For the last couple weeks I’ve been trying to put together several pieces (rigs, tools, etc.) to show off in a demo reel to get a job in the video game industry.
All of my experience in games has been within Unity. Naturally I’ve been using solutions in all of my rigs that work in Unity. But this cuts out a significant number of solutions for achieving a result in a rig. I know some rigs are for cutscenes and it doesn’t matter how you do it because you just render it out. I am also unfamiliar with restrictions for more advanced engines like Unreal, so maybe there are more possibilities there.
My question is: How important is it to have something be able to work in an engine for a demo reel? I often only see characters in Maya and not displayed in engine. Is it important to show your work in engine? Is it more important in a demo reel to have something impressive/flashy or to have something to show where you can explain the decisions behind it (obviously I’ll strive for both but I’d like to prioritize).
I’ve been working in the games industry for a very long time on god knows how many projects and only one of them has had pre-rendered cutscenes, so I’d say it is VERY important to show that you can make rigs that work at runtime. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to show them running in-engine, but you need to demonstrate that you arent using a million bones and also that you’re only spending resources where they are essential.
I see a lot of reels with rigs using all manner of funky systems where a better job of skinning and bone placement could have got the same result for a fraction of the cost.
You want to show stuff that is a real WOW moment, but the biggest WOW is not necessarily created by having something flashy - intelligent design of a rig is always the best - I want to sit there thinking ‘how did that guy get the mesh to deform so nicely with so few bones’!
So efficiency would be a big WOW in your opinion? I just wonder if HR will have that same impression. I’m less worried about actually having the interview as I am being able to even get an interview.