Questions about being a technical artist and going to school
polycounter lvl 5
You may have seen me state this in another post but i'm considering going to school this year, primarily because freelancing has me at home all the time and i've decided i don't like that. But there's not much local studio work i can find (i am still hunting and going to events and such when i can). I'm currently doing freelance game art and i have no problem self teaching provided i keep up with my work, so i was thinking of going in for game development since that's been difficult for me to learn on my own.
For GGJ i went to the fullsail campus and one of the career guidance guys was participating (or supervising or something), so i asked him about an artist like me going into the game dev program there. He told me he's worked on a contract basis for games like the Witcher 3 plus a bunch of other cool stuff. According to him he'd recommend it if it's what i want to do cause artists who mix with programming are uncommon and placement for a technical artist is really good (it's also damn near the only job opening i see most of the time).
And i'm aware of what a technical artists job is, basically bridging the programmer and the artist by making sure formats are set and tools are made. And I like the idea of doing that cause it seems like i'd be using a range of skills and I also have aspirations to make my own games besides just being an artist.
Whether I go to Full Sail (2 years, 75k, bachelors) or UCF (4 years, 33k, masters), would going into game development be a good idea to aim toward technical artist? As for the idea of going to school at all, everyone I know seems to really like the two schools I mentioned from both artists and programmers. And both are in Orlando where there's a very good game dev scene starting up.
Any input would be great.
For GGJ i went to the fullsail campus and one of the career guidance guys was participating (or supervising or something), so i asked him about an artist like me going into the game dev program there. He told me he's worked on a contract basis for games like the Witcher 3 plus a bunch of other cool stuff. According to him he'd recommend it if it's what i want to do cause artists who mix with programming are uncommon and placement for a technical artist is really good (it's also damn near the only job opening i see most of the time).
And i'm aware of what a technical artists job is, basically bridging the programmer and the artist by making sure formats are set and tools are made. And I like the idea of doing that cause it seems like i'd be using a range of skills and I also have aspirations to make my own games besides just being an artist.
Whether I go to Full Sail (2 years, 75k, bachelors) or UCF (4 years, 33k, masters), would going into game development be a good idea to aim toward technical artist? As for the idea of going to school at all, everyone I know seems to really like the two schools I mentioned from both artists and programmers. And both are in Orlando where there's a very good game dev scene starting up.
Any input would be great.
Replies
I would say, you need to pick your immediate goal for the moment. Game developer, or Tech Artist.
I have no experience being a developer. But going to collage and concentrate on that goal may be a good idea, is what I think. I imagine you will be able to release a few games on mobile, and they will start generating revenue for you. Now that sounds juicy.
If you want to go Tech Artist route, I suggest you start by picking up some rigging class online. There are a few execellent online schools that offers some good rigging course such as iAnimate. And also take some Python course. Come up with a good rig, to me that's a good gateway into the industry and it's easy to expand to do other tech related stuff. You don't need to blow your money away at school for this.
As for the tech artist side, yeah i only have basic rigging knowledge, and haven't properly done things like facial rigs just yet. But i'm definitely interested in learning. I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "what the artists need to go through". In terms of what? I'm experienced in a lot more software than i let off, and i know what goes into game ready models and animations. I consider myself much less familiar with things like shader coding, implementing animations, and some of the compatibility issues I've seen than the asset side. But i haven't worked in any really large scale projects. Maybe i have the wrong idea about some things?
I'm not keen on staying home and learning more though, a big part is doing this getting out the house.
The technical artist goal is more because i don't want to stray too far from working with game art if i do go to a studio or something, it's just a nice in-between. While game development is because I like idea of being able to create my own projects either part time or full time, of which i even have design docs I've written to prepare. I guess i kind of consider the game development more important, but in my mind I was hoping the two would go hand in hand
Thanks for the reply
If you want to get into it, spend time rigging a good body, as you finish prototyping/implementing a section of the rig i.e the arm, script it. If you find yourself doing repetitive tasks, automate them. Break apart other people's rigs, figure out how they work and why they where setup that way. Most importantly, get yourself some animator friends to test your rigs! When I started as a junior the most important things for me were understanding anatomy, how the body deforms and how to create rigs animators could actually use. It should be obvious, but remember the artist side of the field, even if you have art skills now don't neglect improving them.
