I think Arsh brings up a really great point and that's that the players almost always focus on the things that are important for gameplay. In Okami or Myst, you have to pay attention to the environment to succeed, but in most FPS games the environments are non-interactive.
I agree that people have an emotional bond with characters more than trees, for example, but going back and forth about what the player pays more attention to is somewhat silly when it depends almost completely on the game design.
There is no real right or wrong or whats better or worse, just matters of how these things are considered important when in production. Ideally, everything should complement each other in respect to the OVERALL picture of things. Arsh made some good points. The environments and characters roles are definitely dependant on the context and situations that they are in, but I would say that the environments affect the player on a subconscious level. Even though the characters are arguably the focus of the game, the environments and all of the other factors and features that go into a game will sell the package. A well modeled and textured character will look bad if the animations arent convincing, or if the lighting in a scene doesnt bring out certain feelings or help set a mood, or if the enemy AI is terrible, or the level is not laid out well, etc. These and other factors are pretty crucial to make a game immersive.
I can totally understand why people choose to be character artists. It can be a lot easier to express and idea or convey ones abilities when the focus is on one thing, the character. An environment artist has to consider composition and technical ability more so than a character guy would normally do. Setting up a scene takes a lot longer to do well and many times can be very abstract in its design and implementation because the focus of the scene is the entire scene itself and the many parts that comprise it. A game environment has a lot of technical know how and constraints to consider in order to make a convincing and efficiently made environment run smoothly in game.
It is lame that time isnt allocated evenly and this is certainly dependant on how production goes about in each company, but working on a character model and its textures for 2 months doesnt equate the same way as to trying to make an entire level (which would include designing the level and making the props and textures needed for each part of the level and the lighting and character specific lighting to boot, not to mention the other non art related things), within the same time frame only to have said character appear once, die, and never be seen again. Double lameness if the environments have to be down resed considerably to accommodate the high res textures applied to that model. Its sarcastically hilarious to have other devs comment on the lackluster environments that dont quite seem to compare to the amazing character detail when there are milestone reviews > <
Still, the character art, environment art, level design, scripting, effects, audio, animation and programming are all parts of a whole that if done well shouldnt disrupt the players gaming experience.
Whenever I go to a school and ask them if they've heard of BoBo the Seal, or Pior Oberson, I'll get several hands to raise. I don't even know of an environment artist to ask if people have heard of. I think that has more to do with a lack of environment artists of the caliber that gets their portfolios pushed around and linked to on forums and peoples home pages, than it does to any type of agenda with characters being more important than environments.
If someone started posting environment shots that were as visually engaging as Mr Kite's characters, they'd be famous too. There are plenty of guys on concept art who focus on painting environments, who get just as much aclaim as the guys who draw characters. I think that goes to show there is room for both camps to have the "biggies" who people know by name.
I think people who are serious about learning to model try and learn to model what is the most difficult in their minds. There are a few things that can be thought of as being just as challenging as modeling a character. Trees seem easy until you try to model one, and then you realize just how annoying it can be. Also there really isn't enough information on what's expected. For pre-rendered work making environments can be fairly straight forward but for games most of the work goes into texturing and setting up your models for them. Also saying environment artist is a very broad term so it makes it confusing. I think in good games environments and characters are treated equally. HL2 and Doom 3 the environments are as sharp as the character work. I think the problem in the industry is that there is a lack of properly trained newcomers and since there is so much work that needs to be done in the environments so they are as sweet as the characters there is a huge demand for them.
I'm not so sure there is a one size fits all answer to this debate. It's been said a few times already and I totally agree that genre plays a big role as to what should takes priority.
Great characters in shitty looking environments makes for a bad looking game.
Great environments with shitty looking characters in it make for a bad looking game.
There needs to be a consistency in quality throughout the game for it all to come together well. Depending on the genre, there might be a bit more emphasis in one aspect or another. Story-driven games might require a bit more focus on the characters, but the environments still need to look good. An over the head RTS, or twitch shooter might focus somewhat more on the quality of the environments, but the characters still need to hold up well.
They both have their place, and depending on the types of game you like, you may tend to be drawn toward one aspect of game art or another. Personally, I'm a multiplayer shooter addict. Seeing as how I only need to see opponents for a fraction of a second before I cap them, characters seem less important to me, at least for this type of game. As an example, I didn't even notice that the characters had fully modeled faces in UT 2004 until after I had been playing it for about 6 months. (And that was only because I got bored, and started poking dead bodies.)
Since I'm such a multiplayer shooter fan, it's the environments and weapons that make games fun. A poorly laid out or bad-looking level is just a killer for me. However, if I was more of a fan of story-driven games like Final Fantasy, MGS, etc., I'm sure that good quality character art would be much more important to me. Sure the environments would still need to look decent, but these games are all about the characters, and this should be addressed properly in an artistic sense.
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There are plenty of guys on concept art who focus on painting environments, who get just as much aclaim as the guys who draw characters. I think that goes to show there is room for both camps to have the "biggies" who people know by name.
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If someone started posting environment shots that were as visually engaging as Mr Kite's characters, they'd be famous too. There are plenty of guys on concept art who focus on painting environments, who get just as much aclaim as the guys who draw characters. I think that goes to show there is room for both camps to have the "biggies" who people know by name.
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I do find it very strange that very few envrio modelers post anywhere ? Perfect example we are all marveling over Gears of War but I have yet to see any models made for the game pimped . I would LOVE to see the envrio models from that game ! It's really hard to find any material on enviroment modeling and lighting I mean how do you get new really talented people interested in the field if there is nearly zilch on learning to do it correctly ?
One Enviro artist normally isn't resposable for everything you see on the screen so its not as easy to pimp as a character. "I did the three buildings on the left, but only textured two of them, oh and the street lamp and the rubble pile are mine".
