Do 3D Artists need to be good at Substance Designer?
I hope this is the right place to ask.
There is a bunch of different software for 3D Artists to learn and are advised to learn. As an aspiring game artist, I have learned 3DS Max, Blender, Photoshop, Substance Painter, ZBrush, Unity, UE4, briefly used Mudbox, Quixel, just recently started learning Maya, and intend to delve into Marvelous Designer soon.
Maybe I'm just whinging and being really precious, but I'd say that's a fair amount of software to learn for one role as is, and I recognise there is still more for me to learn in each software despite being able to get projects done at an intermediate level at least, but is Substance Designer a necessity for me as a 3D artist?
All materials in Substance Designer that I have made are all pretty crap when not being handheld by one of the courses I bought, and the node workflow for material authoring doesn't seem to play nice with my brain. I did get better after practicing for a while and I'm sure I'd continue to get better if I spend a lot more time with it, but trying to find time in the day outside of a day job to learn all the necessary software is difficult enough as it is. I'm sure most would agree that this is a field that's hard work and takes a lot of practice to become competent in.
I'm fine
with using existing materials and blending them, and I've heard that some
professionals tried Designer and stopped using it for the same reason and stick
to either authoring their materials using more traditional methods like ZBrush
and Photoshop/Substance Painter, or they use materials made by other people,
like using Substance Source.
I've also seen jobs appearing for Material Artists, Substance Designer Material
Authoring, or whatever.
Is this becoming a stand-alone role like Rigging? Is it becoming commonplace to have people whose job is specifically to create a material library for 3D Artists to utilize?
If that's the case, does that mean it's acceptable to use materials from Substance Source when texturing pieces for my portfolio?
And do I need to know Substance Designer really well to work as a 3D Artist or 3D Environment Artist in games?
Thanks for reading through my long-winded question and any helpful answers are much appreciated.
Replies
Maya or 3DS Max or Blender
Unity or UE4
ZBrush or Mudbox
As someone just beginning, you're spending time learning multiple programs which do the same thing, and it's probably eating into the time you can spend making super cool art.
Regarding your question about Substance Designer; it's not mandatory, but it can speed up your texturing process once you learn it.
I'd also say choosing Maya over Blender is a better decision if an artist's goal is to land a job, so it would matter. I've heard people on this forum say the tools you use don't matter, it's the end result that matters, and a good artist can be taught the tools required for a job. I have, however, had interested recruiters suddenly break communication with me just because I wasn't experienced in using 3DS Max, so that advice can go out the window.
Hate to disagree with ya, but I needed to
If someone asks you if you know how to use max and you don't. Say "no, but I can learn"
If you bullshit me in an interview you're probably not going to make it to the end of your probation period. And with the nature of the industry there's a fair chance someone at the next place you try will know me..
So actually it'll cost you that job you thought you had, and maybe the next opportunity too.
When someone asks in an interview if you "know X software", they're not asking if you have the sort of cursory knowledge of the software that you can pick up over the course of a week. They're asking if you have the depth of knowledge that comes from months or years of using the software day in and day out. It is extremely easy to tell the difference once someone starts working for you.
If your work is good, an interviewer is going to care a whole lot less about the fact that you don't know the software as long as you're able to learn, than they are going to care that you lied to their face during the interview.
they were totally cool with that and gave me an art test to do, which i did in max and they liked the results so they hired me. I was a jr so they knew I was going to take some mentoring and have a longer ramp up period, but they paired me with a senior artist for my first month and it was smooth sailing from there.
Tools are just one sliver (5%??) of the hiring process and probably the least important part. I would rather hire someone with an awesome personality and attitude who only has used modo before even if the studio is max based, than some 3ds max genius who has a huge ego or is super weird/awkward to interact with on a daily basis. as long as they show the ability to create technically efficient models and show wireframes that clearly demonstrate they know how to model an object, their software package prefferences are pretty much the last in line in determining if the thumbs up or down to hire the person after interviewing.
I don't think I have ever even heard the reason for not hiring someone be " well they were super awesome and clearly talented, but they didnt know max!"
I know it's going to be brought up: what if you have 2 people who are the exact same in terms of skill except one person knows the studio software!? in my 12 years of working in the game industry and being pretty involved with the hiring processes for my departments this has never happened. peoples personalities are usually wildly different and there is always 1-2 standouts in a group of 10 applicants who are brought in for interviews. portfolio gets people's attention and gets you into the interview, and your personality is more often than not the clincher that gets you the job, not knowing max/maya. And if you are applying to be a materials artist, yes you should obviously be really good at substance.
I'm not aiming for being a material artist though, more of an environment artist, and trying to find time to do character art in my spare time in case anything comes of that. But I have seen numerous jobs on Artstation for environment artists where Substance Designer is listed as a required skill.