How to inspire artists to learn?
polycounter lvl 3
Hi,
How do you motivate average 3D artists to raise their quality bar or how were you inspired by your leads, if you ever needed to? I think many of you have some thoughts from either side.
There's also a specific case to my question. I have a problem with a character artist who doesn't want to learn (by theory, i. e. asking, reading, comparing to games).
Recently I was hired by the company to lead an art team of 4 which makes urban VR scenes. Their skills are junior to medium. I myself had 4 yrs experience in enviro for mobile.
The project has been already in development for a year. The goal of recruiting me (and replacing the previous quite abusive lead) was to improve the art quality (from typical old VR to nice PBR) and maintain a good atmosphere, a team spirit.
We remade 3 levels already. Generally, it goes cool. Except for character art. The management begins to question if we're able to make decent 3D people.
The (only) character artist is in her 4th week of making a new character, a generic man in a suit, 15k poly. The previous characters were more like PS2 quality + normals. I know that the higher-ups will judge her competence based on how this new character will look.
To help her as much as I can, I gathered a lot of references - wires, albedo, slides from Uncharted. Suit photos. I talk to her each day, try to say what I like in the work, mention the improvement, but also point what's wrong.
Most of the other team members want to learn by themselves, at least a bit. Juniors don't read anything but at least they reach out and ask, and understand critique. She doesn't.
The second problem is that I'm a tech/enviro artist, so I don't have immediate answers. I'd really prefer not to impose solutions, just provide her with advice-critique and links to knowledge, examples.
Well, for the character artist maybe her art isn't like in modern games but she doesn't seem to get or mind the difference. She has some internal theories on what is okay. It's good enough for her and better than the previous stuff.
I showed Naughty Dog wires and sculpt, just for some tricks - she said "impossible level, so not relevant at all".
Marmoser viewer gallery? Spent maybe 5 seconds analyzing the textures.
Ready PBR textures from Unity Blacksmith? Looked at them for a while, listened to my another explanation of PBR, then began to paint as always, with random colors on albedo...
If the best examples in the world don't work, than what does? It's not a sarcasm, I'd like to hear what are your options.
I'd really let her ignore advice for most of the time... if the results were good. But they're not.
As she's running out of time, I asked her to work on head textures, while I'll help her and improve the sculpt of the body, as an example of what could be corrected. I think she's a little upset for this (and I'm not surprised). This definitely isn't a method for the future.
What could work for such artists - not ambitious yet competent enough for entering the industry?
We don't do super ambitious stuff. She could really have a good job here.
How do you motivate average 3D artists to raise their quality bar or how were you inspired by your leads, if you ever needed to? I think many of you have some thoughts from either side.
There's also a specific case to my question. I have a problem with a character artist who doesn't want to learn (by theory, i. e. asking, reading, comparing to games).
Recently I was hired by the company to lead an art team of 4 which makes urban VR scenes. Their skills are junior to medium. I myself had 4 yrs experience in enviro for mobile.
The project has been already in development for a year. The goal of recruiting me (and replacing the previous quite abusive lead) was to improve the art quality (from typical old VR to nice PBR) and maintain a good atmosphere, a team spirit.
We remade 3 levels already. Generally, it goes cool. Except for character art. The management begins to question if we're able to make decent 3D people.
The (only) character artist is in her 4th week of making a new character, a generic man in a suit, 15k poly. The previous characters were more like PS2 quality + normals. I know that the higher-ups will judge her competence based on how this new character will look.
To help her as much as I can, I gathered a lot of references - wires, albedo, slides from Uncharted. Suit photos. I talk to her each day, try to say what I like in the work, mention the improvement, but also point what's wrong.
Most of the other team members want to learn by themselves, at least a bit. Juniors don't read anything but at least they reach out and ask, and understand critique. She doesn't.
The second problem is that I'm a tech/enviro artist, so I don't have immediate answers. I'd really prefer not to impose solutions, just provide her with advice-critique and links to knowledge, examples.
Well, for the character artist maybe her art isn't like in modern games but she doesn't seem to get or mind the difference. She has some internal theories on what is okay. It's good enough for her and better than the previous stuff.
I showed Naughty Dog wires and sculpt, just for some tricks - she said "impossible level, so not relevant at all".
Marmoser viewer gallery? Spent maybe 5 seconds analyzing the textures.
Ready PBR textures from Unity Blacksmith? Looked at them for a while, listened to my another explanation of PBR, then began to paint as always, with random colors on albedo...
