if the fact that doing uv's annoys you to the point where it stops you from making finished art then you might want to rethink your career choice. not to mention if you are planning on relying on some fancy software to power your output, shits gonna hit the fan when you join a studio and they don't have it.
Why does criticizing software (because I want to see it do better and make life better for everyone) mean I have to stop working with it?
Would this logic apply to cars, where if there was something you didn't like about your vehicle, it means you can no longer drive?
You can be an artist, make art with the current tools, but still say it's not perfect. I would actually be worried if that wasn't the case. It would mean Autodesk or Epic could just release any product and handwave feedback.
"Don't like the bug? Don't make games dude". But they don't do this.
UV's annoy me, yes. But do I want to quit making art? No. I want to keep making art while tools keep on improving with it. It's an opportunity for companies to make money, because there's competition to make one product clearly superior over the other. Instead of everything being the same.
@JordanN , I think you are intentionally missing the point because you don't want to feel like you were proven wrong. Nothing wrong with conceding an argument, even if you feel you were right all along. If you are married, this is a very important thing to learn. Nobody is going to think less of you if you just quietly bow out. A true warrior picks and chooses their battles, rather than fights the entire world.
It's quite a simple argument really, and might be summarized like this, "Don't bitch and groan unless you have an actual solution/proposed solution to suggest."
This just isn't really the correct place either. If you got a specific issue with a product, you go to that products support area and lay out your issues with them. Autodesk, for all the shit talked about them, seems to have excellent customer support as far as my experience goes. A number of times I've gone to them with specific questions and they take time to work through the issues with me. And who the hell am I? Some random noob. You can't beat service like that.
Also, they've got entire forums setup for users to make suggestions and vote on them. From what I can tell, people aren't making enough use of this. Kind of like how, in America, hardly anybody votes, but everybody bitches about the politicians in charge. People have to take responsibility for the environment in which they live. It's a catch-22. You cannot be selfish, and expect the world to work how you want. Only by taking responsibility for the greater whole can you gain some control over things and work them towards your own selfish desires.
No use going to an art forum and just griping that you aren't happy with the state of technology in general. It's just useless and puts people in a foul mood.
@JordanN , I think you are intentionally missing the point because you don't want to feel like you were proven wrong. Nothing wrong with conceding an argument, even if you feel you were right all along. If you are married, this is a very important thing to learn. Nobody is going to think less of you if you just quietly bow out. A true warrior picks and chooses their battles, rather than fights the entire world.
It's quite a simple argument really, and might be summarized like this, "Don't bitch and groan unless you have an actual solution/proposed solution to suggest."
This just isn't really the correct place either. If you got a specific issue with a product, you go to that products support area and lay out your issues with them. No use going to an art forum and just griping that you aren't happy with the state of technology in general. It's just useless and puts people in a foul mood.
I'm posting in a thread that is about software development.
Would you prefer if the only replies in this thread was "there is no stagnation. The software is perfect or just don't make games"?
It would be a boring discussion since only one point of view is discussed.
if the fact that doing uv's annoys you to the point where it stops you from making finished art then you might want to rethink your career choice. not to mention if you are planning on relying on some fancy software to power your output, shits gonna hit the fan when you join a studio and they don't have it.
Why does criticizing software (because I want to see it do better and make life better for everyone) mean I have to stop working with it?
Would this logic apply to cars, where if there was something you didn't like about your vehicle, it means you can no longer drive?
You can be an artist, make art with the current tools, but still say it's not perfect. I would actually be worried if that wasn't the case. It would mean Autodesk or Epic could just release any product and handwave feedback.
"Don't like the bug? Don't make games dude". But they don't do this.
UV's annoy me, yes. But do I want to quit making art? No. I want to keep making art while tools keep on improving with it. It's an opportunity for companies to make money, because there's competition to make one product clearly superior over the other. Instead of everything being the same.
A better analogy would be if you're in your car and you need to get to work on time (finish a game) but your seat won't recline properly. Do you stop somewhere for hours waiting for someone to fix it because it isn't working exactly the way you think it should, or do you drive to work because it ultimately won't prevent you from getting there on time? (spoiler: you drive to work because otherwise you're out of a job)
I'm posting in a thread that is about software development.
Would you prefer if the only replies in this thread was "there is no stagnation. The software is perfect or just don't make games"?
It would be a boring discussion since only one point of view is discussed.
The thread itself was baloney to begin with. That's why the OP got ran off, more or less.
Useful replies would be something like this, "yeah, i feel like Maxs UV's lack in this area, and if they worked more like this proposed solution, we might save a lot of time."
Useless replies, not that we need more examples, are liike this, "UV's suck. We ought to be doing better with this by now. My fingers hurt."
Imagine, we are all in a life raft together. One person starts griping that there isn't enough room, and they are getting sunburnt, and it sucks. Blah blah blah. Now everybody is getting pissy, and things are only gonna get worse.
If, instead, that person keeps their mouth shut, eyes and ears open, and waits until they have something useful to say, they might work out some solution to the problem. "Hey guys, there is a lot of us, and only so much room. I think if we work out a schedule to change seats, we can all avoid being sunburnt."
Maybe the idea isn't worth a damn, and maybe there is some argument over better solutions. But the difference is, you got people thinking and working together, rather than getting themselves in a worse and worse mood.
You can be a leader, or a follower. Both are necessary roles to fill in any team. But being a bitchy follower is likely to get you thrown off the raft!
A better analogy would be if you're in your car and you need to get to work on time (finish a game) but your seat won't recline properly. Do you stop somewhere for hours waiting for someone to fix it because it isn't working exactly the way you think it should, or do you drive to work because it ultimately won't prevent you from getting there on time? (spoiler: you drive to work because otherwise you're out of a job)
You're still making the assumption that you can't complain about a vehicle while having to get to work on time.
You can still drive to work but tell your boss when you arrive "Look, I like the car you gave me but the way the recliner works right now is costing me an extra 5 minutes to get to work. Perhaps we should start looking at an alternative recliner in the future that will provide both comfort and less time spent on getting the recliner to work properly".
Just like with UV mapping, it's still a tool that will get me to the end. But that doesn't mean I can't make notes of what I don't like about it along the way. Or raise criticisms when I am done using it.
No one said you can't criticize software and think that it should be better. PixelMasher said that if UV mapping is such an annoyance to you that it prevents you from making finished art then you should rethink your career choice.
if the fact that doing uv's annoys you to the point where it stops you from making finished art then you might want to rethink your career choice. not to mention if you are planning on relying on some fancy software to power your output, shits gonna hit the fan when you join a studio and they don't have it.
Would this logic apply to cars, where if there was something you didn't like about your vehicle, it means you can no longer drive?
It would mean Autodesk or Epic could just release any product and handwave feedback. "Don't like the bug? Don't make games dude". But they don't do this.
Youre confusing yourself with inept analogies. What he said was true about what he said it about.
Youre confusing yourself with inept analogies. What he said was true about what he said it about.
Someone can go through the thread and find where I said UV mapping is stopping me from making art.
