Life is difficult but for learning purposes of team management skills, I think you learn more from having a bad lead (learn what not to do).
They might do things different in the Philippines but being stuck under a crappy lead would only make my life more difficult. There are lots of opportunities in our industry to learn from other peoples mistakes, just not so jazzed when their shitiness effects me directly.
that's just wrong. What part is it that you are looking to improve? the spite for superiors or the skills of working double overtime because he cant plan right or decide what he wants?
If you have good leads, soak up what they have to offer. screw the bad ones.. god knows there are WAY too many of them out there...
I think it would be easier to pick up bad habits since they force bad work flows and through repetition they would slowly sink in. Sometimes its not the leads fault but what is required for the game to work. It's their fault for not explaining it further but then part of being a good grunt is asking questions when you don't understand. Who knows maybe through asking a question the pipeline gets changed.
Long post short, I think its better to learn from a good lead than a crappy one. A good lead listens and is open to a lot of new stuff.
So you show your work for crits to the guy. He doesn't say much but basically tells you it's okay. Then comes group crit Friday, then he unloads on the very same stuff you showed him just the day before. How would that be productive for me. grrrrrr
Well, I don't have a say which lead artist I'm assigned to. If I have a choice, and I know beforehand their reps, I'd pick the best guy to work for as logic dictates.
Could be that he needed to think about it and ponder the model, maybe in a different format. Renders vs wires, in game vs viewport.
Could be you caught him off guard and he wanted to get back to work, so you got the "yea fine, whatever, go sit down, we'll look at it on Friday".
Could be that the mistakes you made are popping up across the board and he felt like they needed to be addressed in a group setting so everyone, not just you learn.
Could be your a cock monger and needed to be slapped around a little in public.
Could be he's a cock monger and likes to keep you all in line with a little humiliation.
Could be your ego is a little bruised and you're bitching about it on polycount like its your blog instead of talking to the lead to find out whats up...
Whatever he pointed out if its legit you have yourself to blame for not making it perfect. Those that use others like a crutch, have nothing to stand on when its taken away. I'm at my best when I'm my own worst critic. Don't like seeing flaws in your work pointed out, then don't give them any to latch onto.
Nothing worse than being a lead and having to manage ego's and assets...
Could be your a cock monger and needed to be slapped around a little in public.
This
Let me just say it's a chronic issue with the rest of the team. I'm not one to tell him he sucks with his style so I just carry on. Meanwhile...I take notes what not to do when I manage my own team.
Could be that he needed to think about it and ponder the model, maybe in a different format. Renders vs wires, in game vs viewport.
Could be you caught him off guard and he wanted to get back to work, so you got the "yea fine, whatever, go sit down, we'll look at it on Friday".
Could be that the mistakes you made are popping up across the board and he felt like they needed to be addressed in a group setting so everyone, not just you learn.
Could be your a cock monger and needed to be slapped around a little in public.
Could be he's a cock monger and likes to keep you all in line with a little humiliation.
Could be your ego is a little bruised and you're bitching about it on polycount like its your blog instead of talking to the lead to find out whats up...
Whatever he pointed out if its legit you have yourself to blame for not making it perfect. Those that use others like a crutch, have nothing to stand on when its taken away. I'm at my best when I'm my own worst critic.
Nothing worse than being a lead and having to manage ego's and assets...
MAN, Vig just cock slapped you!
I'm gonna have to answer your question with a NO. If you're a junior/n00b/whatever else you wanna call em, and you have a bad lead, you're just going to learn bad habits.
Learn from the best and you'll be the best... well, maybe not THE BEST but you'll be better off.
Whilst I do agree that this is a little bit "bloggy", and you should be talking to your lead about this issue, I do think it's shitty that you've approached him for the approval of an asset, which he's seemingly given, and then tears into you the next day.
to play devils advocate, think about every video game you've ever played.
For the games that you've hated, why did you hate them?
For the games that you loved, why did you love them?
I'd wager that 9/10 times you can list substantially more specific reasons why a game stinks, than why a game is great.
The majority of the time, problems are extremely easy to identify. By that virtue, it is easier to learn from those mistakes, because they're so forward. It's a lot harder to learn from a game that's awesome when you cant quit pin down exactly what makes it awesome.