Just to be a dick I'm going to toss this out there. Maybe enviro guys don't need constant praise to know they did a good job. There I said it character artists are a bunch of insecure nancy boys =P (oh unclench I was mostly kidding).
Its not uncommon to have 1-2 character artists and 5-20 environment artists. When your work gets mixed with so many others its hard to pick it out your own. Sure a nice screen shot is great looking even if you take the character out of it, but how much can one enviro guy take credit for?
Most enviro artists have many more assets to make and they end up spreading their time kind of thin. Instead of bashing out 5-10 assets over the course of a game they may have to do 50-100 assets, maybe more. They may not get as much time to work on one asset as a character artist does so they may not feel like pimping individual pieces unless they touch em up, once your off a project you might be burned out on it and not want to revisit it, or you might not have time as the next game is upon you.
The most communities often roll their eyes and say "yup thats a billboard, neat store front... I guess". Show a flashy main character in a dynamic pose and everyone goes crazy. Can't pose a building, the best you can hope for is to wiggle the camera around and find a spot that shows most of it off well.
As for finding the training to be an enviro artist. It's out there. Its what all those other tutorials that aren't about characters, are for. Here is the best tutorial I can find for enviro art:
1) Don't waste polys.
2) If you get stuck and can't build something press F1. Or Alt-F4 if you're really frustrated.
Honestly if you're using a 3D app to build levels just get to know it you don't need specific tutorials on how to build a mailbox, a street sign or a brick building. If you know the program well enough (which can be taught by any tutorial) you can just start out building.
You might not find specific enviro tutorials on the same sites you are going to to find character tutorials. You might have to venture into uncharted waters like architecture sites or look for tutorials on non-game related forums. You might have to step outside of Edit poly and explore some of the other features GASP! hahaha. You might have to look at buildings instead of porn, I mean human referance. Scary I know but there is a big 3D world and while games is a big chunk, its not the alpha and the omega. Max comes with beginner how to environment tutorials and many of the generic tutorials aimed at teaching you how to use the program work as environment tutorials. Really once you have the core features of a program down (taught to you by any tutorial, any which way) you're free to move about the cabin as you please, the fasten seat belt sign is off!
Environmental art can be done with a level editor or a 3D app. Most level editors have extensive tutorials most build in, on the companies websites or have large fan sites dedicated to the subject. Saying you can't find a tutorial for UnrealEd, Hammer or the Doom Editor is just like saying your lazy. I will agree that maybe hanging around a character board isn't the best place to find enviro art help...
UnrealEd is a great program to learn, I've been doing quick layouts in UnrealEd, exporting them as .OBJ files and then importing them into Maya to build static meshes.
The first thing that came to my mind about Oblivion and Morrowind was "awesome scenery!", followed uncomfortably closely by "holy shitfuck those characters are bad"
i think Morrowind had much more imaginative and diverse environments than Oblivion though. It's one of those games that really made me appreciate env.art a lot more. The Final Fantasy games much the same, the environments are fantastic sometimes. Oh, and let's not forget metroid, i thought the environments were brilliant!
let's not swing too far to the other side now, and claim that the importance of character art pales in comparison though. I agree with Ror when he says they're about at the same level.
I wish i had some level stuff for my portfolio, i keep running into job ads for level artists.
Pea, just tell them your characters are levels like in Shadow of the Colossus. On second thought any place that might fall for that more than likely isn't a place you want to work ha ha ha.
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One Enviro artist normally isn't resposable for everything you see on the screen so its not as easy to pimp as a character. "I did the three buildings on the left, but only textured two of them, oh and the street lamp and the rubble pile are mine".
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I'm not talking necessarily about art made for a game. Where are the environment artists who make environments for fun, to push and experiment, the way a lot of the character guys on Polycount do? The closest I can think of is that awesome desaturated basement scene started by the SD env guy, Andrew Hamilton. That's the only equivalent "pimp" I've seen by an enviro guy that got my juices flowing. He seemed to do it only for the love of making it, and it was awesome. That and he made it all by himself,
There are plenty of games I've worked on, where I couldn't point to many characters and claim 100% of the work is mine. Especially now in MMo's and next-gen stuff, character guys share the burden and swap up specialties, resulting in amalgams of characters. I know when BoBo was showing me Ironlore stuff, he had to point out which artist made which aspect on most of the characters.
I've said on more than one occasion, that I wish there were more enviro guys who posted on polycount with the passion and fervor that some of the character guys do. It'd be nice to mix it up, and maybe with a few heroes to look up to, more new guys would go into environments.
Ben you also have to take into account polycounts roots and what drove most of us here. I was knee deep into making maps for StarCraft, Doom2, Quake and Half Life until I got the itch for characters. The itch came when I learned I could make more game art than just levels. I mostly got into characters because of polycount. When it came time to "chase the dream" I settled on enviro art, not because I suck and couldn't land a character artist position I was offered and turned 2 of them down. I went for the place that gave me what I like doing and gave me the most creative freedom enviro art. I enjoy all aspects of making game art I like making characters and I like making a world for them to explore. Time, technology and budgets demand I pick one or the other which is like choosing which kitten to save from the burning building when you can only save one.
I'm not blaming polycount for catering to the character crowd. Given its origins it is the natural path it would grow in. When you ask why you don't see more enviro stuff, thats why. Most of the crits that are posted speak to environmental art also. Kind of a monkey see monkey do attitude. Go to polycount see character models, make character models. Most people who make maps post in mapper forums or forums where people can get their maps/props, not here.
I see this thread as kind of call to arms for those closet enviro artists, trapped in a character artists mentality. I don't think its meant to sway the tide from one side to the other but just a reminder that there are two sides to the coin and both can be rewarding.