I don't like UV's but I'll still work with it. I mentioned Ptex as something I WOULD like as a replacement. If the game industry does adopt it as a workflow (could be next gen or the gen after that) I would make the switch and immediately start problem solving about all the performance or technique issues related to it. In fact, it would be my priority to make art with it that only stays above 60fps or more just to prove its viability in the industry.
I still want to learn Ptex, but it would mean I would just treat it as a Film only pipeline since no game uses it (but Pixar/Disney does). The two don't have to contradict each other as long as its understood how both industries approach things.
Just like with UV mapping, it's still a tool that will get me to the end. But that doesn't mean I can't make notes of what I don't like about it along the way. Or raise criticisms when I am done using it.
Boy-o-boy! then heed recommendations helpfully roadmap'd for you previously on this page by forwarding any or all concerns too relevant vendor/s...simple?!
A bit of advice, tried and tested techniques will always get one over the line which in my opinion remains the optimal workflow NOW, so instead of dogmatizing this or that methodology update your folio...erm!...come to think of it I better do the same, cya.
But then getting to the part where I gotta start hitting planar/cylindrical/pelt unwrap on every single polygon? And on top of that, having to watch for stretching/overlapping errors?
From that, I suspect your UV workflow is rubbish. Investigate ALL the helpful features provided to you, and practice more. Then this whole meaningless ramble about cars and whatever need never have happened
I don't actually unwrap polygon by polygon. That would be insane. But I have mentioned before in another thread, I use Textools for all my texturing. I would say 90% of all my texturing is done that way, only 10% goes back to using planar/cylindrical/pelt and it's always on props where it's the most obvious.
As an example, here is a texture I made which was actually composed of many objects.
But again, I only disagree with the process. I still find the concept of Ptex to be cooler, even if UV mapping was automated. But even then, I would have to switch to actual software that supports it, since the current one I have doesn't use it.
In the future, I would switch to something like Vray or Renderman in order to try and learn it.
But, you can do that without ptex too. Look at games like Skyrim, or Red Dead Redemption, or Witcher III. Beautiful huge landscapes. And already very efficient.
Edit: I should mention, I have nothing against Ptex. When and if it becomes the next big method for games, I'll adopt it. But in the meantime, the tools we use work quite well, and considering the beautiful work people have managed to do over the years, I don't think we can blame the workflow for any serious limitations. Just because "Moana did it, and they used ptex" doesn't mean it can't be done quite well and efficiently without Ptex.
For me the biggest issue would be you cant share textures across objects. Everthing needs a unique texture. LODs cant share Textures one Polyobject = one Ptex
Seconde one would be you arnt allowed to change the vertexorder. If the Artdirection changes and you need to change the Geo you have to create a new Texture.
And there is no "real" Ptex painter outside of Pixar or Blizzard Cinematic. Im not aware of a commercial tool that does not paint into automatic uvs in the backgound and bake to Ptex in the end.
There is no Ptex painter that does create autosized textel density per face outside of Pixar You end up with a high texel density on a small face and with a low on a big face.
well ... go for it to me it sounds super ineffective and wasteful on ressources. in games reusing tilable textures is one of the main tools to save on texture memory. not being able to just reuse a trimsheet or a tilable. in film you have a lot more ressources at hand, in games such waste will just drop back on your feet at one point
Correct. Games are using tillable textures whereas Film is more likely to treat each object as unique.
I should mention the reason I'm invested in this topic, is because I'm actually caught somewhere in the middle. As someone who lacks a powerful computer but is still interested in Film work, I've been using game techniques to help me get by.
Which sounds absolutely ridiculous since I understand Film will always brute force graphics and games will use modular/tillable assets to keep a low footprint as possible, but I actually like this type of challenge where I only have a limited amount of Video Memory at my disposal, but I'm still trying to cram as much detail that my computer can handle. I've also found a lot of success with this. I've been able to accurately predict how long my renders will take, judging by how I organize my scene and prioritize which objects should be reusable and which ones don't.
An example, I created LOD's for a gigantic neighborhood I'm working on but because Polygons are scarce, I had to manage them for what I thought was the most important building in my scene vs the least important.
Of course, this wont last forever. If I ever do end up with a job working for Disney or Ubisoft, then I'll be forced to use their pipelines and none of this hybrid stuff.
But at the moment, with my savings already running very thin, I'm forgoing investing anymore money in equipment, and just finishing the last of my 3D environments I have right now and start mass applying.
Well, in an certain way it's kinda cool that you are trying to get the most out of whatever information you can find, and attempting to get things done from there. The problem is that you are being blinded by hyped tech, buzzwords, and Youtube Trending, and making sweeping generalization based on that ... while also sounding like a know-it-all. That doesn't really help.
If anything if you want to impress Pixar folks while being stranded by your limited ressources, then just embrace it and get the most out of the situation instead of daydreaming about Peetex, Nvidia gee-pee-yous, or any other seemingly neat distraction to read about.
All of these would land nicely on the radar of a Pixar art director in search for CG artists with a good eye.
I hesitate to say, "I do things this way," as most people here have a lot more time in 3d under their belt, but I've got to say, UV's hardly take me anytime at all. Granted, I don't do complex hard surface or environment stuff, but like, unwrapping an entire (somewhat simple) character takes me not more than half an hour at most. And this isn't lazy unwrapping either, I take the time to straighten out edges that can be for more efficient packing, and I don't use any automated layout tools. I just do it by hand one at a time.
I can imagine that pretty much anybody who has been doing this more than a few years works more efficiently than I am. Heck, just a few months ago I didn't even know about straightening UV's for better packing. Ironically, I picked up that tip from @JordanN in another thread.
From what I've read and tried with ptex, it seems like a great thing for unique movie characters and huge studios with time and money. Not so great for anybody who is focused on reuse-ability and modularity, which seem to be of premier importance in gaming considerations. And so, if I was just shooting the shit for fun about bringing ptex into the game environment, I don't think we could even call it ptex. It would have to work fundamentally different.
Of course, this wont last forever. If I ever do end up with a job working for Disney or Ubisoft, then I'll be forced to use their pipelines and none of this hybrid stuff.
But at the moment, with my savings already running very thin, I'm forgoing investing anymore money in equipment, and just finishing the last of my 3D environments I have right now and start mass applying.
1) I can pretty much guarantee you that the portfolio required to get in at either of those joints would be vastly different both in terms of content and execution. If you want to work in games you need to show: realtime in engine work, for environments you need to show a heavy use of trims and tiling/vertex blending etc along with breakdowns showing you understand the process. a portfolio lacking all that and full of pre-rendered v-ray scenes won't get you a games job these days.
if you want to be in vfx, then that's a whole different portfolio and skill set all together. trying to get your first studio job at either/or is going to leave your portfolio in a weird middle ground that leaves recruiters and leads scratching their heads. having a highly relevant skillset to the position you are working towards is key.