If the best examples in the world don't work, than what does? It's not a sarcasm, I'd like to hear what are your options.
I'd really let her ignore advice for most of the time... if the results were good. But they're not.
As she's running out of time, I asked her to work on head textures, while I'll help her and improve the sculpt of the body, as an example of what could be corrected. I think she's a little upset for this (and I'm not surprised). This definitely isn't a method for the future.
What could work for such artists - not ambitious yet competent enough for entering the industry?
We don't do super ambitious stuff. She could really have a good job here.
Replies
you`re even trying to spoonfeed her, but she refuses
"impossible level, so not relevant at all"
the right answer would be "yeah, i will try and i will put the extra work into it"
i better stop now, thats making me angry
Before you do this though, have a talk with your superior. Explain the situation, explain how you plan to fix it (talk with the artist, monitor performance, decision by X date), and listen to your superior's advice.
It could be this artist is a personal friend of someone higher up, or some other complication you don't know about. Good to check for this before stirring the pot too much.
She could improve. Or it could just be she's not right for the role, and needs to be replaced. That's never fun to deal with, but sometimes needs to be done. Just be careful how you do it.
How long has she been in a studio environment working?
The response you would take would be totally different for a junior who just entered vs somebody who has been there for a long time.
For them this kind of thing was mostly personal, the kind of thing where a "Where do you see yourself in 5 years" would clearly reveal.
If you're trying to reach her, I think finding out what she want's out of her work is step 1. People who are already motivated to improve already have this goal in mind of who they want to be I think. Even if it isn't clear, there's an idea there to chase or maybe someone to look up to.
I think it takes a lot of that to learn this stuff so it's hard for me to believe this was always the case, maybe she reached her goal and haven't found a motivation to move beyond that? Granted that's assuming a lot.
For me personally my life issues might have effected my will to work but never the ideals or who I looked up to. I might not have worked but I did keep researching looking and reading until I felt better. I'd only imagine myself act like her if I believed there was nowhere else to go, I didn't like what I was doing, or felt what I was doing wasn't the path I needed to take.
Just my 2cents.
The bottom line is that you and management have expectations about quality, pace, and initiative that she is not meeting and not trying to meet. She needs to be made clearly aware of what they are, and once she is, if she is indifferent or incapable (or both...) then it's just not going to work.
At that point, if you keep attempting to fit a square peg in a round hole, nobody's winning, including her. Some of the best advice I was given in managing artists (which is most of my job and time these days) is to not demand something from somebody who can't or isn't comfortable doing it - not because it gets you nothing, but it's also unfair to them. If they have a good fit with what you need and what you can provide, it works for both sides. If they don't, trying to force it is just as detrimental to them as it is to you.
[ame]
Talk with her like someone suggested
You could also kitbash a bought set of characters so you have the base already
You could buy that work in from outside as character work is usually low volume compared to environments and props
What ever you do you should inform management because that is one of your responsibilities. If motivating someone who resists your efforts cost more time than it returns then it will impact the whole team. I also wish I could motivate anyone. I am sure there are people who can do it.
"Make better arts if you want to get paid". Simple as that.
You can't force someone to learn. Well, I guess you can if they fear being fired but that's a shitty way to have to operate... Any artist not interested in learning new things and moving forward is not an artist I'd want to work with anyway.
I think the best thing may actually be to get a competent character artist to critique her work, as they'll be more articulate as to why things need to improve. You yourself would after all be able to tell imidiately that an enviroment lacks character because there's no story, or that the assets don't mesh. A character artist might have trouble with that, but they'll be much more able to point out subtle proportion problems, bad shader usage, or just even the cohesion in their design. And most importantly, they'll be able to give clear feedback that doesn't necessarily have to railroad someone from not expressing themselves artistically. So outsource your mentoring a bit
Also, by having someone of her stock critique her, she will less likely doubt them for not being character artists and overinterpreting the feedback.
I hope your team will be able to make something to be proud of!
An asshole lead can grind the ability to care out of an artist.
How big of an art style change is this? Personally I find photo-real characters pretty boring and would have a hard time getting enthusiastic about having to match what the Naughty Dog character team puts out all by myself.
huffer and GarageBay9: That's an important reminder, I'cant enforce passion for gane art on other people.