We'll see some more good enviro stuff pimped off as time goes on, some already has been and hopefully we'll see much more. Who knows maybe some people reading this thread have decided to dust off the architecture books for their next project. As soon as crunch ends I have a few tutorials coming about how to bend max to your will and use it to create environments.
I could pimp off some of the stuff I did for my last game, but honestly it was my first game, I had a pipeline to learn, a lot to do and not that much time to do it in. I don't think it shows what I can do now, even tho it was just a few months ago. You know what, screw it, I'll post a few
Environment work is more typically done with proprietary systems and tools for a given game. For example, Unreal's use of terrain, structures and static meshes is probably very different from the BF2 engine's use of similar tech. Lighting systems can get very complex. It's hard to just create an environment for a game without getting hardcore into a specific game's tools and tech (which tend to be harder to use and understand than something like Max). It's easier to dick around with character work for fun and really get a sense for how it would look in a game.
You could always make an entire level, but that's a huge undertaking and requires level design skills in addition to art skills. So, when you're interested in creating some game art but not getting into all the technical drudgery found in game dev, it's much easier to make characters.
If you have hobbyists or modders (noobs), everybody is going to want to make the characters because there is less game specific drudgery to learn. You also see the Master Chief or Chun Li featured in the ads and box covers, so it's more appealing. If there's a conflict over who gets to do the characters and who is forced to do the environments, the better artists are going to get their way and do the characters.
None of this means that characters are more important than environments in games, I think that's been well established in this thread. But, I think this appeal is responsible for why environment work often gets neglected in games and why good environment artists are harder to find.
With newer tech like UE3, we're finally able to do environments artistic justice - create really engaging and detailed architecture, complex lighting and color balancing. I think environments are going to start getting a lot more attention than characters in the new generation of consoles.
Well I may ba transitioning back to Environment art.
I started back in the 8 bit days. Back then you did character animation (in the Hanna Barbera 2D tradition), and did the backgrounds as well. People were generalists back then. I still like to do a lot of things. But there I was mostly an animator because I had "Animator" on my Class lists and resume. I made the transition from 2D to 3D at a company few of you may remember, called Accolade, where we used SGI Irixes to make renders to be crunched down into Sega Genesis and SNES graphics. I didn't see actualy Console 3D output until I went to the late and unlamented 3Do.
Because they needed Environment artsts at 3Do, rather than Animatorws, that about the only thing I did, was environments until my last 2-3 years there where I got to do a little animation.
Subsequectly I became a character artist, but not a very remarkable one. I got a lot of comments on my Animation though so I went back to being an animator, which is what I love the best... Except....
We could start this whole thread again with the title of 'Lack of Technical Artists' you know, and we'd be just as right, and it couldnt help but snub even more people who are equally as skilled in different areas.
There is a huge shortage of technical artists, and because of that mor3e and more of the technical jobs are foisted off onto the Animator and character guys. At My last permanent job, Castaway, We had a technical artist, so all I needed to do was to concentrate on the performance and the output. However since then I have been unabel to find a subsequent permanent job because of my inability to build rigs for characters. I have no ability with the connections editor or math, or many of the other things necessary to make a supple, easily manipulated rig. So I have hit a wall, and the "Next Gen" hasn't helped me, as , frankly I hate painting textures. There I said it. Photoshop give me a headache and a neck ache and nothing is ever good enough. Mesh I understand, efficientcy I understand, research I understand. Equations? never have. So I get an offer for an environmental artist position and I am thinking "No more painting weights, no more rigging, and EASY texture layouts. I am going to miss pure animation, but still I have to remember I did EVERY SINGLE ENVIRONMENT AND PROP in the last to Armymen PC titles. I can do this, and frankly for me it's not about the Fame. For me it's about putting out a good game, and the steady paycheck. We'll see how it goes.
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One Enviro artist normally isn't resposable for everything you see on the screen
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Well now, that just depends.
For STACKED, I built, modeled, textured, assembled, optimized and lit every single environment and prop.
Aside from some occasional texture help I got from Adam Bromell or one of our inhouse artists, I had all of that responsibility. I had to build a new environment each month. That's a lot of work for one dude.
Poop - it's hard man, it really is. Andrew is on top of the game right now. I mean, he's working on Quake Wars. And they probably have a slew of artists there at Splash Damage. For me, when I was at 5000ft, there was a huge burden. Both when we were working on Daredevil, and then on STACKED. Lots of overtime, little time off. For the whole development duration. For most of Daredevil, there was only myself and one other artist, making an INSANE amount of assets. For STACKED, I was the only environment artist. That's about 3yrs what was nearly all "crunch mode"
I got burnt out. So I left. Only in the past few weeks have I had the incentive to start making art again. I've been diving into high poly, since I'm sorely out of practice in that area.
You might have oodles of spare time to take vacations, travel and experiment with art. But not everyone does. People can get tied down by many things. Sometimes, there just isn't time to do art. Yeah yeah, "make" time. Great theory, on paper.
I've been trying, and that's all I can do. Hopefully something good will come out of my efforts. I'd certainly like to make game art again.
If I'm honest with myself, I haven't pimped my work because I mostly don't care to know what people outside of work think of it.
There are a lot of hoops to jump through at work and by the time I've done that, I never feel the need for others to either critique or praise what I did because as rude as it sounds, I don't rate the opinion of people here more than the people I work with.
That attitude stems from my having a great deal of respect for the people I work with rather than a disrespect for others outside of work.
I have to admit I'd forgotten about the need to share the inspiration though, its come up a few times during the thread that people would like to see some of the stuff I've done at work, just for inspiration.
