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/3/ - 3DCG

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389554 No.389554[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

So /3/, have any of you legitimately gotten a job through teaching yourself. I looked into going to university for it, but it basically costs $45,000 just to get my ass in gear and get me to do something I could easily do at home, but maybe that's the kind of motivation I need.

I'm thinking though, I've been practicing a lot lately. So why not just get off my ass and save $45,000 and loads of stress by teaching myself.

>> No.389557

teach yourself what exactly?
Modelling? We got a hell of a lot of hard surface modellers
Sculptors? How are you going to make money? Indies arent going to pay you jack shit. How are you going to get a job at AAA with no experience and not even school credit?

You're going to fail.

>> No.389560
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389560

>>389557

So you're telling me I should go to school for $45,000? They did "pretty much" guarantee me a job after I graduate but the pay is only $14.00 an hour (average) starting , roughly how much a warehouse worker makes, or a burger flipper in Alberta or Northern B.C.

It's $45,000 for 21 months and I expect to be extremely good by the end of it, I don't know why I'd expect anything less for $45k. I don't even know why I'd even need to be that talented, I've seen the game industry and it's full of half-assed talent.

Well fuck, maybe I'll just practice at home at bit more and then go and get that degree later when I feel more comfortable, just so I can be employed and refine my skills a bit.

>> No.389561

>>389560
the industry is an old boys club with people getting jobs by word of mouth rather than folio, despite what you may read on polycount

>> No.389562

No because I do 3D as a hobby, my career is in Computer Engineering.
I "know" a few guys who did though, and I'm led to think that most do, because they don't teach you fucking shit in art colleges, so you're on a good path OP. Example: http://www.crsponseller.com/about.html

As for experience, you can work on game mods, or make short animations, or whatever.

>> No.389563

>>389561
>The only way a shit tier artist can get a job is to have friends in management
Fixed that for you.

>> No.389565

>>389563
define shit tier then define on the job training

>> No.389570

>>389565
>define shit tier
Creates art that isn't at the same level as the one made by the rest of the people in the team or even industry. May be due to bad anatomy, bad texturing, bad modeling, slow working, bad rigging, etc etc etc.

>on the job training
This is art, there's no on the job training past "we have this pipeline, learn it by tomorrow and show you know it or we won't hire you. Whatever experience you have in other soft should transfer unless you're retarded or lazy".

>> No.389571

>>389570
>Creates art that isn't at the same level as the one made by the rest of the people in the team or even industry. May be due to bad anatomy, bad texturing, bad modeling, slow working, bad rigging, etc etc etc.

define "same level"

>This is art, there's no on the job training past "we have this pipeline, learn it by tomorrow and show you know it or we won't hire you.

you're angry and out of touch especially with regards to involved in house tools and workflows

>> No.389575

>>389561
what this guy said

save for very few, all courses in anything cg related are fucking retarded and becomes outdated soon after they are set up

source: i have created millions of polygons so i know what i am talking about

>> No.389587

Oh, I forgot to mention that the only school in my area is AI http://new.artinstitutes.edu/, which is supposedly a fairly mediocre corporate school.

That should settle things.

>> No.389589

>>389587
did you go on a tour

>> No.389590

>>389589

No, why?

>> No.389591

>>389590
why dont you go and meet the teachers. Its free and you get snacks.

>> No.389593

I don't think you can do it alone. At least you need social contacts to discuss it with and ridicule each other's art in order to improve. Or at the very very least, forums with credible people. Unless you're a genius I don't believe really exists, self-evaluation alone isn't going to get you where you want.

I don't really know anything but I would wager that a degree in art doesn't really mean enough. 3d programs are changing rapidly, an art school isn't going to teach you about company custom pipelines so they can't teach you anything you couldn't learn yourself anyways, so in terms of things that prove you have the skills required, there are only:
1) Portfolio(and you should have this no matter what)
2) Programming
3) Math

There's something important behind this statement >>389561 which is that that may be the best reason TO go to school. As long as you aren't a socially awkward shut-in, and especially if you are talented and extroverted, school is probably the best place to make contacts to get into the industry. Internship may be a better option than school, though.

Either way, take all of that with a grain of salt. I'm no expert on this subject.

Also, there are many emerging types of business these days. If you're any good at business and 3d you could probably get a good amount of money on the net doing 3d work.

