Question about competition
polycounter lvl 6
Hello,
So this question is primarily for 3d modelers either in film or games but anyone can answer, so i was wondering if there is an actual shortage of jobs in this industry which makes them so hard to break into or is it more of a skill barrier most can't seem to pass. Is it the majority of applicants for a position not having the required skill/quality in their portfolios or is their simply not enough openings?
So this question is primarily for 3d modelers either in film or games but anyone can answer, so i was wondering if there is an actual shortage of jobs in this industry which makes them so hard to break into or is it more of a skill barrier most can't seem to pass. Is it the majority of applicants for a position not having the required skill/quality in their portfolios or is their simply not enough openings?
Replies
Many studios want the best possible candidate at the lowest possible price so become extra picky
What constitutes as best is debatable, the work you do at a studio isn't always aligned to what you have in your portfolio.
When we post a junior level job posting, what we'd ideally want is a candidate with the same level of artistic skill as a senior artist, and enough practical knowledge of game making that they require minimal hand-holding getting up to speed. And of course, applicants like that are extremely rare.
But there's a huge surplus of applicants who are entirely capable of, with some mentorship, making valuable contributions to the project. Which is all that an industry that doesn't have a glut of people trying to break in would expect from a junior level hire.
There does exist a level of quality that, once you hit it, you will be able to find a job. But the bar is very, very high, precisely because there are far more game art graduates than entry level game art positions.
Also kinda bizarre posting a junior position and expecting senior level credentials, why not just post a for a senior role?
I mean I understand that every artist should aspire for the best in their work but seniority can be gauged in many ways.
Like there are senior Artists that are leads primarily because of their years of industry experience, but there may be juniors without those years of experience that can produce work better that the seniors simply because of technological advances and learning the skill to use them.
In my school before the advent of substance painter, there were only a few good texture artists that used photoshop well. Now with substance painter there are several more.
I think its because of this that I have seen several companies simply do away with Junior/Mid/Senior labels since the work inside a company can be so variable and requires a team effort with a lof of different skill sets.
Of course every artist is expected to know the fundamentals, and really the only distinction between a junior and a senior is one of speed and efficiency in my perspective.
Also I heard from inside sources that many of the positions advertised don't actually exist, but the companies put them there because they are legally required to do so as a formality and it looks good on the company to say "we're always looking" rather than "we don't have the budget or the need"
I mean look how much of the production pipeline is outsourced to places like Virtuous
https://www.virtuosgames.com/
I understand the competitive nature of things but this is ridiculous.
The right company will respect you as much for your strengths and see potential in your weaknesses.
Once you have the fundamentals its just a matter of time.
But in the rare cases where you have an exceptional skilled artist right out school; no, they aren't gonna be paid like a senior artist. They could likely negotiate better pay than other junior artist, or possibly skip the junior artist title and be hired at mid-level, but they certainly aren't going to have the pay or responsibilities of a senior artist. Regardless of how amazing the assets you create are, working within the demands of actual production (dealing with deadlines, knowing when or when not to push back against higher-ups, helping the rest of your team to develop, estimating time-tables, and so on) that can only be developed through years of experience actually making games.
Having actual production experience vastly increases your market value as an artist, you are being paid for your entire range of skillset not just how good of an artist you are. If you pick up leadership skills and the ability to mentor other artists, your value rises and those things are expected from senior level talent. those skills take years of hands on experience actually making games to develop and are not something most junior artists can bring to the table right off the bat.
If the end results are somewhat on a similar level, it's how you get there that is more important the more senior you get. getting there in 3 chess moves instead of 10-20 like most juniors would. seniors also tend to require a lot less hand holding and direction/feedback time from leads in the day to day than most junior artists, they have also most likely used multiple pipelines and their ramp up time when joining a new studio or project is drastically different.
Having an art lead that has years of experience is great because they have encountered the hundreds of issues that pop up during production from navigating internal politics to technical troubleshooting, realistic scheduling etc, hence the higher pay. There is no shortcut to actual experience, and like I said before, it's all about leverage in any job hunting situation, and having a couple shipped titles under your belt increases your leverage.
Just found the whole junior posting for senior level ability to be peculiar, I mean you'd have a mad amount of junior artists inundating the position and you'd reject them in lump sum because they don't meet standards that aren't listed.
But I understand what you meant about why they do it.
PixelMasher said:
With the experience aspect, its understood that not all artists would be fortunate to have that leverage starting out.
One way around that is to be a part of group projects so you can work within a team, some schools allow this as part of their course work.
Like this one https://contragon.itch.io/contra-2028.
Lot of different skill levels among the team members and different outcomes in where it led them job wise.
Some artists are luckier to get into a more starting position and then work up from there if they choose too, so there's money to pay the bills. But for artists that don't have this opportunity, provided their determined to do the best they can, they'd make do and get by somehow.
The current project I'm on for instance has a lot of artists that are incredibly capable, despite never having the opportunity to work in the AAA games industry proper.
Interestingly it is this hands off approach, that's allowed them to innovate their own processes to achieve their goals like writing scripts to increase efficiency and automate processes.
Their work is largely considered by fans to be far better than what a AAA company has been licensed to create and some of them are from places where they could never dream of getting a visa to work in North America let alone have the money to travel.
It is this tenacity I admire and I'm glad to be a part of, to work against all odds as team without any backing from the bigger players. I think it would lead to greater experiences going forward.
Also to OP generally important to cast a wider net than just look in your local area. There'll be a lot of jobs to find that way.