Thoughts on Hand-painted vs 'stylized' PBR?

LSheridan

I'm currently debating whether or not I should just focus on one or both. Most the attention grabbing stuff on Artstation seem to be stylized PBR. So far I just have portfolio work that is hand-painted. 

Anyone have any suggestions? I really enjoy hand painting, but can't help but feel like the PBR route is the right way to go these days.

My portfolio for reference: https://www.artstation.com/lukesheridan

Thanks!

JordanN

My gut reaction says stylized PBR has more career options, since that's what big games like Overwatch or Crash Bandicoot are doing.

When I think of 'hand painted diffuse only' it's mostly mobile/PC games although even they are making the switch to a fully PBR pipeline too.

Although, I don't see the harm in focusing on both. 

LSheridan

That is my feeling as well, especially since the likes of Overwatch and many copycats.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Do both.  You can do straight up handpainted in PBR workflows: just turn off specular related options in shaders.

poopipe

If you want a job, you're going to want to make sure employers see that you're capable of doing what they need on their projects...as such you'd be foolish to not have any examples of photoreal type work. 

LSheridan

Thanks for the input. I think I'm going to move to doing some PBR work as most job listings, at least in my area, seem to revolve around that.

Zack Maxwell

poopipe said:

If you want a job, you're going to want to make sure employers see that you're capable of doing what they need on their projects...as such you'd be foolish to not have any examples of photoreal type work. 

Unless you don't want to do photoreal work. Diluting your portfolio with stuff you are neither good at nor interested in seems like a bad idea to me.

EarthQuake

"hand-painted" vs "stylized" isn't a thing. You can do stylized PBR, you can do hand painted PBR, you can do hand painted stylized PBR, and you can do hand painted, stylized, NPR. None of these ideas are mutually inclusive or exclusive.

Hand painted simply means you painted something by hand. You may choose to exaggerate the brushwork, you may paint in a very realistic manner, or something in between. The other end of the spectrum is photo source or procedural (Substance Designer) based texturing, generally involving baked masked and layered effects in apps like Painter and nDo. These days, nDo/Painter centric workflows dominate at most studios. Of course, you can blend more traditional aspects of hand painting with these tools and workflows too.

Stylized means any number of things. It could be a matter of bright and vibrant colors, it could be impressionistic brush work, it could be exaggerated proportions. Stylization can happen at many different points in the art/art direction pipeline, including the modeling work, material work, lighting, shaders, post effects, etc.

PBR defines a certain type of technical workflow and shader/lighting pipeline.

I would recommend learning the fundamental concepts of PBR, the same way you would study anatomy, color theory, etc, so that you know how to work with modern rendering techniques regardless of the style of art you're creating.

As far as what style or techniques you should should for, this really depends on your goals. If you're hoping to work on a specific type of game with a specific type of look, you should research what studios make those games and the sort of workflows they use to create content, and then type to target your work to that.

Now, targeting your portfolio to a specific art style or studio is risky business. If you're trying to break into the industry, you'll find it easier to target what is broadly appealing, which tends to be realistic rather than stylized games. Simply put, there are a lot more realistic games on the market/in production, so there are more jobs. 

Targeting is generally something that is a good idea for more experienced artists. Once you've established your skills and ability to work in the industry, then you can start to specialize more, and you may want to narrow your stye range to what you really enjoy doing. If your skills are in demand, this is much less risky.

EarthQuake

Brian "Panda" Choi said:

Do both.  You can do straight up handpainted in PBR workflows: just turn off specular related options in shaders.

This would no longer be PBR, so let's not confuse matters by calling it so. If you're messing with the shaders specifically to break physically based rendering principals, it's an NPR (non-photorealistic) rendering pipeline.

You can, however, do straight up hand painted maps for all the standard PBR map types (albedo/spec/gloss or albedo/metal/rough), and get a hand-painted look in a PBR pipeline. Of course, if you're using PBR to it's full potential, we're talking dynamic lighting, reflections, etc, rather than the painted-on-abs of old school hand painted texturing.

Zack Maxwell

EarthQuake said:

"hand-painted" vs "stylized" isn't a thing. You can do stylized PBR, you can do hand painted PBR, you can do hand painted stylized PBR, and you can do hand painted, stylized, NPR. None of these ideas are mutually inclusive or exclusive.

Hand painted simply means you painted something by hand. You may choose to exaggerate the brushwork, you may paint in a very realistic manner, or something inbetween.

Stylized means any number of things. It could be a matter of bright and vibrant colors, it could be impressionistic brush work, it could be exaggerated proportions. Stylization can happen at many different points in the art/art direction pipeline, including the modeling work, material work, lighting, shaders, post effects, etc.

PBR defines a certain type of technical workflow and shader/lighting pipeline.

I would recommend learning the fundamental concepts of PBR, the same way you would study anatomy, color theory, etc, so that you know how to work with modern rendering techniques regardless of the style of art you're creating.

You're kind of just playing with semantics, though. Based on the conversation, he seems to be referring specifically to the Overwatch style when he says "Stylized PBR", which I'd say is the most common representation of that.

LSheridan

EarthQuake said:

"hand-painted" vs "stylized" isn't a thing. You can do stylized PBR, you can do hand painted PBR, you can do hand painted stylized PBR, and you can do hand painted, stylized, NPR. None of these ideas are mutually inclusive or exclusive.

Hand painted simply means you painted something by hand. You may choose to exaggerate the brushwork, you may paint in a very realistic manner, or something inbetween.

Sorry I didn't clarify, I guess I meant just hand-painted diffuse compared to doing any kind of PBR workflow on a stylized character. Most direct examples being WoW compared to Overwatch. 

Justo

@Grimwolf  I don't think EQ was wrong in saying so anyway ha, he was just clarifying those very 'semantics' because, well, it's important to know the difference. 

EarthQuake

LSheridan said:

EarthQuake said:

"hand-painted" vs "stylized" isn't a thing. You can do stylized PBR, you can do hand painted PBR, you can do hand painted stylized PBR, and you can do hand painted, stylized, NPR. None of these ideas are mutually inclusive or exclusive.

Hand painted simply means you painted something by hand. You may choose to exaggerate the brushwork, you may paint in a very realistic manner, or something inbetween.

Sorry I didn't clarify, I guess I meant just hand-painted diffuse compared to doing any kind of PBR workflow on a stylized character. Most direct examples being WoW compared to Overwatch. 

No worries. Yeah, if that's the question, you should definitely get into PBR, it's where the industry is going, or well, where it already is. 

SeveredScion

@LSheridan looking at your artstation I advise you do some stylized PBR assets. I really like what you have up there but it's all diffuse only. It would be good to show you can do proper reflective/gloss values. I love stylized PBR stuff. Can still have that watercolor-y handpainted look but stuff like metals really pop.

LSheridan

@EarthQuake Will do!

@SeveredScion Thanks! I agree, this seems like the right route. Actually started a thread for my next project: http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2616084#Comment_2616084