If you want to go to school to learn it you should, i found the experience and the people i met hugely beneficial(i studied animation). But there are some great online tutorials/courses, animator friendly rigging and rigging dojo are the two i would look into.
FIEA is awesome, UCF undergrad not so much. The courses seem sort of half baked and wouldn't really delve deep enough into tech art. Full Sail is for profit so I would never personally recommend it.
Its a hard choice, if you could handle the math I would recommend doing a computer science degree with a bunch of game related electives, and develop your art and do freelance in your spare time.
When I hire tech artists I usually look for some content creation practice. For scripters and tool coders I now require more formal programming knowledge - to me, the days of the hacker coder are over. Productions and tool code bases get ever bigger, so these days we want the benefit of easily maintainable and reusable code that more than one person can read and understand.
Personally, I don't see too much overlap between TA and the game programmers. Yes, we both work in games, we both share good programming practices and habits, but my team and I rarely work on e.g. render code or game loops or compile engines. We develop code for art teams, not for players. So there's quite a different focus.
As for schools, TA is probably the one field where you can really enter with a smorgasbord of skills and still make an impact, simple because its so diverse. You could study pretty much anything and learn the TA part on the side. Some TAs were animators or modelers before - they usually have an easier time relating to production and artists, but have a harder time designing good code. And for computer science people it's often the opposite - they have a hard time getting into Maya or Max and having fun with it - they often don't realize right away the potential of the built in functions of these apps and try to replicate them in code.
Technical artists have always been in demand (have been for at least the past 16 years) because most people don't enjoy the kind of work technical artists do.
As for full sail my choice for them is completely based on my experience with the people who go there or have gone there and the staff. It's been positive in every way except for the price. Everyone says the school is good, only concern is the cost.
I also think a more focused school experience would suit me better. Knowing everything i'm doing is relevant for my career.
In highschool half my classes every day were college level art classes, in those classes I'd give it 300%, in class, after school everyday i could, the works. If i wasn't there i'd be in robotics club doing what little programming i could and designing robots with legos. I even did ok in art history class.
But my academic classes I was mostly terrible, not cause I wasn't smart or didn't get it. Math classes were cake but I didn't study hardly at all until pre-cal which I had to learn to study again and I did study cause I liked pre-cal a lot and eventually caught up. Other classes where the same, just boring, and I hardly did any work unless i could make it fit with my interests.
I'm worried I'm still like that, i'm better at self motivating like I've been doing with my freelance work and teaching myself 3D art. But that's freelance work and career relevant stuff, school work would probably be something else.
Full sail i know i'll do fine, but i won't have time for much stuff outside of school and the investment is much higher. I'd also get a lot done in 2 years. UCF I may struggle with some classes, and have time outside of school for more stuff like my art work, and the investment is lower. But i could be in school for much longer like 4+ years? How does part time or full time factor into that?
Thanks for the reply!
@jfeezActually that's something i'm starting to work on now for a personal project, I've done simple rigs for human characters in the past but just body stuff, not things like facial rigs. I also haven't done that fancy UI stuff i see in a lot of rigs that would seem necessary.
For me even if i do go to school i'll still be doing tutorials and classes at home, I have my own aspirations for projects and i'm an impatient man. You can guarantee i'll pick up a rigging class if i can't figure it out myself, and the school isn't getting to it fast enough (or at all).
Also Ninja Theory, I'd want your job. I've been fascinated by their work since heavenly sword and I adored Enslaved and DMC.
thanks for replying!
Yeah i was getting the sense of specialization since i was seeing people mentioning rigging without the other aspects. I'm honestly not more inclined to one over another. Rigging helps my personal work (I make 3D characters and animation freelance too). I've always wanted to make certain tools to help issues I've encountered over the years (3d art started as a hobby at 12). And shader programming has been an interest since i decided to focus on video games instead of CG, but i never got far there cause I didn't know enough about programming.
