And I'm trying to get into the industry as environment! I'm taking a class at gnomon right now, and before I thought I knew how to do things. Turns out I don't!
Coldkodiak what skills are needed nowadays? All i got is basic modeling and texturing. I don't even do spec maps let alone normals.
wow yea some serious necromancy going on here... but was a great thread lots of good info. I think most of it still holds true. I'm glad there is more of a focus on environment art, just about everywhere.
Proxzee, it looks like modular design has really taken over the last few years.
Interesting thread.
To be honest, 3 years after this thread has been created, I still feel that in places like Polycount or game-artisans, character art is regarded in a way superior to all the rest. One of the reasons I barely go to game-artisans, it's just nothing but characters there.
I do get the impression however that Kevin thinks vehicles and so also kind of fall into the same category as characters, and that only environment art in the true sense, counts ?
Aye... this thread is pretty much out of date at this point, but thats great isn't it?
I mean, theres a whole variety of stuff being posted on the character/vehicle/environment/props side of things and I would hope this is leading to more people from the board finding opportunities out there they didnt have before?
Certainly it makes me happy to see so much cool stuff being produced here and theres room for everything to be covered.
@Xoliul
no true, most people do characters because its easyer to, i mean doing a character is like focussing on one thing to make it look good and then youre done, but doing environments needs alot more work, making buildings and keeping the same style and putting them together on streets and stuff and make everything look good with almost the same LOD than characters have but on a much larger scale, most people trying to do environment art fail at the concept, because there is none
I haven't read all of the thread but I personally think environment artists are incredibly important because if it's not done properly it won't help bring the player into the story. I'd be thrilled to find an environment position.
I joke to myself that others create characters, or guns, or blades, or vehicles... but I get to play god and make a world.
I'm right there with you, my long time "person I wanna meet" is actually Peter Molyneux because of his views on games and that makes me want to bring more breath taking environments to the table.
why i like being an env artist above vehicle and character, i get to make lots of stuff and make a load of design choices that affect the way the game plays aswell as looks
why i dislike being an env artist, i HAVE to make ALOT of stuff and make a SHITLOAD of fixes that affect the way the game plays aswell as looks
Well I personally have always wanted to be an environment artist. When I got out of school, environment art is all I wanted to do. I still prefer it over characters but for some reason I always end up being the character artist. Sometimes this bugs me and I wish I could just model buildings and make some amazing environment but time and time again I end up doing the characters.
I agree that enviro artist are underrated. I see it all the time. When I post up screen shots of my latest work on a character and I get a ton of responses, but when our prop guy posts he gets a much more muted response. His models are top notch and in some cases just as complicated as my models.
I think most of this stems from the fact that we all identify more closely with a character, where as a prop or an environment doesnt often elicit the same kind of connection. This doesnt mean that the enviro isnt any less valid, thats just the way we are.
Nick, ha (twitch twitch) its getting easier to resist... (twitch) just remember the steps...
Anime, yep, happens all the time where I work too. I also think its easier to take in the whole existence of the character in a single shot. Props are bits and pieces of the whole env, it's like pimping off a foot or a thigh just by its self.
Character guys get: Wow looks amazing! Great work Chuck!
Animators get: Wow great animation, Andy!
Prop artists get: Yea Peter thats a nice chunk of debris. Did you see Chucks model WOW! Oh hey where are the other 27 props?
Set dressers: WOW it all looks great! Great lighting, great placement the props look great (Peter is not around and no one really gives him credit). What an amazing game huh Sally?
Not that any of us should be going this simply for the paise showered on us from others, but it does add to the overall sense of value a person has within the company.
There's a saying in the film fx industry "when we do our job right you'll never know it" the prop artists kind of fall into that. They're job isn't always to crank out show pieces that grab attention (occasionally they do) but to blend everything together so it packs a collective punch. The whole point most character artists are told to strive for is something that is iconic, impressive and stands out.
I do have to give the character guys a nod for having to worry about deformation and animation.
I think whats tough about characters is that you have to get it right in that one shot you have. Environment artists have the luxury of many repeat attempts to get each piece right within a scene.
And you can repeat that in reverse.
The thing thats easier about characters is that you only have to do one at a time, environment folk have to get dozens of pieces right just to make one scene right!
So whichever way you cut it, both jobs have their pros and cons.... but they both pay money
And level design trumps everyone anyway as they have to make everything else fit together... ouch! Oh but wait, they get to have more control than anyone else theoretically they have the most potential for affecting the game as the coders.... oh wait yeah, coders! Coders are the ones at the absolute end of the cycle aren't they, they're like Gandalf standing on the bridge screaming ' YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!'
Comparing Env Art to Char art, nowadays is really silly... And comparing which is the hardest to do, even more silly!
