Technical artists, how do you grow into senior roles?
polycounter lvl 6
Hi all,
After switching from non-game programming roles into video game development, I have filled many different roles, and eventually settled on technical artists, skills like:
- Shader programming.
- Substance designer texture creation.
- Making small tools to bridge gaps between DCC and game engine.
- Using profiler, frame debugger, Intel GPA, Xcode to optimize performance.
- Worked on Unity render pipeline as well.
These are things I do well and enjoy.
But my dream job (perhaps dream job of many), is to someday, produce a game, as a creative director, game producer or studio head.
I think the reason I have grown into a technical artist role, is that I enjoy making indie games myself: making games alone, or with a small team, will eventually push you towards these skills, out of necessity.
So I do have experience in game design, gameplay programming, modeling and texturing etc., but probably not as much as someone dedicating their time full-time.
Yet my observation suggests: game designers are far more likely to become game producer and studio head than technical artists.
This is not a dig at game designers at all, just an observation, that designers handles more human-centric issues, and worried less about implementing technical details. (TA do need to communicate issues and bridge gaps between teams, just not sure it's the same skillset).
So my questions:
- How do you grow beyond your role in a large studio? (Besides leaving and joining smaller teams.)
- What's a common career path for TA? (Are they mostly technical? Do people eventually lead a project?)
- Does knowing the entire production pipeline (from graphics, to art, to code), really help me to "produce a game"? (It certainly help "making a game myself", but to produce a game or lead a studio requires a lot of soft skills and connections, I am not sure how TA build toward it, perhaps through Team Lead roles?)
- Should I be worried about my career path? (I am in my early 30s, with 8 years of experience in tech and leading small teams at startups, so certainly not very young.)
Thx,
David
After switching from non-game programming roles into video game development, I have filled many different roles, and eventually settled on technical artists, skills like:
- Shader programming.
- Substance designer texture creation.
- Making small tools to bridge gaps between DCC and game engine.
- Using profiler, frame debugger, Intel GPA, Xcode to optimize performance.
- Worked on Unity render pipeline as well.
These are things I do well and enjoy.
But my dream job (perhaps dream job of many), is to someday, produce a game, as a creative director, game producer or studio head.
I think the reason I have grown into a technical artist role, is that I enjoy making indie games myself: making games alone, or with a small team, will eventually push you towards these skills, out of necessity.
So I do have experience in game design, gameplay programming, modeling and texturing etc., but probably not as much as someone dedicating their time full-time.
Yet my observation suggests: game designers are far more likely to become game producer and studio head than technical artists.
This is not a dig at game designers at all, just an observation, that designers handles more human-centric issues, and worried less about implementing technical details. (TA do need to communicate issues and bridge gaps between teams, just not sure it's the same skillset).
So my questions:
- How do you grow beyond your role in a large studio? (Besides leaving and joining smaller teams.)
- What's a common career path for TA? (Are they mostly technical? Do people eventually lead a project?)
- Does knowing the entire production pipeline (from graphics, to art, to code), really help me to "produce a game"? (It certainly help "making a game myself", but to produce a game or lead a studio requires a lot of soft skills and connections, I am not sure how TA build toward it, perhaps through Team Lead roles?)
- Should I be worried about my career path? (I am in my early 30s, with 8 years of experience in tech and leading small teams at startups, so certainly not very young.)
Thx,
David
Replies
AFAIK, many appear to follow this path: TA -> Senior TA -> Lead TA -> Tech Director
What if I am a more rounded person? Is that a bad trait in a large studio?
Some Artits are made to become Leads some not.
And with survive i dont mean hard working conditions.
Its something to make great Art or TD work and something totaly different to Lead.
Sitting in endless meetings and still be friendly to coworkers. Help them and force them.
Not an easy task and for me not a rewarding task. Id like to create stuff myself.
Different skills than hands-on technical content creation.
If you want it, pursue it with the same passion you applied towards your tech work.
Specific to tech artist work vs management, my anxiety was basically: Should I continue to dedicate most of my time on learning new tech at this point?
I think many in TA role will agree: the knowledge space of TA is growing by the days, keeping taps on tech can be quite exhausting in itself.
While the game creator in me want to learn new tech: I reckon that I need to find a way to show my soft skills. Maybe even try out new positions?
I was too anxious about losing out on my tech skills, if that's a thing at all.