And you never answered my question about the skirt physics, did you?

>> No.389596

>>389593
Nevermind that last line, I assumed you were someone else who posted on the WIP thread a bit ago.

>> No.389606

>>389571
you're making groundless claims about an anonymous poster becuase you're angry and out of touch especially with regards to rational discussions and workflows/work.

>> No.389611

>>389554
>So /3/, have any of you legitimately gotten a job through teaching yourself.
right out of college I had strong fundamentals on aesthethics and design and some experience using 3D Max and ZBrush
I had to self-teach on video editing, Maya and fooley, because4 that is what the local market demanded (well, regular 3d artist positions where available, but advertisement agencies had need for 3d ppl too, and there was less competition to get into those as a 3Der)

>> No.389621

>>389554

If Monty Oum can do it after dropping out of high school and half assedly teaching himself, then I'd say you've got at least some semblance of a chance.

>> No.389636

Don't go to college, it's a waste of both time and money.
If you want to get good, read some book/manual and practice until you get good.
If you want to make contacts, go post a lot on forums/tumblr/etc.
Under fucking no circumstance waste thousands in a useless art degree.

>> No.389644
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389644

>>389591

>> No.389645

>>389554

Hi OP don't go to Art school just self teach.

I make a living doing Unity stuff like creating characters and selling them in the Unity store.

If your lazy and do no work you should go to uni and get spoon fed. But, if you work hard, then self teach.

If your better, than a guy who had teaching and studio reject you, then they are crazy. This really never happens OP.

Personally, I would save that $45,000 get a part time job that takes 2 days a week, and self teach yourself for 3 years.

>> No.389648

Go the self-taught route, you'll save so much money. It's more about location and connect ions once you reach a certain threshold skill-wise.
(If you're good enough, they'll pay to relocate you, though)

>> No.389654

>>389648
Nice spaceship retard

>> No.389655

>>389654
Nice nothing retard. He gets paid and fucks bitches, you hide in your basement and jack off to your screen

>> No.389708

What's the point in a degree for art anyway? People can tell what you know and how good you are just by watching you work, and your work volume shows your work ethic and efficiency. It's not like a science where you can't really even do "work" without a job/group of people and people can't really tell whether there are holes in your knowledge just by the papers you write(therefore a seal of certification to prove yourself worthy is meaningful in science). Degrees "prove" work ethic and show a baseline of knowledge, but in art that's redundant because it's shown in the work itself. Not saying you shouldn't get one if you have the money.

>> No.389845

>>389708
the point of a degree on art is not the degree itself, I do not think I would have been able to teach myself all the stuff I know. True, a real college involves a lot of dedication, practice and self study, but my professors (if only because they got paid to do it as their job) provided me coaching, tips, networking access and critique of a quality I was not getting in places like CG Society and Autodesk Area

>> No.389854

>>389845
But you can only get good at art if you practice a lot. And no teacher is going to be able to get you to practice every day for hours if you're lazy. Unless they are really good at motivating people or something I guess?

>> No.389870

>>389655
I also get paid and i fuck way hotter bitches than his disgusting ass

>> No.389941

>>389621
Mounty Oum's a special case.
His stuff was shit but he had hundreds of thousands of followers from his weak videos.
I.E his name was hired, not the person for any useful skill.

>> No.389944

College student here.
I didn't know anything about 3D modelling but was into drawing for a few years before I went in.
I'm only 6 months in the course and I've learned about a ton of stuff, I feel like I'm being powerleveled through a game or something.
Just yesterday I was taught about colour maps, specular, bump and transparency and how to use them and what they're usually used for and some minor workflow stuff to save time.

Although I'm going in college for animation, it's really great to be taught a wide range of the production pipeline. There's only so much they can teach with modeling and I know it'll be up to me personally to take it to the next level, but so far my college has done a great job teaching me the tools and methods.

>> No.389979

>>389854
I don't understand your logic. Practice and critique are both necessary/useful, but because practice is not related to school, school is not worth it? Isn't there a gap there?

And I think we're talking under the assumption that the person is dedicated to becoming professional.

>> No.390075

>>389854
did you even read my post? the one you are answering to?
I did mention that college requires you to be dedicated and practice on your own. All I said is, some of us do better being in a school for a while because not everyone is a mega-testorone Alpha+++ Can-Self-Teach-Himself-anything-and-then-go-fuck-supermodels Übermensch.

