Home General Discussion

your role?

1
Ruz
polycount lvl 666
Offline / Send Message
Ruz polycount lvl 666
what is you role at work. I seem to have turned in to a purely 'head' artist. I model and texture about 4 heads a day 5 days a week . Sometimes I find it a bit repetitive, but mostly I enjoy it.
Oddly though of late, I have started to model heads in my sleep rather than actually sleeping properly smile.gif

Replies

  • PaK
    Offline / Send Message
    PaK polycounter lvl 18
    My role is the creative artist on all Threewave titles. Basically the concepting, modeling and texturing of all art assets the designers ask for. I write my own shaders and such aswell. I have to say Ren my tech artist is invaluable to me, and a great help. I would never be up-to-speed.

    Accually, my job bleeds over into the technical side too as I am the the technical artist for the Source engine since my co-worker is only familiar with 8-month old Source tech and is busy on other stuff.

    Today i'm trouble-shooting a strange flickering black effect on an asset Ren (my tech artist) made yesturday that has a heavy env/spec mask.

    About every 3 months here we learn a new engine. Since I've been here I've learned Doom3 tech and for this project Source. I would imagine the boys at Liquid Development have a similar day-to-day as me.

    -R
  • Malekyth
    Offline / Send Message
    Malekyth polycounter lvl 18
    I model and animate guns. I think IGDA designates my role as "weapon monkey", but I'll have to check the handbook for those technical terms. On the last project, I also modeled characters.

    Someday I'm hoping to be "character animator" again. wink.gif
  • Slayerjerman
    Offline / Send Message
    Slayerjerman polycounter lvl 18
    DS2 multiplayer monkey...I get paid to break our multiplayer modes. frown.gif

    Our network monkey hates me and flings poop my way when ever he gets a chance cause i cause him grief and more work.

    smile.gif

    So ive ended up being the man to goto with MP issues. Its nice to have a niche I guess.
  • Ryno
    Offline / Send Message
    Ryno polycounter lvl 18
    Environment and Prop artist. Modeling and texturing of props and vehicles, a little bit of concept work. Level designesque kind of stuff. Terrain textures, lighting, skyboxes. Color correction/texture cleanup for environments and characters. General Max troubleshooting and workflow development.

    Lots of hats for me.
  • Kevin Johnstone
    Offline / Send Message
    Kevin Johnstone polycounter lvl 18
    I always end up being the 'machine'; the guy that is relied upon to crank it out really fast because either they are understaffed or their other workers are slower.

    One day I'd like to be the guy that gets to work slower and make myself happy with the quality of my work and experiment with new ways of doing things more.

    Until then I just take pride in my ability to get the job done faster than most and cross my fingers that this will translate into a bigger bonus smile.gif
  • Daz
    Offline / Send Message
    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    I got a promotion yesterday for the first time in 4 years. I guess it's offical, I'm the guy everybody loves to hate. Art Director for the character content. It feels weird, and it'll be an interesting transition. I still want to continue doing a lot of work if I can which was mainly likeness stuff. Having a lot of fun building a high res head for marketing of a certain Bond actor at the moment.
  • cholden
    Offline / Send Message
    cholden polycounter lvl 18

    Lead Designer is my official title. Basically, I write design doc, translate education information from the professors into gameplay, then build all the level, manage other artists on the team, etc. I also get to build/implement/test vehicles. It's tons of work, and a lot of fun.
  • Scott Ruggels
    Offline / Send Message
    Scott Ruggels polycounter lvl 18
    Character Artist. Modelling, Some UV Mapping, Placing the skeletong,weighting, rarely I pain t the texturemaps. At 3doI was just "The Fast Low Poly Modeler" (Artist II).

    Scott
  • pogonip
    Offline / Send Message
    pogonip polycounter lvl 18
    My role is to be jeleous of all the talented people actually who work in the game industry, and never ever post anything for fear of being ridiculed .

    Congrates DAZ !! So are you one of many Art Directors on that title or are you thee Character Art Director on many titles ??
  • Daz
    Offline / Send Message
    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    thanks. My actual role doesn't really change that much from what it was before. It's just a silly title really. I'm basically lead character artist as I have been on this franchise for some time. It doesn't cover animation. Just the look of the chars. There's an overall AD that has vision on the game as a whole and there's an animation lead too.
  • rawkstar
    Offline / Send Message
    rawkstar polycounter lvl 18
    just got hired as a character artist, and looks like i'll be doing mostly next gen characters and quite possibly also helping out with other stuff.
  • adam
    Offline / Send Message
    adam polycounter lvl 19
    I'm not in the industry, but I'll contribute:

    I'm the ONLY person where I work for designing all aspects of jobs that come through. Everything from business cards, resumes, wedding invitiations, calendars, posters, mailers, ravecards, logos, websites, mousepads, the works. Everything.