I personally prefer Env. Art, always did... The joy modeling the props, texturing them, putting all the props together into a cohesive manner, illuminate scenes, etc. You guys can keep your chars! xD
Funny to see how the industry, and the communites on the internet evolved on the last 3 years tho! You see a lot more aspiring Environment Artists, a lot more Env Art folios, etc. Which is really nice, the more inspiration the better. :P
Anyway, I love doing environment work also. I think that environment artists lack a lot of respect that should otherwise be directed toward them. I constantly find myself picking up old titles that I am bored with, just to have a look at the great environment art (FarCry is a perfect example). I'm also 'that guy' in games that is running around reading all the signs and taking it all in. Hell, I still haven't finished Morrowind OR Oblivion just because I find myself walking throughout the map to find new places.
I guess the point of my mini rant is, Respect the Environment Artist, they work just as hard, if not harder sometimes, as anyone else on the team.
I cant imagine a character without an environment, I can imagine an environment without any characters :P.
No, seriously, I love both, but I suck less at one of them so yeah, environments for me.
I myself love both, only thing I am remotely "good" at is character modelling, would love to get into in Enviroment art, but need to find a good point to start from.
And this is why i love making weapons, the one thing that is ALWAYS on screen and close up. Very rewarding making something badass that will be seen 100% of the time
Let me first start by saying these are my personal opinions.
I'd say that the shitty thing about environment artists is that like Kevin said in the OP, they act sort of as a beginners position into the industry. Nowadays environment work requires an extraordinary amount of detail, while maintaining the same efficiency as before.
This is a problem, especially with current gen consoles, because standards keep going up, but the hardware restrictions remain the same. So environment artist need to refine their skills so that their shit looks amazing while finding tricky ways to keep it efficient enough to fit in the memory range of current consoles.
It's hard work for shit pay most of the time. I know a couple environment guys that got a job with a certain studio (i'm not going to name it) who started off at total shit pay, were expected to work 12-16 hour days, and have their stuff look amazing, or risk being reprimanded.
I think that environment guys have it the roughest out of anyone (other than programmers, but programmers get payed very well compared to artists) for the above reasons. The stress is always there, and like Kevin said, their stuff takes up 80% of the screen. They always have the most work to do out of anyone on the art team.
It does depend on the studio though, but chances are, if you work for a major player in the industry as an environment artist, i think it's safe to assume that you are under-paid, work longer hours than you should be, yet you suck it up because you feel like you're expendable.
Yeah it depends heavily on the area where you are working. For instance, guys working in california get payed like 60-70k, but the cost of living is really high... but some areas like the north east of the continent pay really low.
The only thing I wanna add, and maybe people will disagree, is that I'm seeing some bizarre bias towards environment art from the higher-ups at the studios I know. And I'm sure it's throughout the industry.
Seems like the higher-ups are interested in pushing tons of different levels, but settle for only a handful of characters/enemies. On my projects, there are ~10 environment guys, 2 character artists (me+1), 3 animators and one VFX artist.
Cool thread I must say.
My 2 cents: I haven't done envrio stuff, but I love to model characters.
How I see it (u may not agree) is:
- envrionament is easier in sense of most stuff can be simplified to simple geometric forms (building, windows -boxes, trash can - cylinder) but much more time consuming. I say it, based of my experience with car modeling -first one was crap, but 1 year later tired second time and I got much better result without practicing hard surface (I did only character in that time - for those interested car). But I had to spend week to make this car- without textures.
- with character modeling my second try was crap, so third and forth. I got decent after about 2 year of sculpting characters, and now I can make one I 2 days (without retopo and texture baking).
So i feel like envrio/prop modeling takes much less time to master, but it takes more time to make it from start to finish. Character stuff kinda feels like it takes long time to master but when you got it, you can do it fast.
In the end the hardest thing is design - making envrio/character look cool, imo. But once you have design/blueptrints envrio stuff is easy, just time consuming. And for character modeling, design do not guarantee you that your model well look good (assuming different person makes model, that design), if you don't have knowledge about anatomy, proportions and stuff. I saw much more badly made characters from blueprints, than eg. cars.
I do not want so start flamewar, and I'm interested how envrio guys see this. Maybe I'm wrong and envrio stuff, takes many years to master.
Seems like the higher-ups are interested in pushing tons of different levels, but settle for only a handful of characters/enemies. On my projects, there are ~10 environment guys, 2 character artists (me+1), 3 animators and one VFX artist.
I would really like to see it equal out more.
What for? the "higher-ups" are right. Unless you're making a game with loads of characters and the focus of the story are characters, plot, etc, I really don't see a point of flooding a team with more character artists.
It's safe to say on a standard nowadays game the ratio of env artists / char artists is 4/1, because there's only a handful of characters to be made and loads of environments to be built, and environments occupy 95% of the screen at all times.
I'm not saying characters are not important, they sure are, but I don't see why you'd want to equal it out more, if you were to do that, then you'd have a character artist working in a single character for 1 year or more, and a environment artist building 2/3 different levels in the exact same time.
It's all about balance.
Also, in regards to people saying environment art is easy, I do NOT agree with this. It's different areas, and the problems that env artists face are just different from the problems character artists do.
