Hello everyone,
My name is Don, or Donnie, Im pretty new to game art forums and game art in general. I just wanted to know if starting a career in game art at age 29 is too late or something, I see a lot of people on these forums are so young! I am enrolled in a game design program at my local college but I don't graduate for another year and a half. I have done 3d modeling for about a year or two prior to this. Any tips on how to get in the industry?
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Also, what do you do. Do you make characters ? do you make guns and cars and planes ? do you make buildings ? Most of these use very different skill sets and you'd better focus on just one or two aspects.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Game_Industry
Make a game.
Even if it's a volunteer thing, you're still MAKING a game. That's just going to prove you can make a game, which is what people are hiring you for.
If you want, depending on your portfolio, I can get you into contact with the University of Southern California Games program. Teams there tend to usually look for artists, and as long as you're dedicated, and they're providing an excellent volunteer work environment, it's a possible way to get game experience under your belt without having to necessarily need previous experience.
Seeing as how I'm almost 30 I feel I wont be working anywhere til Im 40 haha
It may look complicated at first, but its actually a lot less tedious then doing in in 3D max.
overall the model looks pretty descent. I would try adding some champers/Support edges to your borders/corners though, it will make the edges look a lot better.
for bevels, I never know where to put them in terms of uv mapping. Like if I beveled the top of the receiver, how would I uvw map or smoothing groups them?
WHERE exactly should I start? with the eons of information on the internet it feels like Im stepping into New York Public Library without a clue as to what I want to read.
I am curious about the workflow from
3DS Max > highpoly/lowpoly modeling and UVing > Zbrush/mudbox/ndo2 workflow > xnormal > into game engine
Which tutorial should I start with? There's just too much information on the internet and no one has that kinda time at age 30 haha
I see this a lot. It's a bit weird, as the people who wrote the tutorials never had tutorials to follow, they figured it out on their own, through a lot of trial and error.
But that time and effort was not wasted, not in the least. All that effort led to new workflows and learning, which they never would have discovered by following someone else's lead.
See what I'm saying here? There is a distinct benefit to figuring things out for yourself. Open your tools and start trying things out.
You are never too old to get into game art! This is an awesome post for anyone who is working on their game art skills. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137096 It can be a little overwhelming with all of the information in it, so I would suggest that you focus on one thing at a time. When I started my journey in game art, I wanted to create characters. I dove in and figured out that I didn't know jack about making game characters, I also figured out that I didn't know much about game art as a whole. So I came up with a list of things I wasn't sure about and tackled each one, one at a time. You might want to check and see if your school offers free access to paid tutorial websites too. That's a huge advantage to answering some of your questions quickly and giving you more time to experiment on your own.
Learning without a goal tends to be hard for me.
What's the difference between a level designer and environment artist?
Then choose either:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Level_Design
or
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Category:EnvironmentModularity