Anyone with 3D Environment Building experience? (Unreal Engine, etc)

[Shinrael]

Hello, wasn't sure where to put this thread so I'm sorry if this ain't it!

So... as title says, anyone with 3D Environment Building experience? Unreal Engine, Unity, etc. I want to get into world building and would like to ask some basic stuff (what programs, aside from unreal engine for example, do you need, do you have to buy them, what tools/tech you need for those? I am soon going to buy a new pc and would like to take this into account when buying it, etc,etc). Promise not to bother you too much!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

For modeling and rigging, you want either Maya, 3DS Max and/or ZBrush.
For texturing, Adobe Photoshop is baseline, though there are alternatives. Usually just photoshop.

[Deleted]

I made a kickass map for Doom 2 once. Does that count.

[Shinrael]

For modeling and rigging, you want either Maya, 3DS Max and/or ZBrush.
For texturing, Adobe Photoshop is baseline, though there are alternatives. Usually just photoshop.

Would a modern gaming laptop be able to run all those programs and do the job properly? Would I need anything else like tablets, etc? Or can everything be done with a keyboard and a mouse?

What would be my best course of action if I wanted to make this my job? Study 3D Computer Graphics in some university? Go take lessons somewhere? Watch youtube tutorials and learn on my own? How does one get into this field of business?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Would a modern gaming laptop be able to run all those programs and do the job properly? Would I need anything else like tablets, etc? Or can everything be done with a keyboard and a mouse?

What would be my best course of action if I wanted to make this my job? Study 3D Computer Graphics in some university? Go take lessons somewhere? Watch youtube tutorials and learn on my own? How does one get into this field of business?

I'm majoring in programming, so I do not know the intricacies of art and animation. I have attended a 1 week gamedev bootcamp. Of what I do know, it is possible to get a job working for a developer without a degree, if your portfolio is of graduate quality or of special interest to the needs of the project. It is also possible that you could start/join an indie team as the artist, but surviving as an indie can be arduous, and there's no guarantee of a stable income... That said, a degree at least gives you some form of legitimacy when the employers look over their incoming applications. A triple-A developer is almost certainly going to prioritize applicants with degrees over those without. Unlike indie development, you can at least expect a stable income from triple-A devs, but you will have little choice over what you spend your time creating, as the managers will assign you to whatever project needs an artist.

I have heard some graduates say gamedev (courses) didn't teach them anything they didn't already know. In some cases, I've heard some colleges didn't even teach the students skills for the software the industry was even using at the time! On the other hand, I have heard just as many people attribute their skills and job to gamedev. I suppose it depends on where you attend.

College also makes you friends, who you can contact later to find possible jobs, as the company they work for might be hiring, or they may know another company that is. Once you get a job at a company, your co-workers will be able to do the same. Who knows; if you become an art director, you might know people among your contacts who'd fit the needs of your project, and you'd be able to hire (or at least, recommend) them.

As for actually getting a job, it's going to be a matter of keeping an eye out for studios you're interested in and then sending in your application when one of them start hiring. In addition to a degree, a good looking portfolio is going to help, especially if your versatile or can model/animate in a certain way that the studio is looking for.

Finally, there are hiring agencies you can register for, that will try to find a job for you. I know these agencies exist for programming and IT related fields, but I'm not sure how it relates to game art/animation.

Personally, for all jobs game-development related, I'd suck it up and get a degree for the hiring power it entails, which I am for programming.

I have never seen or heard animators using a laptop or gaming laptop to sculpt or model. Tablets are quite often used for drawing 2D art and textures though, but I believe there are special tablets they use. I'm not sure.


For all things related to the gaming industry, GDC is your friend:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015735...evelopment-Ask
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...insiders-guide
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/...-game-industry

Also, Extra Credits is a fantastic channel for learning breaking down how games (and the industry) works.

[Poppincaps]

Substance Painter and Designer are also great for texturing as well. A nice GPU is useful but you especially want to focus on the CPU for rendering. As someone who has done Gamedev and is now doing programming, I'd really suggest you try a little bit of everything and find what you like. 3D modelling isn't simply art. There's a ton of tech you need to understand and I know a lot of people who got turned off of modelling because of it (including myself).

As for getting a job, it really depends on you. Personally I needed school to guide me and now I'm expanding my learning with online tutorials. If you're really self motivated and appropriately critical then you could teach yourself with online tutorials. Both Udemy and Pluralsight are great resources for that.

Very few game companies require a degree, but it's obviously a bonus for those that don't require it. If you don't have a degree your portfolio will have to be very good, because with students there's at least the likelihood that they know the basics of most of the aspects of game design.

You should absolutely use UE4 for level design. You can buy assets off the marketplace to use in your levels and generally employers won't care about where you got your assets as long as your levels flow well. Worldofleveldesign.com is a good resource. Look heavily into modular design and if you can try to join a team since the level designer in many ways guides the modelers towards the standards they need to use. I've done level design on two fully realized game projects and it taught me a lot more than my time building levels in my spare time.