Afraid of becoming jack of all trades, master of none.

Dreyzie

Hello. I'm still relatively new to the game art world, and I seem to have a hit a brick wall in my learning. I'm posting this thread in hopes of getting a little insight.

So here's my dilemma. I am self taught and my ultimate goal is to become an environment / level artist. Now I fully understand the amount of work it takes to get to a professional level, but I'm starting to lose track on what area of the pipeline I should be focusing on. Right now I'm trying to learn every program in the pipeline at once (Max, Zbrush, Substance, UE4) and I honestly feel like I'm spreading myself too thin. But at the same time, as an environment artist shouldn't I be expected to know how to use everything in the pipeline? This is why I'm concerned about becoming a "master of none" because I'm not focusing enough energy into a single skill. I'm not complaining about the amount of work, I'm just feeling overwhelmed and lost right now. 

So I guess what I'm asking is, should I skip some parts of the pipeline for the sake of honing more important skills? Do potential employers look to see if you have a strong grasp of every piece of software in the pipeline? Or are they more concerned with your quality in more focused areas? Also, feel free to check out my Artstation to see where I'm lacking. I appreciate it. https://dreyzie.artstation.com/

Eric Chadwick

Put your Artstation link in your post? On mobile, signatures are stripped out (not something we can control easily, sorry).

I'd recommend not worrying about knowing any one specific software right now.

Simply focus on the weakest aspect of your work, strive to overcome it. Reassess your work periodically, then focus on the next weakness for a bit.

For most starting artists, it's the materials & textures. Lighting & presentation is another common one.

Make your artwork awesome, any particular software doesn't matter if the art quality isn't there!

Software can be trained fairly quickly, once the artistic skill has been demonstrated.

Artistic quality is the single most important factor. Grind on it!

Dreyzie

@Eric Chadwick Whoops, here's the link https://dreyzie.artstation.com/

I think my biggest weaknesses right now are still modeling fundamentals and material creation. So maybe I should put Zbrush to the side for now until I have a stronger grasp of those skills. Thanks. 

Alex_J

your work so far looks like you are plenty competent technically. It's just not AAA quality yet. I'd focus on figuring out how to bring the quality up -- and whatever program or technique that requires just learn it one thing at a time.

comparing your work to the most similar thing I could find (from uncharted 4), the weakest link seems to be materials. Many of yours are flat and simplified. Some more care in the roughness maps may help. Also your lighting is a bit flat, comparatively. See how in the Uncharted artwork there is a range of values? Dark areas, bright areas, it leads the eye into wanting to explore. If the whole image is pretty flat, it feels a bit lifeless.

uncharted 4:

air duct material really sticks out here

trashbags : don't let even small things not get proper attention. If it's in your scene, it is important enough to be done right.

Taylor Brown

I think his pier scene was meant to have a more stylized texture style. Gave me Dishonored vibes.

Dreyzie

@BIGTIMEMASTER  Thanks for the feedback. I see exactly what you mean. I should push myself to learn better material creation before I jump into anything else. Same for lighting, which I've been watching 51Daedalus' lighting academy on Youtube and it's awesome.

I'll be honest, I think another problem I need to overcome is impatience. I definitely enjoy the world building process the most (design, greyboxing, detailing, etc) which causes me to rush the props and materials. My impatience jeopardizes the entire scene because the models and materials don't get the proper love and end up looking meh. I really need to stop that and focus my attention on everything in the scene.

Dreyzie

Taylor Brown said:

I think his pier scene was meant to have a more stylized texture style. Gave me Dishonored vibes.

Yep, I was going for a stylized look. Although I admit the lighting might be a bit too orange.

NikhilR

I think your portfolio is fine for applications. Presentation wise, I would focus on creating a single hero shot that is the main focus of each piece, then showing other views and following with breakdowns.

Showing process isn't really mandatory, though make sure that and any references are properly segregated/linked in a blog, otherwise it might confuse recruiters.

Get to know the market for game development locally and in other states, perhaps look into architecture visualisation as a starting job.
Environment art positions are competitive so you may need to network a bit to bring some attention to your work. 

Alex_J

Dreyzie said:

@BIGTIMEMASTER 

My impatience jeopardizes the entire scene

that is the impression i was getting too. I think you know everything you need to know technically speaking -- it's just a matter of not compromising on the quality. Certainly some more instruction in lighting and color and material authroing can't hurt, but it seems like all the things that jumped out to me as flaws were issues where it looked like you just rushed through things -- while other parts of your scenes show a lot of attention to detail. So it's like when you are a reading a novel, and the beginning is great, and the end is great, but somewhere 3/4 of the way through it kind of gets sloppy. It's that area where the author thought, "eh, i'm kind of tired and this part isn't super important anyway..." and so they compromise on the quality. But if you study the work of Naughty Dog for instance, there is no compromise on the quality. That's just one studio of course, and just one style. But they're the best so it's a good example to strive after.