I certainly get inspired when I browse through Conceptart.org though more often I curse myself for not being a real artist. Funny how its only other people that are real artists
Vassago: I'd be careful there, a lot of us tend to assume others have it easier than ourselves, generally that aint true though. Not that I'd ever dream of restraining anyone from bashing poop ( couldn't resist the cheap shot!), but still, we can never be sure how hard we are working compared to others and frankly that 'hardcore' competition is probably the worst mindset any of us could get caught up in.
Ror, I wasn't in any way trying to be mean. I suppose I worded it wrong. What I meant was that some people are fortunate enough to work for these larger studios. Studios that not only have a large staff, but they've been around a long time and know exactly what to do. In these cases, there's always time for those workers to enjoy vacations, or 8hr work days (until crunch mode ).
Working for an small developer is a completely different experience. It's something that cannot be truly experienced in a 3-4 month contract period. Having an entire team of 10-13 people, yet expected to turn out top end product is a huge burden.
I know that nobody has it "easy". That's impossible. Some have it better than others, though. That's all. Some are fortunate enough to have that. So sorry if I came off sounding like an ass or something. Wasn't my intention.
I'm actually designing a world editor and various systems for the creation of non heightmapped terrain for a Dark Basic project. Just using this as a learning step, but I have to teach myself environment art from the ground up. I have the advantage of actually designing the system and knowing the ins and outs of what the engine can handle. I might share some things I come across in my studies, if I find that i'm fairly proficient at it. I've always been more attracted to environment art than character art.
I dont expect it to be anything par to UnrealEd, but If documenting my learning experience will help others, i'm all for it.
Vas: I wasn't suggesting you were being mean, only that saying things like you did is like risking sticking your neck out as theres always someone thats worked more than you who is reading.
And rating ourselves on our ability to be hardcore isn't a worthwhile standard of judgement. I hope you can take this as solid advice from someone who has gone through RSI to Carpal Tunnel to Carpal Tunnel release surgery on both hands to tendonitis to Arthritis currently.
Hope I'm not coming over as lecturing or condescending, I'm trying only to advise. I didn't go through that because of sitting around ( nah, it was too much wanking right !? ).
Larger companies have the same problems for some, as small do. I've noticed at the larger ones, theres still a hardcore group that takes the load for the many and in general whether in small or large, a select few take on more and end up compensating for the inadequate management that might otherwise have been addressed if the few were not killing themselves trying to compensate for shortsighted goals.
Of course, its easy to say this when I'm no longer in the midst of fearing for my job like I have been in the past but its better to let a company die instead of killing ourselves to save it when we're not really paid enough to try to do that!
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Speaking of education can anyone recommend any good tutorials or forums that are environment specific?
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Man I find it odd that there is a lack of environment artist. Personally I love Environments, but it looks like Im in the same boat as your in. Theres no tutorials for environment artist. All I ever see are a bunch of tutorials for characters. Its disappointing
Actually I think the choice of whether you do environments or characters has nothing to do with artistic ability.
you need a certain kind of brain to be a good environment artist anyway.
I used to do environments when i worked at swordfish but soon realised that my preference was for characters and pursued that.
I did find doing environments more relaxing on the whole though.
perhaps environment stuff is a bit easier to pick up initially, but still you need to be a talented artist to churn out top quality environments.
This thread made me wonder; is there a group of base books for environmental work that people recommend like there are for character work? For characters you think of Bridgeman, Peck's Anatomy Atlas, Glen Vilppu's stuff, etc. If you run through that you'll have a decent ability to draw out an idea and the anatomy knowledge to not have it look ridiculous. Is there a similar group of quality books for 'surface architecture' as there is for 'surface anatomy'?
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"I've not seen any guns in Tony Hawks. Or Bully. Or Need For Speed. Or Mario. Or Monkey Ball. All of those do have environments though."
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I used to work at Rockstar Vancouver, and was an artist on Bully, and the funny thing about the weapons that made it into the game is... Is that they were designed by me (with the input of the lead designer), modeled by me, textured by me, rigged by me, and animated by the lead animator... And guess what? I'm an Environment Artist.
From my experience in the games industry in relation to my experience in the television animation industry, there is a parallel. In 2D everyone wanted to be a Key Frame Animator, because they got the most recognition and praise for their work, and no one wanted to draw layouts because it was considered 'grunt' work. The same thing is in games. Characters VS Environments.
With my experience at Rockstar, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to tackle a very wide range of objects to model (including some character stuff too), but most of our character artists were stuck doing 'just' characters. But to defend the character artists, there's so much potential for 'new' item creation as well these days. With the character customization features that most games have now, character artists are kept plenty busy with modeling 100 different shirts, shoes, pants, hats, glasses etc etc. So the variety is there for them as well, it's just different.
Ultimately, the game has to look the 'whole'. If the characters do not fit into the visual style of the world, or vice versa, its not a bad on the character artist or the environment artist... It's a bad on the Art Director. Games are made by a TEAM, and as an industry, we really need to stop drawing lines in the sand and looking at artists by their job title, and just look at them all as artists... Because really, we're all after the same goal. Which is, make a kick ass product that everyone will enjoy playing, looking at, and living in, and remembering in 10 years as one of their favorite gaming experiences.
All that being said... It is true, there is a definite shortage of Environment Artists out there. I'm at a new studio now, and we recieve on average 10 character artist applicants to .5 Environment Artist applicants.
I really think the schools/institutes/colleges out there need to start encouraging their students to tackle environment work more. But, on the cover a high cost 3D school's enrollment program, it just looks better to have a huge muscle laden character with inverted knees, a big ass gun, zippers, pockets, and an over sized sword that no human could possibly weild... Oh, and spikey hair.