2) you keep talking about relying on your savings and being miserable. Dude, might be time to put on the big boy pants and consider getting a part time job to ease some stress and fund a better lifestyle in the present, minimum wage in Ontario just went up to 15 an hour so even the worst job should get you enough money to upgrade your computer in a month or 2. or just work a construction job for a couple weeks and get paid cash under the table, and make some gains and get swoll as a side benefit. sacrificing some portion of your time for a couple months to get some cashflow/not be miserable/get a new pc could end up saving you more time in the long run, are you really sitting down doing art for 12-16 hours a day anyways? sometimes it sounds like you are putting barriers in your own way.
if your scene in max is chugging cause your video card is low on memory, you can always select those heavy hitters in terms of polys and right click>object properties> display as box. especially for parts of the scene you are not currently working on, that shit saved me a ton of chugging in the past.
1) I can pretty much guarantee you that the portfolio required to get in at either of those joints would be vastly different both in terms of content and execution. If you want to work in games you need to show: realtime in engine work, for environments you need to show a heavy use of trims and tiling/vertex blending etc along with breakdowns showing you understand the process. a portfolio lacking all that and full of pre-rendered v-ray scenes won't get you a games job these days.
if you want to be in vfx, then that's a whole different portfolio and skill set all together. trying to get your first studio job at either/or is going to leave your portfolio in a weird middle ground that leaves recruiters and leads scratching their heads. having a highly relevant skillset to the position you are working towards is key.
I was never going to apply using my pre-rendered work for a games job. It's just that making game art has been in my blood so long, I'm not actually going to write it off if the opportunity comes.
When my circumstances improves, I'll be better able to address the situation and try and work on something gaming focused. I do think the next Playstation and Xbox consoles is something I want to be apart of and will wait for more information about them to come out.
As well as the upcoming brigade engine. It's actually suppose to be due out next month, and it features many real time capabilities that are adjacent to other path tracers on the market. Assuming OTOY does deliver on their promise to release it, it would mark my first stepping stone into investing in getting back into real time which would also mean building a game art portfolio.
2) you keep talking about relying on your savings and being miserable. Dude, might be time to put on the big boy pants and consider getting a part time job to ease some stress and fund a better lifestyle in the present, minimum wage in Ontario just went up to 15 an hour so even the worst job should get you enough money to upgrade your computer in a month or 2. or just work a construction job for a couple weeks and get paid cash under the table, and make some gains and get swoll as a side benefit. sacrificing some portion of your time for a couple months to get some cashflow/not be miserable/get a new pc could end up saving you more time in the long run, are you really sitting down doing art for 12-16 hours a day anyways? sometimes it sounds like you are putting barriers in your own way.
if your scene in max is chugging cause your video card is low on memory, you can always select those heavy hitters in terms of polys and right click>object properties> display as box. especially for parts of the scene you are not currently working on, that shit saved me a ton of chugging in the past.
2017 was the last time I could do this. I'm being serious when I say my current situation is horrible and I'm turning to art as my last chance to escape. My co-worker even acknowledged that I was in a horrible state and he didn't want to see me like this anymore, so I'm committing to finishing what I have in hopes that it will lead to a better life.
In regards to VRAM usage, I'm using a GPU renderer. The pros of this is that it renders really damn fast as long as I stay within my graphic's cards limit (4GB). The con is that geometry and texture resolution eat up memory fast, so I have to be mindful not to extend past 4GB. If I do, the GPU shuts down and it goes straight to the CPU, which is infinitely slower.
Unfortunately, not everything about the software has been programmed to reduce memory footprint. It was actually designed for the top of the line workstation cards which have 12 to 24GB VRAM built into them, whereas I'm using a mere GTX 960 with only 4GB. Even the display as box method doesn't actually effect how the renderer works at render time. The developers are still working on that.
In the above example, the top image uses nearly 2x as much memory and far less iterations then the bottom image just by rendering at a 5333 x 3000 resolution despite both scenes being the exact same in assets.
I have to keep a close monitor on my memory usage so I still reap the benefits of GPU rendering without it falling back to the CPU which is just painfully slow.
How much does a new GPU cost? Is there no way for you to get cash somehow? Mow lawns? Flip burgers?
Is rendering performance really bottle-necking your ability to put together a portfolio? Aren't you focusing on game work?
Not my business what you are doing with your life, but you make it sound like you are really unhappy, and everything counts on you being able to get a stable career, and you really want that career to be in 3d. At the same time, every post you make is a counter-argument to somebody in which you list reasons why you can't do something or other. This, in my experience, is indicative of having the wrong attitude. Knowledge and skill has nothing to do with the real reason you haven't gotten into your dream job yet -- you've got to make a mental shift to stop seeing problems and start thinking of solutions.
Changing your attitude is hard, because it can mean throwing out a lot of stuff you may have thought defined you. But once you do it, you realize it was all imagination. You are whoever you choose to be right now. It's simple. So you go to sleep, and you wake up and say, "today I'm going to solve some problem that's been hounding me, and I'm not going to tally up all of my problems and let it crush me. I take them one at a time, and I'll get to my goal."
The only way to stop a determined person is to kill them. I don't think anybody is going to try to kill you to keep you from doing 3d professionally, so as long as you get seriously determined, you'll make it sooner or later.
How much does a new GPU cost? Is there no way for you to get cash somehow? Mow lawns? Flip burgers?
Is rendering performance really bottle-necking your ability to put together a portfolio? Aren't you focusing on game work?
Not my business what you are doing with your life, but you make it sound like you are really unhappy, and everything counts on you being able to get a stable career, and you really want that career to be in 3d. At the same time, every post you make is a counter-argument to somebody in which you list reasons why you can't do something or other. This, in my experience, is indicative of having the wrong attitude. Knowledge and skill has nothing to do with the real reason you haven't gotten into your dream job yet -- you've got to make a mental shift to stop seeing problems and start thinking of solutions.
If I had to upgrade my computer, I want it to feel like the biggest leap ever. I want the most powerful GPU so that anything can be thrown at it, and it wont break a sweat trying to render.
If I get my first job in the industry, I'll be willing to work all the hours needed to pay for it. I'm the type of person who is willing to work 15 hours a day in order to have something that I believe, really benefits me.
Is rendering performance bottle-necking my portfolio? Well, it depends.
When I first started, I had hopes I could make this big city. It was suppose to be the largest thing ever imagined. I wanted to do this for a long time, but I realized I needed everything to be optimized to the very core. I've been making MAJOR steps towards achieving this goal. It's just that it takes time and a lot of optimization. But I can do it, even with the bottlenecks. The bottlenecks aren't actually holding me back anymore, because I've spent a lot of time getting to know my renderer and what it likes and doesn't like.
In regards to game work, I mentioned that I am using a lot of game techniques for this. I don't want to say "I'm not doing games" because I still want to work on them. It's just that, at my current situation, it's a very tricky answer to if I'm going into games, but there are still some issues I'm having that I can't give a 100% answer.
You've got to prioritize. Why make some huge thing that will push performance capabilities you don't have? You don't need to do that to get into the business. Look at the "recently hired in AAA, show us your work" thread. I'm sure you could do as well as some of those people. Just make what you can handle with the hardware you got, focus in on the important artistic fundamentals the recruiters want to see, and follow the advice coming daily from the ones here doing the recruiting. How could you not have a job by the end of the year? It seems impossible not to.
