There's a lot of jobs in the oil and gas industry. Many of my friends in college had their first jobs doing things of that nature. Depending on the company, a lot of the modeling might be done with CAD, but not all. Stuff like this: http://www.3daaron.com/media/Mud_Pump_4.jpg
It's certainly not the most exciting job but it does pay well.
The medical field has a lot more modeling to be done. I had a bud that worked here http://blausen.com/home for a number of years.
I worked at a company that did product renders for Dell for a while, but a lot of that was working with existing CAD data.
Military (pays well, most likely in-house depends on project)
Product renders (sometimes you get a raw CAD file and need to fix it, then render)
3D Vis
Dental/Medical stuff
How-To's
Database cleanup (usually requires some knowledge of cartography).
Golf course
Trade show video stuff (3D intro crap/flying logos)
Kiosk games
Fixing shit people mess up (UDK stuff, preping work for UDK/Crisis and passing it off)
If you have a thing for it (wife/GF/BF/Hubby lets you), you can do porn too. As for games, I've done 1 UDK one and a couple browser-based ones, some sex-toy concept/renders for catalog and DVD menus. They pay fast and pay cash.
Rapid prototyping work is available sometimes. Though I've never actually landed any, flaky clients usually bail out when they find out all the costs involved.
If you're sent a raw CAD file then you'll be working with nurbs. Do you mean fixing it using nurbs (CAD software)?
Is much product visualisation actually done using polymodeling?
All I have ever done is product and archi viz and I always poly model it. Even if Im sent cad files, they will ask me to model back over it, the reason being is, trying to animate 37,000 pieces of a cad file is enough to make you want to vomit.
Although I have been thinking about learning Mayas Nurbs, sometime sit seems it would be easier to model phones in nurbs and then just convert it to polies when im done
All I have ever done is product and archi viz and I always poly model it. Even if Im sent cad files, they will ask me to model back over it, the reason being is, trying to animate 37,000 pieces of a cad file is enough to make you want to vomit.
Yeah, this is what drives me crazy. Even the smallest file will have like a million parts. The models aren't really very clean to how we would use it and requires a lot of work. So I end up taking the surfaces into Maya, fix in there (you can bring in nurbs), then go to Lightwave to render/refine. I got a ton of materials in Lightwave and a bunch of "show-room" HDRI images to show off the stuff.
I heard 3DS Max users might have an easier time with these files, but I don't know for sure. I have Rhino to translate to whatever format I need.
If anyone is planning on getting into this, my main tip is: build a library of materials/surfaces. Don't go out and just grab shit off the net and use it. You want to understand the materials, so you can make variations and have it look correct. Also, understand your renderer, it can mean the difference between a 40 minute a frame vs. 10 minutes a frame. Some companies are really particular about that stuff. Also make a nice scene to drop the items into, do tests to make sure the lights are correct and 95% of the time all you have to do is assign a materials, set up a light or two to show off some of the shape and let it rip. I have 4 scenes depending on the size of my objects, but most are no bigger than a chijuajua's head (Simpsons ref...).
@ Ben Apuna - I've never gotten into rapid prototyping. I never wanted to get into CAD on that end, but if you can do it in Maya and send it to a mill, that would rock. Explain more of what this is.
A large number of the people who contact me have no clue what it takes. And they think we have a "drag and drop" work-flow, like making a website in Office. But most of the time all they care about is how long it takes and how much it costs. And they think that the shorter time it takes the less it should cost. So I do flat fee since I have the workflow down for this stuff and know my hours for types of items (I ask to see the CAD file so I can make an accurate quote).
Yeah, One of the main reasons Why im considering learning Maya is, that once your done modeling in Nurbs, you can convert it to polies and its all quads(so Ive heard), which is a feature that is really attracting me.
Ive been working with max and vray mainly for a about 4 years now, before that is was Cinema 4D.