I really think the schools/institutes/colleges out there need to start encouraging their students to tackle environment work more. But, on the cover a high cost 3D school's enrollment program, it just looks better to have a huge muscle laden character with inverted knees, a big ass gun, zippers, pockets, and an over sized sword that no human could possibly weild... Oh, and spikey hair.
I have to totally agree with this. I currently study at a University in the UK (one of the more accredited ones I admit), and it frustrates me with how much lecturers seem to be funneling students into just making characters over any sort of environmental work.
For me though even before I started the course I knew I wanted to move into environments, and seeing how the course has progressed over the last year I can honestly say that it breaks my heart knowing how much money I've wasted with it both not suiting what the industry expects from grads and also not fulfilling my needs to learn while on this course or inspiring me.
This really is a problem that a lot of schools/institutes/colleges have though, and it is a worrying trend which I can't see changing for a while.
For me it's natural to do environment art, it's what I do in reallife and what I love. Creating space, placing boundaries, creating a movement, a feeling. In this virtual realm the possibilities are endless though, no picky contracters or compromises. That said for me it's relaxing to go out and create things without all these limits, tabula rasa. Though I must stress, it's nothing interesting without em too, just at times you know it's nice not to have them.
Pretty much all aspects I learned in uni on architecture translate well into practical knowhow of virtual world building and doing so with thought and believability.
i still dont know if a top down approach or a bottom up approachis better
both ar leading to confusion to me, but the top down method is more clear to me
i mean (bottom up = modeling tiles for buildings etc, making buildings setting them up and make streets etc)
and top down = making mountains, zooming in, creating village ground creating houses blah blah
I don't know about in the industry, but seems like half the stuff posted here these days is environmental, if not more. So maybe not so relevant anymore?
There has been a decisive turn since the first post in this thread 3 years ago. We had a bunch of debates and polls about environmental art, and a lot of young artists had light bulbs go off over their heads. Suddenly it was like "Hey, envivonmental art is cool too! And I am more likely to get a job in it?!! Sign me up!"
This thread might be old, but I just have to say that after spending a year on environments, it was one of the most intense technical pipelines I've ever had to deal with.
The range of skill these days needed to produce a level that works for this gen of consoles is quite diverse.
It isn't just about producing art anymore, it's understanding how to make everything so it runs, and and runs well on the consoles. Imagine the insanity especially if your leads can't lead.
Definitely the unsung heroes in this industry by far. Shit rolls downhill straight on to these guys.
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I agree that people have an emotional bond with characters more than trees, for example, but going back and forth about what the player pays more attention to is somewhat silly when it depends almost completely on the game design.
There is no real right or wrong or whats better or worse, just matters of how these things are considered important when in production. Ideally, everything should complement each other in respect to the OVERALL picture of things. Arsh made some good points. The environments and characters roles are definitely dependant on the context and situations that they are in, but I would say that the environments affect the player on a subconscious level. Even though the characters are arguably the focus of the game, the environments and all of the other factors and features that go into a game will sell the package. A well modeled and textured character will look bad if the animations arent convincing, or if the lighting in a scene doesnt bring out certain feelings or help set a mood, or if the enemy AI is terrible, or the level is not laid out well, etc. These and other factors are pretty crucial to make a game immersive.
I can totally understand why people choose to be character artists. It can be a lot easier to express and idea or convey ones abilities when the focus is on one thing, the character. An environment artist has to consider composition and technical ability more so than a character guy would normally do. Setting up a scene takes a lot longer to do well and many times can be very abstract in its design and implementation because the focus of the scene is the entire scene itself and the many parts that comprise it. A game environment has a lot of technical know how and constraints to consider in order to make a convincing and efficiently made environment run smoothly in game.
It is lame that time isnt allocated evenly and this is certainly dependant on how production goes about in each company, but working on a character model and its textures for 2 months doesnt equate the same way as to trying to make an entire level (which would include designing the level and making the props and textures needed for each part of the level and the lighting and character specific lighting to boot, not to mention the other non art related things), within the same time frame only to have said character appear once, die, and never be seen again. Double lameness if the environments have to be down resed considerably to accommodate the high res textures applied to that model. Its sarcastically hilarious to have other devs comment on the lackluster environments that dont quite seem to compare to the amazing character detail when there are milestone reviews > <
Still, the character art, environment art, level design, scripting, effects, audio, animation and programming are all parts of a whole that if done well shouldnt disrupt the players gaming experience.
If someone started posting environment shots that were as visually engaging as Mr Kite's characters, they'd be famous too. There are plenty of guys on concept art who focus on painting environments, who get just as much aclaim as the guys who draw characters. I think that goes to show there is room for both camps to have the "biggies" who people know by name.
Alex
Also if you break down the s
Great environments with shitty looking characters in it make for a bad looking game.
There needs to be a consistency in quality throughout the game for it all to come together well. Depending on the genre, there might be a bit more emphasis in one aspect or another. Story-driven games might require a bit more focus on the characters, but the environments still need to look good. An over the head RTS, or twitch shooter might focus somewhat more on the quality of the environments, but the characters still need to hold up well.
They both have their place, and depending on the types of game you like, you may tend to be drawn toward one aspect of game art or another. Personally, I'm a multiplayer shooter addict. Seeing as how I only need to see opponents for a fraction of a second before I cap them, characters seem less important to me, at least for this type of game. As an example, I didn't even notice that the characters had fully modeled faces in UT 2004 until after I had been playing it for about 6 months. (And that was only because I got bored, and started poking dead bodies.)
Since I'm such a multiplayer shooter fan, it's the environments and weapons that make games fun. A poorly laid out or bad-looking level is just a killer for me. However, if I was more of a fan of story-driven games like Final Fantasy, MGS, etc., I'm sure that good quality character art would be much more important to me. Sure the environments would still need to look decent, but these games are all about the characters, and this should be addressed properly in an artistic sense.
