Career focus Tech art or Hard surface

Zarosus

Hi, I'm a third year student currently doing my bachelors degree in game art. My initial focus was geared towards doing props and hard surface, because I enjoy the modelling and texturing process. During my studies I also got the opportunity to work with Houdini and I started to really appreciate the procedural way of working, as well as the joys of solving the technical challenges which present themselves. The issue is, that from what I've seen a lot of tech art positions focus mainly on tool creation as well as pipeline development which I'm really not too interested in. In an ideal world I'd love to have the opportunity to do a bit of both, but I'm not sure if there is actual demand for people like that and if so in what areas I should be looking.

So my main question is: Does it make sense to develop both of these skills in parallel, or should I pick one to focus on and eventually later down the line expand my skillset?

Eric Chadwick

There's a wide breadth of possibilities for being employed as a technical artist in games. You don't have to actually write tools, though that certainly increases your appeal to hiring managers. 

I don't actually write code, well I write a little but I try to code as little as possible. It's just not something I enjoy. Anyhow I've done well in my career doing technical explorations and creating art for games and other real-time markets. So it is possible.

Explore what you're really interested in, because that will lead to great portfolio examples. Then make sure to demonstrate your solutions, so people can get a peek at how you achieved your results.

scottycharly

During your hopfully long career, you will have the opportunity to explore and develop a wide arrays of skills and interests. Right now, your job is to leard AND to be a gooh hire. Personally, I would focus on one of them. If both are of equal interest to you, I would choose Houdini because that skill set is more in demand.