Need Advice

[PenguinChilli]

Hi ErkMuss,

I know exactly how you feel. I start my Games Design Degree in September and I also have so much to learn yet so little time. I wanna get my skills up to scratch so I can focus on my concepts, being creative and having endless possibilities in games design.

I believe it depends on what industry you are wanting to be in. I may be wrong, but I think in the games industry there will already be a 3D Modeler who will model everything that needs modeling, then this will be passed over to the Animator/Rigger who will create all the necessary actions and animations for that object. Whereas in some other instances you may be asked to create the models as well as the animation and rigging work. I could well be wrong there though.

Here are a few books I found useful when I was starting out in Maya;

http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Maya-2009-Dariush-Derakhshani/dp/0470372370/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279205992&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Maya-2009-Eric-Keller/dp/0470392207/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279206010&sr=8-2

The above books contain a bunch of different basic projects like Modeling, Modeling a basic figure and setting up an animated walk cycle, UV texturing etc. They're brilliant books, despite the incredibly weak spine. Haha!

this one may also be helpful to you;

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Autodesk-Official-Training-Guide/dp/1897177380/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279206023&sr=8-15

I also strongly recommend Digital Tutors. It's a monthly subscription video tutorial site where you have unlimited access to literally thousands of really useful tutorials and entire projects for your specific area. It's definitely worth the money and is just as good as University tuition; I swear by them.

http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/index.php

The Digital Tutors subscription have great introductory lessons in Animation and Rigging, while you can also download the project files so you don't need to model each character yourself.

Hopefully this helps you in some way :D

[ErkMuss]

Thanks for the book suggestions penguinchilli, I start my specialization in Game Design this fall also. I am considering this digital tutor site, hadn't heard of it until recently and it all I've heard is good things.

My dream job would be to work for a game design company, but I also wouldn't mind working for film (Pixar would be awesome but not nearly good enough right now). I figured the setup in either of those industries was similar (depending on the size of the studio) and that I would simply specialize and become part of the assembly line.

So you think I should continue learning new things as opposed to making a polished portfolio?

[PenguinChilli]

If you know you definitely want to specialise in animating and rigging, then I would pick out the main skills that will help you most and work on them. Drawing, Rigging and Animating, then possibly worry about the modeling later. Just as long as you understand how to model to a standard at which you are happy with. It could also be worth considering collaborating with people on your Games Design course in the fall, for example, someone who is good at modeling could provide the model/scene for you, the model/scene could then be passed to a good texture and lighting artist, you could then animate the model/scene and voila! Show's you have basic experience of working in a team, and experience of a pipeline workflow.

Animation requires good story boarding skills as Pixar in particular are very fussy about making sure that your traditional skills are just as good as your digital skills, if not better. I remember watching a documentary about Pixar where they had to get rid of a bunch of people because they lacked the traditional skills that animators are valued for.

I seriously can't recommend Digital Tutors enough. In my experience, Universities and colleges can be difficult to rely on for learning new skills, especially software such as Maya, and in areas such as 3D as it is so unpredictable. The tutors can't get around to every person in a class of 60+ and expect to understand how each person made their model and understand where the mistakes are. It's an impossibility. This is where Digital Tutors comes in so handy. You can take techniques from projects they provide, and then apply them to your current projects. If you get stuck, you can send them your problem and project file and they'l help you out, as they did with me. I was stuck creating some special effects to appear in my render, I contacted them and within a couple of hours they had gotten back to me with a solution which worked a treat. They truly work their butts off.

Hope this further helps you :)

[ErkMuss]

Thanks for the advice! I think I'm going to step back from using the computer (not completely) for a while to develop my drawing skills and then come back when I'm confident. I know how to model well enough and tutorials can teach me how to get the effect I want on my models. I need the eyes for this kind of stuff that I'm not sure I have yet.

[SanjayChand]

Its good that you already know what you want to do.

If you want to do animation and rigging, then usually people start with figure drawing and traditional animation classes to get a solid foundation. Some schools even offer "acting for animators" type of classes where you act and learn to convey that in your characters.

If youve already gone through these courses, then just take as many 3D animation classes as you can. If they dont offer that many then try animation mentor or one of Gnomon's online classes.

Spending time taking classes on anything else such as modeling,texturing, etc would be a waste of time, unless you fancy yourself becoming a generalist. Either way, you have to get very good at one or two things in order to land a job at most studios.

Spending time on "game design" would be a waste of time too unless you are spending most of the time animating.

[frothlord]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents to what everyone else recommended.

Do the intern thing if you can - Practical education is gold. School and learning on your own are great, but It's when a client wants something you've never done before that you start to develop stronger problem solving skills.

Just don't let the internship drain you from learning other things on your own. It's possible to burn yourself out at work each day to where you don't want to touch a computer afterwards. If you're not feeling up to working on a portfolio piece or hitting animation/rigging hard, try just tinkering with different things like lighting or dynamics. Never hurts to see what Maya (or whatever program you want to learn) can do outside of your preferred specialty. Who knows maybe you'll fall in love with particle's.


Also those Digital Tutors tutorials are really good, worth the money. Ive never watched a DT tutorial I didn't like.

Nick

[ErkMuss]

Spending time on "game design" would be a waste of time too unless you are spending most of the time animating.

I'd really like to be a animator/rigger for a video game development company. While some of the work associated with the Game Design specialization may not help me become a better animator/rigger, it will give me a better overall understanding of how the process works. Which I think is quite beneficial.

And frothlord, I definitely plan to apply for some internships and/or job positions for next summer. Is there an way to be a freelance animator/rigger somewhere? Because that could be an option, unless you don't think being a freelance is a good idea.

[DoctorMonkeyFist]

My advice is to focus on rigging . You will have a much easier time finding employment. Everyone and their little brother want to be an animator or modeler, so there's a lot of competition. But rigging or programming jobs have much less competition. You could get hired as a rigger and move to an animation position easier than getting hired as an animator. Hope that helps. Good luck!

[ErkMuss]

That's why I wanted to be good at rigging too, because it seemed like everyone wanted to be an animator. But then I think there's some confusion as to what an animator actually does and what each person wants to do. Either way, I want to be good at rigging because being able to rigg my own models will probably put me ahead of animators of equal skill who don't know how to rigg.

One term I've seen thrown around a lot is that of "Character TD". What does the "TD" part stand for? Technical Director? And what is the difference between a Character TD and a Rigger, or are they the same?

[JYoung]

Yep, they're pretty much the same thing. Character TD is the "official" title. Technical Animator is something you'll see in games as well, and that's typically a rigging job, though they may also animate. Every company is different.

[fig]

Animation requires good story boarding skills as Pixar in particular are very fussy about making sure that your traditional skills are just as good as your digital skills, if not better. I remember watching a documentary about Pixar where they had to get rid of a bunch of people because they lacked the traditional skills that animators are valued for.


Not quite sure where or what you saw on this but it sounds really inaccurate. You need to be able to do thumbnails and simple storyboarding to plan out your shot but being a great traditional artist certainly isn't required to be a CG animator. An understanding of traditional animation principles, however, is very important.

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