Character artists don't need to think about draw calls, texture budgets, UV re-usage, Tilling textures, modularity, level designers always changing shit.... the list goes on and on!
PS. This post might make me sound I hate char artists or something, lol. I am just trying to put things in perspective!
I don't think either character art or environment art is easier than one or the other - it varies individually based on what your making.
My 2c of the matter: I love cool looking environments. Characters? don't care for em. I've always been more interested in the setting than the people, so I'm mad for env art!
Also, in regards to people saying environment art is easy, I do NOT agree with this. It's different areas, and the problems that env artists face are just different from the problems character artists do.
I agree about the perception. I think the problem comes from people comparing a floor full of Jr prop artist to Sr character artists. There really aren't any Jr Character artists, they are either rockstars or they aren't hired.
A guy who makes dumpsters and trash cans and has limited understanding of architecture, color theory and can't use an editor or light a level, can still be a great prop artist land a job.
Where a guy who doesn't have a grasp of anatomy isn't going anywhere. There just aren't that many low end tasks that a jr character artist can do to work their way up the food chain. So the comparison gets made Jr env, to Sr Char.
If you where to compare apples to apples then the training and knowlege are about the same.
What for? the "higher-ups" are right. Unless you're making a game with loads of characters and the focus of the story are characters, plot, etc, I really don't see a point of flooding a team with more character artists.
That's some circular logic wouldn't you say?
We don't need many character artists, because there aren't that many characters that need to be done, because there aren't many character artists.
And I thought every game should have a plot with characters in it, shouldn't it? What ever happened to character growth? In movies they've been doing it forever. The characters aren't the same when they start out as when they end. Frodo starts out with a Shire outfit, all chubby and happy. Then he gets a full set of elvish chain armor, trinkets, necklace, elf-sword that glows when orcs are near. Then he goes on his journey where he becomes all sickly, thin, worn-out, dirty, gets a scar in his shoulder from when a freakin Nazgul stabbed him, etc etc.
The best we get is that Shepherd in Mass Effect gets some scars if he goes with the "evil" choices in dialog.
And what frustrates me is that games like RPGs are almost specifically tailored for character growth. You start out with a set of worn leather armor and a couple of rusty daggers. By the end of it, you're a badass barbarian with the most legendary armor and a set of huge battle-axes ready to tackle the devil himself.
And yet this aspect gets downplayed a lot.
It's not like the higher-ups can't design a game with deep character growth. You can even have the enemies go through this same growth process. It's just that it seems like designers choose to neglect this aspect in favor of pushing more levels with more unique props and environments.
It's easier to say "we have 30 unique levels, which is higher than 20" rather than sell a publisher on "we have a deep character growth system".
I'm not saying it should be the other way around. But I am saying it would be nice if it were equal.
We don't need many character artists, because there aren't that many characters that need to be done, because there aren't many character artists.
Is the lack of characters due to lack of character artists? Generally its a decision dictated by the design, scope and technical limitations of the game.
In general most character art is more or less finalized fairly quickly and in the hands of animators for a longer chunk of time than it takes to create it. Its not too uncommon for character artists to jump in and model some hero props or also be the people modeling weapons and vehicles. It just doesn't take as long to crank out a character as it does for 1,2,3,4 people to crank out an environment.
Often higher level environment guys are doing it all, modeling, layout, triggers, scripting, particles, lighting and materials. The character artist equivalent would be someone who also rigs and animates, but they are rarely asked or tasked with those duties.
Exactly. So why not throw more responsibility on our shoulders?
My workflow is exactly as you described it. Pretty loaded early on in the project, but then winds down towards the end. And I jump in on doing other stuff.
So why not make the decision that we'll have, say, 3 completely different variations for each enemy, all sharing the same skeleton and animations, but are different enough that it's a brand new character? Or instead of giving the hero character some scars and calling it a day, change him fundamentally as the story progresses and have some real character growth. It's still the same skeleton and animations, so it's hardly any more work on the other people. And you get more variety.
Seems to me like the only reason it's not like that is because they don't want to hire more artists. The bang for the buck calculation doesn't click for them for that. But it does click for environment artists, cause that translates to being able to push a couple more levels, which is something you can easily sell a publisher or print on the box.
There really aren't any Jr Character artists, they are either rockstars or they aren't hired.
Ive heard this from so many art directors its sad.
this is thread is leading me to a conclusion that I need some backup with.
As a devout character artist by night, and a professional hard-surface vehicle artist by day, I'd like to hear some character artists pipe up about how to become a "rockstar"?
Do you guys just say fuck it, I'll pay my dues in environment art and work my way up? or do you just keep hammering away on one character folio piece after another until somebody gives you some love?
as a generalization I feel That every professional character artist can do environment art, but not every environment artist can do character work.
and I think this belief is held by most studios aswell as they seem to be able to have the best 7 character modellers alive on this planet working for them at any one time
as a generalization I feel That every professional character artist can do environment art, but not every environment artist can do character work.