    Everyone there can output, but no one is qualified for design work and it fucking SUCKS.

    I work @ Kinko's. Help me.
  • poopinmymouth
    Offline / Send Message
    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    Character artist. I do mostly weapons for the time being, but will be responsible for all aspects of character creation over time. Right this moment I am rigging characters, but soon I will be back to doing high poly stuffs for normal maps, as well as textures and spec maps.

    Oh yeah, I also do a lot of zbrush high poly creatures in my "spare time".

    I also just found out I will be tutoring the new maya professors in how to use max at the local AI. So I guess I can finally call myself a teacher for real! 8-)
  • swampbug
    Offline / Send Message
    swampbug polycounter lvl 18
    Character Artist. Mild concepting, mostly 3d modeling and textureing. I never cease to stop giving suggestions that can help our games. Also making quick story boards to communicate my ideas. Its not required, but I sure like taking the initiative to do it anyways.

    Ohh and learning to full parry super fireballs in Street fighter 3.
  • Hunter
    Offline / Send Message
    Hunter polycounter lvl 18
    I too am not in the "industry" and my artisrtic side is limited to the dabbling I do in spare time..

    IRL (In Real Life) I am a Sergeant in the NYPD in Brooklyn NY. Currently my role at the precinct is the Supervisor of the GLA (Grand Larceny Auto) team. I basically deal with stolen cars, chop shops, investigating the reports of larcenies of autos or from autos, or criminal mischief to autos.. PHEW !! Depending on staffing I can be assigned any number of jobs for the day from Desk Officer to Patrol Supervisor, and sometimes I even get stuck shmoozing with people at Community affairs meetings. I also have a "side assignment" of being involved with the training of all new "rookies" that come to the precinct. As some of the Polycount vets know, I spent a great amount of time in Ground Zero after the whole 9-11 aftermath...(shudder)

    Damn.. I just realized I do way too much work for being a member of the one of the LOWEST paid Police Departments in the country. I better slack off a little more from now on.

    However, I do like my gig since I can make my own hours (for the most part) and I get to run around in plain clothes with an unmarked auto.. WHOOHOO..

    ( I still envy alot of you and all the great talent we have within the Polycount community) I look forward to reading more about our members..
  • kleinluka
    Offline / Send Message
    kleinluka polycounter lvl 18
    Texture/Shader Artist.

    I make environment textures and the accompanying shaders, do some modeling for static meshes and unwrapping
  • Josh_Singh
    Offline / Send Message
    Josh_Singh polycounter lvl 18
    Whoa Hunter, you do a real thing.
    Remember that cop show "Hunter"? they filmed an episode at my school. wierd.
    My role? Im the guy who makes wise cracks in company meetings. Im they guy who's always talking about comics with the testers, Im the guy surfing polycount when he should be making levels and whatnot, Im the guy who brings up lame 80's cop shows to hardened N.Y.C. Cops.
  • SjetvsKerrigan
    Offline / Send Message
    SjetvsKerrigan polycounter lvl 18
    My title is "Embedded Software Engineer" but I don't write code yet.
  • ndcv
    Offline / Send Message
    ndcv polycounter lvl 18
    Hunter! It's been forever since I've seen you around here!

    And congrats DaZ, you the Man!

    Personally, I got hired on for World Design but I'm currently writing missions and doing other Game Design stuff, and it looks like I might have the option to stay on Game Design if I want to (which is starting to look more and more fun).
  • oXYnary
    Offline / Send Message
    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    Im between shitty jobs right now. But I am an apprientice for a toy action figure sculptor and get paid a small tiny amount (I CAN AFFORD TOILET PAPER! YES!). wink.gif
    :::
    So ndcv, does that mean sometime in the distant future you might have the option to resurrect Thief?
  • Gmanx
    Offline / Send Message
    Gmanx polycounter lvl 19
    Well....I'm kinda in the industry, some days.

    I work for an animation company - which is part of a movie studio. We used to do traditional hand-drawn cartoons, and I moved up the ranks there to lead animator.

    Then we went 3d, and I became texture/concept artist/modeler.

