What are the main differences between the game and film Industry's?

dosit

Hey guys I'm new to 3d and just wondering what are the differences between working at film studios and game studios. Which is the bigger and which has more jobs at this time?

Bletzkarn

dosit said:

Hey guys I'm new to 3d and just wondering what are the differences between working at film studios and game studios. Which is the bigger and which has more jobs at this time?

Well in Australia there are heaps of jobs for Film and Advertising where as there's almost nothing for game artists. (handful of jobs per year).

I think the main difference is games is real-time rendering where as film and advertising is proccessed rendering so in Film your poly counts and textures can be a lot larger. The programs you would be using are totally different (not for modelling but for implementation) I think it comes down to what you prefer. If you enjoy creating worlds, spaces and experiences it's games. If you enjoy making things look really really good and as realistic as one can then film.

Kwramm

Organization wise I always felt film did better. But film usually doesn't develop gameplay and an engine in parallel to creating art, so the environment is more stable, processes are tighter and there are more restrictions on what you can or cannot do. For example names of assets, textures, etc. are generally pre-determined. Specialization is often higher: e.g. you may have pure modelers who do not texture at all. Some other stuff that counts in games is rather unimportant, like polycount. Often you may have one texture sheet per element, rather than only 1 or 2 texture sheets per asset. Animation is more interesting as you work on longer shots, rather than little bits of animation that the engine blends together. There is also a lot more parallelism in production, in contrast to the often sequential nature of creating assets in games. Assets are also often much bigger, using complex hierarchies and references, so you have to be very organized. We did work for ILM and we had to be very organized and naming conventions and quality checks were very strict. However, it's more about accuracy than about weird technical restrictions imposed by an engine or platform.

JacqueChoi

Which is bigger?

World of Warcraft alone has generated more revenue than the top 20 movies of all time combined.
Candy Crush Saga ($6billion) sold for 50% more than the entirety of  Lucas Arts ($4billion).

http://kotaku.com/activision-buys-candy-crush-makers-for-5-9-billion-1740204224
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/disney-star-wars-return-on-investment/


Safe to say that Video Games are bigger than movies, and it's not even remotely close.





**Edit**
I just checked the data:

Movie Industry grossed $29.15billion in 2015
Video Games grossed $91.5billion in 2015.


Games industry makes 3x more than the movie industry.

sprunghunt

JacqueChoi said:

Which is bigger?

World of Warcraft alone has generated more revenue than the top 20 movies of all time combined.
Candy Crush Saga ($6billion) sold for 50% more than the entirety of  Lucas Arts ($4billion).

http://kotaku.com/activision-buys-candy-crush-makers-for-5-9-billion-1740204224
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/disney-star-wars-return-on-investment/


Safe to say that Video Games are bigger than movies, and it's not even remotely close.





**Edit**
I just checked the data:

Movie Industry grossed $29.15billion in 2015
Video Games grossed $91.5billion in 2015.


Games industry makes 3x more than the movie industry.

Where did you get this data from? this link places the film industry gross at closer to $88 billion

http://www.statista.com/topics/964/film/

Burpee

JacqueChoi said:

Which is bigger?

World of Warcraft alone has generated more revenue than the top 20 movies of all time combined.
Candy Crush Saga ($6billion) sold for 50% more than the entirety of  Lucas Arts ($4billion).

Games industry makes 3x more than the movie industry.

I read somewhere that one of the reason it's because people are too lazy to crack video game ( lack of multiplayer etc ) compare to film which can be downloaded easily,

But still there is A LOT more oppening job in the film industry,

thomasp

some other stuff:
- film happens in a few concentrations around the globe and those locations keep changing as the industry is chasing subsidies, forcing people to move around. in comparison games happen in many bigger cities pretty much everywhere and the studios do keep their workforce there
- for a lot of artists it means working from one contract to the next, not permanent employment which i found more typical in games
- from the outside the work seems far more about the process (pipeline) than in games and that artists are seen as a bit more replaceable

thomasp

from what i've seen the pipeline aspect comes into play not because of scanned digital doubles or similar (true, that's not really interesting work) but because as a modeller or shader/texture artist you are pretty early in the process and even if your stuff isn't perfect it'll have been handed off to others and in the end heavily covered up by lighting, fx, comp, motion blur and whatever frame-by-frame hack-fix they can pull anyway.

in games in my experience as an artist you will be pretty involved with making the asset look good through all the stages into engine which can be complex for characters - and separates the actual games artist from the 'why can't i just stay in zbrush all day?' type who indeed would seem pretty easy to replace.

slosh

I think the main difference right now is essentially every movie industry gig outside of maybe Pixar, ILM, and a couple others, are all outsource studios.  You basically get no benefits, not bonuses, no perks of any kind from the success of the movie you just worked on.  Well, your name in the credits but nothing of monetary value.  In games, there are far more studios that produce their own games and thus if your game is successful, you could see some sort of bonus coming from it.  There are far more fulltime jobs in games as well which usually means benefits of some sort.  Even at game industry outsource studios, most positions aren't contract positions while most jobs in the film industry are contract.  The one bright side to film is I believe there is a union correct?  Gaming industry definitely does not have that as of yet.  Still, when you see a studio like R&H make a gorgeous movie like Life of Pi and then promptly shutdown, it sours the taste of being an artist in that industry.  Granted, I have only worked in the gaming industry so far, it has been a rewarding experience and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Travis C

in vfx most of the time u will have less ownership of the work you do and the work seems alot more specialized. For instance, that cg bear you fell in love working on, you will have to let go of it at some point and  let a bunch of other people work on it. Your demoreel will be like the same as your co-worker s.

In games,  you need to be abit more well rounded in your area, good at both sculpting and texturing and that can lead to more ownership of the work you do in general.

If that  is important to you, that might be something to consider.