>> No.390488
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390488

>>389554

Okay, OP here, sorry to bump an old thread but here's the conclusion I decided. It's $45k + living costs for 21 months of training, after I'm done school there's a 61% chance I'll be employed within 6 months, the average starting wage is $14/h. The thing is though I've gotten a forklift certificate, it costed me $120 dollars and took 6 hours of training, and it can also get me a $14/h job starting.

This is fucking stupid, I'm not studying hard for 2 years and going in debt only to be paid 3 dollars above what the average burger flipper makes here. Art Institute a fucking shit.

>> No.390496

>>390488
Sound horrible. Enjoy your slave labor

>> No.390522
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390522

>>390488

>> No.390554

>>390488
>Flipping (crates of) burgers
>Better than having the artistic ability to craft and animate entire worlds
nah man, nah

>> No.390562

>>390488
>spend years of your life doing the same menial task over and over to keep yourself alive


or

>spend years doing something you enjoy, constantly improving your skills while you work, eventually moving up the ladder and becoming a lead art director or something, gaining valuable skills and learning all the time.

>> No.390565

>>390554
Even though you can learn it for free.

>> No.390581

>>390565
you can learn the technical ways to do art, like move verts.

You can also learn addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. That doesnt mean that you are the next Albert Einstein

>> No.390676

Yes. I am self-taught and am currently employed at a AAA game studio.

What you SHOULD be asking is, "Should I spend 45k to get contacts within the industry and to network with possibly future employers." My answer is, "It depends on how easy you want breaking in to be."

I didn't go to any sort of school and I have to say breaking in was difficult. I didn't know anybody, and nobody with a relevant job could vouch for me. I eventually found a low paying contract job on Polycount that allowed me to get my foot in the door. The HR rep was hesitant about bringing me aboard because I had no professional experience, but he loved my portfolio work and was willing to take a risk with me. The job was for a AA game with a six-figure budget, so I can't exactly say they were an indie studio, but don't expect to start at EA/Pixar/Dreamworks, etc. right from the get-go if you're going the no-school route. If you decide to shell out 45K+ for school and you're GOOD, then breaking into any 3d industry will be a LOT easier because of the contacts you've made.

In the end, everything worked out for me. That job allowed me to get a bunch of contacts and references (including the owner of the studio). He put in a great word for me, and now I'm helping create art assets for a really highly anticipated next-gen game. Just work REALLY FUCKING HARD while you're trying to get a job, REALLY FUCKING HARD while at your job, then get a job as art director/manager after a decade or two and sit back while other peons in your place do all of the work. Yes, /3/, I know art directors do work. I'm just joking.

>> No.390677

>>390488
Oh, well then... I didn't bother reading through the thread at first. Now that I have, disregard this post:>>390676

You're obviously not motivated enough to cut it in this industry, 45k in debt or not. I can't wait until I move up the ladder and am making six-figures as a art lead/director while you're stuck at 30k a year flipping (crates of) burgers.

>> No.390678

>>390676
>He put in a great word for me, and now I'm helping create art assets for a really highly anticipated next-gen game. Just work REALLY FUCKING HARD while you're trying to get a job, REALLY FUCKING HARD while at your job, then get a job as art director/manager after a decade or two and sit back while other peons in your place do all of the work. Yes, /3/, I know art directors do work. I'm just joking.

kid, you make fucking meshes and move points around. You dont have to work REALLY FUCKING HARD to do that unless you're REALLY FUCKING DUMB.

>> No.390683

>>390678
>implying all I do is make meshes and move points around
>implying 'working hard' means the work is difficult or challenging
By work hard, I mean have good work ethics and be motivated even i the work is shit. I know there are thousands of people who want my position, and I know they're all capable of performing the tasks I do on a daily basis. The only things I have going for me is my work ethic and experience.

Working head doesn't mean the level of work that you're doing. I used to work at a fucking grocery store stocking shelves. That was the most menial, mind-numbingly simple job I've ever had, but I still worked hard at it.

>> No.390684

>>390683
kid, thousands of people dont want your menial position as a lowly modeller for a childs game. No one really wants that job ok?

Congrats at stocking shelves. I worked at a grocery store as well - when I was 13.