Totally disagree
Every character artist can be a prop artist, but not an environment artist.
So many people go, oh hey I can do props, I'm an environment artist. When in reality, there not the same. In fact I think Character Artist and Prop Artists are more alike then an Environment Artist. All of course have some very large similarity's and cross over for sure.
Character Artists spend a ton of time on just a few characters, adding "character" too them. They pour over the details of 1 asset and work for a long time to get it to really pop.
A Prop Artist dose the same thing on a smaller/faster scale. They do highly detailed assets from mailboxes to spaceships. They have to put a lot of "character" into these assets. They of course dont take as long as a character (depending on what it is of course, like a Mech could take as long as a character)
They do the same things a character artist dose for creating assets. They create high polys of there creations, low poly with custom unwraps, unique textures with details to really sell the asset.
Environment Artists on the other hand handle the creation of the level and work to make sure everything from collision, shader count, occlusion areas, lighting, design flow of art, readability of the level and adding "character" to specific areas all work within the context of the game. Not saying its harder or more work, its just different. Its more about modularity, utilizing tiling textures and scene creation when it comes to modeling/texturing as apposed to pour over a single item and putting all the care and attention character/prop artists do.
No one is better then the other, there all different enough, but in terms of style of work flow, character and prop artists are more alike than an environment artist. This can also totally very from studio to studio.
as a generalization I feel That every professional character artist can do environment art, but not every environment artist can do character work.
I would say its the other way around. Anyone can make a working character, you got very easy limitations in most cases. Use x amount of tris and this texturesize. Environments are much more demanding, alot more technical skills involved. Autocon summed everything up pretty decently. I would say its easier to be a good character artist than environment artist :P I have met alot more great character artists than great environment artists
Every character artist can be a prop artist, but not an environment artist.
So many people go, oh hey I can do props, I'm an environment artist. When in reality, there not the same. In fact I think Character Artist and Prop Artists are more alike then an Environment Artist. All of course have some very large similarity's and cross over for sure.
Character Artists spend a ton of time on just a few characters, adding "character" too them. They pour over the details of 1 asset and work for a long time to get it to really pop.
A Prop Artist dose the same thing on a smaller/faster scale. They do highly detailed assets from mailboxes to spaceships. They have to put a lot of "character" into these assets. They of course dont take as long as a character (depending on what it is of course, like a Mech could take as long as a character)
They do the same things a character artist dose for creating assets. They create high polys of there creations, low poly with custom unwraps, unique textures with details to really sell the asset.
Environment Artists on the other hand handle the creation of the level and work to make sure everything from collision, shader count, occlusion areas, lighting, design flow of art, readability of the level and adding "character" to specific areas all work within the context of the game. Not saying its harder or more work, its just different. Its more about modularity, utilizing tiling textures and scene creation when it comes to modeling/texturing as apposed to pour over a single item and putting all the care and attention character/prop artists do.
No one is better then the other, there all different enough, but in terms of style of work flow, character and prop artists are more alike than an environment artist. This can also totally very from studio to studio.
Just to throw a wrench in that point, I'm a character artist who leans a bit on the technical side. My last ipad contract I had to do a multi floor level using light maps, 2 uv channels, and fit it all in a very rigid texture and triangle budget to work on mobile devices. I was able to ramp up and create all characters, props, a skybox, external 3d environment, 12 rooms (one that switches out during the game), multi UV channels, light bakes, collision boxes, and visibility boxes. Not the most complicated environment workflow, but definitely more tech stuff than a character.
All the learning to "see" that having to learn anatomy and drapery and color theory transfered over near perfectly, and all the technical aspects of having to learn proper UV layout, per pixel passes, baking, rigging, etc all helped me as well.
Not making any value judgement as I see both both env and chars as difficult to do well and equally important for feel of the game, but more trying to debunk the idea that a character artist can't do environment art.
perfect description HP. also it helps to think of Environment artists as architects. You wouldn't expect a classical sculptor to be a great architect would you? So why do you think a character artist would a good env artist?
It's just not fair to think of environment art as the lesser of the two.
I'm a character artist / hero asset / prop guy btw. But I started with environment art, so I know both sides...
Both character artist and environment artist require skills.
They don't face same technical problems and work approach but they both got the same "value" in my opinion.
Now, generally speaking, I don't see why an env artist couldn't do a char or the inverse.
I feel like in a middle of a env Vs char artist here .
Not making any value judgement as I see both both env and chars as difficult to do well and equally important for feel of the game, but more trying to debunk the idea that a character artist can't do environment art.
I agree. I think there is a lot of potential for a lot of cross over and a lot of people especially freelance and people at small studios wear a lot of hats are get good at a lot of things.
I'm not so sure I buy into the whole "Jack of all trades, master of none" I think it just takes a little longer to master all things than it does to master one thing. Of course you can take on too much and never get good at any one thing but that doesn't mean once someone masters one thing they can't master something new.
