Art test question

Cernantis

Hi, i was asked to do 3D character and send all assets including high poly sculpt, low poly project and textures, in the end it smelt fishy and i turned it down.
Was i correct? Should i be wary of random companies asking complete assets for free?

rollin

It depends.. It should be clear that this is a standard art test given to many people and the asset should reflect it's purpose.
In the past I also requested all models and textures for me to be able to check everything in detail. But here in Germany you (the one giving out the art test) never have the copyright on the assets anyway if there is no other agreement.
And there shouldn't be any transfer of ownership in case of an art test as it will (and should) be thrown away afterwards anyway.

Cernantis

I looked up other posts here, and they barely mention transfer of files themselves, perhaps artists should know it on wiki.

slosh

There are definitely cases where you will be required to turn in assets as part of an art test.  Legitimate AAA companies will do this.  Then again, some won't.  If you are dealing with a well known studio, there should be no concern.  If they give you a concept, you are most likely under NDA anyway and they could prevent you from using the test in ur folio regardless of the result.  But if you are dealing with a smaller studio and the terms seem shady, there is reason for concern.  People have been duped into working for free under the guise of "an art test."  Be mindful of who you're dealing with.

Cernantis

Makes sense, if its Blizzard or Rockstar asking you there should be no concern. But if its literally who with single or no projects like in my case, one should be concerned.

neilberard

I don't see how that business model would make any sense for a legit studio. 1) You would be exposing your company to potential legal action every time you sent out an art test. 2) Maintaining consistency would be a nightmare, you would have to set up a test for each asset with potentially multiple artists taking it. There would be no guarantee of quality and chances are the time spent having to do rework would negate any benefit to using a deceptive art test.

Larry

neilberard said:

I don't see how that business model would make any sense for a legit studio. 1) You would be exposing your company to potential legal action every time you sent out an art test. 2) Maintaining consistency would be a nightmare, you would have to set up a test for each asset with potentially multiple artists taking it. There would be no guarantee of quality and chances are the time spent having to do rework would negate any benefit to using a deceptive art test.

But still isn't it faster to get something, give it to artists and polish it for your game rather than making it from scratch? Plus there are some studios that have different modeling styles within one game that come together with texturing

neilberard

I suppose if you are a small studio that doesn't care about the product, maybe.... I've never heard of this happening anywhere, tbh. There is a ton of iteration and tweaking that goes on with creating a game asset. Collision, lods, how materials render in engine etc. UV sets often need to be layed out in a specific way and there could be animations involved. Just pumping out a model is the tip of the iceberg in terms of workload.

A red flag might be if they are giving specific feedback and requiring submissions during stages in the art test. 

poopipe

It's not unusual to ask for source assets at all, how else are you going to determine whether the candidate has a clue what they're doing or not?

@neilberard
Sorry dude. Occam's razor has no place here - everything studios do is a conspiracy designed to steal from or oppress new talent while furthering the goals of the industry illuminati .  Also something about a pizza restaurant.

neilberard

@poopipe
Thanks for setting me straight! I forgot all about the secret agreement to steal from new talent. How would we ever get anything done?