And I tell you man , Max can handle those cad files like butter. I once got a cad from Volvo, this thing was 40 million polies and I can even count how many objects, over 100,000, Max handled it pretty well.
Lately I have been modeling a lot of phones for a company and the on thing that is driving me crazy is getting these square sharp edge holes on curves while retaining the form. This is the main the reason the Nurbs popped in my head.
Sorry to derail the thread, just had to get that out
@ Billabong - Yeah, I want to get into animations again, but I don't have the resources (machines) to render out animations. So stills is where it's at, unless they have their own renderfarm.
One job I almost got was to recreate a CAD mansion some architect company had made up. They wanted a physical model to show their client which would have been printed out. Poly modeling would've been fine as it didn't have to be hyper accurate. Not sure what happened here my quote wasn't too high, maybe the economy killed that project as a whole
I guess a big problem is this is Hawaii. It's pretty ordinary to find architects still making all their plans with watercolors and pencils, they don't really understand what technology can do.
Another job was some dude making some weird organic shaped jewelry out of sculpey, he had made one half but couldn't mirror it by hand. So he had two options: 1 scan it in and rework the sure to be nasty result. 2. Have me remodel the thing cleanly in a 3d app, would then be a simple matter to mirror and print out. I think in the end he went with option 1. I have a feeling he didn't want another artist to have a hand in the creation of his "masterpiece".
A third job was to recreate a car model some guy was going to pitch as a concept car. He wanted a physical model, but all he had was some pencil drawings... I had a feeling this one wasn't to be, lol.
And so on...
So in other words it's not all CAD or nurbs business, poly modeling works fine in many cases too.
So I end up taking the surfaces into Maya, fix in there (you can bring in nurbs)
Lamont, just to confirm, you fix it using nurbs rather than converting to polys then fixing with polymodeling? Would you mind letting me know how long a product takes on average and the fee you'd get for it? Can you easily make a living off of this type of work? This is one area that really interests me. Billabong if you are seriously interested in learning nurbs, I'd do so using dedicated nurbs software ie. Rhino, Solidworks, Alias Studio. After trying to use Max's implementation of nurbs I don't have much belief in nurbs in poly software.
Lamont, just to confirm, you fix it using nurbs rather than converting to polys then fixing with polymodeling?
Would you mind letting me know how long a product takes on average and the fee you'd get for it? Can you easily make a living off of this type of work? This is one area that really interests me.
When I bring in the surfaces, most of the time they don't line up EXACTLY. I have no clue why a lot of them come in this way. So I get my surfaces correct in Maya, sometimes I rebuild sections/details that need it. Then I bring the files into Lightwave for fine-tuning and rendering. When I get into LW the files are polymodeled ito get the nice machined edges, then I nurb them for renders and such.
Length of time depends on how many parts there are and how complex it is. Most complex in terms of parts was a helicopter rotor assembly, they wanted the file rigged and the scene set up for rendering, so I had to leave this in Maya. Least complex are fishing lures. BUT I had the most problems with the fishing lures because of the details and curved surfaces, all the nooks and crannies, some parts were not EXACTLY lined up. Also the materials used for lures are kinda tricky, they have glitter and shit like that embedded in the plastics. Which is unlike the rotor, which was pretty much metal (painted and unpanited).
Cost can range wildly based on what they want. The average project is a day or so. The longest was about 10 days or so. It can range from $400 to a few thousand. What happens is that the more you do this stuff, the quicker you do it. It's as if I don't even think much, it's 2nd nature to solve these problems that arise from these files.
Right now it's pretty hard to find work. I just go by word of mouth for this stuff, so always do a good job as people really do like shiny things.
