It's hard to find the time. It's also super important to play as well though since it helps you get into the mind of the player, who you are wanting to impress with your work anyway.
I actually stopped playing for maybe 10 years, like really almost none except for school or work related playing, but since a year ago the interest has come back and now I play almost daily, so I don't think it's something that dies when you get older. but yeah some stuff is more important.
I sometimes play games but I just enjoy creating things more. I certainly have the time, but I'd rather be spending it working on developing my skills.
I've always felt that playing games is a necessity, if you're in the games industry. It helps you understand your product and your audience better (not to mention, provides great inspiration!) It's almost like a chef saying they don't eat anyone else's food but their own. But that goes if you want to learn/understand more than just 3d/2d/etc.
Its like a movie director that doesnt watch movies but makes them.
I'd argue that directors who don't watch movies will possibly make more unique and potentially groundbreaking films, than someone so entrenched in what should and shouldn't be done. I'm sure I've heard a favorite director of mine talking about how they don't watch films. I'd argue the important thing with film is visuals and storytelling. And if someone can do that without watching films, then, I don't think watching films matters so much for them.
Now, they won't be making the next big blockbuster, I'd guess. So it really depends on if the goal is to be an interesting/artistic game, or a 'fun'/popular game (these can overlap, but don't do it that often). Same applies to any medium of art. I do think if you want to make the next big sensation, you need to be tapped into the pop culture.
In regards to the argument of game designers must play games.
It is beneficial for game designers to play games, but I'd argue that the vast majority of hopeful game devs are hindered by their gaming habits.
The biggest problem I see is that every indie gamedev wants to make "their game". Their idea of a perfect game, is more often than not, completely un-fun to play for others.
What is very rare is gamedevs who make games for their playerbase, and not themselves. Art vs Design is making for yourself vs making for others.
To be honest, I still play games! However I only play in very limited quanities at events and game meetups. I play other peoples games, but I'm not at home playing 20+ hours of LoL, CS:GO etc a week.
Gaming is not so important imo. Figuring out which games are popular and why they are popular is more important.
I constantly see amaetuer and aspiring artists and devs doing thing "their way" completely unwilling to do things better, or more in line with market demands. That kind of personal attachment is hindering and that kind of relationship of games (gaming as part of your identity) will hurt more than help.
I play games only occasionally. But I have no time for watching TV. I realized that I pick movies to watch by their running time. O.o I also tend to watch third of a movie that I have already seen to air out the brain and then remember the rest so that I can go back to modelling which is just more fun for me.
I've always felt that playing games is a necessity, if you're in the games industry. It helps you understand your product and your audience better (not to mention, provides great inspiration!) It's almost like a chef saying they don't eat anyone else's food but their own. But that goes if you want to learn/understand more than just 3d/2d/etc.
The flipside of that is someone who always eats out and doesn't know how to cook.
Like with everything there is a balance that needs to be struck. I think it even needs to skew heavily toward not playing games when a person is starting out or learning. Using a justification for playing games can end up stunting a person's growth and can misdirect their sense of accomplishment. "I got to level 50 in 6 weeks, I feel awesome! oh crap I haven't done any art in 6 weeks..." VS "I'm a level 100 artist in 6 weeks, I made some cool stuff, I feel amazing! Maybe I can take a day or two off and play some games to celebrate."
As an animator I don't need to physically be the person controlling the character to see how it moves and while it's a good idea to play games for inspiration and to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry, I don't think you need to play a lot of them to pick up on the core principles.
I also don't think using other games as your only point of reference is a good idea. It's like making a copy of a copy, it's the idea of "generation loss". The quality drops the further you get from the original and you miss whatever the other artists left out or missed. So don't copy a run cycle or a stone wall, directly from a game thinking it's perfect, but feel free to check them out as you do your research and look at a wide range of things, inside and outside the industry.
People who draw inspiration from unexpected places tend to be more creative and have a larger library to draw from.
What would convince me that I'm wrong about this is if enough people could share some anecdotal stories where they, as 3D artists, gained valuable knowledge directly from playing a game that they were then able to leverage in their own professional 3D art work.