"The gameplay is really fun" "it feels really fast/action packed" etc, these are good enough reasons to like something, but trying to replicate that yourself is like getting the crit "yeah it looks good, but can you make it a little more badass?"
"I hated how loose the controls felt when I drifted through turns" or "x enemy was incredibly annoying, they only had a little heath but they were impossible to hit and they swarmed everywhere."
These are so much more specific, and therefor are so much easier to avoid in the future.
That said, being under a crappy lead totally sucks and is definitely not worth any "failure lessons"....
I kinda see where MagicSugar is coming from.
I worked on a project a few years ago where we went through about 4 or 5 art leads. The final lead we have been an awesome lead (if the circumstances were better), but he had to deal with a lot high-end management stuff which made the project suffer.
Because of this, it allowed people like myself to step up and take some of the reigns and learn a tonne. However, the learning process was slow and there was a lot of trial and error.
Under an awesome lead, the learning process would have been just as slow but there wouldn't be the trial and error.
Generally, no. The distractions that come from dealing with bad leadership far outweigh the benefits of seeing what not to do. There are just too many ways to do things wrong for negative examples to be the best way to learn.
I guess I could make one exception: if you've never worked with a bad lead or been on a bad project, the perspective you get from having done so is invaluable. The team I work with now is awesome in its own right, but I'm even happier to work with them having switched over from a very very troubled project. Like Geezus said though, the benefit from that caps out pretty quickly.
Just because your art lead signs off on it doesn't mean it's all good. Doesn't he answer to an art director who might step in and give your lead some last minute feedback on stuff?
Also, lead art is a largely a managerial position as far as I'm concerned. I've seen and heard of great artists that's been promoted into mediocre managers just because someone (foolishly) thinks great artist equals great lead artist.
Nope; I've learned more at my internship about character art from working under the art lead there than I have in the past 3 years of grad and undergrad courses.
I've also worked under an inexperienced lead and it wasn't a matter of not learning, just not learning enough, especially about art.
Life is difficult but for learning purposes of team management skills, I think you learn more from having a bad lead (learn what not to do).
you learn more about troubleshooting, management, fixing stuff yourself, and things you should avoid whenever youself may become a lead....you learn how to RUN things. Assuming you're the guy who wants to improve the status pro and you have some sway over your fellow team mates and manage to motivate them despite the lead not doing their job. Also you have to deal with doing stuff you ain't get paid for. Not a pretty situation, but you can learn things here...
you don't learn a lot about art and good modeling/animation/etc. practice in that case. But when you have a good lead, you learn how to DO things, as in "produce kickass stuff".
If you're a junior, you definitely want to have a good lead so you learn the foundations of your craft at an industry standard level! (because there's only so much the average artist can learn in college or in their basement).
it takes a real leader go getter type personality to be able to overcome bad leadership... and that's only if the rest of the management lets you. Problem is the guy above you's ego is probably not receptive to being upstaged.
I quit my job as a pixel artist for a mobile game company recently because the 'creative' director and 'game designer' (not so trained in any game or art related field) argued with me that the function of a GUI element consisting of 3 graphics, an up arrow, down arrow and a select button was too complicated of a convention to use with a trackerball, so instead of a graphic that takes up a small 60x120 area on a cellphone screen, he opted to use a giant window that had a sentence explaining that you should roll a controller ball up or down to change a bet amount, instead of putting that in the instructions. It's not like it's rocket science, it's a blackjack game.
well..okay it was one of the final straws that made me quit, but regardless... when you get overruled by people constantly on every single decision you try to make, right or wrong, there's little room for creative growth in that position.
Having a bad lead with no freedom does not equal learning... if you are given the freedom and have independence and trust of those above you to make good decisions, then possibly you can learn more.
Good leadership will always stay in tune to what you're doing and guide you to push you in a good direction, or at times let you play but always be there to steer you properly.
Bad leadership can mean you go in NO direction or in the wrong direction and block you at almost every opportunity.
Disagree. While there's some merit in observing and avoiding other people's errors etc, ultimately you learn far, far more working with someone who is excellent at what they do, and/or good to work with.
it takes a real leader go getter type personality to be able to overcome bad leadership... and that's only if the rest of the management lets you. Problem is the guy above you's ego is probably not receptive to being upstaged.