Muzz: she had worked before for 4 months in a big studio, then 16 months in a smaller one. Generally, both studios are more about speed than quality, so it's not very telling - but her art in the 2nd studio wasn't better than now. There were layoffs there, so then she came here.
Eric Chadwick: A lot of good advice. I'll talk with my project lead again, now having this fresh perspective. He's a good person. And yeah, you reminded me what I heard a long time ago, that one of the top bosses insisted on hiring her.
iadagraca: Your assuming is probably close to the truth
kanga and Wolthera: it's a nice idea to get outside help. Because yeah, at least we'll get a clear list of things to work on (in every future character too) from this field's expert.
Buying, kitbashing would be a good idea too. Unfortunately with this kind of attitute she could find it impossible to work on somebody else's meshes.
PyrZern and WarrenM: some people are like that. Like huffer said, it's just job for some. But what puzzled me is that those other just-a-job people at least try to understand their field's current state, keep improving quality.
Maybe I should tell her again that this is a great occasion to prepare for future jobs, in a nice environment?
Justin Meisse: probably this isn't art direction problem. You're right that the previous lead made peoplw not believe in their skills.And sure, I was surprised to learn that the team wanted to hear about every step, what to do now. Currently it's much better. Most people found out what thwy like to do.
Thanks for the answers again. It seems like I too much entered an area of one's personality, where nothing good could be done. I'll discuss a clear plan of what we require, first with the superior, then together. Also I'll try to find out her expectations of her position.
While I really doubt she lacks both of these, after all she got this far, they might be hidden under the surface due to the scars your predecessor left behind.
Overall it sounds like she needs to regain her motivation in her own passion and ambitions. This can only be done by herself. Imo, the best way to do that would be to work on my first 2 points mentioned trough sheer studying.
Maybe you could arrange a free enrollment for her on a site like https://www.uartsy.com/ .
On the other hand, it may have personal reasons. Even though mixing personal life with the career should not be the standard, these things inevitably affect each other.
I wrote this because such lame micromanaging takes time. The rest of the team would also use some help. They found their own ways of self-improvement, though, or just ask.
MisterSande: thanks to the link to UArtsy. Nice topics, I could use it myself :P
i feel like you are wasting your time with her. obviously she doesn't care. plus you are being very nice with her.
it's most likely she doesn't respect you and doesn't care about the project at all or about her skills. she has to understand that she has been hired to do work as requested, not to fuck around and do what she wants.
my advice would be to hire someone else to replace her. otherwise studio is wasting their money and YOUR time that could be spent elsewhere in studio helping someone who will listen.
if you can't replace her, then talk to her in private and ask her what's happening, and if this continues tell her that it's going to be very problematic aka fire her.
i agree with WarrenM.
From my experience people just can't switch their art style so radically whatever you would tell. They just have other vision. Not sure if it's what OP meant but perhaps it's the reason.
As regards of learning , I would say I learned something every single day all my life and 90% of that gave me very little or nothing at all.
So imo a key things is to learn very selectively, clever and focused, when you actually need it.
Huh. Where did that happen?
Dumping on someone who is already down and out will not make things better. If they're just being lazy you need to be very clear about what is expected and what the consequences are. I'm not sure you're doing that, it sounds like you're knocking yourself, carefully out laying down bread crumbs but they either
A) Aren't hungry or think they are rocks.
Either way, you need to be clear why you keep dropping things on different paths than the one they are on. Be OPEN and listen to what she has to say, just don't drop it and run back to your office/cube.
Support them as much as they are willing to put in an effort to change or improve.
A lead/managers job isn't carry everyone around, you're the person who pours the water in front of the sled. Personally it sounds like you're out in front tugging on the rope while the person isn't pulling their weight. You need to clear about expectations and listen to what is going on and help her plan a path forward.
If you come at this from the angle of "you suck, we hate your work, get better" they aren't going to respond in the way you want. Yes some artists do, but most don't, so unless you know them really well and how they will respond, stay positive. Going drill Sargent on someone can backfire, horrifically and make you look like a horrible human being who actually does have a personal problem with that particular employee. "Hello lawsuit, oh you're hungry here have my left leg to gnaw on."
In my experience as a lead and hiring manager, negativity multiples when it comes into contact with other negativity. 1n + 1n = 4n. While being positive, acting with integrity, empathy and respect will only cut negativity in half, 1n + 1p = .5n. That sounds like a losing deal and it is if you let negativity grow unchecked for too long. You're a smoke jumper, it's your job to contain it and protect what you can but realize some fires are too big for tiny humans to successfully contain. The best and easiest path is always prevention.
