How long did it take you to get good?
polycounter lvl 6
The quality of work on this website is down right intimidating. I don't think I will ever be as good as a lot of the users here. How many years (or hours) have you put into your craft to get that good?
I didn't get any formal training and am kind of self taught which hinders my process by quite a lot. 3DSMAX - 18 months. VRAY - 6 months. Unity - 3 Months. Making video game levels - 12 years.
I didn't get any formal training and am kind of self taught which hinders my process by quite a lot. 3DSMAX - 18 months. VRAY - 6 months. Unity - 3 Months. Making video game levels - 12 years.
Replies
it just depends on how much time you put into it.
If you want to become a character artist working on high poly vehicle models isn't a waste of time, but definitely not the best use of it.
Took me 3 years starting from freshman year in uni to get paid for game art. 2 and a half years after graduation to finally find a full time position.
I was in other fields around 3-4 years after college. I stayed in a film/vfx studio working in sterescopic 3D. It was separate from what I normally do. I had some low-poly pieces on my portfolio back then. It felt outdated, and I couldn't show anything I did in film. I had some small clips, but it didn't relate to environment art.
I remember having a complete reset on my portfolio around 2013/2014. Literally, when PBR became a thing in the industry, that was when I was trying to redo my portfolio. Got into military training simulations, hard-surface modeling stuff, so kind of related. Did some freelance stuff after.
The job I'm at now is probably my first one, in-house, as far as on a position that I wanted back then. So maybe 3 years for me? From when I wiped my old portfolio.
So if I'm good now, its never good enough and I'm always getting better.
Also not every artist who gets a job is a good artist but probably good enough for the job (for the time being)
I think a good milestone for me would be when I'm the one giving out the jobs, lol.
I don't think it's healthy to compare yourself to others too much as it can be super intimidating. I tend to compare my work with what I have made in the past... if I have made improvements then I can be happy knowing that I'm making progress.
Just kidding, but for me the base standard for me is when someone wants to pay you for your work. Which is something that has yet to happen for me in the 3ish years since I started teaching myself to make 3d models. However one of the nice things about polycount is that I can go back and see how my quality has changed over the last few years, so at least I can say for certain I'm better than I was.
So I picked up 3D I think in March this year and I currently work on my art about 14 - 20 hours a week. I was doing more than that up until about a month ago because my old job allowed me to work 4 days a week so I could spend all my Fridays on art. My new job is partially a design role though so occasionally I get paid to draw things.
I don't know if it made a difference or not but I spent all of last year learning to draw and I was working towards something like graphic design until I fell in love with 3D instead.
I'm also not sure that the time spent is all there is to it (though it does help if you can spend more time). I think being consistent and working every day on something is the key. Also being aware of what you are bad at, so you know where to focus your attention.
SPOILER : You never get good. You just suck a little bit less everyday.
I think it was about 3 years between when I decided I wanted to do this as a career and actually getting my first job. I was a hobbyist/modder for many years and picked up the basics from that. After a year or so of trying the self-taught route with no success I went back to school, built up a much stronger skill-set, and got a better sense of what I needed to do to break in. After that there was another 6 months of upgrading my portfolio from a grab-bag of student work into something with an actual focus. Finally I got my first job, which lead to a series of other short jobs and eventually something a bit more stable.
I'm not sure there was any definite point where I went from “not good” to “good”. For me it's been an ongoing process of learning new skills, getting better at understanding the difference between really impressive pieces and so-so ones, and getting better at my craft. I don't think it's a process that has an end.
The standard of whats considered “good” for a commercial production is always changing. Those of us who choose to make a career out of making art will always be developing new skills to keep up.
I started when i was in 9th std as an hobby and joined a diploma course when i finished my 10th but i couldn't do both High School and Diploma. So i left Diploma (Animation and Visual Effects). .. Now i am doing a degree program ( Game Art)... In all this years i have improved but not as gud as Industry Level... I am going to work hard, wooo hoooo
Getting good enough for a job is another thing. It can take years but it's really different for everybody. I know people who done 3D for 3 years then got a job and people that needed twice that time. Everybody is self taught a way or another.