Taylor Brown

Maybe you could change things up a little and spend some time working on a single, small, highly detailed hero prop? itll force you to consider the details in both modeling and texturing which will probably give you better judgement when busting out assets for a large scene ie what needs the polish and what doesnt

NikhilR

You could also apply to level design positions, since you seem to know your way around multiple game engines as well as working with white boxing etc.
I think the usual level artist position you see at studios like Ubisoft are environment art positions, though honestly in a large studio you work on different things within a team.

Dreyzie

NikhilR said:

Showing process isn't really mandatory, though make sure that and any references are properly segregated/linked in a blog, otherwise it might confuse recruiters. 

I'm a little confused by this. Do you mean keep portfolio posts simple, and instead explain my workflow in a separate blog? For example my pier scene is loaded with breakdown shots and explanations. Is that too cluttered for a portfolio?

You could also apply to level design positions, since you seem to know your way around multiple game engines as well as working with white boxing etc.
I think the usual level artist position you see at studios like Ubisoft are environment art positions, though honestly in a large studio you work on different things within a team.

I think that would be my ideal position. "Environment artist" seems to be an umbrella term that can mean so many different things, especially in AAA. So I've been learning both LD and Art just in case. 

@BIGTIMEMASTER That novel analogy is spot on. I'm glad I seem to be in a good spot tech wise. Just seems to be a matter of self discipline to grind out better and more consistent art.

Taylor Brown Sounds like a good idea. I've been planning on working on smaller, more prop focused scenes in Marmoset. That way I can still work on hero props in a more manageable environment.

Taylor Brown

This is just a guess but I reckon 99.9% of the time a hiring manager or whatever will not be reading a blog post when looking at a new hire.

NikhilR

Dreyzie said:

NikhilR said:

Showing process isn't really mandatory, though make sure that and any references are properly segregated/linked in a blog, otherwise it might confuse recruiters. 

I'm a little confused by this. Do you mean keep portfolio posts simple, and instead explain my workflow in a separate blog? For example my pier scene is loaded with breakdown shots and explanations. Is that too cluttered for a portfolio?

You could also apply to level design positions, since you seem to know your way around multiple game engines as well as working with white boxing etc.
I think the usual level artist position you see at studios like Ubisoft are environment art positions, though honestly in a large studio you work on different things within a team.

I think that would be my ideal position. "Environment artist" seems to be an umbrella term that can mean so many different things, especially in AAA. So I've been learning both LD and Art just in case. 

@BIGTIMEMASTER That novel analogy is spot on. I'm glad I seem to be in a good spot tech wise. Just seems to be a matter of self discipline to grind out better and more consistent art.

Taylor Brown Sounds like a good idea. I've been planning on working on smaller, more prop focused scenes in Marmoset. That way I can still work on hero props in a more manageable environment.

While the breakdown shots definitely help give more insight into your process and linking it to say the artstation blog might be the best approach, the most you could do is have a clear demarcation between your presentation and process.

This is a project worth looking at,
https://polycount.com/discussion/182979/ue4-rome-church-of-santivo#latest
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ARgqN

If you provided that much it would be enough to get your point across.

The artist there hasn't provided wireframes/detail lighting though I don't think it would hurt his chances.  Realistically that data can be asked for. 

Choice of subject matter also influences the impact your scene would have. 

You could markedly improve the impact of your present scenes simply by pushing the lighting, some post process and perhaps running some props through substance for more procedural grunge and light brush work. 

I can definitely say that your scene will see a dramatic improvement with good lighting, the comparison provided by @BIGTIMEMASTER between your fishing scene and the interior from Uncharted is a good example.

But remember more important than your portfolio is the market saturation/availability of game studios, know what that is like where you are and where you want to be. 

If you're not getting any hits/rejections/replies/feedback it might not be only because of the quality of your work. That's a crackhead perception/misconception that's very prevalent in the industry, like every artist fresh in the market has to be a sort of god since they're competing with highly talented seniors with years of experience for every darn job out there.

I mean its good to get better at your work over time, and I'm certain that advice is give as some sort of encouragement but different studios have different requirements so show your best and you'll likely find a studio which provides the right fit.