There are plenty of guys on concept art who focus on painting environments, who get just as much aclaim as the guys who draw characters. I think that goes to show there is room for both camps to have the "biggies" who people know by name.
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That sums up my thoughts
If someone started posting environment shots that were as visually engaging as Mr Kite's characters, they'd be famous too. There are plenty of guys on concept art who focus on painting environments, who get just as much aclaim as the guys who draw characters. I think that goes to show there is room for both camps to have the "biggies" who people know by name.
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I do find it very strange that very few envrio modelers post anywhere ? Perfect example we are all marveling over Gears of War but I have yet to see any models made for the game pimped . I would LOVE to see the envrio models from that game ! It's really hard to find any material on enviroment modeling and lighting I mean how do you get new really talented people interested in the field if there is nearly zilch on learning to do it correctly ?
Just to be a dick I'm going to toss this out there. Maybe enviro guys don't need constant praise to know they did a good job. There I said it character artists are a bunch of insecure nancy boys =P (oh unclench I was mostly kidding).
Its not uncommon to have 1-2 character artists and 5-20 environment artists. When your work gets mixed with so many others its hard to pick it out your own. Sure a nice screen shot is great looking even if you take the character out of it, but how much can one enviro guy take credit for?
Most enviro artists have many more assets to make and they end up spreading their time kind of thin. Instead of bashing out 5-10 assets over the course of a game they may have to do 50-100 assets, maybe more. They may not get as much time to work on one asset as a character artist does so they may not feel like pimping individual pieces unless they touch em up, once your off a project you might be burned out on it and not want to revisit it, or you might not have time as the next game is upon you.
The most communities often roll their eyes and say "yup thats a billboard, neat store front... I guess". Show a flashy main character in a dynamic pose and everyone goes crazy. Can't pose a building, the best you can hope for is to wiggle the camera around and find a spot that shows most of it off well.
As for finding the training to be an enviro artist. It's out there. Its what all those other tutorials that aren't about characters, are for. Here is the best tutorial I can find for enviro art:
1) Don't waste polys.
2) If you get stuck and can't build something press F1. Or Alt-F4 if you're really frustrated.
Honestly if you're using a 3D app to build levels just get to know it you don't need specific tutorials on how to build a mailbox, a street sign or a brick building. If you know the program well enough (which can be taught by any tutorial) you can just start out building.
You might not find specific enviro tutorials on the same sites you are going to to find character tutorials. You might have to venture into uncharted waters like architecture sites or look for tutorials on non-game related forums. You might have to step outside of Edit poly and explore some of the other features GASP! hahaha. You might have to look at buildings instead of porn, I mean human referance. Scary I know but there is a big 3D world and while games is a big chunk, its not the alpha and the omega. Max comes with beginner how to environment tutorials and many of the generic tutorials aimed at teaching you how to use the program work as environment tutorials. Really once you have the core features of a program down (taught to you by any tutorial, any which way) you're free to move about the cabin as you please, the fasten seat belt sign is off!
Environmental art can be done with a level editor or a 3D app. Most level editors have extensive tutorials most build in, on the companies websites or have large fan sites dedicated to the subject. Saying you can't find a tutorial for UnrealEd, Hammer or the Doom Editor is just like saying your lazy. I will agree that maybe hanging around a character board isn't the best place to find enviro art help...
Here are some books and some great write-ups about laying out levels or good level design.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/002...o.y=0&Go=Go
http://www.voraxgames.com/community/blogs/dut/archive/2006/02/04/124.aspx
http://gamasutra.com/features/20060425/shahrani_01.shtml
http://www.cliffyb.com/art-sci-ld.html
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=65
http://www.johnsto.co.uk/?t=common_sense
First thing that came to your mind was ugly faces and not pretty scenery, wasnt it?
Oblivion
First thing that came to your mind was ugly faces and not pretty scenery, wasnt it?
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no
i think Morrowind had much more imaginative and diverse environments than Oblivion though. It's one of those games that really made me appreciate env.art a lot more. The Final Fantasy games much the same, the environments are fantastic sometimes. Oh, and let's not forget metroid, i thought the environments were brilliant!
let's not swing too far to the other side now, and claim that the importance of character art pales in comparison though. I agree with Ror when he says they're about at the same level.
I wish i had some level stuff for my portfolio, i keep running into job ads for level artists.
One Enviro artist normally isn't resposable for everything you see on the screen so its not as easy to pimp as a character. "I did the three buildings on the left, but only textured two of them, oh and the street lamp and the rubble pile are mine".
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I'm not talking necessarily about art made for a game. Where are the environment artists who make environments for fun, to push and experiment, the way a lot of the character guys on Polycount do? The closest I can think of is that awesome desaturated basement scene started by the SD env guy, Andrew Hamilton. That's the only equivalent "pimp" I've seen by an enviro guy that got my juices flowing. He seemed to do it only for the love of making it, and it was awesome. That and he made it all by himself,
There are plenty of games I've worked on, where I couldn't point to many characters and claim 100% of the work is mine. Especially now in MMo's and next-gen stuff, character guys share the burden and swap up specialties, resulting in amalgams of characters. I know when BoBo was showing me Ironlore stuff, he had to point out which artist made which aspect on most of the characters.
I've said on more than one occasion, that I wish there were more enviro guys who posted on polycount with the passion and fervor that some of the character guys do. It'd be nice to mix it up, and maybe with a few heroes to look up to, more new guys would go into environments.
http://help.hourences.com/bookabout.htm
One of our LDs got an advance copy and its definitely excellent reading.
I'm not blaming polycount for catering to the character crowd. Given its origins it is the natural path it would grow in. When you ask why you don't see more enviro stuff, thats why. Most of the crits that are posted speak to environmental art also. Kind of a monkey see monkey do attitude. Go to polycount see character models, make character models. Most people who make maps post in mapper forums or forums where people can get their maps/props, not here.