I personally started learning when I was 15, then got my first job at 21. So it took me 6 years (which includes all my personal time, college and few online classes) to "get good" enough for a job. 5 years and a few jobs later do I consider myself good yet? Not even close.
They key is just to never stop and keep learning, and at some point it's going to pay off.
But they are also confirming how long I thought it would take between deciding to become a video game artist and getting a job in the industry.
Thanks for all the great replies guys.
- I decided about 2 years ago that I was interested in doing a freelance art job.
- About a year ago I decided that would be 3D modeling, and started learning
3D around that time.
- About 3 months ago I decided that I want to work specifically in game industry
and specialize in environment art.
- I reckon it will take me another year before I have a portfolio with two or three
"strong" pieces in it. (however I'm lucky to have a lot of free time right now)
So I will see how it goes.
I think there is a number of factors that influence how fast you progress :
1. The amount of free time you have / make for yourself
2. How willing you are to sacrifice everything else in your life for it / how bad you want it
3. How quickly you decide what discipline you are most interested in pursuing
4. How efficient you are at learning : for example only learning software you need for your discipline, learning from current tutorials from professionals in that industry etc
5. If you have friends in the industry / a relevant social network / surrounded by great artists working hard
6. How low you can make your living expenses / how much you can lower your standards (so you either have more free time or money to invest in 3D. For example ; renting in a cheaper place so you can get a part time job, using free software instead of expensive ones, upgrading laptop with cheap eGpu instead of building a rig , living in a cupboard to save money etc things like that )
7. I guess how much initial money you have to invest in a good laptop or rig and tutorials or software licenses can effect the time too
8. How good your "secondary skills" are , for example :
- communication skills
- ability to take criticism
- your drawing skills
- your composition skills
- color theory skills
- general organization skills
- self awareness skills
- self discipline skills / implicit motivation levels
- and loads of others, whatever is relevant depending on your discipline also
9. What job you want. For example if you are shooting straight for a very hard one
like character artist in AAA studio, it might take much longer than if you were
trying to become an environment artist in an indie studio (like I want to do!)
But this cannot be viewed in isolation, because if you are more passionate
about the AAA job, than perhaps that would actually happen faster (this relates
to your self awareness skills like I reverenced above)
10. If you can get grants or social welfare to pursue 3D, in some countries the
state will pay you to pursue things like that, or pay for education, so you
can get paid to go and spent all your time working on your portfolio. This
will probably speed up things alot. Although.... some people might be faster
at progressing if they are running out of money and working another job that
they hate because it motivates them to build their own 3D carrier
11. Watching good tutorials and building up good / modern workflows early on
12. Ability to focus on the now, and enjoy working on grueling hard / long 3D
projects and iterations. Rather than focusing on were you want to be so
much that you build a physiological divide between who you want to be
and who you are now and then getting depressed and giving up or endlessly
procrastinating
13. If you have partner or children (could take up a lot of your time). But if they
are encouraging it could be a bonus too, depends on situation.
Thats all I could think of right now, can anyone think of other important factors that
influence how fast you progress?
I want to fill that gap which is a less straight forward path, but people have definitely done it.
Anyway, I know how you feel - Australia is a wasteland for a 3D artist. If you're in the east you have it better than me, arch viz is definitely an option, but I know there are jobs in CG which could be worth considering for a stepping-stone.
I'm currently working as a visualisation artist for a playground design company, but only get to use VRAY and rarely get to make anything (just using BIM data from suppliers). I'm trying to sell my boss on the power of UE4 but it's taking a while for him to get around to it. It requires hiring another part time viz artist.
I'm seeing more and more jobs popping up for "Unreal Engine Artist" in the viz market which is the perfect bridging gap between viz and games. UE4 kind of unites viz, games, VR, AR and even Data visualisation (potentially). I see it as an excellent program to focus on.