I think the technical people tend to gravitate toward environment art and rigging/animation. while character artists tend to be a bit more traditionally art minded and less technical, of course working in this industry everyone has a tech chip sitting on their shoulder so no one really escapes it.
I think the technical side of environment art scares off a lot of character artists. Often there are tools and scripts that can be written to help automate things, it can be a lot of repetition otherwise.
Env artists also have to learn some kind of editor which is normally written by a programmer who cooked up wonky controls and names things oddly, they also suck at UI design... For someone a bit more technical it won't be as chaotic and would probably make a bit more sense.
I think it mostly comes down to personal preference. I think most studios would love to have artists that rock at everything, but often have to settle because it takes a long time and a lot of training to be a master of all things. At the rate the industry spits people out... its not hard to see why.
To get to that level you need a stable environment and time to concentrate on your craft, if you don't have that, then you're constantly distracted or you find someplace else that offers that.
Is everyone still in the consensus that enviroment art is still the easiest way into the industry? I know at BW we employ alot more enviroment artists than character.
You wouldn't expect a classical sculptor to be a great architect would you? So why do you think a character artist would a good env artist?
Raphael
Michaelangelo
Brunelleschi
Plenty of the most iconic classsic architecture was designed by sculptors/Renaissance masters.
Not sure if this serves the point im trying to make, just had to raise my voice there.
Ok so, since what everyone got from my post was that last part, ill specify.
Are all environment artists working on these high level things that seem to be defined as elements level design and not particularly related to modeling/texturing?
To me it would seem that a studio would need (just like character artists) only a few people who really handle this side of it. and a whole army of prop modellers behind them.
If im wrong again let me know, I haven't seen the inside of a game studio before so this is all from the outside.
Are all environment artists working on these high level things that seem to be defined as elements level design and not particularly related to modeling/texturing?
It really depends on the studio. A large studio will probably have environment artists and prop modelers while a smaller studio might have just environment artists that wear a lot of hats. Another studio might have just artists who wear even more hats and do whatever is required.
To me it would seem that a studio would need (just like character artists) only a few people who really handle this side of it. and a whole army of prop modelers behind them.
If you're lumping everyone in the environment team into one category then I would toss animators onto the character artist pile.
Character Artist = model/materials Character Animator = Responsible for getting it all in game.
Prop artist = model/materials Environment artist = Responsible for getting it all in game.
It's up to the studio to decide what percent of artists are needed for what, its not like "teh man" is forcing character artists to work harder and longer than anyone else, personally I've seen it the exact opposite... Typically the character leads are pampered pretty heavily they pump out the majority of the PR/Marketing content which normally gets locked in pretty early. When it comes time to crunch, its more programing, QA and environment guys.
Replies
Coldkodiak what skills are needed nowadays? All i got is basic modeling and texturing. I don't even do spec maps let alone normals.
Proxzee, it looks like modular design has really taken over the last few years.
It seems like I can't keep ignoring stuff like baking lighting, normals, and specs anymore too.
To be honest, 3 years after this thread has been created, I still feel that in places like Polycount or game-artisans, character art is regarded in a way superior to all the rest. One of the reasons I barely go to game-artisans, it's just nothing but characters there.
I do get the impression however that Kevin thinks vehicles and so also kind of fall into the same category as characters, and that only environment art in the true sense, counts ?
I mean, theres a whole variety of stuff being posted on the character/vehicle/environment/props side of things and I would hope this is leading to more people from the board finding opportunities out there they didnt have before?
Certainly it makes me happy to see so much cool stuff being produced here and theres room for everything to be covered.
no true, most people do characters because its easyer to, i mean doing a character is like focussing on one thing to make it look good and then youre done, but doing environments needs alot more work, making buildings and keeping the same style and putting them together on streets and stuff and make everything look good with almost the same LOD than characters have but on a much larger scale, most people trying to do environment art fail at the concept, because there is none
I'm still figuring how to do characters enough good but hey, no success at all, i move one vertex or polygon, and all is different! what the heck! XDD
If doing characters were so easy... we should see games with nice faces and not ugly attemps of persons... what's a building but a box?
...It's harder and better cuz i do it! U.U
But I step back from the brink.
I'm right there with you, my long time "person I wanna meet" is actually Peter Molyneux because of his views on games and that makes me want to bring more breath taking environments to the table.
why i dislike being an env artist, i HAVE to make ALOT of stuff and make a SHITLOAD of fixes that affect the way the game plays aswell as looks
I'm proud of your restraint Vig.
I agree that enviro artist are underrated. I see it all the time. When I post up screen shots of my latest work on a character and I get a ton of responses, but when our prop guy posts he gets a much more muted response. His models are top notch and in some cases just as complicated as my models.
I think most of this stems from the fact that we all identify more closely with a character, where as a prop or an environment doesnt often elicit the same kind of connection. This doesnt mean that the enviro isnt any less valid, thats just the way we are.
Anime, yep, happens all the time where I work too. I also think its easier to take in the whole existence of the character in a single shot. Props are bits and pieces of the whole env, it's like pimping off a foot or a thigh just by its self.
