So I just uploaded a not yet finished work of mine but,to be honest, I have no idea if it is really uploaded and the website just confuses me more and more :hmm:
I hope it is uploaded and maybe some of you can say me if I have a chance in this kind of jobs( I hope so) and what i could do better/what I shouldn’t do and so on.
Hope you guys/girls like it 
Greetings from austria,W.A.
Yeah. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s dreams but the title of this thread is “The Unofficial Truth About This Industry” after all so here it is…
This industry is dying (or adapting if you want to look at it that way) and it’s happening fast. It started with mid-sized companies dying off over the last 4-5 years but now even the major VFX studios are closing their doors and/or being sold off to investors in Asia. Salaries are experiencing massive downward pressures and artists are being forced to live out of a suitcase in order to keep working. Experienced artists are leaving the industry in droves so I guess that could create some opportunities for new people just entering the field but I’m not sure it’s such a great career to get into anymore. Sure, this industry was never considered “stable” in the first place but the changes that are happening now are verging on “spiraling out of control” and it is just picking up speed.
I think it’s time to add a new update to the OP in this thread. My addition…
Is this still a good industry to get into? If you love this industry and it’s artistry and don’t care about money or having a life or owning a home or raising a family or knowing what country or city you’ll be living in next year then it may still be the right place for you. I wouldn’t advise going into debt to get here though.
This is very rough to read for a newcomer, may I ask you guys your prediction of this industry in 5 years, when I will be fighting for my first job?
5 years? No clue. I think it’s safe to say that it will be vastly different than it is today. Right now as it is currently structured it is unsustainable. Large companies are having difficulty staying in business, small companies are under cutting each other to the point that they can barely keep their doors open and mid-sized companies are practically extinct.
It’s quite possible that in 5 years time the VFX industry mimics the structure of a film production crew on set where everyone is freelance and working for the production company as a project hire. I think the writing is on the wall for stand alone VFX houses though. They’re all just one step away from bankruptcy.
Ensure you’re extremely adaptable, and have a strong understanding of multiple facets of the VFX pipeline. There’s lots of people on these forums that sound negative, and im sure they have their personal reasons, and yes there’s lots of larger studios closing down, but there’s reasons for that. It’s dumb to say the VFX industry is dying 
No its not. what’s happening is … lets call it a change of power. The work is still and always will be there, it’s just not always going into the hands of the larger high profile studios. Large studios simply can’t adapt to the climate of change so fast due to their size, smaller studios and freelancers can adapt. I would advise on this; don’t aim for a large studio job, aim small and again; be adaptable. I’ve always had work for the last 13 years both studio and freelance; i put that down to being capable of wearing many hats and filling multiple roles; I can do concept work, texture painting, 3d modelling, animation, motion tracking, comping, art supervision etc, if someone needs me to do something, i usually can While I have another friend who insists on just being a texture painter that rarely has work.
I graduated out of college almost a year ago and while I don’t have much interest in going into the artistic side of computer graphics, I love 3D modeling. I started back in high school with mostly AutoCAD and Inventor (We dabbled a little bit with Viz before it merged with/became 3DS Max) and while there was a period of time in college I didn’t model, I did manage to take two classes that offered modeling and I remembered how much I enjoy sitting in front of a computer working on such projects. I enjoyed modeling parts and other objects; for instance, in high school I reversed engineered a pair of noise canceling headphones, and in college I designed had a pocket knife, chess piece, and a robot printed out using a 3D printer.
I loved every minute of it and I realized I wanted to make 3D modeling my career. Now I was wondering if anyone here knows much about where I should be looking and what I should specifically do. I look around the various forms here and I see people posting their work of characters and other great works, but I’m more interested in things like parts and inanimate objects. I figure that what I should be looking for is something industrial or in the prototyping area of the field. Does anyone have any thoughts that they could share with me please? Thank you!
As with any industry, there are various techniques/skills/tools that are capable of delivering exceptional final results; often times, no “one” technique, skill, and/or tool can accomplish all tasks required.
However, some techniques/skills/tools are more widely accepted than others are, and I’m trying determine what those techniques/skills/tools are so as to build a sufficient level of competency.