Help them identify the roadblocks and help them think of solutions.
It's important that they own the solutions rather than hand them down from on high. Managers sometimes try to save face and deflect blame, own it. Be clear about the consequences but try to maintain a positive outlook. Once it goes negative, people give up and often get stubborn and multiply their negativity by trying to infect as many people as they can on their way out the door.
Do managers/leads need to check in more often with this person or is it happening too much?
Remember, it's easier to prune a few tiny twigs that are going in the wrong direction and encourage the ones that are growing the right way. Rather than wait until later and try to hack off HUGE life supporting limbs of the tree. Likewise telling the tree about growing in the wrong direction does about as much good as, well, talking to a tree. You need enough contact to prune, but not so much that you're talking to a tree.
Are the managers/leads the type that only stop by to point out things that are wrong?
Good luck inspiring and encouraging your team if you only fly by to carpet bomb criticism. Point out the good things they do and most people open up to constructive criticism.
Some managers are gutless and will "HOPE" little problems solve themselves and won't say much or nonchalantly drop bread crumbs while they pretend to be gnawing on a loaf of bread. Be clear because this almost always snowballs making the managers job way harder than it ever needed to be. Don't shy away from conflict and being direct, but do it in a positive way that lets the person know you appreciate the good things they do. They where hired for a reason.
The crit fortune cookie.
You: Here's a cookie.
Them: Thanks! (opens it, reads the message and then eats the cookie).
Praise, constructive crit, praise.
Having delivered a blow to their ego, you started and ended it on a good note, helping them to actually absorb what was delivered without just crumpling up a note and throwing at their forehead.
Artists are a touchy bunch...
Sure some artists need thicker skin and rough treatment is necessary for them to get over themselves, so they can actually be productive members of a TEAM, instead of just a lone wolf with a chip on their shoulder.
You have to be careful not to build up too many calluses, they will lose their sense of feeling and be unable to connect to the one thing you really need them to connect to. So for the touchy artists, for every negative comment or course correction try to find something positive to say. Earlier the better, or it just snowballs.
Think of constructive criticism as a bank, you can't make a withdrawal on a persons self worth until you deposit the necessary time and effort. If all you ever do is withdrawal from the bank, they shut down.
In the future...
If you're ever a hiring manager, you know what to be watchful of. Root out these types of candidates and foster the right kind of environment in your team. Not everyone is cut out for this type of work, sometimes insanely talented people are awful human beings and they will be a cancer to your team. You might actually get better results from someone with a worse portfolio who doesn't have a chip on their shoulder.
Some artists tho, just need a good kick to the forehead, that depends on you, your relationship with the person and how the deal with things. To me it seems like you're doing a lot to help them and they aren't taking it well, I personally would make it VERY clear what is on the line and tell them that I was there to support them but they will need to do the heavy lifting, a manager can only carry a single person so far.
now that I think about it, Dustin does make a fairly good point, I had also had talk to my grandfather about something similar today. There has to be a reason for her lack of motivation. something must be bothering her and maybe instead of suggesting ideas and showing her other works atm, what you really need to do is ask her whats going on and why she is feeling the way she is.
Since a lot of ground has been covered already I'll just toss in a few remarks and questions.
- Where is the Art Director in this story ? While Art Leads do play a huge role in the visual development of a game (= delivering solid art on schedule), the aesthetic has to come from somewhere and this is to be addressed first and foremost. With the team being recently restructured now might be a good time to do a little bit of pre-production ... even if that means doing it way into the dev cycle.
- Isn't it simply a case of someone being uncomfortable and intimidated by sculpting ? If she had been busy with a demanding personal life (kids and all) and had no opportunity to stay up to date with game art and tech on her previous jobs I can see this happen. At the end of the day she is of course responsible for this (after all, that means missing the game art train by a good 5 to 10 years) but acknowledging the problem will be a necessary first step.