DO NOT TRAP YOURSELF by taking a job that's too big, like saying you CAN render out a 5 second animation @ 720p with the same quality as the still you sent in if you don't have the means to do it (machines). Watch out for people who ask for the moon and pay you like you work at BK. Watch out for people who try to "tack on" shit while you're working on it. If you accept, do not bitch if you fail. I keep a record of all emails/texts and all IM's (so if you IM me, just know I have a record of it). I only call when I NEED to. I don't agree with anything verbal, I always elude to having them send an email to confirm. Pretty much don't be greedy and watch your back, have a network of people you can refer to them in case you can't do something (family emergencies happen). Don't be afraid to say "No", it's hard when bills need to be paid sometimes though... so in that case see the part where I said "don't bitch if you fail". Not delivering is never an option.
Keep in mind, working for the military as a government contractor, you will be in government paygrade including benefits. The benefits are by far the best you can get without actually being in the military.
They have forums, you will find someone on there looking for what we do every once in a while. I got mine when people wanted their 2nd Life toons to have sex dungeons, another developer wanted a 3D sex chat program, so I made stuff for that. From there it went to... various things.
If you get into it, keep it simple: just scale the penis, don't model a new one each time.
I work doing 3d for a marketing and design agency. It involves making 3d for online and offline advertising its not as exciting as game art but its professional corporate 3d art/animation for some rather well known companies and it pays the bills. Only down side is that I am the only 3d artist in this company so theres a lot of responsibility. No one is there to back you up when things go wrong and every part of the job is yours to maintain: modelling, textureing, animating rendering etc all down to you. Been doing this for 2 years while trying to get into the game industry :P.
There is also a big need for 3d artists at the US Mints, I'm currently setting up to get a job at the Franklin Mint in Philly once I graduate. Government benefits, paid travel, and you're set up with a pretty cherry work station. ( I have a friend who works there who let me get a tour of their artist studios).
Not to mention if you get a job there, you have the novelty of responding to the question "What do you do for a living?" with "I make money."
There is also a big need for 3d artists at the US Mints, I'm currently setting up to get a job at the Franklin Mint in Philly once I graduate.
I tried looking directly on the US Mint's website, but didn't find what you were referring to. There appears to be a mint at West Point here in NY, so if you have any links that would be awesome.
sorry, after looking more into it, I found out that the Franklin Mint in Philly is the only mint that actually does engraving and sculpting for the coins, I think the rest are just for production of the coins. But when I visited they did mention they do outsourcing work using this program I think
sorry, after looking more into it, I found out that the Franklin Mint in Philly is the only mint that actually does engraving and sculpting for the coins, I think the rest are just for production of the coins. But when I visited they did mention they do outsourcing work using this program I think
When I was between jobs, I once appled to NASA (they had a 3D Artist/Animator position open).
I know there's a LOT of work for textbook creation.
I have a friend who works for some Oil Riggers Online Textbook, and they received ridiculous grants to create the art.
The quickest and most accurate way to do this was to create 3D models of it in Max, and render them out. have the firefighter posed out and render them (prior to that, they used to be illustrated which took a LOT of time).
@ Lamont (or any others): what's a good way to get on the work ladder with product visualisation (or other types of still visualisation) if you don't have any work experience with it? Would it be wise to focus a portfolio on a specific area and then contact those companies in the field or are there better ways?
@ Lamont (or any others): what's a good way to get on the work ladder with product visualisation (or other types of still visualisation) if you don't have any work experience with it? Would it be wise to focus a portfolio on a specific area and then contact those companies in the field or are there better ways?
Nice high detailed models. Accurate. Go to a hardware store and buy a digital micrometer and other measuring tools (for curved surfaces and stuff $12~$30) and make something super intricate, give it nice materials (accurate as you can). Then do a simple render of it exploded and together. Then do another one, and another one and so on.
And take notes as you model it. I usually have a picture of it and in PS and on a notepad by my comp, I write notes about size and how I am going to do something.