I quit my job as a pixel artist for a mobile game company recently because the 'creative' director and 'game designer' (not so trained in any game or art related field) argued with me that the function of a GUI element consisting of 3 graphics, an up arrow, down arrow and a select button was too complicated of a convention to use with a trackerball, so instead of a graphic that takes up a small 60x120 area on a cellphone screen, he opted to use a giant window that had a sentence explaining that you should roll a controller ball up or down to change a bet amount, instead of putting that in the instructions. It's not like it's rocket science, it's a blackjack game.
well..okay it was one of the final straws that made me quit, but regardless... when you get overruled by people constantly on every single decision you try to make, right or wrong, there's little room for creative growth in that position.
Having a bad lead with no freedom does not equal learning... if you are given the freedom and have independence and trust of those above you to make good decisions, then possibly you can learn more.
Good leadership will always stay in tune to what you're doing and guide you to push you in a good direction, or at times let you play but always be there to steer you properly.
Bad leadership can mean you go in NO direction or in the wrong direction and block you at almost every opportunity.
Excellent post. It's more on the management/freedom side of things, your point, but it's very true.
You work with cool people that allow you some freedom in the creative process, you'll grow and learn far more than the sort of situation you were in.
Nah, that's an illusion. You don't learn more from a bad lead. You might learn how not to treat people, but you should know that already. The idea that an employee will learn more from screwing up instead of being told how to do it the way the team wants and needs done in the first place is pretty silly. It only leads to the employee getting jaded and it's a waste of freaking time.
People learn through examples, so in that sense leads set an example. However no matter how many examples a person is exposed to, he can only truly learn(gain) through good examples. Bad examples at best help a person become sensitive to whats not right, which still doesn't teach you what *is* right. End of the day, you only truly learn from good examples, and good leads.
what's visiblity? Jacue Choi. I have experienced all the rest.
A favourite of my former lead was to criticize me in front of investors/publishers, that went down really well:(
What I experienced at my first games company shaped my attitude towards working in the industry and ultimately led to me not wanting to work in games full time.
I often find that I get treated better by producers for some reason.
Well Ruz, I don't know about the real world, but where I'm from we're taught that good producers are responsible for their teams well being (mood, morale, health etc). Also, sucks to hear that you had to endure that kinda humiliation
I don't know what you could learn from a bad art lead, I suppose it's centered around to your ability to adapt and keep taking initiative when you see room for improvement or have fresh ideas.
As mentioned it sounds like the art lead is answerable to someone else and that someone else had issues with your contribution. Be prepared to have your ego squashed on demand and still be able hold your head up high without arrogance or in defiance!
Visibility is really about being able to SHOW what you did, so others CAN'T take credit for it, or blame you for things that go wrong.
Like if you were to implement a new idea for the pipeline or workflow, a good thing to do would be to document it, and make sure others know of it, otherwise you might get some people claiming credit for your ideas, or work.
Another thing about visibility, is getting EMAILS from Various Leads and Directors about the specific details of your task.
When working with certain superiors, I seldom EVER do a task without them emailing me all the details.
What this does, is ensure that when things go VERY VERY badly, or is implemented poorly or is proven to be a horrible waste of time and resources, the blame is NOT laid squarely on your shoulders.
You'll have the email that had the request completely documented, and your feedback to that silly request completely refuted.
wow that sounds a bit heavy but yeah thanks for explaining that.
I remember once sending an email round to my immediate work mates about kevin johnstones tutorial. I was accused by the lead of trying to implement new working practices wiithout his consent.
In hindsight I should have emailed our tech lead as he is more receptive to sensible suggestions
To be fair it was just a casual email expressing an interest in the tutorial. I did not think it would cause any issues or any bruised egos. sheesh
Sorry for the long post in advance, this is a very interesting topic i hope for whoever reads it won't be a waste of time. If you do please tell me what you think.
imo
Good leads don't just let you learn a lot, they show, inspire or even push you to learn a lot or they might choose to let you loose if they see raw potential and only hop in every now and then when they see you straying. One needs to strike a balance between giving someone a fish and teaching them how to fish. Babysitting is not a lead's work. Guiding is and each and every person should approached differently and as an individual BUT towards a certain shared goal and common rules.
