Question / Inroduction

Hey all,
As you can see, my name is Austin.

I recently graduated from school with a degree in Computer Science in March '11.  I've always been interested in the art side of game development, but I feel it may be too late for me, so I wanted to get your guys feedback.

I've been reading up on this position and it seems that a lot of technical artists come from an art background and learn the programming afterwards, which means I would be trying to do it backwards.  Is this a good idea? Or should I just stick to programming?

I know I'm asking for opinionated answers, but do you think I would be able to learn enough about modeling/rigging/texturing/shaders by trying to teach myself through online tutorials? Or are there things that I just may not learn when I don't have a professor?  There seems to be a WHOLE lot to learn when just looking at the UI for Maya or Max, let alone know how everything works.

Also, I've read that there MaxScript, MEL, Python, and C# are good to know as a tech artist. Is there anything else?  Like LUA for example?

Anyways, sorry for this long post and bombarding you with questions.  I've just been stressing lately over this and thought I would ask the community instead of asking myself everyday.  I'm just not sure where to start or if I should start in the first place.

Thank you.

Austin

No one becomes a technical artist without a crisis of confidence.

Few people graduate from art school with a degree worth more than the paper it is printed on. They learned their skills through self-teaching and perseverance.

No successful person thought it was too late to try something they wanted to do. They found a way to do it anyway.

No happy person decided they needed to compromise their career before they had been looking for a job for a year. They did what they needed to do to live and spent all their free time working towards their goals.

No smart person decided not to learn something because there are a lot of things to learn. They learn whatever they can and understand you can’t know everything.

So I can give you answers to your questions, Austin- learn python and/or C#, no it isn’t too late, yes coming from programming is fine, what you’re experiencing is natural, no one is going to judge you for this, blah blah blah. But really the best piece of advice I can give you is, stop doubting yourself and just starting making a game, join a mod, whatever. Just do something more than wonder from the sidelines. The fact that you have the ability to doubt yourself means you have at least some level of intelligence and the capacity for growth- don’t waste it (I’ve known too many successful people with neither).

So just start doing it, whatever you want ‘it’ to be. If that thing is Tech Art, we’ll gladly tell you how to start, mentor you, help you along the way, be there when you stumble. Or even if it isn’t Tech Art, I’m sure some people here will help. Except if it is actual machine rigging since that is not what our rigging forum is for (inside joke). What I won’t do (though there are nicer members than me that may) is cheerlead and be a mommy. I want you to put your nose to the grindstone and just dive into something and absorb it and live it until you find something you enjoy. Once you find that, the rest is easy, but if you don’t just do it you’ll never just find it.

-Rob

Wow, awesome response Rob!

Yeah, I’ve been watching videos about tech art for probably the past two hours or more (people being interviewed and just talking about the position an what not) and I’m gonna do it! Especially after reading your post.

Now, the question is… where to begin. I know Python is important, but do Maya and Python work together for creating tools? Maybe I don’t understand how tool creating for 3D applications really works. Also, since most tech artists, I THINK, don’t do much modeling, I was think that maybe I could look for free models online, download those, and try to learn how rigging works through youtube videos and other forms of education? For some reason everything seems to be pointing to rigging and animation (besides creating tools with code) as a tech artist, or maybe subconsciously I’m being pulled that way.

I would like to hear your two cents on where to begin.

ok, ignore that, lol. Thought this was the introduction forum. I’ll post some answers after work.

Austin,

To answer were to begin. Start making a game or think of a something fun or cool to do. Then when you come across challenges or have ideas to make things easier, that’s when you start learning.

Don’t worry about the specifics right now. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to fix and improve things.

Just dig in and start doing it. Go make something!

Yeah awesome answer Rob!

That overwhelmed feeling of a WHOLE lot to learn:

  1. goes away when you start working on a specific project, because you begin facing specific challenges that laser-focus your effort. (ie. you can’t google “*”)

  2. never ever goes away! There is always so much more to learn. :laugh:

[QUOTE=Elecorn;12985]Austin,

To answer were to begin. Start making a game or think of a something fun or cool to do. Then when you come across challenges or have ideas to make things easier, that’s when you start learning.