Understanding that technical, scientific, and artistic aptitudes are a necessity, some questions that often come to mind are:
Q - What technologies (tools) are currently used when producing animation and visual effects features, are tools from vendors such as The Foundry, Autodesk, and Adobe the most commonly used? I’ve put a considerable amount of time specifically focusing on tools provided by these vendors, should I be focusing that energy elsewhere?
Q - When it comes to rendering technologies, is Renderman the defacto standard or are other rendering technologies such as V-Ray, Mental Ray, Maya Software, etc. used as well? Some of these renderers often require that their proprietary shaders and lights be used to achieve quality results that are often incompatible with other components of a production workflow.
*EDIT * - Link to article from response below: http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-state-of-rendering/
Q - When it comes to lighting, how prevalent is the use of Global Illumination, Final Gather, etc. Many opinions seem to imply that these technologies (techniques) are frowned upon, as they are too expensive resource-wise and are not as flexible as traditional lighting techniques.
I’m certainly open to further reading and learning if someone knows of a definitive guide (book or website) that discusses what CG technologies are generally acceptable to use when it comes to the film industry.
Regards,
I assume you are talking about film VFX and feature animation.
You can add SideFX Houdini in there for the effects side of things, ZBrush for sculpting/modelling, and then there’s the usual handful of satellite apps, but those are the main vendors with products used in the industry when proprietary software doesn’t replace them in traits of the pipe.
Q - When it comes to rendering technologies, is Renderman the defacto standard or are other rendering technologies such as V-Ray, Mental Ray, Maya Software, etc. used as well? Some of these renderers often require that their proprietary shaders and lights be used to achieve quality results that are often incompatible with other components of a production workflow.
PRMan and Arnold right now are the most prominent in film VFX, V-Ray and 3Delight see use more than rarely, and MRay is some times begrudgingly used.
At entry level, artist (and not TD) positions usually don’t require you have an intimate understanding of any of them, surfacing requires at least an understanding of the basics of how what you produce interacts with the rest. Technical positions for look-dev and troubleshooting do require some to a lot of knowledge of what you are doing and how it relates to the platform.
Q - When it comes to lighting, how prevalent is the use of Global Illumination, Final Gather, etc. Many opinions seem to imply that these technologies (techniques) are frowned upon, as they are too expensive resource-wise and are not as flexible as traditional lighting techniques.
That’s a few years back. Today the situation is very different, and a physically plausible approach to things (with all its consequences on production and assets) is commonplace.
I’m certainly open to further reading and learning if someone knows of a definitive guide (book or website) that discusses what CG technologies are generally acceptable to use when it comes to the film industry.
VFXGuide has an excellent two parts article, recent, about the state of rendering. Start from there.
There is now a Part 2 to this thread which I’ve written in a separate post, which can be found here: The Unofficial Truth about The Industry Part 2
Great thread, any chance anyone can add some input on age and trying to find a job?
More specifically age and not much experience? This has been a concern of mine for a few years now.
Hey All,
I’m a young filmmaker (writer,director) who’d like to realize a dream project, a no-budget endeavour. I wrote a feature length script with a story that has a touch of sci-fi, so to make it come alive I need to find some VFX guys who could help me in that. I know it’s almost an impossible task to find VFX people for a no-budget film, but I really believe that as I am writing and directing, there must be others out there in the field of VFX who are young, talented and ambitous, and I’d like to find them.
Are any such people present here, or could you recommend me some other channels or forums where I should try to look?
Thanks in advance!
You will always have different experiences in the differnt studios. If you want to get further indepth information about our industry, visit the scratchpost, an artist resource site… it has a lot of articles that can be VERY helpful to people trying to get into the field, getting info about what to they need to do, inside scoops, and overall listing of lots of studios for those who are job hunting.
Thank you for the post!
The truth is quite intimidating, but at least I know what the industry is like.
Thanks a lot for this post, i’m in highschool and i’m starting to build a portfolio, this industry is quite scary but since this is my passion it doesn’t matter
Very interesting, especially the differences between the original post and the update. All my interviews in the last 3 years have been very brief.
