Almost done : The year review

Hey everybody,

I thought it would be interesting to discuss whether there were some big changes in the tech art industry the last year.
Where we come from, what the current situation is and how the future is looking.

For me the big ( personal change ) was working in a big team of technical artists. I changed company from Codemasters to Eidos-Montreal, and for the first time I was part of a bigger team then just one ta per project/per studio.
This made me realize technical art is becoming its own department even though a lot of companies still see technical artist part of the art department.
( Do you guys think we should have our own department or not ? )

And of course with the new platforms coming up … I feel like technical art is becoming mainly a support/teaching/communication job then actually creating a lot of content.
I am still creating content, but I do feel I am firefighting a lot more.

Something that did not change ( in my opinion ) is the demand for technical artists. Will there be even a bigger request with more complex technology or will it all be about teaching the current artists to be more technical ?

Looking forward to your thoughts :slight_smile:

Robb

Interesting topic!

The biggest personal change for me was starting a masters degree in software engineering. This is a real eye opener about how much we actually did not plan - even though we though we plan a lot, and how much care should be given to proper software design. Tech art always has been complex - e.g. marrying technical skills such as rigging, scripting, content management, etc. But I just see this becoming more complex. But I also see that tech artists coming from the art side of things struggle with this complexity when moving beyond small scale tools, into the realm of pipelines and integrated tool suites. But that’s where I see it all going in the long term.

I agree, tech art is more about communication, support and teaching. Although I felt for a long time that tech art is far more than that. For example take a pipeline. A pipeline is about process. Process is about workflows and communication, and making people understand it. The tools you program? They’re just tools to make it all easier, but the tools are not the pipeline. TA’s not only have to be rounded in art and tech, but also in communication and planning skills. You really better embrace being a Renaissance man, unless you have a very tight niche you can fill that gives you a steady stream of tasks.

One thing that I’m still waiting for is easier art tools. While certain aspects get extremely artist friendly, there are a whole new set of tools requiring people to adapt. Substance may possibly be the next big thing, but it can be really difficult the train artisty type of people to use it. There is a lot of resistance, not necessarily because it is difficult but because “it is technical, but I am an artist!” sort of attitude that’s especially common with juniors, who have yet to realize that a game is foremost a software product, and therefore a technical one. Marvelous Designer is another program that requires quite a change of workflow and I’ve seen even good people struggle with the concept behind it. Then there’s Houdini slowly entering the stage - another tool with quite a different workflows. Even for us TAs there’s a lot of change to digest. Physically based rendering made less of an impact - we’ve already seen this in past games, it’s just becoming more common place now.

And about firefighting - sit down and see what’s the source. One problem for us is the overlap between TA and IT skills, where TAs have to do IT work, therefore having less time for real TA work. Happens with other overlapping areas too. People really have to know to whom to turn, and there have to be processes in place for effectively delegating work to the right people. Also keep an eye our for abuse - some people are just lazy or insecure and prefer a TA doing “technical” work they could do themselves. i.e. teach people to help themselves and foster independence. It’s better for everyone!

Something I also realized this year is the knowledge behind psychology.
I did the whole course on Udacity about “introduction to psychology” and it made me think differently on how to work more efficient.
( https://www.udacity.com/course/ps001 - I recommend this course!!! )

It also got me into a lot more different fields of psychology that I used to reflect again on technical art. Very, very interesting perspectives to learn from.

Another thing I have been researching is my speed of learning new things. With the rise of Mooc, i have gone nuts with learning random topics from nanotechnology, genetics, entrepreneurship, computer graphics, …
This have been very interesting challenges to constantly measure how I learn and how I can improve. I noticed that if you share with others what you are learning, they tend to become less afraid of learning new things themselves.
It is crazy how this brakes the ice for artists to learn how to profile :slight_smile:

I think it would be beneficial for tech artists to have their own department and work together, especially for the bigger companies. At my last job I’ve heard so many stories of people working on different games and re-creating tools because of lack of communication.

It’s strange to me how some projects I’ve worked on didn’t see the benefit of creating pipeline tools to increase team efficiency. For example, whenever I ran out of characters to rig at the last company I worked at, they had me do things like create hard surface models, block in environments, and pose/render characters for marketing. I don’t mind doing those things, but I could never convince them the value and how much money they could save if they’d allocate more of my time for creating tools for the artists to speedup everyone’s work. I think it’s inevitable that all companies will realize the need for a dedicated tech artist in the future though.

Thanks for the course link. If I didn’t do tech art I’d want to be a psychologist. I’ve always been interested in psychology and I also incorporate it into my tech art thinking.

I like being a tech artist because we help people and we can improve people’s quality of life. When we create tools it has a bigger meaning than letting an artist do XYZ faster. Since someone has a tool we create, they don’t have to click as much and reduce the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome. Also they can do their job faster and potentially go home sooner and hang out with their friends or spend time with their family.