You've got to prioritize. Why make some huge thing that will push performance capabilities you don't have? You don't need to do that to get into the business. Look at the "recently hired in AAA, show us your work" thread. I'm sure you could do as well as some of those people. Just make what you can handle with the hardware you got, focus in on the important artistic fundamentals the recruiters want to see, and follow the advice coming daily from the ones here doing the recruiting. How could you not have a job by the end of the year? It seems impossible not to.
I'm scared of failure. I still remember going for my first industry interview and coming out disappointed. I knew it was my fault for not working harder so now I'm doing everything I can to redeem myself.
I don't want to be seen as weak and inexperienced. I want to look the complete opposite. Even if it takes 2 years, I never want to be in that situation again where everyone looked at me and saw me as a failure when I said I didn't want to be one.
But the city I'm working on isn't actually too hard. I actually plan on making more of it, even if I do get hired.
Everybody's scared of failure. But if you make a habit of failing a lot, which means putting your neck out there a lot, you get used to it. It makes you more confident, in fact, because you become tempered, and eventually you learn all the wrong ways of doing things, so all you've got left to try is the right ways.
This isn't war. Nobody is trying to kill you. The worst thing somebody can do is pass you up, maybe say hurtful words. Whatever. At the end of the day, if you ate dinner, that's success. Everything else is extra. It's all just a big game. None of it matters. You get to try over and over until you win. There's nothing to redeem because you haven't done anything wrong. It's not like making substandard art hurts anybody. Just keep pumping shit out until somebody says, "hey, your shits pretty good. We could use somebody like you."
I haven't creeped on your artstation or anything, but IIRC I haven't seen anything besides props from you. I think they all looked legit, like nothing I could shake a stick at. Maybe all you need is a month or a few to push yourself and finish out a complete environment. If you know game art better, do that. You can change careers later if VFX interest you more, but whatever just get into some kind of work so you can stop having a life so horrible that you've got to tell strangers how bad it is. If you need more time to improve, mow lawns, collect cans, work at a hospice, anything. If you can't get work in a big city like Toronto, it's probably time to pack your bags and move into the woods with the squirrels and bears.
Shit, I could max out that $9,000 GPU so damn fast. The more power you have, the less you pay attention and before you know it you've maxed out your supposed ultra powerful system.
Interviewers always want to hear your amazing portfolio piece was done in 6 months with a $20,000 computer. Gets you hired right away!
By the way what version of Vray are you on? Past versions of Vray RT suck a fat set of balls. Vray is awesome, Vray RT has historically been shit. Even with Vray Next, it is still miles behind compared to something like fstorm. Even with their hybrid RT option, it is just still not all intuitive to use.
Shit, I could max out that $9,000 GPU so damn fast. The more power you have, the less you pay attention and before you know it you've maxed out your supposed ultra powerful system.
Interviewers always want to hear your amazing portfolio piece was done in 6 months with a $20,000 computer. Gets you hired right away!
By the way what version of Vray are you on? Past versions of Vray RT suck a fat set of balls. Vray is awesome, Vray RT has historically been shit. Even with Vray Next, it is still miles behind compared to something like fstorm. Even with their hybrid RT option, it is just still not all intuitive to use.
I've actually grown very attached to it, because it had the features I was looking for to finish my city. But I want to point out, the bottlenecks are not stopping me from finishing my portfolio.
I just really want the Quadro GV100 because that is the GPU that can best take advantage of it. But I know I can't afford it right now. When I do get a job, I'll work the extra hours to save enough money to finally afford it.
If I had to upgrade my computer, I want it to feel like the biggest leap ever. I want the most powerful GPU so that anything can be thrown at it, and it wont break a sweat trying to render.
If I get my first job in the industry, I'll be willing to work all the hours needed to pay for it. I'm the type of person who is willing to work 15 hours a day in order to have something that I believe, really benefits me.
Is rendering performance bottle-necking my portfolio? Well, it depends.
When I first started, I had hopes I could make this big city. It was suppose to be the largest thing ever imagined. I wanted to do this for a long time, but I realized I needed everything to be optimized to the very core. I've been making MAJOR steps towards achieving this goal. It's just that it takes time and a lot of optimization. But I can do it, even with the bottlenecks. The bottlenecks aren't actually holding me back anymore, because I've spent a lot of time getting to know my renderer and what it likes and doesn't like.
In regards to game work, I mentioned that I am using a lot of game techniques for this. I don't want to say "I'm not doing games" because I still want to work on them. It's just that, at my current situation, it's a very tricky answer to if I'm going into games, but there are still some issues I'm having that I can't give a 100% answer.
Dude I hate to break it to you but this entire post sums up exactly why you don't have a job.
....a NINE THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLAR GPU?! are you out of your mind?! there are some insane artists on artstation still rocking old gtx 700 series cards and producing AAA game art. I have some buddies in vfx and their home work stations are 5 years old average machines, probably with a gtx 960 or lower. I would never, EVER waste 9k on anything computer related. The most I have ever spent on a video card is about 400. I can guarantee you most peoples PC's here on polycount are pretty average to mid range. No one needs or will ever take advantage of that 9k card for entry level work.
Another thing holding you back is trying to do a huge project that seems to never end. you are constatntly talking about it, ive seen some of your in progress screens, if you textured and finished that bus, that would be a portfolio piece in itself. that shopping mall could be another. right now your scope is exceeding your skillset and grasp and it doesn't matter if the scene is huge if everything isnt phenominally done. that is a huge mistake beginners always make. finishing one building to an insane level of quality would do much more to impress the people hiring than a massive city that isnt going to hit the quality bar that an entire team is going to be outputting?!
On watch dogs 2, i literally focused on 2 small neighborhoods for 2+ years, with all the content creation being outsourced, otherwise it would never get done. how in the world is a solo artist ever going to achieve what a team of 18 env artists took 2 years to do on their own!? No matter how many software improvements or technology boosts you find, its straight up impossible, and I hate naysaying peoples ideas.
I dont get what you say about your situation being very tricky to determine if you are going into games or not. you set your own goals and objectives and are 100% in control of that stuff. either you want to go into games and focus all your efforts and energy around that, or focus on film work. the main thing is going to be actual finished work, multiple different projects worth. dude for your own sanity, reduce your scope.
finally, why in the world are you rendering at 5k+ resolution?! anyone consuming your content will be looking at a 1080p compressed youtube video or the naitve resolution of an artstation post, which is what...1800 in width? there is no reason to be rendering at such high resolutions, or even bothering doing test renders until you have actual finished content to render. The amount of time I wasted waiting for test renders while i was learning 3ds max in high school blows my mind, not only is it a waste of time you could be producing content, but sitting there waiting as your machine renders gives you a false sense of accomplishment of having actually got something done. If I was to render something, I would hit the render button before i go to bed and let that bitch sit for 8 hours if needed as I sleep, anything else is wasted time.
Jordan, bud, I don't say any of this to be mean or try and bring you down. it's meant to help put things in perspective and help you on the path to getting employed. #fistbump
How much does a new GPU cost? Is there no way for you to get cash somehow? Mow lawns? Flip burgers?
Is rendering performance really bottle-necking your ability to put together a portfolio? Aren't you focusing on game work?
