3D Artist to Technical Artist ?

Peksio

Hello. From some time I was wondering about transferring from 3D Artist into more like Technical Artist. But I would like to stay in game dev, or have opportunity to stay in game dev and then to move to cinematics/movies.

Right now I am 3d artist, I make hi poly, low poly, uvs, bakes, texturing, simple setup in engine. I know maya, zbrush, uvlayout, substance painter, unreal engine 4, photoshop etc.

And I would like to move a little bit to more technical side. I was even wondering about becoming a programmer but to be honest I think it would be kinda shame to not use my previous 3d graphic experience.

I would like to ask you for advice in terms how I could evolve ?

I was mainly thinking about three things right now:

- Technical artist in maya - scripting in mel, writing plugins/scripts etc.

- Technical artist in UE4 - shaders, blueprints, creating fx

- Houdini - something with 3d graphic, but it is not being used in gamedev as far as I know ?

I am excited about all of this three things, but I would also like to think about my hireability. Houdini looks really cool, and I saw that you can create real magic in there but this software is really rare in gamedev as I heard ? And even if it is being used in company, they don't need a lot of guys to use it ?

If I had to choose right now I think that technical artist in UE4 (blueprints, materials, fx, optimisation) would be best option, but still, not every company use UE4, so it would be most likely version with "Look, he is good with UE4, so he will be probably able to learn our in house engine" :P

I am kinda lost, I would be really grateful for your every opinion and idea.

Thanks

poopipe

bad news...  most engines are not like UE4 so knowing UE4 means bugger all at places that don't use it

good news... you don't get hired as a technical artist because you know how to use certain software, you get hired because you can demonstrate that you know how to identify and solve problems in any software. 

to generate marketable skills - find a problem and build a tool to solve it.  

oglu

Take a look at the Techartist forum there is alot of info. 
http://tech-artists.org/

An other good source is cult of rig. Even if you dont rig you learn the inner workings of maya.
There is one stream on how to complie for maya. Depends on how far you would like to go.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0OBmpsTUCeGaTDbHSb88g/playlists

Most of our tech Artists do everything in Python. Make sure you start with Python 3 its planned to take over the pipelines next year.

Peksio

Thanks for answers. For this past couple days I talked with several people about this. And it appears that I shoudn't be stuck with word "technical artist".

In general, I heard about exact things that I told you, mainly two "carrer paths":

1. Houdini /+ Python 3 - Houdini will be very popular soon and they will need a lot of "technical artist" to use it, also with ability to write own scripts in python and in this Houdini internal language. Also, Houdini is so huge, that they will need experts "just" for houdini. And it is being used not only in film/commercials but also in real time engines.

2. Unreal Engine "technical artist", mainly for example, shaders with nodes, also python 3, HLSL, maybe some other engine stuff like blueprints, and/or optimization.

That's the info that I gathered. If anyone have anything else to say, please tell me. I am still very confused about all of this

oglu

There is something in the pipe for maya.

Little hint.
https://fmx.de/program2019/event/16153

mikhga

Where I work we split up the Tech Art role in two areas of responsibility, Runtime and Tools. Our Runtime TAs are heavily embedded in our engine, focusing on optimization, complex shaders (understanding of HLSL is definitely advantageous) and general problem solving. Our Tools TAs are more focused on ways to make content creators more efficient, finding ways to save time and improve quality. This can involve writing tools for Maya (primarily Python), working with Houdini to create tools or find other uses for proceduralism or working with the Substance suite.  

Right off the bat I think the easiest route to go down for you would be as a Runtime TA considering your background as a 3D Artist, since you will have a good understanding of performance relating to meshes, texture sizes, basic shader authoring, etc. But if you want to transition into VFX I think Tools will be a better area to focus on and your experience as a content creator gives you a good foundation as a Tools TA, since you will know what kind of tools would be useful in different scenarios and you'll have good insight into what is important from a UX point of view. 

Good luck! 

d1ver

I've seen to many people who can write some code and too few that know which problems are worth solving.
If you want to be hireable demonstrate the latter. Tools are easy to teach. Problem-space competence - extremely hard.