>> No.390685

>>390684
Ah, I get it now. You're probably one of those dumb, unmotivated cunts who got suckered into going to the Art Institute, or better yet Full Sail, and now can't find a job because you spent 80k of your parent's money and four years of your life dicking around in class and not applying yourself.

>when I was 13

Is that your way of say 'right now'? No need to be ashamed, anon. Just admit you're a failure at 3d.

Oh yeah, almost forgot to say...

kid

>> No.390686

>>390685
crawl back to your pathetic canadian company you nobody. Go model some canuck shit

>> No.390690

>>390581
I have no idea what sort of point you're trying to make.

>> No.390691

>>390690
good

>> No.390692

>>390686
and yet canuck shit will always sell more than your shit shit. sucks to be you.

>> No.390700

>>390692
Go shill your pathetic assasins creed somewhere else, faggot

>> No.390702

>>389611
>fooley
vas is das

>> No.390719
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390719

>>390700
are you saddlesore? send me your resume i'll hook you up with a renermonkey gig.

>> No.390722

>>389554
its recommended to stop investing in CG education. just check the post titled "the truth about the industry" on cgtalk

>> No.390723

>>390722
>Anything starting with "the truth about"
dropped

>> No.390725

>>390722
yup, after that follow up on the Truth about GMOs, the truth about reptilian aliens and finally the truth about young Earth

>> No.390739

If you plan to work in a firm, that is not a habitat to friends of the manager / director its going to be hard to get in w/o some certificates or/and diploma regardless of portfolio.

If your folio is good, its a factor but folio + degree means you are qualified. Even tho most of artschools are plain retarded and they teach outdated WF, and they simply lack the knowledge of real industry standards.

Any comapany you will aply for will need you to learn new soft and workflow. Just as someone stated before, spending 45000$ Dolars, well better go flip those burgers, or make the best of it.. move for 3 years of college to Europe, they have better schools than most of US, most of them are free of charge. And saing "I studied in Urop, sounds way better than any hometown college you have.

Oh and 45k $ is just enough to stay on a good level for 3-4 years in most big cities of europe. Espeialy france/poland/germany

>> No.390808

>>390562
>>390677

No, 14$ is a slap in the face. I don't want to move into an industry that would take advantage of me like that if I was actually talented. I'm not going to flip burgers I'm going to teach myself.

The jewlords are obviously running the industry if they are only going to pay 14$ for something you spent 2 years studying for and used all your savings on. I just don't want to be taken advantage like that. It's like saying "Wow, some people enjoy this type of work, so let's take 5$ off their hourly wage to make it fair." It's fucking stupid, 3D modelling programs are complicated as all fuck, why should I be paid so little just because I love what I'm doing?

>> No.390899

>>390677
>I can't wait until I move up the ladder
Oh wait what's this they decided to not promote me, Gee maybe next time I'll decide a this person's good enough to promote. Of wait what's this the company doesn't promote internal artists a higher position than they would rather hire an outside artist with a name attached to themselves, oh how I never heard of this happening before.

At the very least working with the ladder doesn't fucking work unless your work is guaranteed to get let you have to ladder.

>> No.390900

>>390808
Sadly that's not how the world works, you see effective fuck bitches all day and all night and get paid for it which is called pornography and I love it then obviously I should be paid a lot of money because I love it. But the thing is supply and demand doesn't just work with commodities it also works at the people that are in the work pool. How many people want to be garbageman? I can tell you not a fuck a lot of people want to do that, but then you tell them that they're making a six-figure income usually at the base in a big city, while it might not be the most dignified job in the world but you get paid a lot of money to do it.

Think of it this way, in three are you don't need everyone on the team to be the best 3-D artist in the world, you just need one of them to be really good and can direct the other minions, and these minions don't have to be good they just have to be competent they have to be able to work in the same style as the person who is good, and the skilled art field these are the minimum wage workers. Will you ever get better to the point where you are the top,it's possible, but will most likely happen is you'll get more more money because you worked in the field longer maybe $16-$20 an hour really depending on your skill and and that's about as good as you get but you'll be doing something you'd like opposed to something that for lack of better words is a fuck my life job.

>> No.390984
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390984

From someone who went to a somewhat reputable university where 60% of students get hired.

Stay at home make friends though the internet and constantly ask for critique and work on the critique you're given.