Not my business what you are doing with your life, but you make it sound like you are really unhappy, and everything counts on you being able to get a stable career, and you really want that career to be in 3d. At the same time, every post you make is a counter-argument to somebody in which you list reasons why you can't do something or other. This, in my experience, is indicative of having the wrong attitude. Knowledge and skill has nothing to do with the real reason you haven't gotten into your dream job yet -- you've got to make a mental shift to stop seeing problems and start thinking of solutions.
If I had to upgrade my computer, I want it to feel like the biggest leap ever. I want the most powerful GPU so that anything can be thrown at it, and it wont break a sweat trying to render.
If I get my first job in the industry, I'll be willing to work all the hours needed to pay for it. I'm the type of person who is willing to work 15 hours a day in order to have something that I believe, really benefits me.
Is rendering performance bottle-necking my portfolio? Well, it depends.
When I first started, I had hopes I could make this big city. It was suppose to be the largest thing ever imagined. I wanted to do this for a long time, but I realized I needed everything to be optimized to the very core. I've been making MAJOR steps towards achieving this goal. It's just that it takes time and a lot of optimization. But I can do it, even with the bottlenecks. The bottlenecks aren't actually holding me back anymore, because I've spent a lot of time getting to know my renderer and what it likes and doesn't like.
In regards to game work, I mentioned that I am using a lot of game techniques for this. I don't want to say "I'm not doing games" because I still want to work on them. It's just that, at my current situation, it's a very tricky answer to if I'm going into games, but there are still some issues I'm having that I can't give a 100% answer.
Ugh, man, what are you doing here, seriously? I can't even comprehend. Both the fact that you think you need a $9000 GPU (spoiler: you don't, just... no) and that you've spent what amounts to many hours rambling about how it would be great if software was more efficient while doing the least efficient thing possible (writing increasingly incoherent nonsense on the internet). That's time you could have spent getting better/closer to your goals.
Man $9000 could get you a new computer and all the modern software you need to make art.
Don't
get hung up on software or hardware, you can still make things even if
you don't have the latest or greatest. I started making PBR work before I
had substance, 2 years ago I textured my first character in Substance with only a
460gtx and 8gb of ram because I found a way to break it up so my
computer could handle it. Hell I didn't have marmoset until version 2 so I had to figure out how to get nice renders from Xoliul Shader which was far more limited. If you have a 3D modeling tool and a 2D tool
you can make the art you need, you just have to acknowledge the
limitations you have and either work with them or around them.
I
know I'm probably just repeating some stuff that's already been said
and the thread has run it's course, I guess I just wanted to give my
experiences. It can be easy to fall into the trap of "if only I had X I
can do Y" and you have to figure out when that is actually true, like if
you want to seriously get into sculpting you're gonna have to pony up
for Zbrush, or if you're just holding yourself back. Don't be afraid to
fail, it's how you learn, I guarantee you every single artist here has
had several little tiny failures in their current project until they
figured out how to get the thing they wanted.
finally, why in the world are you rendering at 5k+ resolution?! anyone consuming your content will be looking at a 1080p compressed youtube video or the naitve resolution of an artstation post, which is what...1800 in width? there is no reason to be rendering at such high resolutions, or even bothering doing test renders until you have actual finished content to render. The amount of time I wasted waiting for test renders while i was learning 3ds max in high school blows my mind, not only is it a waste of time you could be producing content, but sitting there waiting as your machine renders gives you a false sense of accomplishment of having actually got something done. If I was to render something, I would hit the render button before i go to bed and let that bitch sit for 8 hours if needed as I sleep, anything else is wasted time.
No,no,no. I meant that I don't render at 5K because it uses more memory than what my computer has. I was just posting that as an example of how displaying as box, doesn't affect the the final render output.
Cutting the render resolution in half, saves tremendously on both memory and iteration count. All my final renders have been 1080p or less.
Quadro GPU's are optimised for Autocad type applications. They're great at drawing very dense wireframes but not as useful for creating anything with a texture on it. Software like Max, Maya, substance painter, or zbrush aren't designed to run on a quadro. So that GPU would be a waste of money for creating games or CGI. I owned a Quadro a long time ago. It wasn't as fast for running 3dsmax as the GeForce GPU's you could get at the time.
Quadro GPU's are optimised for Autocad type applications. They're great at drawing very dense wireframes but not as useful for creating anything with a texture on it. Software like Max, Maya, substance painter, or zbrush aren't designed to run on a quadro. So that GPU would be a waste of money for creating games or CGI. I owned a Quadro a long time ago. It wasn't as fast for running 3dsmax as the GeForce GPU's you could get at the time.
The newest Volta cards have architecture that specialize in AI computing. The Quadro represents the most powerful version of that, while packing the most VRAM (32GB).
That's what I meant when I said Iray takes advantage of this. It uses AI rendering but only a few Nvidia cards were actually designed for this. The upcoming Geforce 11 series might have it, but Volta is the one for sure confirmed to have it (under Tensor Cores).
It's very expensive but it's actually future proofing, since more and more technology will start to rely on AI algorithms and predictive capabilities.
Quadro GPU's are optimised for Autocad type applications. They're great at drawing very dense wireframes but not as useful for creating anything with a texture on it. Software like Max, Maya, substance painter, or zbrush aren't designed to run on a quadro. So that GPU would be a waste of money for creating games or CGI. I owned a Quadro a long time ago. It wasn't as fast for running 3dsmax as the GeForce GPU's you could get at the time.
The newest Volta cards have architecture that specialize in AI computing. The Quadro represents the most powerful version of that, while packing the most VRAM (32GB).
That's what I meant when I said Iray takes advantage of this. It uses AI rendering but only a few Nvidia cards were actually designed for this. The upcoming Geforce 11 series might have it, but Volta is the one for sure confirmed to have it (under Tensor Cores).
Why not just make 3 props render them in unreal and put them on artstation and apply for a job in games? If you decide later that you want to try vfx just work on that while having a stable job in games. You dont need to make a massive city or town. At most a room will do. If you have to break up parts of the workflow to suit your hardware issues do that. To my knowledge you have not posted any images here of the town you are modeling. What are you going to do when you think you finally have this thing finished and you go to show it only to find out its not good enough?
So, when do we get to see your first portfolio piece?
I've picked up a few tidbits from you in the past so if you can make a breakdown as you develop, that'd be awesome for people like me.
This month.
But it's not one piece, it's 3 of them. That's why it's taking so long, because it started together as one massive project, but I split them into 3 smaller ones.
All the assets are shared so that's why I'm waiting to show it when it's all done. One of my scenes "looks empty" but it's because half the assets are still being made in another environment. That's why when everything is all done, it's going to come together like a puzzle piece.
Out of curiosity, is there a name for this kind of way of tackling topics and problems ? Basically willingly ignoring the broad topic and instead endlessly focusing on bringing up irrelevant side topics as some kind of filler. I've met a few people recently who do exactly this and it still boggles my mind how much times this wastes for everyone involved. Pretty much the most counter-productive way of playing devil's advocate ...
