What artistic skills to be learned for environment artists??

Hassan

I have started the path by modeling props and texturing them, but I still don't know what artistic skills should I learn to be an environment artist who is responsible of a whole environment. Anyone have any tips in this topic??

CrackRockSteady

There are a ton of different skills that are good to know as an environment artist, although which of those are actually utilized on the job will depend on the specific position and may vary from studio to studio/project to project.

Modular building, lighting, material creation, world building/environmental storytelling, and many other skills are good to know.  The polycount wiki is a good place to start as each of these topics can take you down a pretty deep rabbit hole http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Environment

Andreicus

Composition and lightning, set the right mood for the scene, the ability to evoke feelings and emotions and to tell a story without any characters visible

PixelMasher

yea, composition and layout are critical, being able to look at the whole big picture and see where you need to strategically add detail and where you can save time.

from a technical standpoint, get comfortable with using modular kits and re-using a ton of tiling and trim textures to build environments with a few core sets of materials. most environment work is made with tiling textures and trims while props and assets tend to be unique unwraps.

and if you can get really good at lighting thats a super strong bonus skill to develop, or....make some badass environments and partner with a lighting artist to get the most bang for your buck, its win/win for the both of you then.

Ashervisalis

@PixelMasher Hey bud, can you give a low down on what 'trim textures' are? I've looked around but can't find anything on it.

JordanN

More color theory would be nice.

I took a year studying how humans react to color and it changed my entire worldview on art forever.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-color-red-influences-our-behavior/
https://digitalsynopsis.com/design/color-meanings-theory-psychology/

CrackRockSteady

Ashervisalis said:

@PixelMasher Hey bud, can you give a low down on what 'trim textures' are? I've looked around but can't find anything on it.

This article has some good examples (pictures and explanation) https://80.lv/articles/tiling-textures-in-game-environments/

Essentially just tiled textures that contain multiple strips of "trim" and other details that you can quickly UV bits of geometry to in order to get extra detail in your scene without uniquely modeling/baking.

Ashervisalis

@CrackRockSteady Thanks man!

Taylor Brown

@CrackRockSteady
had this same question on my mind, thank you

Ex-Ray

Ashervisalis said:

@PixelMasher Hey bud, can you give a low down on what 'trim textures' are? I've looked around but can't find anything on it.

https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022323/The-Ultimate-Trim-Texturing-Techniques