Then what would be a good way to get into the industry? I never see any jobs advertised for this work, so would it be best to approach product firms as a freelancer, asking if they require any of their products rendered?
great thread. i have been giving jobs outside the gaming/movie industry alot of thought recently. i am working so many hours for so little pay currently that i don't see myself staying in this industry for longer than a couple more years maybe.
a 9to5 job with good pay now sounds very appealing to me. i would probably just go back to working for mods or indie games and other personal projects then. and spend more time with non art related hobbies too
a 9to5 job with good pay now sounds very appealing to me. i would probably just go back to working for mods or indie games and other personal projects then. and spend more time with non art related hobbies too
not sure you will ever get guarenteed 9to5 in an art based industry, deadlines hit everyone, from my experience so far if your in a small company you will get more deadlines omore ften and have to work late maybe once or twice a week if your in a larger one you might have to work with larger timescales so its probably more like working late for 2 weeks at the end of a 3 month project. I havent persoanlly ever been paid for any overtime yet or heard of many companys that do pay staff for it which is rather sad although there is sometimes some form of compensation eg days off to recover.
sorry if my spelling is bad Ive been working late and weekends for 3 weeks now. :P
Then what would be a good way to get into the industry? I never see any jobs advertised for this work, so would it be best to approach product firms as a freelancer, asking if they require any of their products rendered?
You just gotta keep your ears to the ground and keep making stuff. I would not go out cold-calling companies. Just do the resume through proper channels.
@ Ben Apuna - I've never gotten into rapid prototyping. I never wanted to get into CAD on that end, but if you can do it in Maya and send it to a mill, that would rock. Explain more of what this is.
hm, i came in contact with rapid prototyping at work, since i´ve learned this kind of work some years ago
basicly you are creating a model layer by layer
building up the profile with a laser (or whatever technique you use)
we used it to build prototypes to cast aluminium parts, so we wont have the hassle to create real casting boxes (which wouldnt be very cost-effective for small series or prototypes)
but i cannot think that you could use something like maya or 3ds max for this kind of stuff. at least not in my field of work
maybe its different in the medical field or something like that
and to the CAD question
learning CAD isnt really hard. the programms arent that hard to learn and basic shapes are really easy to obtain
its a little bit different if you have curved surfaces, because then you always to work with mathematical formulas to obtain these
but overall its not really hard to get into this stuff
the hard part is to actually create these parts and do the math for it so that it wont explode and fall into 1 million pieces (and you go to jail for the rest of your life, because you where totally drunk when you did this stuff and now 20 people died using the stuff you made)
Replies
Production and Manufacturing (probably more CAD there)
Advertising
Simulations and training exercises.
News visualizations.
http://www.3daaron.com/media/Mud_Pump_4.jpg
It's certainly not the most exciting job but it does pay well.
The medical field has a lot more modeling to be done. I had a bud that worked here http://blausen.com/home for a number of years.
I worked at a company that did product renders for Dell for a while, but a lot of that was working with existing CAD data.
- Military (pays well, most likely in-house depends on project)
- Product renders (sometimes you get a raw CAD file and need to fix it, then render)
- 3D Vis
- Dental/Medical stuff
- How-To's
- Database cleanup (usually requires some knowledge of cartography).
- Golf course
- Trade show video stuff (3D intro crap/flying logos)
- Kiosk games
- Fixing shit people mess up (UDK stuff, preping work for UDK/Crisis and passing it off)
If you have a thing for it (wife/GF/BF/Hubby lets you), you can do porn too. As for games, I've done 1 UDK one and a couple browser-based ones, some sex-toy concept/renders for catalog and DVD menus. They pay fast and pay cash.And yeah, I have multiple portfolios...
If you're sent a raw CAD file then you'll be working with nurbs. Do you mean fixing it using nurbs (CAD software)?
Is much product visualisation actually done using polymodeling?
All I have ever done is product and archi viz and I always poly model it. Even if Im sent cad files, they will ask me to model back over it, the reason being is, trying to animate 37,000 pieces of a cad file is enough to make you want to vomit.