    Then we got into games, and I added level designer (I have an architecture degree)/character design/ animation checker to my resume.

    My role at the moment is graphic design/webdesign and implementation, while the games company we work with concentrates on building their portfolio for a stock floatation.

    My last art task was to put together a video for a pub games cabinet (poker game) which plays while the machines not being used - to entice people to it - called an attract video.I had 5 hours to complete and upload the finished thing, starting from scratch by grabbing screenshots. The very last thing I did before leaving work yesterday was to show a producer round the movielot. Never a dull day.....

    ...but I'm looking forward to getting back into the gaming saddle.
  • Rick Stirling
    Offline / Send Message
    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Tech character artist I guess - figuring out shaders and normals and specular and stuff. It's fun, and I get to play with shiny things.

    Well done Daz.
  • danr
    Offline / Send Message
    danr interpolator
    "Head artist" (one of two), which basically means i'm automatically Lead artist on whatever i'm working on.

    recently, i had to forego creating content and concentrate 100% on purely technical stuff - i don't mind though, it's quite satisfying, i could even say i'm enjoying it. Spending hours sorting out a problem that's preventing someone else's graphics ending up in the game, and succeeding, is decent buzz.
  • JonMurphy
    Offline / Send Message
    JonMurphy polycounter lvl 18
    I guess, when employed, I fall more into a technical artist role. When at Criterion I was producing art assets to demo Renderware piplelines, and was heavily involved in Renderware Studio 2's developement, as well as an integrated solution of MAX/Maya's lightmap output and Renderware.

    At my last job I was the one who had to figure out new clients engines and editors and work out how to get certain effects out of it. I do like that. It's the tinkerer in me.
  • Ruz
    Offline / Send Message
    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    Interesting stuff guys. nice to see such a variety.
    Good to hear about Hunters job too, someone from the real world he he.

    Congrats to Daz also. I envy you.

    BTW I have done about 180 heads so far on the 2 projects I have worked on, most of them likenesses.
    I was quite slow at first and got pulled up for it, but now I am the opposite,churning out the heads like a madman.
  • Chunkey
    Offline / Send Message
    Chunkey polycounter lvl 19
    Congrats Daz on the promotion smile.gif

    I'm pretty much an and all round artist, got a promotion from a Junior role in December after nearly 18 months of being at where I work.

    I'm meant to be doing a bit of everything but recently been assigned to character art as the underling to one of the more experienced artists. I've learnt loads over the last few months from working beside Paul, and hopefully his no bullshit approach will help me improve in the long term as well.
  • Paolo
    Offline / Send Message
    Paolo polycounter lvl 18
    I was mostly a character artist - and did a little bit of everything from concept to modeled, textured and animated in-game models. I also acted as a technical artist or liason to the programmers due to my background in CS.

    I am currently a graduate student in Computer Science trying to finish up my master's thesis. I am a teching assistant so alot of my work involves grading things like programs and design docs. Due to my professional experience in the industry, I assisted in designing some of the new game-development courses at my school (and the students seem to show a preference for the courses I had a hand in wink.gif)
  • Frank
    Offline / Send Message
    Frank polycounter lvl 18
    I stand behind those of lower ability and intelligence than myself and tell them what to do. I'm not fucking kidding.

    I hope to someday (soon, goddamit) be some part of the art pipeline, even if it's just animating doors or something. I could even model said doors. I just need to have the time to finish some projects to show to those on the art side. Also hopefully soon.

    I'M NOT BITTER OR ANYTHING, THOUGH. NO SIR.

    Frank the Avenger
  • Malekyth
    Offline / Send Message
    Malekyth polycounter lvl 18
    Shut up and test something!!

    smile.gif
  • TNSLB
    Offline / Send Message
    TNSLB polycounter lvl 18
    I'm the EDI admin for Solo Cup companies, and soon, Sweetheart as well (we bought them last year and are integrating our systems now). Solo makes a bazillion plastic cups, lids, and plates every day. I'm only there till they finish moving offices to the chicago area though, as I said no to moving.
  • FatAssasin
    Offline / Send Message
    FatAssasin polycounter lvl 18
    I'm not even sure what my official title is. Right now I'm polishing our FMV's, making 'em look pretty and adding special effects. I'd love to work on cinematics exclusively, but I don't really know what I'll be doing when Dungeon Siege 2 wraps up. I'm guessing that I'll grow into more of a technical artist's role over time, and that's cool with me. I really enjoy being able to make everyone else's job easier. smile.gif
  • Sett
    Offline / Send Message
    Sett polycounter lvl 18
    Owner of a small courier co.