Unless one already thinks he's better than his lead, or got on the bigotry train with the wrong people becoming part of internal strife and politics and miss someone who actually might have had a lot more than they were thinking to teach\show you.
There are indeed things to learn under a bad lead, and sometimes as much as you learn from a good one but it depends what stage you are at in your career, your attitude and your point of view. In either case you should be able to distinguish what you should keep and what you should learn out of them. Even good leads can teach wrong practices. Being good doesn't mean flawless. Nobody is!
The best thing, instead of hopping on the "i hate my supervisor, he's worthless and stupid" train you should talk with him about your concerns. I mean there must be a time where you guys meet and talk about things right? Either as a group or individually and discuss your progress and how the team should move forward, which skills need to be improved or introduced etc.
Jacque i agree with most of what you said except "or is implemented poorly" and this whole "blame protection" scheme if i got that right.
If what was requested from me was implemented poorly, the "blame" is very much on my shoulders. If I didn't understand what was requested from me then I should not begin with a task before what is requested from me is 100% clear unless I was asked to improvise and in that case a general direction should be enough.
I do not believe in the blame game. It is something completely unproductive (?)
I do not think that blaming ever got anything done. Someone correct me if i am wrong. And if someone blames people even when they are wrong this is simply bad practice.Leads are there to correct the mistakes. I often tell the artist he did something "wrong" and get my hands on it demonstrating what was expected. But not blame. You should live and let live.. try to improve the one who is making mistakes.. and if you see that the person is incapable of learning either by you or the other peers, then he should be let to go and allowed to find a more suitable environment, and you someone who fits better to the way you want to do your work.
In any case if someone works under the fear of being blamed.. I believe that it is very hard for that person to meet his true potential and it is a strong indication of insecurity. A bad trait and unfortunately something relatively common among artists.
Ruz emails like that flow a lot in many companies and they should. Eventually though it is up to the Lead to suggest a workflow after consulting his team and the Art Director to study and approve it. Not every workflow fits to every project and over time workflows change as new tools emerge with different features allowing more productive pipelines.
Finally i would like to say something what is not just my opinion, but i believe many here will agree, we artists are a very touchy and tough bunch to manage, by definition we believe (singers, actors etc. not just 3D artists ) that what we do is something really exceptional that is worth for the rest of the world to see and admire. Otherwise we would have chosen a different path.
I will mention an extreme case that happened to me personally and is the opposite of Ruz's case .
Once I was trying to introduce the team to a new tool and workflow, by sending them tutorials, news about the tool and softly raising their interest so they get to know it better, and try their hands on it.
A single artist was sending showcases about a certain tool pulling people back towards their familiar territory closing them back to what they already knew. When i told him discreetly and privately with an email (while thanking him at the same time) that these showcases were great but please do not do this while i try to introduce a different workflow and that he was not helping, he yelled at me, asked me angrily to explain myself, accused me of being a fascist, bad at my work and he threatened to resign. Later he came to me, yelled at me in front of everyone that if i wanted him to leave i should tell him to do so and angrily told me if i would like to be sent his letter of resignation as well. No i didn't fire that person. He didn't resign, i hope that he changed his mind. Although it doesn't seem like so from what i hear. What would you do ?
haven't read the whole thread.
my opinion: yes and no. Positive will always beat negative, but then again if you're in a shit situation then you should still be asking 'what can I learn' not ' I'm not learning'. Make lemonade with lemons, that sort of thing.. Always aim for the best of what you can get, right?. But try to get into a situation where you're learning from people doing things right rather than wrong.
Sorry for depicting such a bad picture of my work habits. I'm not trying to involve myself with the blame game, but simply protecting myself from it (habits that I've developed when working at a larger company).
Here's my example:
We had to make a 10km long cliffside with a city that is visible at the far end.
The Art Director (who came from a Classical Animation background), was absolutely adamant that we 'fake' the perspective in the modelling.
I chimed in and told him that we didn't have to fake anything, and that modelling 10km is not really a problem, and that there would be a PLETHORA of other issues that would arise if we go that route.
The AD goes against my recommendation, goes staight to the Entry Level Artist, and then requests that he fake the perspective in the modelling (much like they do in film).
