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More Than Pushing Polys
- 1. More Than Pushing Polys Hello
- 2. What are we talking about? • Videogame art • Becoming a game artist Hello • Polycount • A Common Trend • Maintaining your passion & creativity
- 3. What is this presentation not about? • Oddly enough… pushing polys. • Current project at Ubisoft Toronto Hello Anything else? • Talk is recorded, slides will be published • These are the ideas of one person!
- 4. Who the hell is this guy? • Adam Bromell (@adambromell) • Professional since 2004 • id Tech, Unreal, Source, Lithtech, Oblivion, others. Hello • Lead/Supervisor, env. Artist, modeler, texturer, FX • Principal Editor & Head Admin for Polycount.com
- 5. The Videogame Artist Hello
- 6. The Videogame Artist THE ROLE • In a creative 3D and 2D medium • “3D Videogame Artist” too vague Hello • Texture artist, modeler, level artist, vehicle artist, weapon artist, character artist… • Creative within narrow or broad direction
- 7. The Videogame Artist RANDOM TIDBITS • I get PAID to do this? • Just as technical as it is creative Hello • Nothing is definitive • Everybody in videogames appreciates great visuals • Artist for a day
- 8. Becoming a videogame artist WHO CAN BE A VIDEOGAME ARTIST? Hello • Anyone can learn Max, Maya, etc.
- 9. Becoming a videogame artist WHO CAN BE A VIDEOGAME ARTIST? Hello • Interest in the visual arts & a knack for solving technical issues
- 10. Becoming a videogame artist School? Self Taught? School Hello • College drop-out & completely self-taught • More school graduates than self-taught • All artists will have learned techniques or styles on their own to varying degrees
- 11. Becoming a videogame artist School? Self Taught? Self-taught Hello • A necessity • Huge learning curve • Online Communities
- 12. Becoming a videogame artist HOW I GOT MY FIRST JOB • Map for friends, LAN parties • Joined a mod • Polycount • Sheridan College Hello • “Refocused” • First paid job: Daniel Negreanu‟s STACKED (2004) • First studio job: Threewave (2005)
- 13. Polycount Hello
- 14. Polycount WHAT IS POLYCOUNT? • Online news & resource, huge emphasis on community • Ran by pros Hello • Founded April 1st 1997, originally known as Q2PMP • As the industry grew, so did Polycount • 3.5-5mil views a month • +33,000 registered students, hobbyists and pros
- 15. Polycount WHO IS POLYCOUNT? Hello
- 16. Polycount WHY POLYCOUNT? • Main focus is our community and their involvement • Notoriously known for giving honest critiques Hello • Networking • Exposure • Constantly try new & fun things for community participation
- 17. Polycount THE TF2 „POLYCOUNT PACK‟ • Create item set, winning sets are available in TF2 • „Mann-conomy Update‟ • Winners averaged $45,000 payout in first 2 weeks Hello
- 18. Learning from most common trends THINKING INSIDE THE BOX SUCKS Hello
- 19. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity Hello
- 20. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity I‟VE GOT THE JOB, WHY BOTHER? • Industry constantly evolving Hello • Stay on or ahead of the curve
- 21. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? Hello
- 22. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? • Tor Frick, „Snefer‟ on Polycount Hello • Constantly challenging himself • The results are techniques everyone can learn from
- 23. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? Hello
- 24. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? Hello • Multiple materials, unoptimized resolutions (~1024x1024 px)
- 25. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? Hello
- 26. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? Hello • 90% of the Datacore environment used a single 1024x512 texture
- 27. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? Hello
- 28. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity HOW WILL OTHERS LEARN FROM YOU? Hello • The entire scene built with a single 256x512 texture
- 29. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity GET UNCOMFORTABLE • Think outside the box, always • Explore other areas of art Hello • Create back stories and use those for your artwork
- 30. Maintaining your Passion & Creativity Hello
- 31. The Videogame Artist Hello
- 32. Hello Challenge yourself personally, apply it professionally
- 33. Questions? Hello
Notas do Editor
- Pleasure to be hereThanks for comingTodays talk is called More ThanPushing Polys
- [Click]Videogame art[Click]Getting the job[Click]Polycount & the benefits of online communities[Click]Common Trends[Click]Maintaining your passion & creativity
- [Click]Techniques and how-to’s for modeling[Click]Ubisoft projects[Click] Other things to know before we begin…[Click]Talk is recorded, published decks, my twitter will be up soon[Click] this talk is my own opinion. [Click] Virtually nothing in videogames has a definitive method behind it. Bad, good, and great ways.