I see this thread as kind of call to arms for those closet enviro artists, trapped in a character artists mentality. I don't think its meant to sway the tide from one side to the other but just a reminder that there are two sides to the coin and both can be rewarding.
We'll see some more good enviro stuff pimped off as time goes on, some already has been and hopefully we'll see much more. Who knows maybe some people reading this thread have decided to dust off the architecture books for their next project. As soon as crunch ends I have a few tutorials coming about how to bend max to your will and use it to create environments.
I could pimp off some of the stuff I did for my last game, but honestly it was my first game, I had a pipeline to learn, a lot to do and not that much time to do it in. I don't think it shows what I can do now, even tho it was just a few months ago. You know what, screw it, I'll post a few
You could always make an entire level, but that's a huge undertaking and requires level design skills in addition to art skills. So, when you're interested in creating some game art but not getting into all the technical drudgery found in game dev, it's much easier to make characters.
If you have hobbyists or modders (noobs), everybody is going to want to make the characters because there is less game specific drudgery to learn. You also see the Master Chief or Chun Li featured in the ads and box covers, so it's more appealing. If there's a conflict over who gets to do the characters and who is forced to do the environments, the better artists are going to get their way and do the characters.
None of this means that characters are more important than environments in games, I think that's been well established in this thread. But, I think this appeal is responsible for why environment work often gets neglected in games and why good environment artists are harder to find.
With newer tech like UE3, we're finally able to do environments artistic justice - create really engaging and detailed architecture, complex lighting and color balancing. I think environments are going to start getting a lot more attention than characters in the new generation of consoles.
I started back in the 8 bit days. Back then you did character animation (in the Hanna Barbera 2D tradition), and did the backgrounds as well. People were generalists back then. I still like to do a lot of things. But there I was mostly an animator because I had "Animator" on my Class lists and resume. I made the transition from 2D to 3D at a company few of you may remember, called Accolade, where we used SGI Irixes to make renders to be crunched down into Sega Genesis and SNES graphics. I didn't see actualy Console 3D output until I went to the late and unlamented 3Do.
Because they needed Environment artsts at 3Do, rather than Animatorws, that about the only thing I did, was environments until my last 2-3 years there where I got to do a little animation.
Subsequectly I became a character artist, but not a very remarkable one. I got a lot of comments on my Animation though so I went back to being an animator, which is what I love the best... Except....
We could start this whole thread again with the title of 'Lack of Technical Artists' you know, and we'd be just as right, and it couldnt help but snub even more people who are equally as skilled in different areas.
There is a huge shortage of technical artists, and because of that mor3e and more of the technical jobs are foisted off onto the Animator and character guys. At My last permanent job, Castaway, We had a technical artist, so all I needed to do was to concentrate on the performance and the output. However since then I have been unabel to find a subsequent permanent job because of my inability to build rigs for characters. I have no ability with the connections editor or math, or many of the other things necessary to make a supple, easily manipulated rig. So I have hit a wall, and the "Next Gen" hasn't helped me, as , frankly I hate painting textures. There I said it. Photoshop give me a headache and a neck ache and nothing is ever good enough. Mesh I understand, efficientcy I understand, research I understand. Equations? never have. So I get an offer for an environmental artist position and I am thinking "No more painting weights, no more rigging, and EASY texture layouts. I am going to miss pure animation, but still I have to remember I did EVERY SINGLE ENVIRONMENT AND PROP in the last to Armymen PC titles. I can do this, and frankly for me it's not about the Fame. For me it's about putting out a good game, and the steady paycheck. We'll see how it goes.
Scott
Just had a chance to read this thread and want to thank Rorshach for sharing that in depth description of his approach to enviro art.
Strangefate also thank you for going into detail on developing enviro's and what employers may look for.
Thanks to Vig also dropping knowledge as usual.
- Jesse
One Enviro artist normally isn't resposable for everything you see on the screen
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Well now, that just depends.
For STACKED, I built, modeled, textured, assembled, optimized and lit every single environment and prop.
Aside from some occasional texture help I got from Adam Bromell or one of our inhouse artists, I had all of that responsibility. I had to build a new environment each month. That's a lot of work for one dude.
Poop - it's hard man, it really is. Andrew is on top of the game right now. I mean, he's working on Quake Wars. And they probably have a slew of artists there at Splash Damage. For me, when I was at 5000ft, there was a huge burden. Both when we were working on Daredevil, and then on STACKED. Lots of overtime, little time off. For the whole development duration. For most of Daredevil, there was only myself and one other artist, making an INSANE amount of assets. For STACKED, I was the only environment artist. That's about 3yrs what was nearly all "crunch mode"
I got burnt out. So I left. Only in the past few weeks have I had the incentive to start making art again. I've been diving into high poly, since I'm sorely out of practice in that area.
You might have oodles of spare time to take vacations, travel and experiment with art. But not everyone does. People can get tied down by many things. Sometimes, there just isn't time to do art. Yeah yeah, "make" time. Great theory, on paper.
I've been trying, and that's all I can do. Hopefully something good will come out of my efforts. I'd certainly like to make game art again.
There are a lot of hoops to jump through at work and by the time I've done that, I never feel the need for others to either critique or praise what I did because as rude as it sounds, I don't rate the opinion of people here more than the people I work with.
That attitude stems from my having a great deal of respect for the people I work with rather than a disrespect for others outside of work.
I have to admit I'd forgotten about the need to share the inspiration though, its come up a few times during the thread that people would like to see some of the stuff I've done at work, just for inspiration.