Here is a pro tip if you ever think your work looks good then oh boy you're still far from being hired.

>> No.390987

>>390984
>Here is a pro tip if you ever think your work looks good then oh boy you're still far from being hired.

what ? You're putting 3d modelling on a pedestal. You just move verts around son

>> No.391029

>>390987
Yeah, and painting is just stroking a canvas with a wet brush.
>Hurr durr derp herp

>> No.391032

>>390899
>implying 'moving up the ladder' implies the same studio and not that anon's standing in the industry as a whole
>>390900
This is true for all intents and purposes. In the US, the average salary of a 3d artist is 45k with 0-3 years of experience, 60k-65k with 3-6 years of experience, and 80+ (possible six-digits) for lead positions.

Check this out: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/3d-artist-salary-SRCH_KO0,9.htm

>>390987
Yeah, and surgeons just cut people open and fix people. No big deal.

>> No.391033

>>391032
>Yeah, and surgeons just cut people open and fix people. No big deal.

surgeons operate on live human beings and can be the difference between life and death. You move points in a computer like a dumbass

>> No.391034

>>390987
You're obviously butt hurt from something.
I'm not even a modeller I'm an animator, same rule applies in any creative (and some academic) field.

If you don't think this is true then you have never truly tried to learn and master something.

>> No.391035 [DELETED] 

>>391034
you move points around....in a computer.....from a concept you didnt make.....

I go to polycount and im like hot damn look at this folio you are a god sir how the F did you come up with this? Then I look further and hes working for a stylized company just taking their comic book characters and making it 3d. It already looked cool in the comic.

Then I look at someone doing a gun and it turns out its for COD or Halo. I do more research and all the concepting was given to him and it looked cool in the concept. So really he just moved points around like a machine to match the image.

ITs pathetic

>> No.391038

>>391034
you move points around....in a computer.....from a concept you didnt make.....

I go to polycount and im like hot damn look at this folio you are a god sir how the F did you come up with this? Then I look further and hes working for a stylized company just taking their comic book characters and making it 3d. It already looked cool in the comic.

Then I look at someone doing a gun and it turns out its for COD or Halo. I do more research and all the concepting was given to him and it looked cool in the concept. So really he just moved points around like a machine to match the image.

And then the times where i see folios with originel work its real weak. I mean, you can tell it wasnt buy a pro concepter and the whole thing sort of sucks.

ITs pathetic

>> No.391050

>>389554
> Grind that skill level to the max
> Get portfolio up
> Market and Network like a maufuka

It worked for me with Video Production, might just work the same with CGI... might.

>> No.392943

>>391038
That's exactly one way that this kind of thing works. Both of those scenarios are in environments where a huge amount of work needs to be produced in a short period of time. You could think of it as the difference between Budweiser and a craft beer. The company that produces Budweiser needs to crank out as much product as they can so they have a load of various machines that do various parts of the brewing and bottling process. However, for a craft brewery, everything might be done by the one owner and everything from the concept to the final design come from the same guy.

Carpentry is, by your definition, "moving boards around... from a concept you didn't make....." Yeah, you need to know how to move boards around, but you need to know how to put them together to make the house look good and have it stay together. If it looks bad nobody's gonna buy it, and if it falls apart and kills the owner you're in a heap of trouble. Although it seems simple in theory, it's a hell of a lot more complicated than you could imagine.

>> No.392979

>>391038
Techniques needed to make the 3D model look good are entirely different from techniques needed to make the concept look cool
It's not just transfering X to Y without any further thought
In order to achieve a good look based on a concept, aesthetic sense and visualization skills are needed
You've got to INTREPRET the idea, not just copy it, to get a good result
Interpretation of the concept is needed as 3D procedures are so much different than 2D techniques
(if you deny this you either don't know 3D or are very bad at it)

For example
Modeling something based on a blueprints
A bad artist would produce a "box syndrome" model
A good artist would be able to visualize the shapes, creating information that is NOT provided in the concept in his own mind, information that is coherent with the original design but that he had to make up of his own, and eventually produce a model that looks good by all angles

Material definition isn't different
You can't just copypaste the draw on your model and pretend it's done
You have to figure out what the author intentions were, reverse engineer the whole thing, and rebuild it to work properly with textures and actual lights in a 3D software

>> No.394277

>>390684
ASSBURGERS ALERT