- [Click]Adam, level artist @ ubi TO[Click] interested since 1998, pro since 2004[Click]Idtech, unreal source, oblivion, others[Click] Lead, supervisor, enivronment artist, modeler, lighting texturing, FX[Click] Principal editor & head admin @ polycount, whats that mean
- [Click] There’s lots of areas to cover in a short amount of time, but before I get in I should mention…No indie experience since mod teams back in the early 2000’s, more ‘AAA’ experience and what I mean by thatAlso want to stress that while I love all types of game art, my focus professionally is in environment art and my samples within this thread are environment art
- [Click]create 2D or 3D content to be used as visuals for a videogame. [Click] ‘videogame artist too vage’ The role varies, too vague of a description [Click]Texture artist, modeler, level artist, character artist, weapon artist, vehicle artist…fold artists[Click]Expected to contribute to designs while working within the direction given to youLevel artists have freedom to create within their given level designs, character artists have the freedom extrapolate ideas based on directions given to them
- Haven’t worked with many people where this is ‘just a job’. Everyone loves what they do , its amazing to be in that atmosphere.Just as technical as it is creative, why?Reiterate that there’s no definitive method or process behind making game art or being a game artist. Every role at every company is differentFun game most important, gamers and peers always impressed by great visuals.The great feeling of making ‘art’ for a day. Or days. (OrkRoks, Space Marine)
- [Click]Max, Maya, are just tools. Far more complex than an allen key for ikea furniture, but its still a tool that can be taught.My mom could learn.Not everyone can be a game artist.
- If you can believe it, an outside interest in the visual arts.Photography, painting, drawing, even dancing.. Hell, scrap booking.Virtually all artists I’ve worked with have an interest and admiration for visual arts.In addition, a knack for solving technical skills. An enjoyment for it. Videogame art has a huge learning curve, its almost a necessity.Good friend PaulPepera, artist @ 343 Industries on new Halo. Amazing highpoly artist. Huge interest in photography, especially older cameras. That’s him using a
- Now that we know who, how about the how? How does one become a professional game artist.[Click] I really believe it comes down to 3 ways. Schooling, self-taught, and a mix of both.Unfortunately cannot talk much about the school route.[Click] I dropped out of college. Why (illustration/animation, hated the industry, etc). Knew then my focus would be games[Click] Dropped out and taught myself because back then game courses were few & far between. Tech wasn’t as involved & technical..[Click] More artists on my team now are game school grad’s than they were 7 years ago.[Click]I will say this.. I think the school route ultimately includes students teaching themselves. The learning curve, even that which is taught in school, is too steep.Techniques and styles are always being developed. Myself included.
- Lots of students in the audience[Click] After leaving Sheridan, I knew I would need to be in game art. Self taught.. A necessity?[Click] Huge learning curve. In fact I feel like I am still in that curve, constantly learning. [Click] Talk about the time it took me to make the art work seen on the side. That mailbox was my firt time with the basics:Creating geoUnwrappingTexturing UV’s and wrapping my head around that. Hell, even how to collect references. Useable references.[Click] Largest resource to you as someone learning on their own… online communities. A place on the net where people are either doing what you want to do, or are along for the ride on the curve with you.I’ll get in to more specific benefits of communities later.
- People ask how, thought it’d be fun to cover that now[Click]Making maps for friends, CS(beta!) used @ LANs[Click] CS IRC channel, help wanted, joined a MOD.[Click] Recommended PolycountReally just browsed, learned about it[Click] Attended Sheridan College[Click] Dropped out, knew then I would have to teach myself[Click] Eventually landed my first paid job. Contract on STACKED[Click] First studio job @ Threewave (talk about texture shot in addition to pallet jack, mailbox)[Click] Story: applied to relic, relic declined. Contract job with Liquid Development and the game was Relic’s the outfit.Relic HR person eventually went to Threewave, was able to tell her that story face to face.Left Threewave to work for Relic in my easiest interview to date.Recap how this was possible: Learning on my own and with the Polycount community.
- [Click] Mentioned polycount a number of times. Here’s a bit about Polycount..
- [Click] Polycount is a website for News & Resources for videogame artists. Resources = community, forum[Click] Ran by professionals[Click] Originally Q2PMP, founded April 1. Was Quake 2 ‘PPM’ showcase and review site, with a forum[Click] No longer skin/texture reviews, but entire focus is on game art as a whole.[Click] Around 3.5-5mil views a month, challenges, news posts, etc.[Click] 33k+ registered
- [Click] A lot of pros, many studios. Here’s just a few.Pro’s don’t rep their studios unless its art dumps from specific projects.