Character guys get: Wow looks amazing! Great work Chuck!
Animators get: Wow great animation, Andy!
Prop artists get: Yea Peter thats a nice chunk of debris. Did you see Chucks model WOW! Oh hey where are the other 27 props?
Set dressers: WOW it all looks great! Great lighting, great placement the props look great (Peter is not around and no one really gives him credit). What an amazing game huh Sally?
Not that any of us should be going this simply for the paise showered on us from others, but it does add to the overall sense of value a person has within the company.
There's a saying in the film fx industry "when we do our job right you'll never know it" the prop artists kind of fall into that. They're job isn't always to crank out show pieces that grab attention (occasionally they do) but to blend everything together so it packs a collective punch. The whole point most character artists are told to strive for is something that is iconic, impressive and stands out.
I do have to give the character guys a nod for having to worry about deformation and animation.
And you can repeat that in reverse.
The thing thats easier about characters is that you only have to do one at a time, environment folk have to get dozens of pieces right just to make one scene right!
So whichever way you cut it, both jobs have their pros and cons.... but they both pay money
And level design trumps everyone anyway as they have to make everything else fit together... ouch! Oh but wait, they get to have more control than anyone else theoretically they have the most potential for affecting the game as the coders.... oh wait yeah, coders! Coders are the ones at the absolute end of the cycle aren't they, they're like Gandalf standing on the bridge screaming ' YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!'
Yeah I'm just taking the piss at this point !
In the universe.
I personally prefer Env. Art, always did... The joy modeling the props, texturing them, putting all the props together into a cohesive manner, illuminate scenes, etc.
Funny to see how the industry, and the communites on the internet evolved on the last 3 years tho! You see a lot more aspiring Environment Artists, a lot more Env Art folios, etc. Which is really nice, the more inspiration the better. :P
Everything stand still, I need ref photos!
All I've gotta say is; Environments for life. Always been enviros and I love the shit out of what I do.
Anyway, I love doing environment work also. I think that environment artists lack a lot of respect that should otherwise be directed toward them. I constantly find myself picking up old titles that I am bored with, just to have a look at the great environment art (FarCry is a perfect example). I'm also 'that guy' in games that is running around reading all the signs and taking it all in. Hell, I still haven't finished Morrowind OR Oblivion just because I find myself walking throughout the map to find new places.
I guess the point of my mini rant is, Respect the Environment Artist, they work just as hard, if not harder sometimes, as anyone else on the team.
No, seriously, I love both, but I suck less at one of them so yeah, environments for me.
I second that
Let me first start by saying these are my personal opinions.
I'd say that the shitty thing about environment artists is that like Kevin said in the OP, they act sort of as a beginners position into the industry. Nowadays environment work requires an extraordinary amount of detail, while maintaining the same efficiency as before.
This is a problem, especially with current gen consoles, because standards keep going up, but the hardware restrictions remain the same. So environment artist need to refine their skills so that their shit looks amazing while finding tricky ways to keep it efficient enough to fit in the memory range of current consoles.
It's hard work for shit pay most of the time. I know a couple environment guys that got a job with a certain studio (i'm not going to name it) who started off at total shit pay, were expected to work 12-16 hour days, and have their stuff look amazing, or risk being reprimanded.
I think that environment guys have it the roughest out of anyone (other than programmers, but programmers get payed very well compared to artists) for the above reasons. The stress is always there, and like Kevin said, their stuff takes up 80% of the screen. They always have the most work to do out of anyone on the art team.
It does depend on the studio though, but chances are, if you work for a major player in the industry as an environment artist, i think it's safe to assume that you are under-paid, work longer hours than you should be, yet you suck it up because you feel like you're expendable.
From all the research I have done. Starting salaries are between 40-60k. In Canada anyways..
Pay in the games industry varies a lot. I was paid pretty crappily when I started. But my pay doubled over the first year.
The only thing I wanna add, and maybe people will disagree, is that I'm seeing some bizarre bias towards environment art from the higher-ups at the studios I know. And I'm sure it's throughout the industry.
Seems like the higher-ups are interested in pushing tons of different levels, but settle for only a handful of characters/enemies. On my projects, there are ~10 environment guys, 2 character artists (me+1), 3 animators and one VFX artist.
I would really like to see it equal out more.
My 2 cents: I haven't done envrio stuff, but I love to model characters.
How I see it (u may not agree) is:
- envrionament is easier in sense of most stuff can be simplified to simple geometric forms (building, windows -boxes, trash can - cylinder) but much more time consuming. I say it, based of my experience with car modeling -first one was crap, but 1 year later tired second time and I got much better result without practicing hard surface (I did only character in that time - for those interested car). But I had to spend week to make this car- without textures.
- with character modeling my second try was crap, so third and forth. I got decent after about 2 year of sculpting characters, and now I can make one I 2 days (without retopo and texture baking).
