Qs & Discussion | Concept art from a 3D artist's perspective; what makes it "bad", how to deal w/ it
polycounter lvl 2
Hey guys!
I'm currently working on my thesis and have found it to be incredibly difficult to find literature (read: articles, blogs, forum posts, videos) on the topic of the 3D artist's perspective of concept art, and what makes good concept art to a 3D artist. And, in addition to that, how do you deal with concept art that isn't up to certain standards and doesn't tell you all you need to know about the design. (note: I'm also coming from a 3D artist perspective, I felt in a previous discussion I had with someone they thought I came at it from a concept artist's perspective, just making sure that's clear)
Granted, I have some ideas and some knowledge on what would (and does) make good concept art, however! I would love to hear from some of you guys, what, in your opinion, makes concept art "good", or otherwise, "bad" to work with. (note the quotation marks, this is not meant as an insult to concept artists, just an oversimplified way of describing useful/unuseful concept art) The main question to this thesis is as follows, to give you a better idea of where this is going:
If you have any experiences working with concept art that wasn't stylistically accurate to the project, or otherwise unclear in terms of design, please tell me all about them! It would really help me to hear from different people with potentially different outlooks (freelancers, in-house, outsource, etc - I also appreciate hobbyists thoughts on this, or otherwise from the perspective of doing a personal project based on a concept you "found").
With that said, I have a couple of questions that I would really appreciate answers to from people's personal (or I guess professional!) perspectives:
Thanks so much if you take the time to give your input! Any experience, input, thoughts or opinions are appreciated! I'd love to start a discussion.
I'm currently working on my thesis and have found it to be incredibly difficult to find literature (read: articles, blogs, forum posts, videos) on the topic of the 3D artist's perspective of concept art, and what makes good concept art to a 3D artist. And, in addition to that, how do you deal with concept art that isn't up to certain standards and doesn't tell you all you need to know about the design. (note: I'm also coming from a 3D artist perspective, I felt in a previous discussion I had with someone they thought I came at it from a concept artist's perspective, just making sure that's clear)
Granted, I have some ideas and some knowledge on what would (and does) make good concept art, however! I would love to hear from some of you guys, what, in your opinion, makes concept art "good", or otherwise, "bad" to work with. (note the quotation marks, this is not meant as an insult to concept artists, just an oversimplified way of describing useful/unuseful concept art) The main question to this thesis is as follows, to give you a better idea of where this is going:
"How can a 3D Character Artist translate and adapt the style and design of the concept art to that of a project?"
The answers to this thread should help me get to answering this question through practical research and create somewhat of a guide, or at least formulate a properly researched conclusion. Although this is definitely focused on the Character Artist, environment artists' thoughts are appreciated too!
If you have any experiences working with concept art that wasn't stylistically accurate to the project, or otherwise unclear in terms of design, please tell me all about them! It would really help me to hear from different people with potentially different outlooks (freelancers, in-house, outsource, etc - I also appreciate hobbyists thoughts on this, or otherwise from the perspective of doing a personal project based on a concept you "found").
With that said, I have a couple of questions that I would really appreciate answers to from people's personal (or I guess professional!) perspectives:
What is most often the issue with concept art you have to work with?
How do those issues affect your work(flow)?
Do you have any solutions or methods to deal with style inconsistencies or unclear design? (for example redesign in 2D, gathering references, etc, any practical "diy" solutions/methods)
Do you have any methods of translating/adapting style of concept art to a different style in 3D? (this question takes a bit of a different route, but it'd be helpful to hear some thoughts on this!)
Lastly, if you know any resources that tackle this topic, please let me know! I've found Baj Singh's Linkedin article on the topic, more so geared towards concept artists and how they should present their design to make it useful to a 3D artist, though it shed a light on some issues!How do those issues affect your work(flow)?
Do you have any solutions or methods to deal with style inconsistencies or unclear design? (for example redesign in 2D, gathering references, etc, any practical "diy" solutions/methods)
Do you have any methods of translating/adapting style of concept art to a different style in 3D? (this question takes a bit of a different route, but it'd be helpful to hear some thoughts on this!)
Thanks so much if you take the time to give your input! Any experience, input, thoughts or opinions are appreciated! I'd love to start a discussion.
Replies
2) I usually design unclear elements on my own to clarify the elements
3) Usually an existing render tartget asset assists with converting most 2D concept art to 3D for me.
In a studio though there's no such thing as a bad concept in the sense that there's constant communication between the 2d and 3d artist ideally so the whole thing will evolve over time. Working on buildings and environments in general has its challenges with shader capabilities, decal limitations, material count limitations and so on. A bad concept would assume we have no limitations, so this is something I would probably try to discuss before concepting even starts.
On the other hand if the concept artist/art director says that our limitations aren't allowing us to create awesome stuff then that could be passed onto tech people and see what they can accomplish. Maybe use masks to increase material variety or improve texture packing so that we can have more stuff. Maybe in the concept there are a lot of atmospheric effects that give a great sense of depth to the scene but we don't have anything like that in engine, so find a way to add it.
There's also the matter of paintovers and blockouts that can help eliminate a lot of the issues.
I've definitely seen "concept art" online that are more like pretty illustrations that could be sold in a "The Concept Art of [...]" book but otherwise useless in day to day production. Sometimes abstract stuff can be a good starting point though in the initial brainstorming stage where details aren't necessary.