I've seen guns in FPS games that looked better than mine in certain ways, motivating me to improve and giving me ideas about details or materials or whatever. It's also given me a better intuitive sense of how much of the screen is too much to obscure, how large optics need to be, that kind of thing. I've also seen guns done in very automated ways that would probably look low effort in a PC post but in context look just fine and that gives you stuff to think about in terms of how far PBR shaders can take you and how much manual work you really need to be doing with these things. This is all in a narrow context (weapons art) and I definitely play games far less than I used to (maybe 3 or 4 a year now) but it's still useful to be a consumer of the product and not just a creator of abstract capital goods that you don't understand the end value of
I have been playing a lot of video games while I was at high school but now I have not much time for that pleasure. I usually play at time to time just for few hours per week but I try to keep it at a minimum, because I could better improving my drawing skills than just playing games.
Also there is a big difference about actually "playing games" and "researching games" While playing games you are just enjoying the process of it but when you research, you are analyzing and thinking about the design of a texture on the wall, or the color theme. You can take notes, screenshots, maybe do some character study. Also you can watch walkthroughs or buy concept art books and study the art of a particular game this way. In my view, the researching process requires your brain to actually work but by just playing games your brain is relaxed. I may be wrong since all people are different but at least this is how I feel while doing these two kind of processes. And of course sometimes your brain needs a rest and playing games is one way to do it.
What would convince me that I'm wrong about this is if enough people could share some anecdotal stories where they, as 3D artists, gained valuable knowledge directly from playing a game that they were then able to leverage in their own professional 3D art work.
I've seen guns in FPS games that looked better than mine in certain ways, motivating me to improve and giving me ideas about details or materials or whatever. It's also given me a better intuitive sense of how much of the screen is too much to obscure, how large optics need to be, that kind of thing. I've also seen guns done in very automated ways that would probably look low effort in a PC post but in context look just fine and that gives you stuff to think about in terms of how far PBR shaders can take you and how much manual work you really need to be doing with these things. This is all in a narrow context (weapons art) and I definitely play games far less than I used to (maybe 3 or 4 a year now) but it's still useful to be a consumer of the product and not just a creator of abstract capital goods that you don't understand the end value of
Yep, I completely agree with that. For example, I never finished Homefront: The Revolution, but realllllly wanted to take a look at how they did their guns. Really impressive work overall and they were able to get a lot of personality into their wear.
Going forward with that, it's nice to see how other FPS handle or approach their weapon animations and compare those with the ones that we have (Black Ops III) . TItanfall 2 decided to pull up the right side of the gun on crouch/slide, which is definitely something I had not seen before.
Of course, I do play games for enjoyment as well, but definitely much less than I used to. I find that I only have a handful of games every year that I really want to play. I think this year was Overwatch, Deus Ex, Doom, Lawbreakers, Hitman, Uncharted, and a few others.
Going off of my procrastitraker logs, I find that I'm not actually playing THAT many games. Maybe 4-5 hours a week on average. Most of my wasted time after work is spent elsewhere.
I will say though if the extra time is needed, games are usually the first thing to go!
and in some cases they can help get you through creative blocks!
I was trying to create a map to show off in an environment art portofolio,
the map in question was a telecom outpost.. thing in a Finnish mountain Not a lot of references for such a thing, so after spending a while searching in pinterest and such, I gave up and just played a video game
but here I was playing the "drone" map in Black ops 2 and it hit me when I realised it too was an outpost ridden with telecom equipment, "hey, this could be a great reference!"
I think for 3D artistis it doesn't matter if you play games or not, for designer it's different. Same as for engineers working in automotive, it doesn't matter if you are interested in cars not, for the designers again I'm convinced it's important.
I'm a bit surprised that some people here sound quite negative about playing games in general, "Waste of time..", "You can better learn X and Y...". I'm curious why people choose to work as a 3D artist in the game industry even though they are not interested in the games themselves. It's not like this is the most easy going, well paid and stable industry to choose.
I personally play games when I find the time, which is mostly at night, after all other work is done. It's great as an recreational activity, I still enjoy it and think will do so until I'm too old to play.
When I started, I was heavily into modding Quake, I bought games just to mod them. So if you feel like playing games is sucking away your free time, start making games instead. I don't think the chef comparison is that accurate, how much control do most of us have over what we make? I've been doing this for 9 years and I only got to design one armor set for an MMO character myself, every other time it's a concept artist getting to flex their creative muscles and I'm the craftsman that has to recreate it. We aren't Chefs, we are Line Cooks.
The flipside of that is someone who always eats out and doesn't know how to cook.
Holy shit, that's a great way to put it!
