Comparing roles in the industry. Indie vs AAA
Hey all, I'm currently writing an essay about roles in the industry as part of a uni project and I'm specifically focusing on concept art. I wanted to ask anyone with experience in either AAA or Indie studios what are the differences between indie and AAA for this role? Such as creative freedom, benefits of working there and how you were treated.
Thanks for your time
Thanks for your time
Replies
So from an artistic point it's about if you like to see stuff come together and as a whole be good or do you like more the perfection in small details.
Some times i wish i had the time to bring stuff to a AAA quality, but you can't as the day is only so long, where other times I'm proud i did a whole area all myself.
Indie
-Less hours
-no crunch
-Wear more than one hat (not JUST animating all the time. rigging, scripting, some modeling)
-More influence in the over all game
-Less direction
-Fewer experienced people to learn from
-Easier deadlines
-crap pay. no benefits
AAA
-Longer hours, more crunch
-More direction
-Lots of experienced people to learn from
-Little to no say in the over all game, but I still felt like within the animation department, I had a good amount of say in our critique sessions and such
-Better pay and benefits
-Tighter deadlines
-High quality standards = felt like I was pushed more
-Greater praise with the end product, so I felt more accomplished.
In terms of creative freedom, I felt about the same at both places. Both had people telling me what they wanted done, but i could put my own take on it in both workplaces. The only difference for me was that at indie, I had to push the quality myself, and really fight to be given the time to make it shine. No one was really pushing me to do better, or be better. Whatever I gave them was good. AAA, if it wasnt good enough, id hear about it and be told to make it better.
+1 to everything everyone has said as well, except Slipsius's hour mention. I personally worked many more hours in indie to meet deadlines with less people, and a lot of times sacrificed pay and time to get work done. That one is definitely circumstantial. In a well rooted/experienced indie company, or team, I could see how hours could be better though.
Our deadlines were always based upon as fast as we could get something done. If it meant spending an entire weekend at the studio doing 48hr game jams with the team to get a prototype or polish a project up for ship.... we did it. It was fun, challenging, and incredibly stressful trying to create a first and second successful product to get a string of revenue flowing.
Would I go back to indie and do it all over again? Yes. Would I go back with a pay cut? It would have to be marginal due to financial needs and not being 18/19yrs old anymore.
One of my primary reasons for doing indie work was to develop a strong portfolio of skill and experience in the hopes of graduating into a career in the industry. When I got started in this, my main focus was to build an awesome environment art portfolio. During this time though I have done in addition to environment art: level design, UI design, concept art, puzzle design, story development, programming, rigging, Apex cloth painting, character retopology and texturing, web design, video production, and numerous other things. I also end up spending a lot of team teaching other team members.
All this usually puts me at anywhere from 40-60 hours a week on top of my 45+ hour a week day job. The creative freedom is great though. How I feel this relates is the fact that I am not a concept artist, but I have done my fair share of concept art in the indie scene. I would not be surprised if many other 3D artists at funded indie studios find themselves doing a lot of concept art as well.
Brian “panda” Choi – thank you for that recommendation, I shall give it a watch.
MacOrion – Do you enjoy switching between so many roles? I think I'd find that too stressful and confusing. I assume you would be say working on an environment for a week (just a random time) and then next week would be another role and so on? Or is it different every day?
Slipsius – Thank you for your breakdown and explanation, I guess it depends on the company you go for as I've heard terrible stories about some AAA studios but then the complete opposite from others. Indie seems to all be positive, but I dislike the idea of having so many roles.
Add3r – thanks for your insight, it's getting tough not to repeat myself whilst replying to all posts individually but I do really appreciate all of the replies. 48 hour game jams must have been intense!
Aeonbluestar – This multiple hat thing is definitely not my thing, I guess I'm simple minded, but I really just want to develop my art skills. Agreed it's a great way to gain experience though, AAA studios usually requiring many years of experience. Do you enjoy teaching? That's something I've always been interested in doing also. That's a heck of a lot of hours though!
Indie: No money
You'll find exceptions for both classifications, naturally. I'm being sarcastic, but there's some truth to the snark.