- [Click] Teams focus is on the community/forum and how people get involved[Click] Notoriously known for honest critique. (Why?)[Click] Constantly try new & fun things. (Why?) An example being…
- [Click] A contest with Valve for making items for TF2. What was the contest?[Click] Items were packaged and released in TF2’s ‘Mann-conomy Update’[Click] $45,000 average payout
- [Click] This is a big one. -Maintaining the passion and creativity you once had-when you finally land that job, easy to get burned out-Very easy for the job we love to do to become ‘just a job’.-I’m a huge believer in constantly keeping up with creativity in videogame art, and maintainingg the passion I have for the job.-Far too often have I seen people get stagnant, and ultimately be behind the ‘curve’ so to speak. This industry constantly evolves, and I’m afraid of being left behind.
- [Click] You’re in! All that work has paid off, so why bother trying to maintain the passion or creativity?[Click] As mentioned, the industry constantly evolves. New techniques, new engines, new rendering capabilities. Keep talking…[Click] In ‘AAA’ development, there’s a huge incentive to you as an artist to stay ahead of the curve.Might be on a project for a few years…[Click] This one is a bit more selfish, but… exposure. Jobs can change on a whim, things can happen where you’re needing a new job or position. Staying somewhat relevant will help you with this.
- [Click] This is something I only learned recently, in the last couple of years. -came from an interview I had at Valve -it’s the #1 question to ask yourself in order to push yourself to keep being creative outside of the job.-’How will others learn from you?’-Talk a bit about the Valve interview (brief)
- [Click] Someone pushing himself, while others learn from him is Tor Frick, Snefer from Polycount. An artist previously of People Can Fly, just recently started new gig[Click] That’s his avatar for those of you from Polycount[Click] -I don’t think he’s specifically asked himself how others will learn from him, but the fact that he is challenging himself in unique ways while posting about it, others are learning from him and his passion & creativity is constantly on the front burner for him.[Click] The results are techniques eveyrone can learn from, and inspiration that is infectiousWe’re going to have a look at 3 of his recent projects to see how others are learning from him, and how its keeping his own creativity active
- [Clicking] All projects are in UDK. Tor’s main focus has been how to squeeze the most amount of art out of the least amount of resources. -this one is a sci-fi slum, alley way-you can see how he’s reusing tons of geometry while doing simple material swaps. Somewhat standard in videogames, but lots of visuals are shown here from very few object types
- [Click] Thescifi slum was a good start to this run of exercises but still fairly common in videogames. He wanted to take it further.[Click] Began work on this ‘Datacore’ environment, still within UDK
- [Click] 90% of that environment stemmed from a single 1024x512 texture. You can tell that Tor is learning, but he wasn’t finished…
- [Clicking] Started on this lab, still trying to squeeze out as much as he can from minimal resources.
- [Click] He’s pushed himself from something considered ‘standard’ in games, to something very efficient. The entire scene is being built by a single 256x512 texture. Keep in mind this is a ‘next-gen’ environment.
- [Click] mentioned this early, very important point-Artists are creative people who enjoy technical challenges, if they weren’t they’d hate this job and never pursue it.[Click] What does it mean to be uncomfortable?[Click] Constantly try and think outside the box with what it is you’re doing. Don’t approach your projects on a linear path.[Click] Explore other areas of visual arts. E.g. Photography is a great hobby for artists, the focus on composition and story telling in a single frame is easily transitioned back to the job of a game artist.[Click] A more specific example is something I often try and apply to my own person work is back stories. Add backstories to everything you do and let that be the creative drive for your project.
- [Click] Wanted to challenge myself in hp modeling, work wasn’t doing that. Izmojuki…[Click] Finished the model, wasn’t satisfied with it enough to call it done. Came up with this back story… which was?[Click] Built a small environment to support the idea. Talk about its personality.
- [Click] If I haven’t made it apparent by now, I’ll say it there – the role of the videogame artist, like virtually all positions in game developer, is an ever evolving one. -For some people the passion transitions to the job and never makes it way back to the personal. This is fine, but not ideal.-For others, it’s a part of their life. -Many pro’s are like me and still push polys in their own time. Either to release some built up creativity not being released as their job, or to try out new techniques and remain relevant.-The way I personally keep game art as much a hobby of mine as it is my job is to never be satisfied, and to challenge everything.-Turn things I’m not doing at work in to art I want to try at home (cite the bomb I had at the beginning)
- [Click] Ultimately what I am trying to say, is something I think all game artists apply to themselves at some point or another, is to challenge yourself with your personal art work, and apply it to your professional artwork. Other’s around you are able to learn off of you. Your professional work is better for it and ultimately the product or service is better off from it.And you become a better artist for it.Thank you
- [Click]Questions?