Although I have been thinking about learning Mayas Nurbs, sometime sit seems it would be easier to model phones in nurbs and then just convert it to polies when im done
-B
I heard 3DS Max users might have an easier time with these files, but I don't know for sure. I have Rhino to translate to whatever format I need.
If anyone is planning on getting into this, my main tip is: build a library of materials/surfaces. Don't go out and just grab shit off the net and use it. You want to understand the materials, so you can make variations and have it look correct. Also, understand your renderer, it can mean the difference between a 40 minute a frame vs. 10 minutes a frame. Some companies are really particular about that stuff. Also make a nice scene to drop the items into, do tests to make sure the lights are correct and 95% of the time all you have to do is assign a materials, set up a light or two to show off some of the shape and let it rip. I have 4 scenes depending on the size of my objects, but most are no bigger than a chijuajua's head (Simpsons ref...).
@ Ben Apuna - I've never gotten into rapid prototyping. I never wanted to get into CAD on that end, but if you can do it in Maya and send it to a mill, that would rock. Explain more of what this is.
A large number of the people who contact me have no clue what it takes. And they think we have a "drag and drop" work-flow, like making a website in Office. But most of the time all they care about is how long it takes and how much it costs. And they think that the shorter time it takes the less it should cost. So I do flat fee since I have the workflow down for this stuff and know my hours for types of items (I ask to see the CAD file so I can make an accurate quote).
Ive been working with max and vray mainly for a about 4 years now, before that is was Cinema 4D.
And I tell you man , Max can handle those cad files like butter. I once got a cad from Volvo, this thing was 40 million polies and I can even count how many objects, over 100,000, Max handled it pretty well.
Lately I have been modeling a lot of phones for a company and the on thing that is driving me crazy is getting these square sharp edge holes on curves while retaining the form. This is the main the reason the Nurbs popped in my head.
Sorry to derail the thread, just had to get that out
-B
One job I almost got was to recreate a CAD mansion some architect company had made up. They wanted a physical model to show their client which would have been printed out. Poly modeling would've been fine as it didn't have to be hyper accurate. Not sure what happened here my quote wasn't too high, maybe the economy killed that project as a whole
I guess a big problem is this is Hawaii. It's pretty ordinary to find architects still making all their plans with watercolors and pencils, they don't really understand what technology can do.
Another job was some dude making some weird organic shaped jewelry out of sculpey, he had made one half but couldn't mirror it by hand. So he had two options: 1 scan it in and rework the sure to be nasty result. 2. Have me remodel the thing cleanly in a 3d app, would then be a simple matter to mirror and print out. I think in the end he went with option 1. I have a feeling he didn't want another artist to have a hand in the creation of his "masterpiece".
A third job was to recreate a car model some guy was going to pitch as a concept car. He wanted a physical model, but all he had was some pencil drawings... I had a feeling this one wasn't to be, lol.
And so on...
So in other words it's not all CAD or nurbs business, poly modeling works fine in many cases too.
Lamont, just to confirm, you fix it using nurbs rather than converting to polys then fixing with polymodeling?
Would you mind letting me know how long a product takes on average and the fee you'd get for it? Can you easily make a living off of this type of work? This is one area that really interests me.
Billabong if you are seriously interested in learning nurbs, I'd do so using dedicated nurbs software ie. Rhino, Solidworks, Alias Studio. After trying to use Max's implementation of nurbs I don't have much belief in nurbs in poly software.
and documentaryes need shitloads of cg, you see a cheap documentary when the're using one cg shot over and over
Length of time depends on how many parts there are and how complex it is. Most complex in terms of parts was a helicopter rotor assembly, they wanted the file rigged and the scene set up for rendering, so I had to leave this in Maya. Least complex are fishing lures. BUT I had the most problems with the fishing lures because of the details and curved surfaces, all the nooks and crannies, some parts were not EXACTLY lined up. Also the materials used for lures are kinda tricky, they have glitter and shit like that embedded in the plastics. Which is unlike the rotor, which was pretty much metal (painted and unpanited).