I actually noticed that in the last year or so i've almost completely stopped playing games. I do check them out, watch some let's plays etc. But I just don't have the time to sit down and play for hours and hours anymore. I'd rather be doing something else at the end of the day. Unless it's a game that 90% fits what I want, then I might sit down and play some
I play in bursts. I might have weeks or even months when I'm too busy to do anything fun, but might then find myself with a huge chunk of free time to burn off on something other than art. It's easier to be a gamer when you're a kid and you've got nothing else to do. When you're grown and your life is essentially work, errands, and prior commitments then gaming becomes more of a luxury and less of a lifestyle.
Really interesting reading the responses in this thread!
It's strange, because as I've become more interested in modeling and making models for games, my interest in gaming has declined. I think I'd rather create the worlds now rather than play in them. I still have a lot of love for the art in games though. I've never played Overwatch, but I'm just as captivated by its characters as everyone else is. I will replay old games that got me interested in texturing and model making, usually just to study them. Like @Daew said, I really like seeing what I create in real-time, and optimizing a high-poly model to a real-time model is an art form to me.
I think people view playing games as a stigma because certain aspects of the design of games, at least in modern games, encourages voracious, consumptive play. Esports are on the rise, and so is streaming, and there is this idea that if you play games, it has to be something that consumes all of your energy. Making games while not playing them would be like a musician that refuses to listen to other music. I mean, okay, you can do what you want, but it's strange to put all your love and creativity into something while also rejecting that thing in a kind of way.
I play games because I like to explore worlds and have windows into other people's imagination. Being in an environment and exploring that environment, hanging out in that imaginary place, is a really cool thing. It's cool we possess the technology to realize an idea from someone's head so vividly.
Really interesting reading the responses in this thread!
It's strange, because as I've become more interested in modeling and making models for games, my interest in gaming has declined. I think I'd rather create the worlds now rather than play in them. I still have a lot of love for the art in games though. I've never played Overwatch, but I'm just as captivated by its characters as everyone else is. I will replay old games that got me interested in texturing and model making, usually just to study them. Like @Daew said, I really like seeing what I create in real-time, and optimizing a high-poly model to a real-time model is an art form to me.
I think people view playing games as a stigma because certain aspects of the design of games, at least in modern games, encourages voracious, consumptive play. Esports are on the rise, and so is streaming, and there is this idea that if you play games, it has to be something that consumes all of your energy. Making games while not playing them would be like a musician that refuses to listen to other music. I mean, okay, you can do what you want, but it's strange to put all your love and creativity into something while also rejecting that thing in a kind of way.
I play games because I like to explore worlds and have windows into other people's imagination. Being in an environment and exploring that environment, hanging out in that imaginary place, is a really cool thing. It's cool we possess the technology to realize an idea from someone's head so vividly.
I think we are still in an infancy that might be accelerated with the billions invested in VR and the prevalence of Indie development. Where artists might to a lesser degree see themselves as cogs in the machinery. Where they do not aspire to be 3d modelers, Texture Artists, Animators or some other combination of visual asset bricklayers...
But simply as Game Artisans.
Where game designers are as well versed in most stages of pipeline asset creation and have an advanced vocabulary for every stage even if said composer might not have the same finesse of execution for every discipline? Yet perhaps enough to surpass in the overall artistic vision and role such a discipline plays to his stratagem none the less. The same way a Mozart as a composer of music might be used to exemplify? Where the orchestrated vision is authored by an actual accomplished artist such as Mozart thus respecting music as an Artform. If we follow the same metaphor, It seems that today we have the instrument craftsmen as the designer of the final piece and burdened with that final vision? Or some fanatic Opera Hall groupie or a nerdy sheet music collector as Composer? Instead of the artisan who devotes his life to actual practice of said art??????
Kind of hard to be delicate when having such a discussion ( without pointing fingers, without appearing petty ) But if geeky gamers whose basement life is the extent of ones life experience to draw upon... Or Developers who might not have the same artistic talents although creative in their own right... It seems obvious that some of the most creative talents are the ones who view themselves as cogs happy to just have a job. Some companies even espouse and promote the edict: "we hire you to color inside the lines of OUR vision... Not have a vision of your own!" Prominently displaying such a philosophy on it's employment pages as an important bullet point for potential employees. Not that I would single out a company that actually did this ( cough cough Big Huge Games cough cough ) Since many here often appear to agree with such a policy and it probably makes their work easy knowing what is expected having the bulk of creative sweat taken care of by heavyweights like Brian Reynolds and Dave Inscore. Considering How much I loved "Rise of Nations/Legends" In their particular case I suppose they proved that philosophy was correct. In which case I suppose leaving the actual playing of the games to them would be appropriate!