I certainly get inspired when I browse through Conceptart.org though more often I curse myself for not being a real artist. Funny how its only other people that are real artists
Vassago: I'd be careful there, a lot of us tend to assume others have it easier than ourselves, generally that aint true though. Not that I'd ever dream of restraining anyone from bashing poop ( couldn't resist the cheap shot!), but still, we can never be sure how hard we are working compared to others and frankly that 'hardcore' competition is probably the worst mindset any of us could get caught up in.
r.
its come up a few times during the thread that people would like to see some of the stuff I've done at work, just for inspiration.
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& education
Working for an small developer is a completely different experience. It's something that cannot be truly experienced in a 3-4 month contract period. Having an entire team of 10-13 people, yet expected to turn out top end product is a huge burden.
I know that nobody has it "easy". That's impossible. Some have it better than others, though. That's all. Some are fortunate enough to have that. So sorry if I came off sounding like an ass or something. Wasn't my intention.
I dont expect it to be anything par to UnrealEd, but If documenting my learning experience will help others, i'm all for it.
And rating ourselves on our ability to be hardcore isn't a worthwhile standard of judgement. I hope you can take this as solid advice from someone who has gone through RSI to Carpal Tunnel to Carpal Tunnel release surgery on both hands to tendonitis to Arthritis currently.
Hope I'm not coming over as lecturing or condescending, I'm trying only to advise. I didn't go through that because of sitting around ( nah, it was too much wanking right !? ).
Larger companies have the same problems for some, as small do. I've noticed at the larger ones, theres still a hardcore group that takes the load for the many and in general whether in small or large, a select few take on more and end up compensating for the inadequate management that might otherwise have been addressed if the few were not killing themselves trying to compensate for shortsighted goals.
Of course, its easy to say this when I'm no longer in the midst of fearing for my job like I have been in the past but its better to let a company die instead of killing ourselves to save it when we're not really paid enough to try to do that!
r.
Speaking of education can anyone recommend any good tutorials or forums that are environment specific?
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Man I find it odd that there is a lack of environment artist. Personally I love Environments, but it looks like Im in the same boat as your in. Theres no tutorials for environment artist. All I ever see are a bunch of tutorials for characters. Its disappointing
Also _tons_ of threads have appeared here dealing with enviro modeling/tips/tricks. Search.
you need a certain kind of brain to be a good environment artist anyway.
I used to do environments when i worked at swordfish but soon realised that my preference was for characters and pursued that.
I did find doing environments more relaxing on the whole though.
perhaps environment stuff is a bit easier to pick up initially, but still you need to be a talented artist to churn out top quality environments.
QUOTE
"I've not seen any guns in Tony Hawks. Or Bully. Or Need For Speed. Or Mario. Or Monkey Ball. All of those do have environments though."
END QUOTE.
I used to work at Rockstar Vancouver, and was an artist on Bully, and the funny thing about the weapons that made it into the game is... Is that they were designed by me (with the input of the lead designer), modeled by me, textured by me, rigged by me, and animated by the lead animator... And guess what? I'm an Environment Artist.
From my experience in the games industry in relation to my experience in the television animation industry, there is a parallel. In 2D everyone wanted to be a Key Frame Animator, because they got the most recognition and praise for their work, and no one wanted to draw layouts because it was considered 'grunt' work. The same thing is in games. Characters VS Environments.
With my experience at Rockstar, I was fortunate enough to have the chance to tackle a very wide range of objects to model (including some character stuff too), but most of our character artists were stuck doing 'just' characters. But to defend the character artists, there's so much potential for 'new' item creation as well these days. With the character customization features that most games have now, character artists are kept plenty busy with modeling 100 different shirts, shoes, pants, hats, glasses etc etc. So the variety is there for them as well, it's just different.
Ultimately, the game has to look the 'whole'. If the characters do not fit into the visual style of the world, or vice versa, its not a bad on the character artist or the environment artist... It's a bad on the Art Director. Games are made by a TEAM, and as an industry, we really need to stop drawing lines in the sand and looking at artists by their job title, and just look at them all as artists... Because really, we're all after the same goal. Which is, make a kick ass product that everyone will enjoy playing, looking at, and living in, and remembering in 10 years as one of their favorite gaming experiences.
All that being said... It is true, there is a definite shortage of Environment Artists out there. I'm at a new studio now, and we recieve on average 10 character artist applicants to .5 Environment Artist applicants.
I really think the schools/institutes/colleges out there need to start encouraging their students to tackle environment work more. But, on the cover a high cost 3D school's enrollment program, it just looks better to have a huge muscle laden character with inverted knees, a big ass gun, zippers, pockets, and an over sized sword that no human could possibly weild... Oh, and spikey hair.
For me though even before I started the course I knew I wanted to move into environments, and seeing how the course has progressed over the last year I can honestly say that it breaks my heart knowing how much money I've wasted with it both not suiting what the industry expects from grads and also not fulfilling my needs to learn while on this course or inspiring me.
This really is a problem that a lot of schools/institutes/colleges have though, and it is a worrying trend which I can't see changing for a while.
(1st post also, so 'hey guys')
Pretty much all aspects I learned in uni on architecture translate well into practical knowhow of virtual world building and doing so with thought and believability.
both ar leading to confusion to me, but the top down method is more clear to me
i mean (bottom up = modeling tiles for buildings etc, making buildings setting them up and make streets etc)
and top down = making mountains, zooming in, creating village ground creating houses blah blah
is there still a lack of enviro guys?
The range of skill these days needed to produce a level that works for this gen of consoles is quite diverse.
It isn't just about producing art anymore, it's understanding how to make everything so it runs, and and runs well on the consoles. Imagine the insanity especially if your leads can't lead.
Definitely the unsung heroes in this industry by far. Shit rolls downhill straight on to these guys.