Becoming a game artist

I am interested in becoming a game artist or a programer. I am currently not sure which way I should go. I feel like I am mediocre at many things, so I would only need to be guided in the right direction. Also the college i am enrolled in is not exactly the best choice (i think) for either. I am here becuase of money issues, but after graduating, I am hoping to go to a school online or something that would take me the way in need to go. So I guess I'll start off with my main questions:

1. In Ohio, are there any game design opportunities availiable for me? I have heard things about few companies in ohio, but I am not sure it is true. I thought this was a good place to ask.

2. How reliable are the positions? I don't really want to be constantly moving from state to state from company to company just be able to continue work. I hear that many artists get laid off first before programmers and some other staff.

3. where should I start? If I were to go into charater or level design ect, where would be the best place for me to get my feet into the door? Right now, I am thinking of being a proffesional gamer, but I doubt that is something I would be content with. I would be much happier seeing my work in a finished product.

4. One last thing. Are any games developed on macintosh computers? that is all i own at the moment, and I was interested in getting a program that would help me understand what I would or could be doing from day to day. Are there any programs I could buy that would help me?

Thanks in advance.

 

1) I have no idea where Ohio is so here: gamedevmap.com

2) You will have to move where the jobs are, however, as long as you are good at your job and part of a big company (eg EA) then the chances of getting laid off are much smaller. When the project you are currently working on finishes, you would normally be moved to another in the same company.

3) First off, decide what you want to be; artist or programmer. Undertaking a relevent degree would be your first step.

4) There are games that are developed on the Mac but they are usually Indie in my experience. Most, if not all of the development are done on Windows computers. Exceptions include some art and audio tools.

 

Ohio, I wouldn't think there's much out there, plus unless your in a hub, your limiting yourself for jobs, being out there or willing to relocate to San Fran, LA, Seattle, San Antonio, Dallas will increase your chances of finding a company, but they aren't the only places, but it makes it easier to hop around if things don't work being in a hub.

As for stability, depends on the studio, some are better managed than others, the trade off with no experience would be a small studio might be willing to have more risk with someone untested because they could pay less, that's not always the case. Also larger companies tend to have more than one project on the go, so you could be bounced around a little in slow times. When the shit happens, last in first out might be the trick, might be who earns the most, could be anything, I wouldn't count on them binning just one discipline first.

Where to start and what you want to do, can't help you there....if programming is your thing, then you'll probably gain more from formal studies, perhaps less so in art, unless you do a fine arts type course rather than those crapper "for games" courses, which are generally shit...you should be looking at doing stuff on the side which ever discipline though, so you have stuff in your portfolio that's individual because every year, students will have the same sort of stuff as each other, it's those who have something else that'll help, and it'll teach you more. Working on game mods is a good way to learn things to and also perhaps build up on some contacts, because it's all about contacts - check out www.linkedin.com

Mac's, wouldn't have a clue, get boot camp and run windows, don't think there's much happening with mac's, between being stuck in Ohio and on a Mac is really limiting your out look. Could do art and audio well on a mac though.

 

Apart from his outrageous misuse of apostrophes Bobz is right. You can do art on a Mac, but generally working environments in games will be on PCs. Tools will be PC based. A lot of the software used is PC based.
Macs are fine for illustration, graphic design and the like, but in my decade of game experience I have not seen one Mac, ever. No, I lie. I once saw someone dig an ancient Mac laptop out of a dusty cardboard box, and we all crowded around it to touch it and go "ahhh" and "wow, it's huge!" We then threw it out with the rubbish.

As for stability, it's not something this industry is famous for. A few of the bigger studios seem to have it at the moment, but those aren't immune to "downsizing" either. And as was pointed out above, discipline isn't usually an issue in those circumstances. If you want real stabiliy, hmm, you may be barking up the wrong tree.

Good luck, though, whatever you decide.

 

Guy behind me has some monster mac core4duo nonsense, it's all very pretty, but no, Mac's are exceedingly rare in the industry. But if you want to learn 3D then Maya and Photoshop on the Mac are as good as anything.

Moving around the country/between countries and redundancies are kinda a way of life, though. It's not as terrible as it seems, though, jobs for life don't really exist any more like they used to in any industry.

 

We use Macs for videoconferencing, and the sound guys usually have a Mac as well as a PC. Loads of people have MacBooks for their personal shit, but yeah, the pipeline is 100% PC.

Although I'd be tempted by one of those 2x quad core things running windows in the background somehow. That's enough core's that we could make our PC version look almost like Cell.

 

Thanks Everyone

The help is greatly aprreciated. I have been reading the Paid to Play book, and there is a part in the programming section with someone say that a Computer science degree from any college would be good. Is this that same for becoming a game artist as well? I'm finishing up my sophmore year and that means i'll be done with my core classes. (I'm also doing a research paper so all of your input is appreciated). I plan to get a PC this summer and work using some programs that i would be using on site. Thanks again.

 

one of our sound guys has a macbook pro lappy, but he's always using windows to do random sound stuff on it...and apparently the tech guy has been sniffing around a couple of those new macs to set up a mini render farm, probably end up with pc's, but all the same, would end up running windows anyway.

 

It really depends on your course....some people think that a comp science degree is wasted time, but some find the tech and background useful, same with art, you can't go wrong with traditional art skills like being able to draw, and have some formal classes tell you how to do things is handy, but it's a bit limiting, because to get anything from it, you'll have to do all the shite in your own time to really learn, so you might as well do that anyway, and learn something completely random that you'll enjoy and take away with you, because once your in your career, it's rather hard to then break away and do something completely random.

I studied Industrial design and technology, thought it would be great to be a product designer, until I realised it was a load of shite and ended up in games, has my degree been useful? kind of, the sense of design, proportions and understanding solid models has been useful, but it's the completely random shite that has had the most benefit, the digital electronics and programming, I'm completely useless at it, but I know enough when to ask something of the codies or not, and have a basic insight, and the environmental design as come in handy for coming up with completely random things and environmental objects.

The cool thing about games, you just have to make it look good and believable, the thing doesn't actually have to work

 

Oh, if you want to play around with art on a mac environment, check out Cheetah 3D, just released v 4, it's in the current 3D World Mag, it's modelling, rendering and animation package.

It's a cheap alternative to Maya.

 

i'm in ohio. there's nothing here, man. fresh games is in columbus i think. you must go west.

(i'm here because i'm working from home)

 

What exactly do you do since you work at home? I want to be able to do that. From what I read the only way that really works is if you have alreaady made a great name for yourself. How exactly did you earn the ability to work from home?

 

co-founded a company with some co-workers. not recommended until everyone co-founding has racked up experience in the industry beforehand.

full story: http://www.thebehemoth.com/faq.html

 

SssshhhH!!!

 

you can certainly learn to do 2d art on a macintosh....

Although many of the jobs in the industry require 3d modelling skills etc. it is also extremely useful if artists can work in 2d...simple accurate sketching as well as texture work are great skills to have.

Julian

 

GW7... that wouldn't be Gameworld 7 would it?

I'm going to assume it is and say you definitely won't remember me, but I did some school-placement work experience for you guys aboooouuut... 7 or so years ago.

I've also now just noticed when the post above me was posted... ah well, nothing like a good ole revival.

 

Lots of good advise here. Most important thing for you is to educate your self on the industry as much as possible and figure what it is you LIKE to do as an artist. Experiment in varying disciplines (textures, modeling, set-dressing etc..) figure out what you like to do the most and build a portfolio around it. Networking is also the next best thing and by coming here as well as other well known industry forums your doing the right thing

I'm new here btw. Hi!