But isn't it somewhat sad to be an artist that admittedly fills in the blanks to someone else's vision? Conversely, Isn't the Indie scene equally exciting? To work towards Indie pursuits where the most talented minds are at the helm collaborating and going for broke taking all the risks?
Where the instrument craftsman are simply the Engine Market ( god bless these times ) And all game loving enthusiasts as well as talented artists are truly authoring games? I draw a lot of inspiration from designers like Ken Levine and Tim Schafer who create some amazing spaces I explore often... I like to think I learn something new every time I am in a talented mind's environment. Where the insights gained through inspired meditation might even expose what might be new and essential to an intuition I have been trying to concretize? Innovation perhaps even missed by the original collaboration's authors? But at this stage of the game fer me I have no illusions that I am in-game to play! I screen games. When I invite creatives over for a meeting I invite them to a screening not to a lan party. If the Indie movement is successful and VR investments evolve interactive immersive artforms beyond "just gaming" but into a new dominant art medium... Then I would hope that most artisans up to the task would consider such time invested as essential and research might be considered time well spent the breadth of which rewards the well read with an insight and respect for that art form.
Coming to Polycount to be blown away with inspiring talent I have often dreamed that some of the most creative minds would collaborate in significant numbers at the helm of all stages of authorship to create this medium's equal to a Orson Welles/GregToland or Ridley Scott/Jordan Cronenweth/Arthur Max or Moebius/Alejandro Jodorowski. As much talent residing here... And as much awe and inspiration I draw from the posts on a daily basis... There easily seems to be an unequal amount of mediocre hackneyed boredom being released in comparison to the talent this industry has as a resource to pull from??? Where no studio seems to pull a stable of the best caliber from the Polycount brain trust as if they were blind to unequal talent and what respect that talent deserves? As if it were an infinite resource? You would think talent would have more value like precious rare minerals greedily hoarded and fought over? The way I greedily build my library of inspiration images raped form the coffers at ArtStation and Polycount to lovingly caress with envious eyes every night night before I go to bed in hopes my dreams fertilize such inspiration thru repetitive osmosis! Or maybe the wrong talent is stepping up to the plate to create the medium's next masterpiece. Just hoping that the Indie Market produces the same volume and quality representative of the same potential of imagination displayed here?
I have a family, work my full time job, do contract work, and work on personal projects. I like playing games, but I always feel like shit if I'm playing games instead of being productive. That said, I do occasionally binge on a new game or Netflix special.
I think a lot of it is simply understanding where the bar is at.
A lot of artists and animators can have a good sense of where the pulse of the industry is at without needing to play games. They can look up the Uncharted 4 art dump, or open up Grassetti's art station page.
That said, a more cerebral understanding of how games work has helped me from time to time. But that really depends on the level of autonomy you have in your position, and what kind of contributions you're given freedom to make.
Like if you're the ONE character artist on a team of 3, and you're charged with the task of creating a Character Creator. Having a very in-depth understanding of what other character creators are like, what they can do, what gives you most bang for the buck, and how they made those assets will help a LOT.
How did Bioware do their face customization? How did Skyrim do their hair? What did Black Desert do for body proportions? Where Sunset Blvd place their seam lines, for customization of jackets/Tshirts/Halter Tops/ Hoodies, highboots/sandles, and shoes?
Did those have facial animation? if so what did they use? FaceFX? or was all of it hand animated? What can we do to maximize what we can do with faceFX? How did they handle hair? Was every head shape the same? Could we use glasses on them? Haircards like Destiny? Or Helmet hair like Guildwars 2?
How did they handle shared animations across characters with different proportions? What kind of accessories can we put on these characters?
If a skinny woman and a fat man hold a shotgun, how do you model it in a way that it doesn't penetrate into the fat man, or float in the air of the skinny woman if they're both using the same animations? How did other games handle this? Can you name a game off the top of your head?
It's hard to answer a lot of those questions unless you've played several games that had a Character Creator. It's even harder if you're working autonomously, and if you're in a Senior or Lead role, and required to shoulder much of the decision-making on these matters.
