How fast should my modeling speed be?
Its great to have a smokin profile with amazing characters that pop off the screen but if it took months to create it then you're not going to survive working in a studio.
So my Q to the pros is how much time do studios give, how fast do they want you to be? I know each character is different so we can't be specific in hrs, but if you could give me an idea. For example, if I were to do Superman (like in Blurs recent trailer for DC universe) for a game or game cinematic, should I have it modeled in 3 days, a week?
I feel I have the knowledge and skills, but what I'm now aiming at is speeding my process, of course it helps now that I have my own personal collection of objs to play frankenstien...
p.s.
if this has been asked before I apologise, but then its a Q that needs updating in the fast moving pace of Games...
So my Q to the pros is how much time do studios give, how fast do they want you to be? I know each character is different so we can't be specific in hrs, but if you could give me an idea. For example, if I were to do Superman (like in Blurs recent trailer for DC universe) for a game or game cinematic, should I have it modeled in 3 days, a week?
I feel I have the knowledge and skills, but what I'm now aiming at is speeding my process, of course it helps now that I have my own personal collection of objs to play frankenstien...
p.s.
if this has been asked before I apologise, but then its a Q that needs updating in the fast moving pace of Games...
Replies
That's not True
Time is also dependent of Quality. We can do things faster, but it always will take time and more time, and with the actual game art, we need more time and we need to put more work :poly127:
as with anything the more you work on something the faster you get. not to mention nothing helps increasing your speed as working 40hours a week.
na seriously, i wish i would get more than 10 days payed per next gen asset, usually 10 days is the upper limit - for the lowres, hand painted stuff i did for ubisoft it was mostly 1-3 days per character, 5 tops if its a complex onw, with a lot of metal reflections going on, extraprops etc.
it fits my experience at all the places i've been at and that of most of my colleagues i've discussed this with tho: character artists (and concepters) are far more likely to go home on time than anyone else on the team.
the main reason seems to be that unlike level artists we are (at larger places anyway) pretty early in the pipeline, our work gets handed off to riggers and animators who then have to deal with all the nasty technical stuff and suffer from having to redo work over and over when technology changes.
So 1 week for the modeling?
hm.. The impression I'm getting is that just the modeling phase takes max 1 week, so a working week at 9-5 minus 1hr for lunch is 35hrs... hm, of course every character is different but its an idea...
Thanks guys!
more likeley to be 9 to 6 including that hour you've taken to eat.
was 9 to 5 MINUS 30 mins where I worked before - no wonder they moved it all to china and montreal lol
modelling + texturing, sometimes with a small concept phase before the modelling starts, usually in the productions i worked on the animators do the rigs and skinning (though i could do the skinning part as well and build some basic rigs) as they know what they need and how to tackle what.
4 days o_0 that's quick for - I'm assuming - all the modeling, texturing and rigging ... is that a character or a different type of asset?
You are also more likely to get slowed down by revisions and not getting something right the first time than if you take 30 minutes longer than another artist but put out a similar or better quality asset.
I guess my point is not to ignore being fast and efficient, but quality should be first and speed should be secondary, for a portfolio piece. Once you can make a top notch asset, it is easy to speed up your workflow, but if you are taking shortcuts to be faster on a portfolio piece you risk not fully developing your artistic skills.
Also in my experience its always 10-7 or the equivalent, you always work a 40 hour week. 9-5 is fantasy land. Depending on the studio it might be significantly less once meetings are factored in, but you are paid for 40 hours.