Question about animation
polycounter lvl 3
So I graduated about a year ago with a degree in 3D Animation. I made the decision that I would only focus on animating and did not want to be a 3D generalists. Over the past year I feel that my skills have grown exponentially. More so then they would have if I had split my time between doing other things such as modeling. At least this is how I feel about it. So my question is this. Will not knowing how to model, rig, or skin hurt my chances of getting hired?...do I even have a chance?
Replies
Nah, I've yet to be hired, but from what I've gathered: If you are specializing in a field such as animation, you will be aiming towards larger studios. If you are a generalist, you will probably have better luck at indie or small end developers. However, there are exceptions for just about everything in life. I remember a zbrush summit talk that had a 3D Generalist from Disney. Granted, the other Disney specialists kind of made jokes about him being a generalist, all in good fun, but it does mean it was enough of a stigma to warrant some playful jabs.
So I don't think it will hurt you if you are applying at large studios. Smaller ones, yes. I was trained as a generalist in college, but I don't feel like the knowledge is wasted at all. Being familiar with all steps of a process can help you communicate much better with other departments in my opinion.
Some examples: being able to make a rough blockout of a window/door/car for your character to interact with until you get the real model, being able to identify bad skinning vs bad modelling/edge flow so you know whether to talk with a rigger or modeler, being able to make simple rigs in order to connect a weapon to your character and allow them to change hands.
If AAA is where you want to work, focus solely on animation. You'll naturally pick up extra skills along the way as you work on your own projects, but keep the focus on animation. Aside from the amount of skill you'd need in multiple areas, AAA pipelines are usually very customized and organized. It's not reasonable for me as an animator to create a model and think that I can submit it in the game. Aside from the fact that my model would be terrible, where do I save that file? Is there an existing naming convention? Do we use any specific export settings for exporting and then importing into the game? Where do I save the model in-engine once imported? Is there anybody already working on a model like this? Etc, etc, etc etc. etc. etc.
Hopefully this helps demystify things a bit. As for wondering if you have a chance, posting your work here and getting critique can only help your chances