Cost can range wildly based on what they want. The average project is a day or so. The longest was about 10 days or so. It can range from $400 to a few thousand. What happens is that the more you do this stuff, the quicker you do it. It's as if I don't even think much, it's 2nd nature to solve these problems that arise from these files.
Right now it's pretty hard to find work. I just go by word of mouth for this stuff, so always do a good job as people really do like shiny things.
DO NOT TRAP YOURSELF by taking a job that's too big, like saying you CAN render out a 5 second animation @ 720p with the same quality as the still you sent in if you don't have the means to do it (machines). Watch out for people who ask for the moon and pay you like you work at BK. Watch out for people who try to "tack on" shit while you're working on it. If you accept, do not bitch if you fail. I keep a record of all emails/texts and all IM's (so if you IM me, just know I have a record of it). I only call when I NEED to. I don't agree with anything verbal, I always elude to having them send an email to confirm. Pretty much don't be greedy and watch your back, have a network of people you can refer to them in case you can't do something (family emergencies happen). Don't be afraid to say "No", it's hard when bills need to be paid sometimes though... so in that case see the part where I said "don't bitch if you fail". Not delivering is never an option.
That went on a little longer than I thought.
Where could one find more info on 3d porn jobs? I Googled it, but all I get is SEO spam.
If you get into it, keep it simple: just scale the penis, don't model a new one each time.
Not to mention if you get a job there, you have the novelty of responding to the question "What do you do for a living?" with "I make money."
I tried looking directly on the US Mint's website, but didn't find what you were referring to. There appears to be a mint at West Point here in NY, so if you have any links that would be awesome.
http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/artisticInfusion/index.cfm?action=CallForArtists
Ah, thanks anyways Neo_God. Good luck on your end.
I know there's a LOT of work for textbook creation.
I have a friend who works for some Oil Riggers Online Textbook, and they received ridiculous grants to create the art.
The quickest and most accurate way to do this was to create 3D models of it in Max, and render them out. have the firefighter posed out and render them (prior to that, they used to be illustrated which took a LOT of time).
And take notes as you model it. I usually have a picture of it and in PS and on a notepad by my comp, I write notes about size and how I am going to do something.
a 9to5 job with good pay now sounds very appealing to me. i would probably just go back to working for mods or indie games and other personal projects then. and spend more time with non art related hobbies too
not sure you will ever get guarenteed 9to5 in an art based industry, deadlines hit everyone, from my experience so far if your in a small company you will get more deadlines omore ften and have to work late maybe once or twice a week if your in a larger one you might have to work with larger timescales so its probably more like working late for 2 weeks at the end of a 3 month project. I havent persoanlly ever been paid for any overtime yet or heard of many companys that do pay staff for it which is rather sad although there is sometimes some form of compensation eg days off to recover.
sorry if my spelling is bad Ive been working late and weekends for 3 weeks now. :P
hm, i came in contact with rapid prototyping at work, since i´ve learned this kind of work some years ago
basicly you are creating a model layer by layer
building up the profile with a laser (or whatever technique you use)
we used it to build prototypes to cast aluminium parts, so we wont have the hassle to create real casting boxes (which wouldnt be very cost-effective for small series or prototypes)
but i cannot think that you could use something like maya or 3ds max for this kind of stuff. at least not in my field of work
maybe its different in the medical field or something like that
and to the CAD question
learning CAD isnt really hard. the programms arent that hard to learn and basic shapes are really easy to obtain
its a little bit different if you have curved surfaces, because then you always to work with mathematical formulas to obtain these
but overall its not really hard to get into this stuff
the hard part is to actually create these parts and do the math for it so that it wont explode and fall into 1 million pieces (and you go to jail for the rest of your life, because you where totally drunk when you did this stuff and now 20 people died using the stuff you made)