Cinematics Artist

jack_knife

What is a cinematic artist? What skills do they have? Any links, books, DVD or training to improve yourself in this area? Learning cinematography and lighting something to look into?

My first post also, so take it easy if this is a novice post.

Thanks

Steve Schulze

A cinematic artist would presumably be someone who works on cutscenes. Depending on the game that'd either involve the same sort of art and therefore skills you'd see in the rest of the game (At least as far as modelling and texturing are concerned), or it'd involve high poly film typed techniques.

jack_knife

What are the odds Jackablade would answer jack_knife first post! Thanks. I guess it is all about getting good at moving the camera and lighting it. Thanks

ZacD

Depends on if its pre-rendered or in game.

Cojax

A cinematic artist is a very broad title. You are either modeling, animating, lighting, even rendering and conceptualizing. Also as previously stated it depends on pre-rendered or in game.

moose

or storyboarding, layout, camera setup, cinematographer, dialog editor/facial animator, etc etc etc If you want to do camera work & camera animtion, practice Storyboarding too! focus in on something (pun intended)!

killingpeople

i always understood it as a cinematic artist worked on cinematics, those rendered movies that were way cooler than the actual game. they'd work at studios like http://www.blur.com/ for example

Blaizer

Hey, it think cinematic artists in 3d are all those who work doing cinematics, but they don't move cameras only... LOL

A good modeller for cinematics (like happens with the other disciplines), must have a strong knowledge for its field, like subdivision modelling, nurbs, anatomy, etc. let's say a 3d generalist...

3d is 3d, and it doesn't matter if you do art for games, for publicity, films or for cinematics (all is the same). A team dedicated exclusively in the production of pre-rendered animations, have their specialized guys, FX specialists, modellers, character Td's, animators, etc.

Don't forget that a game artist, can be also a "3d cinematic artist"

In too many studios you can see people only placing lights... or only doing the work of compositing.

killingpeople

i had always assumed in game cinematics were created by the combined efforts of the concept artist(s), art director(s), animators, and level designers. but i wouldn't be super surprised to hear studios had a dude that specialized in in-game cinematics.

vargatom

Blur's guys are still pretty much generalists, they have the character modelers do modeling, sculpting, UV, textures and even shaders + hair. Their scene assemblers do layout, lighting, compositing and sometimes even some animation as far as I know.

Blizzard used to have generalists too, back with War3 they even had complete scenes assigned to a single guy who did modeling + textures, animation, lighting + compositing. Now they're moving to a more specialized approach.

We've always been specialized, even as far as having separate guys doing modeling and sculpting. So I guess it's pretty different wherever you go...

As for training, traditional art stuff is the most important IMHO. Of course it also depends on which part of the pipeline you want to dive into.

Taylor Hood

It's a broad title as Cojax said but if your modelling I think you would be doing some high teir modelling just so the cinematics look great. After all, it's a short movie, not a game character.

Mark Dygert

People who normally work in film but have either burned a bridge or not finished building one yet.