So i feel like envrio/prop modeling takes much less time to master, but it takes more time to make it from start to finish. Character stuff kinda feels like it takes long time to master but when you got it, you can do it fast.
In the end the hardest thing is design - making envrio/character look cool, imo. But once you have design/blueptrints envrio stuff is easy, just time consuming. And for character modeling, design do not guarantee you that your model well look good (assuming different person makes model, that design), if you don't have knowledge about anatomy, proportions and stuff. I saw much more badly made characters from blueprints, than eg. cars.
I do not want so start flamewar, and I'm interested how envrio guys see this. Maybe I'm wrong and envrio stuff, takes many years to master.
What for? the "higher-ups" are right. Unless you're making a game with loads of characters and the focus of the story are characters, plot, etc, I really don't see a point of flooding a team with more character artists.
It's safe to say on a standard nowadays game the ratio of env artists / char artists is 4/1, because there's only a handful of characters to be made and loads of environments to be built, and environments occupy 95% of the screen at all times.
I'm not saying characters are not important, they sure are, but I don't see why you'd want to equal it out more, if you were to do that, then you'd have a character artist working in a single character for 1 year or more, and a environment artist building 2/3 different levels in the exact same time.
It's all about balance.
Also, in regards to people saying environment art is easy, I do NOT agree with this. It's different areas, and the problems that env artists face are just different from the problems character artists do.
Character artists don't need to think about draw calls, texture budgets, UV re-usage, Tilling textures, modularity, level designers always changing shit.... the list goes on and on!
PS. This post might make me sound I hate char artists or something, lol. I am just trying to put things in perspective!
My 2c of the matter: I love cool looking environments. Characters? don't care for em. I've always been more interested in the setting than the people, so I'm mad for env art!
A guy who makes dumpsters and trash cans and has limited understanding of architecture, color theory and can't use an editor or light a level, can still be a great prop artist land a job.
Where a guy who doesn't have a grasp of anatomy isn't going anywhere. There just aren't that many low end tasks that a jr character artist can do to work their way up the food chain. So the comparison gets made Jr env, to Sr Char.
If you where to compare apples to apples then the training and knowlege are about the same.
That's some circular logic wouldn't you say?
We don't need many character artists, because there aren't that many characters that need to be done, because there aren't many character artists.
And I thought every game should have a plot with characters in it, shouldn't it? What ever happened to character growth? In movies they've been doing it forever. The characters aren't the same when they start out as when they end. Frodo starts out with a Shire outfit, all chubby and happy. Then he gets a full set of elvish chain armor, trinkets, necklace, elf-sword that glows when orcs are near. Then he goes on his journey where he becomes all sickly, thin, worn-out, dirty, gets a scar in his shoulder from when a freakin Nazgul stabbed him, etc etc.
The best we get is that Shepherd in Mass Effect gets some scars if he goes with the "evil" choices in dialog.
And what frustrates me is that games like RPGs are almost specifically tailored for character growth. You start out with a set of worn leather armor and a couple of rusty daggers. By the end of it, you're a badass barbarian with the most legendary armor and a set of huge battle-axes ready to tackle the devil himself.
And yet this aspect gets downplayed a lot.
It's not like the higher-ups can't design a game with deep character growth. You can even have the enemies go through this same growth process. It's just that it seems like designers choose to neglect this aspect in favor of pushing more levels with more unique props and environments.
It's easier to say "we have 30 unique levels, which is higher than 20" rather than sell a publisher on "we have a deep character growth system".
I'm not saying it should be the other way around. But I am saying it would be nice if it were equal.
In general most character art is more or less finalized fairly quickly and in the hands of animators for a longer chunk of time than it takes to create it. Its not too uncommon for character artists to jump in and model some hero props or also be the people modeling weapons and vehicles. It just doesn't take as long to crank out a character as it does for 1,2,3,4 people to crank out an environment.
Often higher level environment guys are doing it all, modeling, layout, triggers, scripting, particles, lighting and materials. The character artist equivalent would be someone who also rigs and animates, but they are rarely asked or tasked with those duties.
My workflow is exactly as you described it. Pretty loaded early on in the project, but then winds down towards the end. And I jump in on doing other stuff.
So why not make the decision that we'll have, say, 3 completely different variations for each enemy, all sharing the same skeleton and animations, but are different enough that it's a brand new character? Or instead of giving the hero character some scars and calling it a day, change him fundamentally as the story progresses and have some real character growth. It's still the same skeleton and animations, so it's hardly any more work on the other people. And you get more variety.
Seems to me like the only reason it's not like that is because they don't want to hire more artists. The bang for the buck calculation doesn't click for them for that. But it does click for environment artists, cause that translates to being able to push a couple more levels, which is something you can easily sell a publisher or print on the box.
Ive heard this from so many art directors its sad.
this is thread is leading me to a conclusion that I need some backup with.
As a devout character artist by night, and a professional hard-surface vehicle artist by day, I'd like to hear some character artists pipe up about how to become a "rockstar"?