For now the only focused programming I've done is web languages like PHP, and i know there's a world of difference
It's worth noting I've had college level traditional art classes in highschool, i didn't graduate from the school but I had classes up to junior year when i transferred. Ok i see, well that's i guess not a huge concern, for me i guess it mostly matters that the skill sets relate.
Well like i said I've been modeling for a LONG time and doing a lot of animation recently among other skills. My lacking area is programming in major languages but I can do decent code in PHP. And i have no problem sitting at a computer for a entire week looking at text to make things work the way i designed.
thanks for replying!
@Panupat I'm confident in my ability to do that from my personal and freelance work, i've for a long time wanted to make my own tools. I certainly can't say i know everything though, but I've got more than the will to learn.
@RyanB I agree, I'm pretty certain this is something I would like to do though. And even if ultimately that aspect doesn't work out, i'll still have other skills I'll have gained to use. It'd be their game development (or possibly game design but i'm doubting it) course, which is really just a full programming course.
I may be an artist but I've always been a logic focused person too, there was a just a time before highschool when I felt I had to decide between learning programming and learning art. And I picked art. I just think I've made enough progress on the art side that i can continue to learn on my own while picking up programming.
Thanks for all the replies guys, this is really helping!
FIEA is a Masters course, and you would need some sort of Bachelor's degree from any school before applying. There is a portfolio/code/writing review, and they only accept 50-60 students per year. The course lasts 16 months with the bulk of work taking place during the first 12 and last 4 are typically where people take internships. They have online open houses, and a few open talks and presentations every year that you could ask about. For you FIEA would be quite a few years away, but they are helpful folks and could point you in the right direction as far as UCF undergrad is concerned.
If you met some UCF undergrad folks at GGJ, ask them how their program is. I mean every bachelor's program is the same in that you do your gen eds and a few random classes related generally to your major for the first 2 years and then you ratchet up after that. So maybe they can give you insight on what electives you could take to focus more on tech art should you go there. Full time just means that you do at least 12 credits (typically 4 classes) a semester, if you do 5 classes a semester with no summer, you finish in exactly 4 years, some might say 15 is a lot, but it is a cake walk. You could also do classes in the summer which would typically be the first 2 summers... maybe 3rd since your advanced classes won't be offered for summer. So at UCF you could fairly easily complete a Bachelor's in 3 1/2 years or less.
He's been learning programming on his own time, and he was central in out GGJ group. I'm not 100% certain of my ability to learn programming on my own, but the udemy unity course I've been following has been great. He's also a part of a group that holds their own game jams monthly which i'd like to be a part of and i'm sure would help. The group does seem motivated which i find really important.
Thanks for the break down, that makes a lot of sense. I think i'd be more willing to burn through the first 2 years and maybe slow down after that, i'm sure you can change right? I could probably manage to keep up with freelance work while in school too... I've done so well enough with a full-time job so i think i could do it.
Thanks a lot!
The main thing is find motivated people, so even before starting any degree working with people during game jams can be very helpful. The game design track seems like it deals with game logic and scripting, which is great but isn't really what a tech artist does, I know there are the animation tracks that would allow for rigging sort of tech art but that track pretty much ignores real time stuff.
Sure, you could burn through your first 2 years which would be a lot of gen ed classes anyway, the only issue might be that these classes have a bunch of homework and since they aren't really dealing with your major you might lose interest.
I would recommend that along with C# you should also start learning python, Maya has MEL, Max has Max Script but both of them (and other programs) have python implementations so you could write scripts for either program without having to learn a new language (You still have to learn what functions the respective programs offer though).
Yeah true -_-, i guess that's more what i'd like to do. And I can't take all classes that are easy cause that generally makes things worse. Maybe i'll start with simple full time just to see if i've improved at all.
Ok, i'll keep python in mind and start that once i get through more of C#.
Now i just need to take the SAT...
Thanks again!
@Mstankow Yup that's why I'm considering UCF.