What do you consider a "cliche" model?
polycounter lvl 8
Hello polycounters. Today i have a question that may of been addressed at some point. What is a "cliche" model? I am in college and for one of my classes we have to create 3 high quality portfolio peices, but the teachers is really stressing on the fact to make sure it's not a cliche piece.
He wants to see something some-what original i guess. So i want your guys opinion as to what you think is cliche these days, so i can try my best to stay away from them.
So please, help me. List some models that you have seen over and over and are tired of seeing! I would really appreciate it.
He wants to see something some-what original i guess. So i want your guys opinion as to what you think is cliche these days, so i can try my best to stay away from them.
So please, help me. List some models that you have seen over and over and are tired of seeing! I would really appreciate it.
Replies
Suggested items to do as that is helpful too.
1 Organic object
1 Real world object that you can point to a picture and be hey it looks EXACTLY like the item in the picture.
1 Object with multiple materials on it. IE metal and wood, moss and stone/wood/bark. Something like that.
Sure it shows you can replicate a real world object but IMO there is no originality in doing such an asset.
Angkor Wat, don't model it, please.
Sci-fi hallways are a bit over done, sci-fi is fine if you do a bigger scene with some point of visual interest.
Wow fan art with their old specs. Wow is starting to get dated, look at either their updated models/textures, or games like EverQuest Next or Darksiders 2 if you wanted to do something chunky and stylized.
Distric 9 weapons.
Most really big popular culture things like Iron Man and Halo.
I got a good laugh from that one
LOL yep, steroid marines are another to add to the list XD
Haha I would be lying if I said I didn't laugh pretty hard at this.
I think if you go down this list and do them all very well, you'd have a pretty amazing portfolio, though! :poly142:
I agree in the most part but I feel we should look at other peoples art as well as reference, just for a bit of inspiration and to see what the general public think is cool. I dont like it when an artist tries to be "unique" and makes something that is ultimately ugly and uncool because of thier own lack of understanding of what makes something artistically appealing.
I agree. Some things are hard. For example, how do you even go about designing and modelling a space ship without looking at reference to the Nostromo from Alien and other work.
Iron man.
M4 rifle.
Ripoff of Polygoo's Charger. Even people outside of our industry did that one lol.
I think most people chose these because they're good practice material, like how every art student draws animal skulls. They're not looking at the subject so much as the technical skill required to pull off the shape. Most artificial objects are pretty boring, so guns with their exposed parts and complex silhouettes are interesting. Corridors tend to be particularly modular and broken up with complex tiles and exposed wiring, so you can make a seemingly large, populated space with little effort.
It's far more damning when you do a fantastical piece that is horridly derivative. Bikini elves, Distict 9 guns, Aaron Beck hobo robots, sci-fi hallways, mother fucking Minions.
Oh and don't put tutorial art in your portfolio. Just don't, of so many reasons. Unless you do something completely different with the techniques being taught.
Not as common these days though
Those are good points, I think those issues are more relevant to concept artists or illustrators who want to really make a name for themselves in the industry. Someone who just wants to get a job making some game art might aspire to be a game industry hero but if they start off their career by making some cliche assets and making them very well then I can hardly blame them for it.
tutorial result models
most things in that typical world of warcraft hand painted style
What if I do a busty pin-up lady in a big dopey military robot suit racing against barbarian orcs/trolls/elves (also in big dopey military robot suits) in sportscar prototypes decked out with batman/superman stickers? Individually those things sound boring, but together it seems a lot more interesting.
There are so many things that have been done over and over that they are kind of boring at this point, and even if they are well done it's hard to stand out. However if you can take a cliched thing and put your own spin on them you could still make an interesting piece. You just have to crank your creativity and the amount of work you have to do up to 11.
On top of a tiling stone floor, made a la Zbrush
Just make sure it`s executed well.
1. Audi TT models. These were really popular a few years ago as the basic shape was easily replicated with few tools, making it a perfect "tutorial" car.
2. Any model made popular by tutorials for that matter, vehicle or not.
3. Desert Eagle or any popular weapon type including random looking sci-fi weapons. For sci-fi, you're in good company, sci-fi weapons made for a lot of contemporary games are very generic looking mostly because of the fact they're easy to design without too much functional limitations and hence they're designed in hundreds of variations. Stay away from these unless you have some brilliant idea that would make for a never-before seen weapon.
If you want to make a 3d weapon, try something weird, like a home-made or some real-life experimental gun that was never popular. Include the reference so people know you actually put some effort into documenting it.
4. Giant robots, western mechs or gundam-styled. People think these are the type of character work you can do without prior anatomy knowledge or mechanical knowledge but they're terribly mistaken. I've seen experimented people putting out boring or mis-shapen robots so I'm very skeptical that beginners can pull these off. Usually there's no real thought put into the joints, weight distribution which would make them hard to skin or animate without cheating or making them look off. If you do want to make robots, study some of the popular types out there and try to use similar joint types and proportions while adding your own design to them. As always weird ones will always draw attention, something like a ginger bread mech from a candy land or something weird like that. Post lost of reference of candy, people love candy :P
5. Naked or mostly naked chicks. The more skin you show, the more anatomy you have to master to pull this off. Only the best of the best manage to showcase nudes in their portfolios without them looking cliche and they're usually not naked chicks. If you want to do a character you could stay away from female humanoids in general. I'm not trying to sound sexist, but in today's world people are more sensitive to sexism if the discrimination is carried against women and are more likely to accuse you of being sexist and objectifying women for putting big breasts and a cleavage on a female character than they are of accusing you of being sexist for putting ridiculously large muscles and a huge face scar and a tiny head on a male character. They are right that usually women are the ones being mis-represented as passive objects for males to stare and drool at but still, rugged space marines are sexist cliches too!