    Mindnumbly uncreative.
  • hawken
    Offline / Send Message
    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    Art Director for a games company.

    but I resigned.

    So now I freelance, and charge £200 a day for interactive TV game art (pretty good price, but think of it like saving water for a drought). Gonna study Japanese next month for three months while doing some web stuff. Been doing web stuff for around 8 years, so it's like falling off a slippery log for me.

    I want to be a professional illustrator... and earn money for it!
  • da_milkman
    Offline / Send Message
    da_milkman polycounter lvl 18
    The title on my business card is Content Manager. I actually do three roles.

    Art Production Coordinator (I schedule artists), Assistant Producer (middleman for the Producer on one of our next projects), and Content Manager (testing and organization of the art assets for one of our next projects).

    My days are quite full. :P
  • Frank
    Offline / Send Message
    Frank polycounter lvl 18
    [ QUOTE ]
    Shut up and test something!!

    smile.gif

    [/ QUOTE ]
    .....

    I must now find a present to leave in your office. PREPARE FOR SUFFERING, BITCH.

    Or I can just make you crit my stuff. "And lo, he did babble on and on, unto the end of time, about his art; and yea, he did not allow his co-worker to finish his alloted tasks, and thus was the punk-ass co-worker punished for his failure, verily."

    Frank the Avenger
  • Paul Jaquays
    Offline / Send Message
    Paul Jaquays polycounter lvl 18
    Artist. I shifted over to art from content design (level design) last summer and am loving work again. I've been modeling, unwrapping, and texturing buildings. I just shifted over to "city building" this past week (which has some similarity to level design, but the bulk of the work is modeling, unwrapping and texturing a city layout).

    Hawken: wish you success in your quest to be an illustrator. I did that job for years. It's fun, but unless you have clients that pay phenomenally well, the hours can be worse than game development in crunch. My office mate, also a former illustrator, used to do 100 weeks as a matter of course.
  • PaK
    Offline / Send Message
    PaK polycounter lvl 18
    100 hr weeks? That's insane. There are barely 170 hrs in a week...that's a 7 day week too.

    -R
  • hawken
    Offline / Send Message
    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    Hey thanks Paul. It's good to know guys like yourself are still pumping out creative work and not taking management roles or something. I have some connections with marketing, I hope to be more of a commercial illustrator (mainly because work in this field is more vaired and less time consuming than what I'd consider traditional illustration to offer, also I've very limited painting skills!)
  • Daz
    Offline / Send Message
    Daz polycounter lvl 18
    Hawken: I'd wholeheartedly recommend getting an agent. Yeah it's a little hard to swallow that they take such a big cut ( 40%-ish I think ) but I think that it's worth it with the time they spend trying to hunt down work for you and they can probably charge more to the client anyway. I used to be with these guys http://www.illustrationweb.com/
    ( http://www.illustrationrgb.com/ are more of their web/multimedia geared outfit ). Thoroughly professional and nice people. I used to make a fortune as a freelance illustrator. Remind me why I went into vidoegames again smile.gif
  • joolz8000
    Offline / Send Message
    joolz8000 polycounter lvl 18
    I'm a Character Artist. I've been working freelance for the last five years and almost every paying gig I've had has been making characters; modeling, texturing, and usually rigging. It amazes me now how bad those early characters were, and I still have a ways to go. But I pretty much love every day of it. I'm considering doing more concept art eventually, maybe being an AD somewhere some day, but for now it's just lots and lots of characters.
  • Downsizer
    Offline / Send Message
    Downsizer polycounter lvl 18
    IRL, I'm a contracted Enterprise Systems Engineer for the Department of Defense. My offices are located at Ft. Belvoir VA, and the Pentagon. I concept, design, and impliment new Active Directory domain structures for major Army, and Missile Defense Agency organizations/offices, and assit with the migration to them from the exsisting Windows NT domain infrastructure. I also design custom asp.net/vb.net web application solutions for adminitrating these new networks. I was also involved with rebuilding certain networks and servers, after the whole 9/11 deal. Respect to hunter for his work as well.

    I never intended to have this career, but when I was unable to go to college when I wanted to, I had to put myself in the work force. I'm trying to change my career, but the pay cut I would recive is substantial, so I would like to start my game development career a little higher on the ladder. The only way to do that is to start a service myself. I am now starting a game development prototype project, in which my role is CEO/Art Director. I've set aside a decent budget for the project and I'm currently reviewing concept art, and artists for a few freelance positions I need to fill. The studio I'm building should be built, and the company registered as LCC by July this year.