I generally play one or two games at the most until it die out. Right now my game is rainbow six siege.I enjoy this game because it's straight to the point and strategic. I don't like games that have HUD everywhere and gameplay that don't fit the graphics.Many games are like that now which is why I don't play a lot. There will always be a game or two I play because that's what I go to whenever I need to unplug from 3D or a long day of work. If not that I just fire up twitch and watch some streams as I'm doing 3D.
Replies
I'd argue the important thing with film is visuals and storytelling. And if someone can do that without watching films, then, I don't think watching films matters so much for them.
Now, they won't be making the next big blockbuster, I'd guess. So it really depends on if the goal is to be an interesting/artistic game, or a 'fun'/popular game (these can overlap, but don't do it that often). Same applies to any medium of art. I do think if you want to make the next big sensation, you need to be tapped into the pop culture.
It is beneficial for game designers to play games, but I'd argue that the vast majority of hopeful game devs are hindered by their gaming habits.
The biggest problem I see is that every indie gamedev wants to make "their game". Their idea of a perfect game, is more often than not, completely un-fun to play for others.
What is very rare is gamedevs who make games for their playerbase, and not themselves. Art vs Design is making for yourself vs making for others.
To be honest, I still play games! However I only play in very limited quanities at events and game meetups. I play other peoples games, but I'm not at home playing 20+ hours of LoL, CS:GO etc a week.
Gaming is not so important imo. Figuring out which games are popular and why they are popular is more important.
I constantly see amaetuer and aspiring artists and devs doing thing "their way" completely unwilling to do things better, or more in line with market demands. That kind of personal attachment is hindering and that kind of relationship of games (gaming as part of your identity) will hurt more than help.
Like with everything there is a balance that needs to be struck. I think it even needs to skew heavily toward not playing games when a person is starting out or learning. Using a justification for playing games can end up stunting a person's growth and can misdirect their sense of accomplishment.
"I got to level 50 in 6 weeks, I feel awesome! oh crap I haven't done any art in 6 weeks..."
VS
"I'm a level 100 artist in 6 weeks, I made some cool stuff, I feel amazing! Maybe I can take a day or two off and play some games to celebrate."
As an animator I don't need to physically be the person controlling the character to see how it moves and while it's a good idea to play games for inspiration and to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry, I don't think you need to play a lot of them to pick up on the core principles.
I also don't think using other games as your only point of reference is a good idea. It's like making a copy of a copy, it's the idea of "generation loss". The quality drops the further you get from the original and you miss whatever the other artists left out or missed. So don't copy a run cycle or a stone wall, directly from a game thinking it's perfect, but feel free to check them out as you do your research and look at a wide range of things, inside and outside the industry.
People who draw inspiration from unexpected places tend to be more creative and have a larger library to draw from.
I've seen guns in FPS games that looked better than mine in certain ways, motivating me to improve and giving me ideas about details or materials or whatever. It's also given me a better intuitive sense of how much of the screen is too much to obscure, how large optics need to be, that kind of thing. I've also seen guns done in very automated ways that would probably look low effort in a PC post but in context look just fine and that gives you stuff to think about in terms of how far PBR shaders can take you and how much manual work you really need to be doing with these things. This is all in a narrow context (weapons art) and I definitely play games far less than I used to (maybe 3 or 4 a year now) but it's still useful to be a consumer of the product and not just a creator of abstract capital goods that you don't understand the end value of
Also there is a big difference about actually "playing games" and "researching games" While playing games you are just enjoying the process of it but when you research, you are analyzing and thinking about the design of a texture on the wall, or the color theme. You can take notes, screenshots, maybe do some character study. Also you can watch walkthroughs or buy concept art books and study the art of a particular game this way. In my view, the researching process requires your brain to actually work but by just playing games your brain is relaxed. I may be wrong since all people are different but at least this is how I feel while doing these two kind of processes. And of course sometimes your brain needs a rest and playing games is one way to do it.
Here is a youtube video where Feng Zhu is stating his opinion on this video games subject:
starts at 6:23
Going forward with that, it's nice to see how other FPS handle or approach their weapon animations and compare those with the ones that we have (Black Ops III) . TItanfall 2 decided to pull up the right side of the gun on crouch/slide, which is definitely something I had not seen before.