Don’t worry about the specifics right now. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to fix and improve things.

Just dig in and start doing it. Go make something![/QUOTE]

I meant where to begin to learn the tech artist side of things. I probably should have been more specific, sorry about that.

So you’re saying to just start a game and eventually I will have to learn the artist side of things?

Because I was thinking of just getting Maya, downloading some free models, and practicing rigging, texturing, animating, and whatever else I can learn on the art side. Since I have experience in programming I thought it would be better to focus more on the 3D application side of what a tech artist does.

take this with a grain of salt, I am no expert.

1)I find picking what I want to learn and then figuring out how to do said task is the best way to learn, focused learning.

2)There are plenty of online resources for anything you want to learn. (eat3d.com, gnomeclassroom, some of the guys here have made dvd’s) You definitely don’t need to go to school for that. (it can help, but it can also hurt.) School shouldn’t be the only reason to learn something, I find it actually slows me down, you don’t need school to learn.

3)Read these damn forums until your eyes bleed. There is more knowledge on this site than you would image.

4)It’s only too late to learn something when you don’t have the drive to teach yourself whatever you want to learn.

5)www.polycount.com, if you want to be on the art side, this will be your friend. Harsh critiques, but good honest feedback.

6)Also, you might want to check out the differnt types of tech artists. Do you want to be a tools programmer, maya developer, rigger, shader writer, generalist? There are a lot of niches, gonna have to do your research, hell, get your feet wet in all of them.

7)Read these damn forums until your computer moniter has the tech-aritists.org logo burned in your screen.

8)Remember you need a portfolio, so try to make projects that can be used for it. Otherwise you’ll have to redo for your portfolio. (IE: in your current rigging task, create an arm. create a leg. Then add them into a fully rigged human.)

9)“stay hungry, stay foolish.”

Learning about the different personalities and how to communicate wit them can also help.

Experiment a lot so you find out what you really like.

Make a lot of mistakes and try to learn from them.

Learn how to observe properly and see the hidden problems.

It is the never ending story of learning. Some like it, some don’t

Don’t get caught up on what you went to school for. Plenty of tech artists went to school for comp sci and took an interest in art and pipeline afterwards. Tech art is such a broad field that regardless of what your strength is, there is probably a place for you at the right company. IMO, the strongest tech art teams are the ones that compliment each other in terms of art, programming, etc, so in my mind, having a comp sci background could very easily be a strength for you. Tech art is much more fluid than say, a concept artist who works in photoshop all day.

One other thing kind of related to Rob’s point about degree value… the games industry is very much a meritocracy. It’s all about what you bring to a team, as someone who has been in a position to hire before, I don’t think I ever gave anything more than a quick glance at the school of the potential hire. The old heads will tell you stories of having never attended college, and while those days are maybe over for the most part (although I would still hire someone who didn’t go to college if their reel qualified them), going to school is more of a formality than a qualifier. Focus on having a good reel and being a good team player and those things will carry you where you want to go. It’s also never too late, I didn’t get into 3d until after college and was able to get a job. Expect a steep learning curve, as someone who will be self taught, it’s up to you to push through it.

plusing 1 to everyone who’s replied!

There are concrete skills a technical artist needs to perform. Rig a character, develop a shader, write a specific tool, etc. Remember though that technical artists regardless of the specific tasks act as “multipliers”. We generally aren’t the ones directly responsible for the actual art of the game, but we multiply the entire teams ability to enhance quantity and quality.

So, pick 1 specific thing to learn right now. Single task this until it’s done. It doesn’t matter what it is really. Repeat this so you cover the tech art basics (rig, shader, tool).

Somewhere along the way you need to get involved with a team to really see what a tech artist can do, and be able to plan and execute these tasks. Join a mod, or create your own game with friends.

my two cents.

