Career in 3D

I'm currently working in the games industry, have been for the past few years. Portfolio is everything, the only time you will need a degree is if you would like to immigrate, when it is pretty much an essential.

Games design courses are springing up everywhere recently, as it seems to be quite a popular trend, I did a postgrad "Games Design" course few years back. I learnt pretty much nothing from the tutors but the redeeming feature was i got to meet an eclectic mix of people all very driven and interested in the same things. Anyway, I dont think anyone learnt anything at all from the tutors. But those of us who spent our own time working on our portfolios all learnt a lot from producing work and learning equipment/software at the same time. But theres something to be said from spending time in an environment that lets you just be creative with like minded people.
I dont think theres much that can be done when the basis of these courses is so wrong. low entry levels, students who think they dont need to work, irrelevant or outdated courses, lecturers with no real industry knowlege, no real critique on the work and (quite rightly under the cirumstances, no real input from the industry) all these points point to a structural issue on these courses that is largely unfixable

Amid the pop up courses a few gems can be found tho, as mentioned Escape studios does some nice courses, i'm surprised Bournemouth hasn't been mentioned yet, there animation course is the best in the uk and its seems Hertfordshire university have a good course running currently, certainly a lot more relevant than some at least.

Personally if i was to do it all again i would do a traditional art course in sculpture or standard drawing, as these techniques can be applied easily to 3d if your willing to the learn the software in your own time.

If you are self motivated enough there are numerous resources on the net to learn, Polycount.com is a good community, and a lot of the members are currently working in the industry, infact this kind of thread pops up there weekly so it might be worth looking there.

quite a good thread to check out is
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89972
Lots of artists talking about how and why they got into the industry.
 
Jono8 said:
I disagree. I definitely think that skill and talent are two very seperate things.
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"The separation between talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excell, who have dreams, who wanna do things.
Talent you have naturally, skill is only developed through hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft."
 
90% of the graduates I work with are from Bournemouth (VFX), since its like a 3-4 year course or whatever you may want to look into going to Escape, its pricey but may get you a start in the industry.
 
Skillmister said:
"The separation between talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excell, who have dreams, who wanna do things.
Talent you have naturally, skill is only developed through hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft."
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Indeed
 
I used to work for one of the big VFX Studios in London, so can give you my experiences.

As others have already noted, your Showreel is your most important piece when applying. 3D wasn't my area though, so I'm not sure of the exact specifics, I did edit a couple together for friends and they tend to be showing of certain aspects, like the gait of a character walking, etc...

I know others have mentioned a degree is not important, that's not really the case. Most Studios won't even give you a look in for a job as a Runner if you don't have a degree. The majority of people they hired tended to be from two places, Bournemouth University and a French School, I forget what the name was (Bare in mind that London is the capital of Europe for this kind of work, so there are lots of people from the EU). Outside of those though, provided you had a good degree, they would fast track people. A few years back they started taking on a number of Oxbridge graduates, who had obviously not done Animation degrees, but they fast tracked them into positions. I'm not sure how that worked out in the end, but it shows you that they are looking to hire qualified people, especially given that a lot of the lower end of industry work is starting to be outsourced to abroad (India, South Korea, China).

With a degree and showreel from elsewhere, you may get a position of a Runner, or a chance to start in a position in another department, such as looking after renders.

To give you an idea of what working a 3D job is actually like as an Animator, Modeller, Lighting, Compositor etc...

It's a mostly male dominated environment, where you tend to sit in large rooms with everyone at their workstation all day; it's obviously a quiet environment, so everyone sits and listens to their own music, it's not that social. It tends to be quite long hours, with frequent weekend work. The majority of staff, at least in the case of big budget VFX for films will tend to be transient, meaning they get hired for a job at one VFX House, when that's finished, they get hired on another job either at the same VFX House or another one in Soho (As far as films go in this country, nowhere else matters).

Hope that helps.
 