(BTW just to be clear : this is not meant as some kind of snarky comment. It just seems to be at the heart of the issue, and identifying things always help)
@JordanN : As far as I am concerned I'll leave it as that since there is nothing else I can add in terms of advice and recommendations. Anything beyond that would just be a waste of time. Good luck man.
You are fine with what you have, your are not creating stuff for production you are creating it for your portfolio, if your hardware takes too long to render you can literally render at 1920 x 1080 because that is the only thing you need at this point.
Just work on smaller pieces, no one cares about size if it doesn't have the quality.
And forget about all the new techniques and hype stuff, your production skills that comes before rendering/engine work is what matters, work on that. Doesn't matter what kind of hardware or rendering system you use, anyone with some skill would still make better looking art by doing a 5 min mental ray render or throwing it into marmoset toolbag.
Out of curiosity, is there a name for this kind of way of tackling topics and problems ? Basically willingly ignoring the broad topic and instead endlessly focusing on justifying the most irrelevant details as some kind of filler. I've met a few people recently who do exactly this and it still boggles my mind how much times this wastes for everyone involved. Pretty much the most counter-productive way of playing devil's advocate ...
I’ve always called this Flying Dolphin Syndrome. It’s a long story why (well not necessarily long, but you’d have to understand the characters involved and blah blah), but there’s now a flying dolphin buried under a bridge in a certain famous top-down sandbox game in everlasting tribute. Will FDS work as a name? It’s the bane of my fucking life
Well, after all this time figuring out what issues are holding you back from being your best, I know I am going to be pretty disappointed if there isn't three awesome portfolio pieces on September 8th, 2018 from @JordanN.
This is really important that you finish what you've said you would. If you make reputation for being unreliable, you've got to work double hard to break that. People are always going to forgive and forget, but they aren't going to take unnecessary risk. If somebody knows you as a person who says a lot but produces less, they won't take you for your word if you say you work hard. You've got to show them the work. Show them, whatever you failed to do in the past, that's way behind you.
Boxing probably isn't a great analogy, but its what I know, so here's an analogy : You play it safe in the early rounds, because you fear the other guy, and you think the only way you can only win is by avoiding getting knocked out and managing to get a better score from the judges at the end.
But it turns out you were way too damn careful, and now its the final round. Nobody is betting on you -- you've been dicking around the entire fight. Zero commitment, because you were afraid of getting knocked out. It's ok, it can happen to anybody. Everybody gets scared, and the 3d industry is no doubt a tough opponent! A true, battle tested champion thats gonna spit out anybody who doesn't bring their A-game. No shame being afraid of such a champion.
But you reap what you sow...
If you don't go hail mary in the last round, the fights over. You lost. People are gonna know you as a loser, and if can't come back in a major way soon, its going to be harder and harder to change peoples minds and convince them you really are a fighter.
I've been following your progress now for about 2 years Jordan. 2 years ago I was just starting my real attempt at getting into the games industry, I buckled down, learnt all the software and made 3 full environments in a year. 9 months ago I got my first job in the industry and moved to the other side of the country, granted it's in animation and not games, but it's 3D and it pays the bills. I guarantee if you focused and spent a little less time reading about the next big rendering technology or posting here about your next groundbreaking project you could probably have a games industry job by now. I know it's what everyone else is saying, but just from the perspective of someone else as green as you.
Replies
Would this logic apply to cars, where if there was something you didn't like about your vehicle, it means you can no longer drive?
You can be an artist, make art with the current tools, but still say it's not perfect. I would actually be worried if that wasn't the case. It would mean Autodesk or Epic could just release any product and handwave feedback.
"Don't like the bug? Don't make games dude".
But they don't do this.
UV's annoy me, yes. But do I want to quit making art? No. I want to keep making art while tools keep on improving with it. It's an opportunity for companies to make money, because there's competition to make one product clearly superior over the other. Instead of everything being the same.
It's quite a simple argument really, and might be summarized like this, "Don't bitch and groan unless you have an actual solution/proposed solution to suggest."
This just isn't really the correct place either. If you got a specific issue with a product, you go to that products support area and lay out your issues with them. Autodesk, for all the shit talked about them, seems to have excellent customer support as far as my experience goes. A number of times I've gone to them with specific questions and they take time to work through the issues with me. And who the hell am I? Some random noob. You can't beat service like that.
Also, they've got entire forums setup for users to make suggestions and vote on them. From what I can tell, people aren't making enough use of this. Kind of like how, in America, hardly anybody votes, but everybody bitches about the politicians in charge. People have to take responsibility for the environment in which they live. It's a catch-22. You cannot be selfish, and expect the world to work how you want. Only by taking responsibility for the greater whole can you gain some control over things and work them towards your own selfish desires.
No use going to an art forum and just griping that you aren't happy with the state of technology in general. It's just useless and puts people in a foul mood.
Would you prefer if the only replies in this thread was "there is no stagnation. The software is perfect or just don't make games"?
It would be a boring discussion since only one point of view is discussed.
If, instead, that person keeps their mouth shut, eyes and ears open, and waits until they have something useful to say, they might work out some solution to the problem. "Hey guys, there is a lot of us, and only so much room. I think if we work out a schedule to change seats, we can all avoid being sunburnt."
Maybe the idea isn't worth a damn, and maybe there is some argument over better solutions. But the difference is, you got people thinking and working together, rather than getting themselves in a worse and worse mood.
You can be a leader, or a follower. Both are necessary roles to fill in any team. But being a bitchy follower is likely to get you thrown off the raft!
You can still drive to work but tell your boss when you arrive "Look, I like the car you gave me but the way the recliner works right now is costing me an extra 5 minutes to get to work. Perhaps we should start looking at an alternative recliner in the future that will provide both comfort and less time spent on getting the recliner to work properly".
Just like with UV mapping, it's still a tool that will get me to the end. But that doesn't mean I can't make notes of what I don't like about it along the way. Or raise criticisms when I am done using it.
I don't like UV's but I'll still work with it. I mentioned Ptex as something I WOULD like as a replacement. If the game industry does adopt it as a workflow (could be next gen or the gen after that) I would make the switch and immediately start problem solving about all the performance or technique issues related to it. In fact, it would be my priority to make art with it that only stays above 60fps or more just to prove its viability in the industry.
I still want to learn Ptex, but it would mean I would just treat it as a Film only pipeline since no game uses it (but Pixar/Disney does). The two don't have to contradict each other as long as its understood how both industries approach things.
Film = UV + Ptex
Video Games = UV only
Boy-o-boy! then heed recommendations helpfully roadmap'd for you previously on this page by forwarding any or all concerns too relevant vendor/s...simple?!
A bit of advice, tried and tested techniques will always get one over the line which in my opinion remains the optimal workflow NOW, so instead of dogmatizing this or that methodology update your folio...erm!...come to think of it I better do the same, cya.
Amsterdam Hilton Hotel said:
PixelMasher said:
look at that voxel based game engine that is a running joke in the industry.
That is a rude thing to say about Minecraft
He's referring to Euclideon
From that, I suspect your UV workflow is rubbish. Investigate ALL the helpful features provided to you, and practice more. Then this whole meaningless ramble about cars and whatever need never have happened
As an example, here is a texture I made which was actually composed of many objects.