Of course, I do play games for enjoyment as well, but definitely much less than I used to. I find that I only have a handful of games every year that I really want to play. I think this year was Overwatch, Deus Ex, Doom, Lawbreakers, Hitman, Uncharted, and a few others.
Going off of my procrastitraker logs, I find that I'm not actually playing THAT many games. Maybe 4-5 hours a week on average. Most of my wasted time after work is spent elsewhere.
I will say though if the extra time is needed, games are usually the first thing to go!
I was trying to create a map to show off in an environment art portofolio,
the map in question was a telecom outpost.. thing in a Finnish mountain
Not a lot of references for such a thing,
so after spending a while searching in pinterest and such, I gave up and just played a video game
but here I was playing the "drone" map in Black ops 2 and it hit me when I realised it too was an outpost ridden with telecom equipment,
"hey, this could be a great reference!"
and then I got working on the map again.
Same as for engineers working in automotive, it doesn't matter if you are interested in cars not, for the designers again I'm convinced it's important.
I'm a bit surprised that some people here sound quite negative about playing games in general, "Waste of time..", "You can better learn X and Y...".
I'm curious why people choose to work as a 3D artist in the game industry even though they are not interested in the games themselves. It's not like this is the most easy going, well paid and stable industry to choose.
I personally play games when I find the time, which is mostly at night, after all other work is done. It's great as an recreational activity, I still enjoy it and think will do so until I'm too old to play.
I actually noticed that in the last year or so i've almost completely stopped playing games. I do check them out, watch some let's plays etc. But I just don't have the time to sit down and play for hours and hours anymore. I'd rather be doing something else at the end of the day. Unless it's a game that 90% fits what I want, then I might sit down and play some
It's strange, because as I've become more interested in modeling and making models for games, my interest in gaming has declined. I think I'd rather create the worlds now rather than play in them. I still have a lot of love for the art in games though. I've never played Overwatch, but I'm just as captivated by its characters as everyone else is. I will replay old games that got me interested in texturing and model making, usually just to study them. Like @Daew said, I really like seeing what I create in real-time, and optimizing a high-poly model to a real-time model is an art form to me.
I think people view playing games as a stigma because certain aspects of the design of games, at least in modern games, encourages voracious, consumptive play. Esports are on the rise, and so is streaming, and there is this idea that if you play games, it has to be something that consumes all of your energy. Making games while not playing them would be like a musician that refuses to listen to other music. I mean, okay, you can do what you want, but it's strange to put all your love and creativity into something while also rejecting that thing in a kind of way.
I play games because I like to explore worlds and have windows into other people's imagination. Being in an environment and exploring that environment, hanging out in that imaginary place, is a really cool thing. It's cool we possess the technology to realize an idea from someone's head so vividly.
I think we are still in an infancy that might be accelerated with the billions invested in VR and the prevalence of Indie development.
Where artists might to a lesser degree see themselves as cogs in the machinery. Where they do not aspire to be 3d modelers, Texture Artists, Animators or some other combination of visual asset bricklayers...
But simply as Game Artisans.
Where game designers are as well versed in most stages of pipeline asset creation and have an advanced vocabulary for every stage even if said composer might not have the same finesse of execution for every discipline? Yet perhaps enough to surpass in the overall artistic vision and role such a discipline plays to his stratagem none the less.
The same way a Mozart as a composer of music might be used to exemplify? Where the orchestrated vision is authored by an actual accomplished artist such as Mozart thus respecting music as an Artform.
If we follow the same metaphor, It seems that today we have the instrument craftsmen as the designer of the final piece and burdened with that final vision? Or some fanatic Opera Hall groupie or a nerdy sheet music collector as Composer?
Instead of the artisan who devotes his life to actual practice of said art??????
Kind of hard to be delicate when having such a discussion ( without pointing fingers, without appearing petty )
But if geeky gamers whose basement life is the extent of ones life experience to draw upon...
Or Developers who might not have the same artistic talents although creative in their own right...
It seems obvious that some of the most creative talents are the ones who view themselves as cogs happy to just have a job.
Some companies even espouse and promote the edict: "we hire you to color inside the lines of OUR vision... Not have a vision of your own!"
Prominently displaying such a philosophy on it's employment pages as an important bullet point for potential employees.