So when the Fog didn't work properly, the Mip Mapping stopped working properly, and the depth of field didn't work properly, he asked us to try and fake those things too. Then actually create separate joints for each part of the cliff, and animate them to offset the unbelievability of the camera move (which in turn caused a whole wack of other issues regarding lightmap bakes, and forced us to use a much heavier cascading dynamic shadow for something that could have been inanimate).
In the end when the entire thing became a disaster, the deadline slipped, the visuals attrocious, in an attempt to save his job the Art Director's blame was focused on me. I was apparently the 'senior' person who recommended that he 'fake' everything.
I had my handy email thread that I had sent out a month prior. That was pretty hard evidence that it was not my fault, or my call.
Don't know about you, but I prefer not to accept responsibility for someone else's mistake, especially when it went against my recommendation, and that person had no problem blaming me in the first place.
I agree with that, and no i do not think it is such a bad picture that you painted but rather a necessary one. I know the blame game unfortunately is common in many workplaces and when you are in one such as this you have to get your ass covered and what you mentioned is a very good method indeed
What i am saying is that this is not a good practice and eventually an unhealthy environment to work in if everyone is blaming the other. The modeller blames the animator, the animator blames the rigger the rigger the modeller, the modeller the concept artist... the designer blames the programmer the programmer the engine and it leads to a whole lot of finger pointing and negativity instead of a solution.
In many cases even in healthy places there will be people who will try to engage everyone in that and force the blame game into the team. At that point comes the lead who will take full responsibility even if it's not his blame, end the negative discussion, absorb all the blame, and work with his team to provide the right solution. And that is what i learned by working with a bad supervisor
This makes little sense. You're judging his actions based on your existing knowledge. Learning involves appropriating new knowledge. So you confirm what you know by way of what you know. Not very productive.
heh i just saw that . It is actually very common and true!
That is why a lead in many cases has to explain even things that are obvious or self explainable to him.
Juniors on the other hand are worried that if they ask they will sound stupid.. or ignorant, unpleasant and so on and so forth.
Classic situation:
"everything clear about what we have to do? any questions?"
unanimously: "All good, no questions"
3 days later...
"but we discussed this 3 days ago"
"yes you see it wasn't very clear you didn't explain it well enough"
Replies
They might do things different in the Philippines but being stuck under a crappy lead would only make my life more difficult. There are lots of opportunities in our industry to learn from other peoples mistakes, just not so jazzed when their shitiness effects me directly.
that's just wrong. What part is it that you are looking to improve? the spite for superiors or the skills of working double overtime because he cant plan right or decide what he wants?
If you have good leads, soak up what they have to offer. screw the bad ones.. god knows there are WAY too many of them out there...
Long post short, I think its better to learn from a good lead than a crappy one. A good lead listens and is open to a lot of new stuff.
So you show your work for crits to the guy. He doesn't say much but basically tells you it's okay. Then comes group crit Friday, then he unloads on the very same stuff you showed him just the day before. How would that be productive for me. grrrrrr
You don't study bad artists to learn how to draw, do you?
well, maybe you can learn how to power through work despite low morale
Could be you caught him off guard and he wanted to get back to work, so you got the "yea fine, whatever, go sit down, we'll look at it on Friday".
Could be that the mistakes you made are popping up across the board and he felt like they needed to be addressed in a group setting so everyone, not just you learn.
Could be your a cock monger and needed to be slapped around a little in public.
Could be he's a cock monger and likes to keep you all in line with a little humiliation.
Could be your ego is a little bruised and you're bitching about it on polycount like its your blog instead of talking to the lead to find out whats up...
Whatever he pointed out if its legit you have yourself to blame for not making it perfect. Those that use others like a crutch, have nothing to stand on when its taken away. I'm at my best when I'm my own worst critic. Don't like seeing flaws in your work pointed out, then don't give them any to latch onto.
Nothing worse than being a lead and having to manage ego's and assets...
This
Let me just say it's a chronic issue with the rest of the team. I'm not one to tell him he sucks with his style so I just carry on. Meanwhile...I take notes what not to do when I manage my own team.
MAN, Vig just cock slapped you!
I'm gonna have to answer your question with a NO. If you're a junior/n00b/whatever else you wanna call em, and you have a bad lead, you're just going to learn bad habits.