For some studios though, like Naughty Dog if you are applying for a specific project based role there, you would need to match their level of quality.
However not every studio is Naughty dog level quality or needs to be. There are many other aspects that make studios worth working for.

Dreyzie

@NikhilR Sorry for the late reply. I've been a little busy the past week.
Tyler's post is fantastic and I can see where my presentation skills could use some touching up now.  His breakdown is sweet and short, and I especially like how he combined the blockout phase into a little gif. I should update my projects with something like that.

I definitely want to revisit my Dock scene and touch up the lighting/post. It was tricky getting any kind of interesting shadows / contrast since 95% of the level is in direct sunlight. But I know it can be way better. I might even trim the fat on the rest of my portfolio like that bathroom scene. It's pretty outdated now and might be due for a remake.

Sadly the market around me is empty. Which is why I'm perfectly fine with up and leaving whenever I can. I get what you're saying about how not every studio is Naughty Dog levels of quality, but I think it's still a good benchmark to push myself toward. With that said I'm still keeping an open mind and looking out for LD positions as well.

I greatly appreciate everyone's feedback. I definitely feel like I have a better understanding of my current skill set and which direction to take. Thanks.

poopipe

Taylor Brown said:

This is just a guess but I reckon 99.9% of the time a hiring manager or whatever will not be reading a blog post when looking at a new hire.

Absolutely right. 

As someone who hires people I want to see breakdowns of work.  I also want to see thought processes and the reference material you're trying to capture - it tells me how well you'll do what I want you to do. 

At graduate/junior level I'm not looking for extreme technical competence or rockstar quality,  I'm looking to invest in  someone who demonstrates the desire and capacity to reach that level in a year or two under the guidance of the team they work with. 

The thing is,  I've got 20 or 30 people to look at and I've also got at least one game to make so I'm buggered if I'm going to follow an extra link or even read a CV unless you've sparked my interest in your thought process and the best way to do that is add some breakdowns to your artstation posts. 

Alex_J

poopipe said:

At graduate/junior level I'm not looking for extreme technical competence or rockstar quality....invest in  someone who demonstrates the desire and capacity to reach that level in a year or two under the guidance of the team they work with. 

That sounds great -- like exactly what any junior artist working to get into the business would want to hear, but it kind of seems to go against the general advice for wanna-be's I read here and similar places. My impression is that "there is a ton of highly talented people and few jobs so nobody is going to bother looking for potential, they want people who can deliver top quality and right now."

So the impression I get is that you have to be shit-hot and even if you get a job you need to be ready to get another one fast due to the unstable nature of the industry. I mean, I've even read almost verbatim people saying the exact opposite of what you are saying here (people saying they are also in the position of hiring), basically that they don't have time or money to develop juniors so you need to just come in knowing what you ought to know.

What kind of studio are you working at? A game studio? A large one? Sorry if it's not appropriate to ask personal stuff like that -- just curious as it seems counter what I usually read. Maybe I just have a wrong impression in general though about how game industry studios work?

Brian "Panda" Choi

The "Shit hot" advice also may help just to make sure people understand they need to try to be the best in general.

Alex_J

But are most studios, or many studios, or a only a few studios of a mindset to take in junior artist who may lack workmanship quality but have winning personalities (i.e. poopipe's "team player")?

Brian "Panda" Choi

Most?  Sounds unlikely.

pior

"[...] artist who may lack workmanship quality but have winning personalities (i.e. poopipe's "team player")?"

TBH I think you are misunderstanding the point. No one has any interest in hiring someone who lacks workmanship (betting on a sloppy artist eventually developing clean habits is a recipe for disaster imho). And being a good team player is not some kind of bonus, it's a requisite.

Potential, imho, is more along the lines of : someone showing excellent workmanship to begin with (like and excellent use of geometry, textures, UVs), but who hasn't really gotten the chance to shine.

An example of that would be some of the Dota2 Workshop artists. There are some truly great people there with great understanding of efficient modeling and texturing ; but maybe not a ton of full-on, high detail characters in their folios that would work well for closeups.

Another great source of potential is people who developed their own efficient processes and work habits by working on game mods - which is more goal-oriented (and imho, more demanding) than just taking screenshots of models for a folio.

But still, at the end of the day ... betting on potential is always a risk.

sacboi

pior said:

Another great source of potential is people who developed their own efficient processes and work habits by working on game mods - which is more goal-oriented (and imho, more demanding) than just taking screenshots of models for a folio.

But still, at the end of the day ... betting on potential is always a risk.

Quoted for agreement.