Do you guys just say fuck it, I'll pay my dues in environment art and work my way up? or do you just keep hammering away on one character folio piece after another until somebody gives you some love?
as a generalization I feel That every professional character artist can do environment art, but not every environment artist can do character work.
and I think this belief is held by most studios aswell as they seem to be able to have the best 7 character modellers alive on this planet working for them at any one time
Totally disagree
Every character artist can be a prop artist, but not an environment artist.
So many people go, oh hey I can do props, I'm an environment artist. When in reality, there not the same. In fact I think Character Artist and Prop Artists are more alike then an Environment Artist. All of course have some very large similarity's and cross over for sure.
Character Artists spend a ton of time on just a few characters, adding "character" too them. They pour over the details of 1 asset and work for a long time to get it to really pop.
A Prop Artist dose the same thing on a smaller/faster scale. They do highly detailed assets from mailboxes to spaceships. They have to put a lot of "character" into these assets. They of course dont take as long as a character (depending on what it is of course, like a Mech could take as long as a character)
They do the same things a character artist dose for creating assets. They create high polys of there creations, low poly with custom unwraps, unique textures with details to really sell the asset.
Environment Artists on the other hand handle the creation of the level and work to make sure everything from collision, shader count, occlusion areas, lighting, design flow of art, readability of the level and adding "character" to specific areas all work within the context of the game. Not saying its harder or more work, its just different. Its more about modularity, utilizing tiling textures and scene creation when it comes to modeling/texturing as apposed to pour over a single item and putting all the care and attention character/prop artists do.
No one is better then the other, there all different enough, but in terms of style of work flow, character and prop artists are more alike than an environment artist. This can also totally very from studio to studio.
I would say its the other way around. Anyone can make a working character, you got very easy limitations in most cases. Use x amount of tris and this texturesize. Environments are much more demanding, alot more technical skills involved. Autocon summed everything up pretty decently. I would say its easier to be a good character artist than environment artist :P I have met alot more great character artists than great environment artists
THIS, perfect description.
All the learning to "see" that having to learn anatomy and drapery and color theory transfered over near perfectly, and all the technical aspects of having to learn proper UV layout, per pixel passes, baking, rigging, etc all helped me as well.
Not making any value judgement as I see both both env and chars as difficult to do well and equally important for feel of the game, but more trying to debunk the idea that a character artist can't do environment art.
It's just not fair to think of environment art as the lesser of the two.
I'm a character artist / hero asset / prop guy btw. But I started with environment art, so I know both sides...
They don't face same technical problems and work approach but they both got the same "value" in my opinion.
Now, generally speaking, I don't see why an env artist couldn't do a char or the inverse.
I feel like in a middle of a env Vs char artist here
I'm not so sure I buy into the whole "Jack of all trades, master of none" I think it just takes a little longer to master all things than it does to master one thing. Of course you can take on too much and never get good at any one thing but that doesn't mean once someone masters one thing they can't master something new.
I think the technical people tend to gravitate toward environment art and rigging/animation. while character artists tend to be a bit more traditionally art minded and less technical, of course working in this industry everyone has a tech chip sitting on their shoulder so no one really escapes it.
I think the technical side of environment art scares off a lot of character artists. Often there are tools and scripts that can be written to help automate things, it can be a lot of repetition otherwise.
Env artists also have to learn some kind of editor which is normally written by a programmer who cooked up wonky controls and names things oddly, they also suck at UI design... For someone a bit more technical it won't be as chaotic and would probably make a bit more sense.
I think it mostly comes down to personal preference. I think most studios would love to have artists that rock at everything, but often have to settle because it takes a long time and a lot of training to be a master of all things. At the rate the industry spits people out... its not hard to see why.
To get to that level you need a stable environment and time to concentrate on your craft, if you don't have that, then you're constantly distracted or you find someplace else that offers that.
Michaelangelo
Brunelleschi
Plenty of the most iconic classsic architecture was designed by sculptors/Renaissance masters.
Not sure if this serves the point im trying to make, just had to raise my voice there.
Ok so, since what everyone got from my post was that last part, ill specify.
Are all environment artists working on these high level things that seem to be defined as elements level design and not particularly related to modeling/texturing?
To me it would seem that a studio would need (just like character artists) only a few people who really handle this side of it. and a whole army of prop modellers behind them.
If im wrong again let me know, I haven't seen the inside of a game studio before so this is all from the outside.
If you're lumping everyone in the environment team into one category then I would toss animators onto the character artist pile.
Character Artist = model/materials
Character Animator = Responsible for getting it all in game.
Prop artist = model/materials
Environment artist = Responsible for getting it all in game.
It's up to the studio to decide what percent of artists are needed for what, its not like "teh man" is forcing character artists to work harder and longer than anyone else, personally I've seen it the exact opposite... Typically the character leads are pampered pretty heavily they pump out the majority of the PR/Marketing content which normally gets locked in pretty early. When it comes time to crunch, its more programing, QA and environment guys.