- If that's the case ... then it is only fair to *not* underestimate the amount of catch up she has ahead of her. To put things in perspective, in 2005 building a game character required the following :
. building a lowpoly model
. unwrapping it
. painting textures in photoshop
(all skills that I assume she does master)
Now fast forward to 2010/2015 :
. building a blockout model
. doing a rough sculpt of it
. doing a final sculpt of it
. polypainting it
. retopo to create the final lowpoly
. unwrapping it
. setting up an exploded bake if needed
. if the engine is poorly synced, need to rely on convoluted smoothing groups techniques to compensate
. if the budget is too tight, need to rely on painful edited cage setups
. baking it, meaning that one has to know about a whole lot of different texture passes
. OS to TS conversion in some cases
. setting up a master PSD file with all the texture passes as groups
. learning how to use the QuickSaveMaps script for Photoshop to save all maps at once
. Texturing (either in Photoshop only, or using 3DCoat or Substance Painter, or using DDO or Substance Designer), in PBR fashion or not.
. Previewing assets in Marmoset or in-engine.
This is by all mean a tremendous amount of things to learn. There is no way she can just hop into all this right away, and there is no point sugar-coating the fact that this is all going to be pretty hard (on top of learning how to sculpt). She will need a solid character artist or prop artist tutor/teacher to figure it all out quickly. In that regard I think she is correct in her saying the TLOU characters are not really relevant since they require many, many more man hours and resources than what your studio previously allocated to character art. And this is also true even for seemingly low spec games, like Dota2 (normalmapped) or LoL ("handpainted" ... but still using highpoly bakes as sources). Learning all this from scratch would take at least a few months, and I think all involved parties need to be fully aware of this.
- On top of the tech challenges I just mentioned, there is also the art part. If a lack of sculpting skills is indeed the issue here, then you cannot expect her to become a sold sculptor just like that. Despite being marketed as an "artist-friendly" tool, Zbrush is an incredibly convoluted program to get into for new users partly because of its deep toolset but also because of its very backwards and unintuitive UX design. All of us eventually got used to it ... but it remains completely alien nonetheless.
My advice on this might come out of left field, but here goes : if she is indeed going to have to learn sculpting from scratch ... then get her the 30 days demo of the *very* old Mudbox 1.07 (you can still find mirrors of it online). This is of course totally antiquated and will probably not be used in your production (chances you will have to have her use Zbrush4r7 or a recent, post-2009 Mudbox), but as far as sculpting packages are concerned this is the most intuitive to get into and I can guarantee you that she will enjoy sculpting away at a subdivided cube in minutes. If I were to teach someone how to sculpt in person today this is definitely what I would use, as the entirety of the UI can be understood in minutes and the viewport representation of models is very accurate (which is not the case in Zbrush).
- Last but not least : if the art style allows for it, one could very well build extremely convincing characters using old techniques with a bit of a twist. Dense models, clean textures and good lighting can go a long way (as in most WiiU games, Final Fantasy games up to XII, Kingdom Hearts, and so on). Slap on it some good, modern materials and the result might very pass for something very current. That is definitely something to consider, as it will reduce the amount of new skills to learn on her side while saving production time.
Good luck to both of you !
Maybe the studio can still use her for other things? If not well, it sucks to say but that is how this goes right? You say you can deliver, you don't, I have to get someone who can. I would see if she can still do other things cause it sucks to lose a "secure" spot.
Best of luck to her otherwise.
Mark Dygert, Dustin Brown and pior: great posts. Many interesting points of view.
And I think now that we're dealing with many layers of trouble at once.
Being up to date with game art. Pior's list was exactly was had to happen to make jump. I have to repeat to her that I respect that she dealt with all the topics somehow.
Art quality and direction. I thought that was the main problem, like it was with other people - who quit moaning immediately once they started to learn new, interesting stuff. So to show them direction and help with the tools was the only thing needed to rebuild their spirit.
Here it seems I'm talking about quality when many *also valid*, important obstacle are on the way, which people here helped me recognise.
Personal needs, expecting an workplace safe from hardship. I try to do all I can to make this team a safe, nice place. This is a job though and we need to do a real product. There is so much I can use top bosses' unawareness of game dev to lower the pressure on somebody. After all, other VR stuff started to emerge so quickly that we can't avoid comparison any more.
All the advice in the thread allows me to name the problems. I think it will allow me to discuss the matter with superior and her. She too may be unaware of WHY the expectations changed and the has to learn like in the beginnings, not just get this new trick.
It would be easier of course if she looked at is positively, as an opportunity, but as many of you said, there may be some things at play that I shouldn't and can't change. Just clarity in expectations, maybe a list like Pior's.
A training from a senior, a human being, would be good. Maybe it would even cost less than days of frustrating trying. I see if the company wants to do it though I fear that may happen not so quickly, it takes weeks in corporations.