useful discussions with programmers about technical issues that affect art, however, and I've always been glad when I could understand what the heck the programmer was talking about, because I do in fact know a bit about programming.
I'm an environment artist.
And others brought up a good point, you should 'understand' the basics of how programming works. It's all moon language to me, but I understand how the game is built using it.
No.
Seconded.
ultimately the programmers program, and offering to do something thats not in your job description can sometimes be very hurtful to others - at least from my experience.
because schools are there to take your money not make you successful.
There was a thread not too long ago about how someone found the programers they worked with introverted and scary. If you can fill that niche then you may find it easier to get and keep a job long term.
As a developer or designer?
Yes.
But just as a game artist, no, it isn't necessary. The industry has grown specialized enough that you don't have to be a programmer to make game art. The biggest advantage that programming would give an artist is in developing in-house tools and software plug-ins. If you are programming file exporters and the like for your company's art pipeline, they are going to think twice about ditching you when annual layoffs roll around.
If you are a game designer, and can't program, you have no future. Designs can't really be copyrighted. Even if you do cook up some stellar design documents, they'll just get stolen and developed by someone else. (probably Zynga) The industry has not reached the point where pure design positions are feasible. You have to be able to cook up your own prototypes, and that means some degree of coding.
And development positions are obvious. Most of those involve programming anyway.
Of course you could always just be management. But then no one will ever believe that you make the games themselves.
Yeah Kismet is pretty cool, and has obvious uses for level designers/environment artist. This thread has been very helpful so far, lots of good case studies and subjective feedback.
when i started with the company i'm with now i had some basic j script knowledge but nothing beyond that, as i refined my skillset and learned new languages the interaction with the programming team went through the roof. Not only is it helpfull in bridging the gaps between the departments, it will also give you a better idea of the entire scope of the project and where your skills might come in handy when it would have been overlooked
also, when working as a freelancer its a great side skill to get some extra hours on a project. ex: worked on a simple shootem up for a client a while back and he was going to hire a programmer to work out the animation scripting on the assets i delivered. Because I knew the ins and outs of the particular assets and was able to create the logic, i got extra hours on the project and the client saved money and the hassle of having to bring in a new guy for a simple task
also it helps you more effectively communicate with the programmers and tech artists.
Obviously it also helps you understand what the level designers will be capable of doing with their scripting.
So all in all, it's worth it. It's really good to know the basics of programming.