    I will be looking for some modelers and texture artists this summer. So I spend my free time lurking here.
  • spacemonkey
    Offline / Send Message
    spacemonkey polycounter lvl 18
    Character Artist who is making monsters on a unannounced ps2 survival horror game, I also fill a senior art role helping others and generally having an opinion on every aspect of the game.
    Future; Considering moving to the Us/Canada once I have racked up enough years of exp to enable companies to get me into the country. Either that or I learn Japanese and go live under a desk in one of capcoms studio's.
  • BOB|3D
    Offline / Send Message
    BOB|3D polycounter lvl 18
    I'm the animator on, "The Screen Savers" on G4: Videogame Television.

    I animate cartoons and help with skits. Anything ranging from after effects work, to 3D animation, to flash cartoons. Very open-ended, and you have to wear many many hats. But SO MUCH fun. I get to meet "celebs" everyday, and I'm always 2 feet from getting on TV.
  • Conor
    Offline / Send Message
    Conor polycounter lvl 18
    I do character modelling, rigging, texturing, level+prop building, a little animation and some FMV and promotional work.
  • Joshua Stubbles
    Offline / Send Message
    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    I'm officially a "3D Artist", but I do a lot of other jobs.
    My job consists mainly of prop/level modeling & texturing. I'm also responisble for getting the artists up to speed on the engine, and getting the artwork to function properly in-game. I also do a lot of level design elements, working with the main design team and the art director to work out gamelevel elements. Other duties include minor animation, as well as building prototype demos and FMV work.
  • DavidCoen
    Offline / Send Message
    DavidCoen polycounter lvl 18
    game programmer (and now runs away from all the artist to sit in a dark room and only come out for pizza and to complain about the art resources)
  • jzero
    Offline / Send Message
    jzero polycounter lvl 18
    I am a graphic designer in the Visual Communications Network at the Dallas office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP. That's a 'Big 4' accounting firm. Contrary to what the Sketch Group guys think, that does not make me an accountant. tongue.gif

    I do layout design and production for contract proposals where the fees are over $50K. I also do internal stuff and collateral pieces, a pretty wide variety of stuff that's actually very common for staff designers working in the marketing field. Occasionally I get to do some Flash work, but it's usually pretty mundane (event announcements), even after I add in some unnecessary interactivity. As a VCN designer, I am responsible for enforcing our corporate brand identity, which frequently means thrashing people about the head and shoulders with Helvetica Neue 55 Roman. I love that. My software environment is InDesign and my delivery system is PDF.

    Game art has been my hobby and chosen Path of Bliss for the last five years or so, and with the inspiration and support of the 'leet d00dz of our mighty Dallas Sketch Group, I should be able to execute my carefully-planned mid-life crisis in the next couple of years. Everything I know about that, I learned at Polycount. crazy.gif

    /jzero
  • Ruz
    Offline / Send Message
    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    I did four and a half heads today.
  • Eric Chadwick
    Wow, what a great thread. Better than the "here's a picture of me" one(s).

    Congrats Daz, does this mean you have to direct other artists? Hmmmm. Glad to hear you're not getting sick of Bond.

    [ QUOTE ]
    Im the guy who brings up lame 80's cop shows to hardened N.Y.C. Cops.

    [/ QUOTE ]ghost_rider, this really made me laugh for some reason.
    My props go out to Hunter. I guess I wasn't around polycount for the 9/11 stories. You and yours are the backbone, and well appreciated for it.

    Small company where I work, we're making a real-time 3d content-creation system, sort of a middleware that can be used for games. I dabble in just about everything that's art-related. But mostly I hash through game engine features with the coders, document how artists can use them, create demo assets to show them off, figure out the art workflow, and help out the other two artists with creating game assets. I like the tough challenges, like creating effects, pushing-the-envelope kinds of tricks.

    Thanks Ruz for this good thread. Nice to hear from the non-game people too.
  • HarlequiN
    Offline / Send Message
    HarlequiN polycounter lvl 18
    Really really busy Vehicle artist.

    I make vehicles, as fast as I can, nuff said (and all I can say due to my NDA ).

    Previously I was a prop artist on "The Punisher", which meant I made the various things you fed people to, squished them with, decapitated them with etc etc. I may be something else next year, only time will tell...
1
Sign In or Register to comment.