But again, I only disagree with the process. I still find the concept of Ptex to be cooler, even if UV mapping was automated. But even then, I would have to switch to actual software that supports it, since the current one I have doesn't use it.
In the future, I would switch to something like Vray or Renderman in order to try and learn it.
For an entire environment, Ptex would be sweet.
I would love to texture something as big as the Island in Moana which all used Ptex.
Edit: I should mention, I have nothing against Ptex. When and if it becomes the next big method for games, I'll adopt it. But in the meantime, the tools we use work quite well, and considering the beautiful work people have managed to do over the years, I don't think we can blame the workflow for any serious limitations. Just because "Moana did it, and they used ptex" doesn't mean it can't be done quite well and efficiently without Ptex.
For me the biggest issue would be you cant share textures across objects. Everthing needs a unique texture.
LODs cant share Textures
one Polyobject = one Ptex
Seconde one would be you arnt allowed to change the vertexorder.
If the Artdirection changes and you need to change the Geo you have to create a new Texture.
And there is no "real" Ptex painter outside of Pixar or Blizzard Cinematic.
Im not aware of a commercial tool that does not paint into automatic uvs in the backgound and bake to Ptex in the end.
There is no Ptex painter that does create autosized textel density per face outside of Pixar
You end up with a high texel density on a small face and with a low on a big face.
Ptex does not work well with Triangles.
i could go on and on.
to me it sounds super ineffective and wasteful on ressources. in games reusing tilable textures is one of the main tools to save on texture memory. not being able to just reuse a trimsheet or a tilable. in film you have a lot more ressources at hand, in games such waste will just drop back on your feet at one point
I should mention the reason I'm invested in this topic, is because I'm actually caught somewhere in the middle.
As someone who lacks a powerful computer but is still interested in Film work, I've been using game techniques to help me get by.
Which sounds absolutely ridiculous since I understand Film will always brute force graphics and games will use modular/tillable assets to keep a low footprint as possible, but I actually like this type of challenge where I only have a limited amount of Video Memory at my disposal, but I'm still trying to cram as much detail that my computer can handle.
I've also found a lot of success with this. I've been able to accurately predict how long my renders will take, judging by how I organize my scene and prioritize which objects should be reusable and which ones don't.
An example, I created LOD's for a gigantic neighborhood I'm working on but because Polygons are scarce, I had to manage them for what I thought was the most important building in my scene vs the least important.
Of course, this wont last forever. If I ever do end up with a job working for Disney or Ubisoft, then I'll be forced to use their pipelines and none of this hybrid stuff.
But at the moment, with my savings already running very thin, I'm forgoing investing anymore money in equipment, and just finishing the last of my 3D environments I have right now and start mass applying.
If anything if you want to impress Pixar folks while being stranded by your limited ressources, then just embrace it and get the most out of the situation instead of daydreaming about Peetex, Nvidia gee-pee-yous, or any other seemingly neat distraction to read about.
All of these would land nicely on the radar of a Pixar art director in search for CG artists with a good eye.
I can imagine that pretty much anybody who has been doing this more than a few years works more efficiently than I am. Heck, just a few months ago I didn't even know about straightening UV's for better packing. Ironically, I picked up that tip from @JordanN in another thread.
From what I've read and tried with ptex, it seems like a great thing for unique movie characters and huge studios with time and money. Not so great for anybody who is focused on reuse-ability and modularity, which seem to be of premier importance in gaming considerations. And so, if I was just shooting the shit for fun about bringing ptex into the game environment, I don't think we could even call it ptex. It would have to work fundamentally different.
if you want to be in vfx, then that's a whole different portfolio and skill set all together. trying to get your first studio job at either/or is going to leave your portfolio in a weird middle ground that leaves recruiters and leads scratching their heads. having a highly relevant skillset to the position you are working towards is key.
2) you keep talking about relying on your savings and being miserable. Dude, might be time to put on the big boy pants and consider getting a part time job to ease some stress and fund a better lifestyle in the present, minimum wage in Ontario just went up to 15 an hour so even the worst job should get you enough money to upgrade your computer in a month or 2. or just work a construction job for a couple weeks and get paid cash under the table, and make some gains and get swoll as a side benefit. sacrificing some portion of your time for a couple months to get some cashflow/not be miserable/get a new pc could end up saving you more time in the long run, are you really sitting down doing art for 12-16 hours a day anyways? sometimes it sounds like you are putting barriers in your own way.
if your scene in max is chugging cause your video card is low on memory, you can always select those heavy hitters in terms of polys and right click>object properties> display as box. especially for parts of the scene you are not currently working on, that shit saved me a ton of chugging in the past.
When my circumstances improves, I'll be better able to address the situation and try and work on something gaming focused. I do think the next Playstation and Xbox consoles is something I want to be apart of and will wait for more information about them to come out.
As well as the upcoming brigade engine. It's actually suppose to be due out next month, and it features many real time capabilities that are adjacent to other path tracers on the market. Assuming OTOY does deliver on their promise to release it, it would mark my first stepping stone into investing in getting back into real time which would also mean building a game art portfolio.
2017 was the last time I could do this.
I'm being serious when I say my current situation is horrible and I'm turning to art as my last chance to escape. My co-worker even acknowledged that I was in a horrible state and he didn't want to see me like this anymore, so I'm committing to finishing what I have in hopes that it will lead to a better life.
In regards to VRAM usage, I'm using a GPU renderer. The pros of this is that it renders really damn fast as long as I stay within my graphic's cards limit (4GB). The con is that geometry and texture resolution eat up memory fast, so I have to be mindful not to extend past 4GB. If I do, the GPU shuts down and it goes straight to the CPU, which is infinitely slower.
Unfortunately, not everything about the software has been programmed to reduce memory footprint. It was actually designed for the top of the line workstation cards which have 12 to 24GB VRAM built into them, whereas I'm using a mere GTX 960 with only 4GB. Even the display as box method doesn't actually effect how the renderer works at render time. The developers are still working on that.
In the above example, the top image uses nearly 2x as much memory and far less iterations then the bottom image just by rendering at a 5333 x 3000 resolution despite both scenes being the exact same in assets.
I have to keep a close monitor on my memory usage so I still reap the benefits of GPU rendering without it falling back to the CPU which is just painfully slow.
Is rendering performance really bottle-necking your ability to put together a portfolio? Aren't you focusing on game work?
Not my business what you are doing with your life, but you make it sound like you are really unhappy, and everything counts on you being able to get a stable career, and you really want that career to be in 3d. At the same time, every post you make is a counter-argument to somebody in which you list reasons why you can't do something or other. This, in my experience, is indicative of having the wrong attitude. Knowledge and skill has nothing to do with the real reason you haven't gotten into your dream job yet -- you've got to make a mental shift to stop seeing problems and start thinking of solutions.
Changing your attitude is hard, because it can mean throwing out a lot of stuff you may have thought defined you. But once you do it, you realize it was all imagination. You are whoever you choose to be right now. It's simple. So you go to sleep, and you wake up and say, "today I'm going to solve some problem that's been hounding me, and I'm not going to tally up all of my problems and let it crush me. I take them one at a time, and I'll get to my goal."