Nexus said:
I know others have mentioned a degree is not important, that's not really the case. Most Studios won't even give you a look in for a job as a Runner if you don't have a degree.
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Maybe it's different for vfx, but that goes against virtually everything i have ever heard/read from people in the games industry. It's portfolio only. Let's face it, if your work is poor to average quality and you have a degree, why would they hire you over someone with fantastic work and no degree. At the end of the day if you can't create work to a standard that is in their games you aren't getting a job.
 
Nexus said:
To give you an idea of what working a 3D job is actually like as an Animator, Modeller, Lighting, Compositor etc...

It's a mostly male dominated environment, where you tend to sit in large rooms with everyone at their workstation all day; it's obviously a quiet environment, so everyone sits and listens to their own music, it's not that social. It tends to be quite long hours, with frequent weekend work. The majority of staff, at least in the case of big budget VFX for films will tend to be transient, meaning they get hired for a job at one VFX House, when that's finished, they get hired on another job either at the same VFX House or another one in Soho (As far as films go in this country, nowhere else matters).
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Good post, spot on. You say you used to work for a VFX studio, mind if I ask what it is you do now?
 
TMP said:
Good post, spot on. You say you used to work for a VFX studio, mind if I ask what it is you do now?
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I work Freelance now, more on the Producing side of things.
It means I get hired by the company actually funding the film, rather than a VFX House which has been contracted to do work for them.

I should also mention that you get paid a lot better Freelance. As contracted staff at a VFX House, they pay less and try and shaft you where they can.
 
Chaos said:
I've read of a few folk who do 3d at uni and don't rate it, you can search the 3dpalace forums to see their opinions.

If you wan to learn 3D the best place to learn imo is 3dbuzz.com

Get a subscription and you get quality video training on Maya, Max, Zbrush, Houdini
To give you an idea the Basic Maya Fundamentals training is 80+ hours long.
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That or 3D Total :)

They do monthly contests, so it's good for building portfolios :)
 
Delvis said:
That or 3D Total :)

They do monthly contests, so it's good for building portfolios :)
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I think I'm going to have a go at modelling again, if only for fun. I bought "drawing on the right side of the brain" and am going to go through that first though to get back into sketching. I used to draw lots of 2000AD style characters when I was a teenager.

What's the best program to start with these days, and what free/educational licences are about? I used to use Extreme3D, 3DSMax 2.5 and Bryce yonks ago. Might still have a few renders and sketches tucked away somewhere although they are nothing special.
 
Well...3D Studio Max is a general decent character modelling software, then you have Maya etc...Although naturally these cost money.

So a free alternative is something like Blender.

I would look in to Human Anatomy as well, as this will help with the modeling and character drawings
 
Delvis said:
Well...3D Studio Max is a general decent character modelling software, then you have Maya etc...Although naturally these cost money.

So a free alternative is something like Blender.

I would look in to Human Anatomy as well, as this will help with the modeling and character drawings
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Blender looks good, if extremely complex. Saying that, 3DSMax seemed like a nightmare at first. I'll go download tonight, thanks. :D

Seeing as the last time I did modelling/rendering/animation was on a PII 450, I'm guessing that the experience will be somewhat more pleasant on a modern gaming spec machine. :D
 
PianoBasher said:
Blender looks good, if extremely complex. Saying that, 3DSMax seemed like a nightmare at first. I'll go download tonight, thanks. :D

Seeing as the last time I did modelling/rendering/animation was on a PII 450, I'm guessing that the experience will be somewhat more pleasant on a modern gaming spec machine. :D
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Hehe, true.

Look for some blender tutorials to get the basics down etc...If you want to look in to sculpting, Ive just literally heard of Scultris which is free :)

I started with the Joan of Arc tutorial many years ago, never did finish it :p
 
I did a 3D Games Art course at Teesside University and found it pretty poor. I learnt everything in my own time and would have stuggled to get anywhere if I just did what they told me at Uni.