Good luck, welcome to tech art!

Wow, thanks for all of the replies everyone. Great first impression for the TAO community, that’s for sure.

I think I will go ahead and get going on learning how the heck Maya or Max actually works, and look and the specific jobs that a TA can hold. Once I get that down, I’ll just jump into a specific one, try to find my niche, and broaden my knowledge when I feel it’s time to expand.

I was doing some searching, and I couldn’t find anything much for TA information. I was looking for one with a list of the different kind of jobs of a technical artist with a short description of what that job entails. Would anyone happen to know of one? Or maybe have the time to post it up in this thread?

Thanks again for everyone’s responses. I greatly appreciate it :slight_smile:

best advice is to look at all the game companies jobs pages. It will have jobs/duties for each position and should give a high level estimate.

for example:

http://tbe.taleo.net/NA4/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=VAM&cws=3&rid=508
http://tbe.taleo.net/NA5/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=NCSOFT&cws=1&rid=664
https://jobs-epicgames.icims.com/jobs/1100/job

check out creative-heads.org, and other sites like that.

Cool, thanks.

I can’t wait to learn and be able to help the community! Probably going to take a while though. Thanks for all of the help everyone.

Also to see the variety in positions in tech art at different companies (as well as differences in roles at the same company) check the employment forum here.

http://tech-artists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=25

I’ve been helping some of the new TA’s here who have no Python experience get off the ground. Something I’ve been noticing is that they’re really afraid of writing bad code, even for minor learning tasks. But you know one awesome way to learn to write good code? you write shitty code [lots of it], and you have people who are less shitty at writing code look at it and tell you why what you did is wrong, all wrong.

That’s how I learned everything I know, I’m no guru, but I’m getting better, and once I got past "hello world"s, the majority of what I’ve learned has been through critique.

This isn’t something that applies just to code, too. do research, try to make a rig, it will be shit, post it up here, and people who are good at rigging will help you learn what you did wrong and how to make it right. Same applies to the art side of things and polycount.

Also, welcome!

Thanks Tyler. Yeah, I’ve already been writing in PyMel, using tutorials and what I call the PyMEL API Reference (Support and Problem Solving | Autodesk Support)

I’m also watching a video on the basics of rigging so I can have an understanding of how they work a bit. It’s slightly tricky, but I think I’m getting it, with the whole creating of bones and assign pivot and orient constrains, and all this other stuff. I’ll probably have to watch the videos all over again once I finish them (It’s like 7 or 8 on youtube) to understand it, 'cuz I’m just watching and kinda thinking about how I would do things in code instead of watching and doing the same in Maya, which may be better.

Thanks for the response, though. I will be posting my attempts on the forums though (once they are work posting, 'cuz all I have right now is a UI that will create a polySphere or close), because this community seems VERY helpful.

Also, understanding how to read the PyMEL Documentation is a task in and of itself! But I think I’m getting it now.

That is a really good point Tyler!
I learned a lot by listening to other people and then applying this feedback to some old code. Revisioning your code makes you focus on your mistakes and learn more effective.

But as you said, you first need to do something wrong before you can learn from it.
There is more knowledge to find in your own mistakes then being afraid to do something wrong.

That brings up a valid question I’ve had- Are candidates judged almost solely on their reel? I’ve always thought technical artists were software engineers that happen to know the mechanics behind creating art. This always made me think they would be judged on their capacity to adapt, innovate, as well understand the formal processes involved in software development. That being said I get the impression those in hiring positions are more interested in simply visual appeal.

If that is case, that is fine. I’m simply looking for the right formula/angle to attack from!

Thanks! - Trey

…and back to eat3d.com :slight_smile:

[QUOTE=TreyAnesi;13046]…and back to eat3d.com :)[/QUOTE]

I want a lot of their Traning DVDs so bad! But I just can’t afford any right now :(:

I could sit down and watch those all day just trying to soak in information about the scripting and art side of things. Sooooooooooooooooo cool.

Well, guess I need to get a job, huh?