The only way to stop a determined person is to kill them. I don't think anybody is going to try to kill you to keep you from doing 3d professionally, so as long as you get seriously determined, you'll make it sooner or later.
I want this GPU (Quadro GV100), which costs $8999.99.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/design-visualization/quadro-store/
If I get my first job in the industry, I'll be willing to work all the hours needed to pay for it. I'm the type of person who is willing to work 15 hours a day in order to have something that I believe, really benefits me.
Is rendering performance bottle-necking my portfolio? Well, it depends.
When I first started, I had hopes I could make this big city. It was suppose to be the largest thing ever imagined. I wanted to do this for a long time, but I realized I needed everything to be optimized to the very core. I've been making MAJOR steps towards achieving this goal. It's just that it takes time and a lot of optimization. But I can do it, even with the bottlenecks. The bottlenecks aren't actually holding me back anymore, because I've spent a lot of time getting to know my renderer and what it likes and doesn't like.
In regards to game work, I mentioned that I am using a lot of game techniques for this. I don't want to say "I'm not doing games" because I still want to work on them. It's just that, at my current situation, it's a very tricky answer to if I'm going into games, but there are still some issues I'm having that I can't give a 100% answer.
I knew it was my fault for not working harder so now I'm doing everything I can to redeem myself.
I don't want to be seen as weak and inexperienced. I want to look the complete opposite. Even if it takes 2 years, I never want to be in that situation again where everyone looked at me and saw me as a failure when I said I didn't want to be one.
But the city I'm working on isn't actually too hard. I actually plan on making more of it, even if I do get hired.
This isn't war. Nobody is trying to kill you. The worst thing somebody can do is pass you up, maybe say hurtful words. Whatever. At the end of the day, if you ate dinner, that's success. Everything else is extra. It's all just a big game. None of it matters. You get to try over and over until you win. There's nothing to redeem because you haven't done anything wrong. It's not like making substandard art hurts anybody. Just keep pumping shit out until somebody says, "hey, your shits pretty good. We could use somebody like you."
I haven't creeped on your artstation or anything, but IIRC I haven't seen anything besides props from you. I think they all looked legit, like nothing I could shake a stick at. Maybe all you need is a month or a few to push yourself and finish out a complete environment. If you know game art better, do that. You can change careers later if VFX interest you more, but whatever just get into some kind of work so you can stop having a life so horrible that you've got to tell strangers how bad it is. If you need more time to improve, mow lawns, collect cans, work at a hospice, anything. If you can't get work in a big city like Toronto, it's probably time to pack your bags and move into the woods with the squirrels and bears.
Interviewers always want to hear your amazing portfolio piece was done in 6 months with a $20,000 computer. Gets you hired right away!
By the way what version of Vray are you on? Past versions of Vray RT suck a fat set of balls. Vray is awesome, Vray RT has historically been shit. Even with Vray Next, it is still miles behind compared to something like fstorm. Even with their hybrid RT option, it is just still not all intuitive to use.
I've actually grown very attached to it, because it had the features I was looking for to finish my city. But I want to point out, the bottlenecks are not stopping me from finishing my portfolio.
I just really want the Quadro GV100 because that is the GPU that can best take advantage of it. But I know I can't afford it right now. When I do get a job, I'll work the extra hours to save enough money to finally afford it.
Cutting the render resolution in half, saves tremendously on both memory and iteration count. All my final renders have been 1080p or less.
Quadro GPU's are optimised for Autocad type applications. They're great at drawing very dense wireframes but not as useful for creating anything with a texture on it. Software like Max, Maya, substance painter, or zbrush aren't designed to run on a quadro. So that GPU would be a waste of money for creating games or CGI. I owned a Quadro a long time ago. It wasn't as fast for running 3dsmax as the GeForce GPU's you could get at the time.
That's what I meant when I said Iray takes advantage of this. It uses AI rendering but only a few Nvidia cards were actually designed for this.
The upcoming Geforce 11 series might have it, but Volta is the one for sure confirmed to have it (under Tensor Cores).
It's very expensive but it's actually future proofing, since more and more technology will start to rely on AI algorithms and predictive capabilities.
https://www.fxguide.com/featured/a-i-for-vfx-at-siggraph-part-1/
http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2018/video/S8788/
I've picked up a few tidbits from you in the past so if you can make a breakdown as you develop, that'd be awesome for people like me.
But it's not one piece, it's 3 of them. That's why it's taking so long, because it started together as one massive project, but I split them into 3 smaller ones.
All the assets are shared so that's why I'm waiting to show it when it's all done. One of my scenes "looks empty" but it's because half the assets are still being made in another environment. That's why when everything is all done, it's going to come together like a puzzle piece.
Out of curiosity, is there a name for this kind of way of tackling topics and problems ? Basically willingly ignoring the broad topic and instead endlessly focusing on bringing up irrelevant side topics as some kind of filler. I've met a few people recently who do exactly this and it still boggles my mind how much times this wastes for everyone involved. Pretty much the most counter-productive way of playing devil's advocate ...
(BTW just to be clear : this is not meant as some kind of snarky comment. It just seems to be at the heart of the issue, and identifying things always help)
@JordanN : As far as I am concerned I'll leave it as that since there is nothing else I can add in terms of advice and recommendations. Anything beyond that would just be a waste of time. Good luck man.
You are fine with what you have, your are not creating stuff for production you are creating it for your portfolio, if your hardware takes too long to render you can literally render at 1920 x 1080 because that is the only thing you need at this point.
Just work on smaller pieces, no one cares about size if it doesn't have the quality.
And forget about all the new techniques and hype stuff, your production skills that comes before rendering/engine work is what matters, work on that. Doesn't matter what kind of hardware or rendering system you use, anyone with some skill would still make better looking art by doing a 5 min mental ray render or throwing it into marmoset toolbag.
This is really important that you finish what you've said you would. If you make reputation for being unreliable, you've got to work double hard to break that. People are always going to forgive and forget, but they aren't going to take unnecessary risk. If somebody knows you as a person who says a lot but produces less, they won't take you for your word if you say you work hard. You've got to show them the work. Show them, whatever you failed to do in the past, that's way behind you.
Boxing probably isn't a great analogy, but its what I know, so here's an analogy : You play it safe in the early rounds, because you fear the other guy, and you think the only way you can only win is by avoiding getting knocked out and managing to get a better score from the judges at the end.
But it turns out you were way too damn careful, and now its the final round. Nobody is betting on you -- you've been dicking around the entire fight. Zero commitment, because you were afraid of getting knocked out. It's ok, it can happen to anybody. Everybody gets scared, and the 3d industry is no doubt a tough opponent! A true, battle tested champion thats gonna spit out anybody who doesn't bring their A-game. No shame being afraid of such a champion.
But you reap what you sow...
If you don't go hail mary in the last round, the fights over. You lost. People are gonna know you as a loser, and if can't come back in a major way soon, its going to be harder and harder to change peoples minds and convince them you really are a fighter.