Learn from the best and you'll be the best... well, maybe not THE BEST but you'll be better off.
Whilst I do agree that this is a little bit "bloggy", and you should be talking to your lead about this issue, I do think it's shitty that you've approached him for the approval of an asset, which he's seemingly given, and then tears into you the next day.
For the games that you've hated, why did you hate them?
For the games that you loved, why did you love them?
I'd wager that 9/10 times you can list substantially more specific reasons why a game stinks, than why a game is great.
The majority of the time, problems are extremely easy to identify. By that virtue, it is easier to learn from those mistakes, because they're so forward. It's a lot harder to learn from a game that's awesome when you cant quit pin down exactly what makes it awesome.
"The gameplay is really fun" "it feels really fast/action packed" etc, these are good enough reasons to like something, but trying to replicate that yourself is like getting the crit "yeah it looks good, but can you make it a little more badass?"
"I hated how loose the controls felt when I drifted through turns" or "x enemy was incredibly annoying, they only had a little heath but they were impossible to hit and they swarmed everywhere."
These are so much more specific, and therefor are so much easier to avoid in the future.
That said, being under a crappy lead totally sucks and is definitely not worth any "failure lessons"....
I worked on a project a few years ago where we went through about 4 or 5 art leads. The final lead we have been an awesome lead (if the circumstances were better), but he had to deal with a lot high-end management stuff which made the project suffer.
Because of this, it allowed people like myself to step up and take some of the reigns and learn a tonne. However, the learning process was slow and there was a lot of trial and error.
Under an awesome lead, the learning process would have been just as slow but there wouldn't be the trial and error.
That's just from my experience.
I've had a good lead in another company who let me learn a lot. But more on skill building than team management.
He let me watch the gnomon online workshops as I model. And it was in an open concept office space too, so everybody can see what's on my monitors.
You'll learn so much more, and continue to grow, under a good lead.
And anyone here who has been one will know that Excel is something you do alot as a lead
I guess I could make one exception: if you've never worked with a bad lead or been on a bad project, the perspective you get from having done so is invaluable. The team I work with now is awesome in its own right, but I'm even happier to work with them having switched over from a very very troubled project. Like Geezus said though, the benefit from that caps out pretty quickly.
I have my schedule up as I saw this. Hard to read this fine print sonofabitch.
Also, lead art is a largely a managerial position as far as I'm concerned. I've seen and heard of great artists that's been promoted into mediocre managers just because someone (foolishly) thinks great artist equals great lead artist.
I've also worked under an inexperienced lead and it wasn't a matter of not learning, just not learning enough, especially about art.
you learn more about troubleshooting, management, fixing stuff yourself, and things you should avoid whenever youself may become a lead....you learn how to RUN things. Assuming you're the guy who wants to improve the status pro and you have some sway over your fellow team mates and manage to motivate them despite the lead not doing their job. Also you have to deal with doing stuff you ain't get paid for. Not a pretty situation, but you can learn things here...
you don't learn a lot about art and good modeling/animation/etc. practice in that case. But when you have a good lead, you learn how to DO things, as in "produce kickass stuff".
If you're a junior, you definitely want to have a good lead so you learn the foundations of your craft at an industry standard level! (because there's only so much the average artist can learn in college or in their basement).
haha thats so true
Oh and Mabuhay!
I quit my job as a pixel artist for a mobile game company recently because the 'creative' director and 'game designer' (not so trained in any game or art related field) argued with me that the function of a GUI element consisting of 3 graphics, an up arrow, down arrow and a select button was too complicated of a convention to use with a trackerball, so instead of a graphic that takes up a small 60x120 area on a cellphone screen, he opted to use a giant window that had a sentence explaining that you should roll a controller ball up or down to change a bet amount, instead of putting that in the instructions. It's not like it's rocket science, it's a blackjack game.
well..okay it was one of the final straws that made me quit, but regardless... when you get overruled by people constantly on every single decision you try to make, right or wrong, there's little room for creative growth in that position.
Having a bad lead with no freedom does not equal learning... if you are given the freedom and have independence and trust of those above you to make good decisions, then possibly you can learn more.
Good leadership will always stay in tune to what you're doing and guide you to push you in a good direction, or at times let you play but always be there to steer you properly.