Its worth going to Uni for 2 reasons. (from a career point of view ;))

1/ The bit of paper at the end - The degree is something that just makes employers know your serious about what you do than just hoping. Pretty standard now really although it doesnt guarantee you a job.

2/ Placement - Probably the one thing that changed my life really and that I thank Uni for. I worked for over a year at a 3D company in London and because of this has put me well ahead of anyone in terms of applying for jobs. I finished off my Degree, went back to them and now im at another company working in 3D Advertising / Marketing. Sadly out of all of my Uni mates that did 3D courses (8 of us) I was the only one to get a placement and to be working in the 3D Industry now. They're all doing random jobs nowhere near relevant to their degree.

I would agree that if your portfolio is mindblowingly awesome then yes you can easily get a job in top companies with no degree or experiance. The differance is, with a degree / experiance you can jump in at a higher wage.

Im hoping to one day get back into the games industry but at the moment im happy where I am getting experiance and monies!
 
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I am quite envious of those that have the creativity to do 3D modelling and animation for films and stuff. I was massively bitten by the "rendering" bug back on the Amiga. First time I saw "the juggler" I was like I must do this. Got pirated copes of Scuplt 3D, Imagine and Lightwave, as you do, though I actually spent money of Real 3D, £400 to be precise which was unheard of in those days and is still the most I have paid for any item of software. I can't imagine any hobbyist investing in the legit 3D progs these days. I suppose this is the biggest stumbling block for anyone wanting to ge into this legiteimately.

Unfortunately for me it became apparent that I simply don't have the creative spark to come up with what you would call artistic stuff from scratch. I would mess about creating Babylon 5 scenes using models that other people had done or just play around with ray tracing abstract stuff. The raytracing aspect is what initially got me interested, i.e. recreating real scenes on a computer. Real 3D even had basic dynamics which really interested me.

I suppose then that is why I have come to do what I do do, i.e. stress analysis using FEA which does involve creating 3D models. The model creating is definately the most fun thing about it as the analysis side is where it the brain has to be used in earnest. But a least I get to dabble in 3D in some respect in my job, just not the artistic/animation side of things.
 
Sime said:
I did a 3D Games Art course at Teesside University and found it pretty poor. I learnt everything in my own time and would have stuggled to get anywhere if I just did what they told me at Uni.

Its worth going to Uni for 2 reasons. (from a career point of view ;))

1/ The bit of paper at the end - The degree is something that just makes employers know your serious about what you do than just hoping. Pretty standard now really although it doesnt guarantee you a job.

2/ Placement - Probably the one thing that changed my life really and that I thank Uni for. I worked for over a year at a 3D company in London and because of this has put me well ahead of anyone in terms of applying for jobs. I finished off my Degree, went back to them and now im at another company working in 3D Advertising / Marketing. Sadly out of all of my Uni mates that did 3D courses (8 of us) I was the only one to get a placement and to be working in the 3D Industry now. They're all doing random jobs nowhere near relevant to their degree.

I would agree that if your portfolio is mindblowingly awesome then yes you can easily get a job in top companies with no degree or experiance. The differance is, with a degree / experiance you can jump in at a higher wage.

Im hoping to one day get back into the games industry but at the moment im happy where I am getting experiance and monies!
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How is the advertising industry compared to games?
I've always been tempted to go that way. Probably less "fun" or creative but more stable? Better money?

I wouldn't say a degree will help money wise in the games industry unless you want to go abroad, like Canada where salaries can be considerably better but you will need the degree to get over there. Here it's all down to experience. Newbies get paid naff all in almost all cases.

Another route can be to get a QA job. Not at one of the external QA places but within an actual development studio. You'll get virtually minimum wage, have long hours, be bored stupid. But you will have contact with people doing the jobs you may want to do, so can pickup info here and there and it will count as experience for later when you apply for a development role. Work on your modelling in your free time (possibly lunch breaks), using online tutorials but with someone real to ask if you get stuck or want honest feedback. It's a foot in the door, but do expect to move around a few companies before a junior role crops up.
 
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