Not that I would single out a company that actually did this ( cough cough Big Huge Games cough cough )
Since many here often appear to agree with such a policy and it probably makes their work easy knowing what is expected having the bulk of creative sweat taken care of by heavyweights like Brian Reynolds and Dave Inscore. Considering How much I loved "Rise of Nations/Legends"
In their particular case I suppose they proved that philosophy was correct.
In which case I suppose leaving the actual playing of the games to them would be appropriate!
But isn't it somewhat sad to be an artist that admittedly fills in the blanks to someone else's vision?
Conversely, Isn't the Indie scene equally exciting? To work towards Indie pursuits where the most talented minds are at the helm collaborating and going for broke taking all the risks?
Where the instrument craftsman are simply the Engine Market ( god bless these times )
And all game loving enthusiasts as well as talented artists are truly authoring games?
I draw a lot of inspiration from designers like Ken Levine and Tim Schafer who create some amazing spaces I explore often... I like to think I learn something new every time I am in a talented mind's environment. Where the insights gained through inspired meditation might even expose what might be new and essential to an intuition I have been trying to concretize? Innovation perhaps even missed by the original collaboration's authors?
But at this stage of the game fer me I have no illusions that I am in-game to play! I screen games.
When I invite creatives over for a meeting I invite them to a screening not to a lan party.
If the Indie movement is successful and VR investments evolve interactive immersive artforms beyond "just gaming" but into a new dominant art medium...
Then I would hope that most artisans up to the task would consider such time invested as essential and research might be considered time well spent the breadth of which rewards the well read with an insight and respect for that art form.
Coming to Polycount to be blown away with inspiring talent I have often dreamed that some of the most creative minds would collaborate in significant numbers at the helm of all stages of authorship to create this medium's equal to a Orson Welles/GregToland or Ridley Scott/Jordan Cronenweth/Arthur Max or Moebius/Alejandro Jodorowski.
As much talent residing here... And as much awe and inspiration I draw from the posts on a daily basis... There easily seems to be an unequal amount of mediocre hackneyed boredom being released in comparison to the talent this industry has as a resource to pull from???
Where no studio seems to pull a stable of the best caliber from the Polycount brain trust as if they were blind to unequal talent and what respect that talent deserves? As if it were an infinite resource? You would think talent would have more value like precious rare minerals greedily hoarded and fought over? The way I greedily build my library of inspiration images raped form the coffers at ArtStation and Polycount to lovingly caress with envious eyes every night night before I go to bed in hopes my dreams fertilize such inspiration thru repetitive osmosis!
Or maybe the wrong talent is stepping up to the plate to create the medium's next masterpiece. Just hoping that the Indie Market produces the same volume and quality representative of the same potential of imagination displayed here?
I have a family, work my full time job, do contract work, and work on personal projects. I like playing games, but I always feel like shit if I'm playing games instead of being productive. That said, I do occasionally binge on a new game or Netflix special.
A lot of artists and animators can have a good sense of where the pulse of the industry is at without needing to play games. They can look up the Uncharted 4 art dump, or open up Grassetti's art station page.
That said, a more cerebral understanding of how games work has helped me from time to time. But that really depends on the level of autonomy you have in your position, and what kind of contributions you're given freedom to make.
Like if you're the ONE character artist on a team of 3, and you're charged with the task of creating a Character Creator.
Having a very in-depth understanding of what other character creators are like, what they can do, what gives you most bang for the buck, and how they made those assets will help a LOT.
How did Bioware do their face customization?
How did Skyrim do their hair?
What did Black Desert do for body proportions?
Where Sunset Blvd place their seam lines, for customization of jackets/Tshirts/Halter Tops/ Hoodies, highboots/sandles, and shoes?
Did those have facial animation? if so what did they use? FaceFX? or was all of it hand animated?
What can we do to maximize what we can do with faceFX?
How did they handle hair? Was every head shape the same? Could we use glasses on them?
Haircards like Destiny? Or Helmet hair like Guildwars 2?
How did they handle shared animations across characters with different proportions?
What kind of accessories can we put on these characters?
If a skinny woman and a fat man hold a shotgun, how do you model it in a way that it doesn't penetrate into the fat man, or float in the air of the skinny woman if they're both using the same animations? How did other games handle this? Can you name a game off the top of your head?
It's hard to answer a lot of those questions unless you've played several games that had a Character Creator. It's even harder if you're working autonomously, and if you're in a Senior or Lead role, and required to shoulder much of the decision-making on these matters.