Bad leadership can mean you go in NO direction or in the wrong direction and block you at almost every opportunity.
Excellent post. It's more on the management/freedom side of things, your point, but it's very true.
You work with cool people that allow you some freedom in the creative process, you'll grow and learn far more than the sort of situation you were in.
I've had both and I learned different things from each.
Man this is brilliant and so true. *thumbs up*
Bad Art Leads are just bad Art Leads, what's there too learn?
If you need to learn what not to do from someone... then you are already in trouble.
Good leads show you how to deal with art, and structure, and pipeline, and quality.
Bad leads teach you how to deal with, ego's, nepotism, politics, visibility, and blame shifting.
A favourite of my former lead was to criticize me in front of investors/publishers, that went down really well:(
What I experienced at my first games company shaped my attitude towards working in the industry and ultimately led to me not wanting to work in games full time.
I often find that I get treated better by producers for some reason.
As mentioned it sounds like the art lead is answerable to someone else and that someone else had issues with your contribution. Be prepared to have your ego squashed on demand and still be able hold your head up high without arrogance or in defiance!
Visibility is really about being able to SHOW what you did, so others CAN'T take credit for it, or blame you for things that go wrong.
Like if you were to implement a new idea for the pipeline or workflow, a good thing to do would be to document it, and make sure others know of it, otherwise you might get some people claiming credit for your ideas, or work.
Another thing about visibility, is getting EMAILS from Various Leads and Directors about the specific details of your task.
When working with certain superiors, I seldom EVER do a task without them emailing me all the details.
What this does, is ensure that when things go VERY VERY badly, or is implemented poorly or is proven to be a horrible waste of time and resources, the blame is NOT laid squarely on your shoulders.
You'll have the email that had the request completely documented, and your feedback to that silly request completely refuted.
I remember once sending an email round to my immediate work mates about kevin johnstones tutorial. I was accused by the lead of trying to implement new working practices wiithout his consent.
In hindsight I should have emailed our tech lead as he is more receptive to sensible suggestions
To be fair it was just a casual email expressing an interest in the tutorial. I did not think it would cause any issues or any bruised egos. sheesh
imo
Good leads don't just let you learn a lot, they show, inspire or even push you to learn a lot or they might choose to let you loose if they see raw potential and only hop in every now and then when they see you straying. One needs to strike a balance between giving someone a fish and teaching them how to fish. Babysitting is not a lead's work. Guiding is and each and every person should approached differently and as an individual BUT towards a certain shared goal and common rules.
Unless one already thinks he's better than his lead, or got on the bigotry train with the wrong people becoming part of internal strife and politics and miss someone who actually might have had a lot more than they were thinking to teach\show you.
There are indeed things to learn under a bad lead, and sometimes as much as you learn from a good one but it depends what stage you are at in your career, your attitude and your point of view. In either case you should be able to distinguish what you should keep and what you should learn out of them. Even good leads can teach wrong practices. Being good doesn't mean flawless. Nobody is!
The best thing, instead of hopping on the "i hate my supervisor, he's worthless and stupid" train you should talk with him about your concerns. I mean there must be a time where you guys meet and talk about things right? Either as a group or individually and discuss your progress and how the team should move forward, which skills need to be improved or introduced etc.
Jacque i agree with most of what you said except "or is implemented poorly" and this whole "blame protection" scheme if i got that right.
If what was requested from me was implemented poorly, the "blame" is very much on my shoulders. If I didn't understand what was requested from me then I should not begin with a task before what is requested from me is 100% clear unless I was asked to improvise and in that case a general direction should be enough.
I do not believe in the blame game. It is something completely unproductive (?)
I do not think that blaming ever got anything done. Someone correct me if i am wrong. And if someone blames people even when they are wrong this is simply bad practice.Leads are there to correct the mistakes. I often tell the artist he did something "wrong" and get my hands on it demonstrating what was expected. But not blame. You should live and let live.. try to improve the one who is making mistakes.. and if you see that the person is incapable of learning either by you or the other peers, then he should be let to go and allowed to find a more suitable environment, and you someone who fits better to the way you want to do your work.
In any case if someone works under the fear of being blamed.. I believe that it is very hard for that person to meet his true potential and it is a strong indication of insecurity. A bad trait and unfortunately something relatively common among artists.
Ruz emails like that flow a lot in many companies and they should. Eventually though it is up to the Lead to suggest a workflow after consulting his team and the Art Director to study and approve it. Not every workflow fits to every project and over time workflows change as new tools emerge with different features allowing more productive pipelines.
Finally i would like to say something what is not just my opinion, but i believe many here will agree, we artists are a very touchy and tough bunch to manage, by definition we believe (singers, actors etc. not just 3D artists ) that what we do is something really exceptional that is worth for the rest of the world to see and admire. Otherwise we would have chosen a different path.
I will mention an extreme case that happened to me personally and is the opposite of Ruz's case
Once I was trying to introduce the team to a new tool and workflow, by sending them tutorials, news about the tool and softly raising their interest so they get to know it better, and try their hands on it.
A single artist was sending showcases about a certain tool pulling people back towards their familiar territory closing them back to what they already knew. When i told him discreetly and privately with an email (while thanking him at the same time) that these showcases were great but please do not do this while i try to introduce a different workflow and that he was not helping, he yelled at me, asked me angrily to explain myself, accused me of being a fascist, bad at my work and he threatened to resign. Later he came to me, yelled at me in front of everyone that if i wanted him to leave i should tell him to do so and angrily told me if i would like to be sent his letter of resignation as well. No i didn't fire that person. He didn't resign, i hope that he changed his mind. Although it doesn't seem like so from what i hear. What would you do ?
my opinion: yes and no. Positive will always beat negative, but then again if you're in a shit situation then you should still be asking 'what can I learn' not ' I'm not learning'. Make lemonade with lemons, that sort of thing.. Always aim for the best of what you can get, right?. But try to get into a situation where you're learning from people doing things right rather than wrong.
Sorry for depicting such a bad picture of my work habits. I'm not trying to involve myself with the blame game, but simply protecting myself from it (habits that I've developed when working at a larger company).
Here's my example:
We had to make a 10km long cliffside with a city that is visible at the far end.
The Art Director (who came from a Classical Animation background), was absolutely adamant that we 'fake' the perspective in the modelling.
I chimed in and told him that we didn't have to fake anything, and that modelling 10km is not really a problem, and that there would be a PLETHORA of other issues that would arise if we go that route.
The AD goes against my recommendation, goes staight to the Entry Level Artist, and then requests that he fake the perspective in the modelling (much like they do in film).
So when the Fog didn't work properly, the Mip Mapping stopped working properly, and the depth of field didn't work properly, he asked us to try and fake those things too. Then actually create separate joints for each part of the cliff, and animate them to offset the unbelievability of the camera move (which in turn caused a whole wack of other issues regarding lightmap bakes, and forced us to use a much heavier cascading dynamic shadow for something that could have been inanimate).
In the end when the entire thing became a disaster, the deadline slipped, the visuals attrocious, in an attempt to save his job the Art Director's blame was focused on me. I was apparently the 'senior' person who recommended that he 'fake' everything.
I had my handy email thread that I had sent out a month prior. That was pretty hard evidence that it was not my fault, or my call.
Don't know about you, but I prefer not to accept responsibility for someone else's mistake, especially when it went against my recommendation, and that person had no problem blaming me in the first place.
I hate politics in companies
What i am saying is that this is not a good practice and eventually an unhealthy environment to work in if everyone is blaming the other. The modeller blames the animator, the animator blames the rigger the rigger the modeller, the modeller the concept artist... the designer blames the programmer the programmer the engine
In many cases even in healthy places there will be people who will try to engage everyone in that and force the blame game into the team. At that point comes the lead who will take full responsibility even if it's not his blame, end the negative discussion, absorb all the blame, and work with his team to provide the right solution. And that is what i learned by working with a bad supervisor
heh i just saw that . It is actually very common and true!
That is why a lead in many cases has to explain even things that are obvious or self explainable to him.
Juniors on the other hand are worried that if they ask they will sound stupid.. or ignorant, unpleasant and so on and so forth.
Classic situation:
"everything clear about what we have to do? any questions?"
unanimously: "All good, no questions"
3 days later...
"but we discussed this 3 days ago"
"yes you see it wasn't very clear you didn't explain it well enough"