6. Models that are too simple in shape unless you're trying to showcase something other than the model itself. If you want to showcase your "mad level optimizations skills" and pack tens of objects into a tiny texture with loads of UV overlap and great results, then go ahead.
7. Brake any of the rules above if you're doing it awesome enough to make people ignore the cliches or you're doing it as a joke whilst still making it awesome. A sci-fi fire extinguisher that has to transform into a mini-robot to put out fires comes to mind. Might be hard to do but even if you miss the quirkiness mark, it might actually help to show that you're willing to go beyond conventions in a non-PC kind of way. Don't try to challenge taboos or anything, that might be too risky
If you get a job, you're most likely going to be modeling: survivors, space marines, sci-if cooridors, stone floors, orcs, elves etc.
Don't get me wrong, I find some of these models boring without something added, but I highly doubt they'd go amiss in a portfolio, since this is the kind of work that you're going to be doing anyways.
Seems like if you're looking for an environment art job it would be a really good idea to show you can sculpt a tiling stone floor... And yeah, in zbrush no less (seems like a majorly ridiculous qualifier honestly, like somehow it would be okay if you did it in maya?). At any rate, demonstrating competence in tasks you will most likely be assigned is what you want in your portfolio.
3d modeler stake direction from the conceptors and artist is directors and leads, so the ability to be super creative is maybe a little less important than your ability to take direction, to follow a concept, to mimick an art style, etc.
Going the safe route, the clich
Sorta seems like most of this advice is just your preferences and random thoughts. Number 5 in particular seems pretty off the mark. There are these thing called anatomy studies, and if you're looking for a character art position you need to be able to sculpt a person naked. They aren't just for the "pros" who can pull them off. Any character artist should be able to do it, and prove they can do it. If you can't, you shouldn't hide it by not having them on your portfolio, but quit applying to jobs until you can know anatomy well enough to do them.
In all seriousness, everything has been done before. Quality is more important than originality.
This:
Beats
This:
Despite the latter being more original.
Having creative talent, and coming up with good original stuff is a nice skill to have (but asking us what's [un-]creative isn't very useful), but not the most important. After all, any studio that expects high quality models from you, should be able to provide you with designs from a concept artist.
Honestly, one of the things that I'd ask from students if I were a teacher, would be to take the simplest most commonest asset and have them knock it out of the park. Because frankly, many of those clich
Do what makes you happy. A genuine interest in the subjectmatter will yield better results. You will be more passionate and your attention to detail will be better because you're invested in the project.
If making rifles, space marines and district 9 style mechs, then go for it. Your enthusiasm will show in your work and the subjectmatter will be a lot less important.
Instead of concentrating on what is cliche, concentrate on making something good. You will stand out if you do something that isn't being reproduced to a huge degree.
So find the subject, guns, cars, mechs, people. Figure out what is being done by tons of people and do something different.
Be wary of the haters.
Just because something's cliche doesn't mean people hate it
Enough artist show their portfolios on polycount and nearly no one has/or show a concept art for the models, its very uncommon. Maybe for boring work show the boring concept to show your skill in working with a reference.
Cliche:
Weapons
Crates
Floors
So make a metal floor, maybe metal plates with studs. Destroy and bend a floor plate and under the plate is a crate. Open the cap and lay the cap seperate on the metal floor with a hilll of filling material. In the crate are weapons. Its a hiding place for smuggling. Many objects stand alone boring like hell its a matter of context to bring life and history into them.
very true
Could also look at this topic in a way of cliche being that just a cliche thing is modeled, without a story, concept, or history added to it. edit: in relation to your prof's comments, am pretty sure he/she's stressing this to help you stand out and not fade into the sea of Angkor Watts and classical architecture.
For example, a wooden crate is a pretty cliche thing to make, however it is not a bad thing to do. On its own they are boring - its just a cube, or a bunch of cubes rammed together to make a bigger cube like shape. I think things we model become cliche because we get so wrapped up in the technicalities of making something look good, that we forget to give the object we create character, personality, and life. The difference between a perfect lightbulb and a broken lightbulb is a story.
Doing this will transform it from a rendered box in a void to something that evokes some thought as to what it is. You could argue that any crate would do this, but in themselves they're so boring that adding a few extra details could make it stand out and become interesting. The other important aspect of this, is to not write the story out, and let the viewer experience it and create a story.
There are even more cliche's when adding story though, so its a tricky path (no monster eyes glowing out of the box, ugh).
A place to start may be to take two cliche things, and mash them up. People have mentioned guns, but what about a gun that has ivy growing all over it, and a flower coming out of the barrel (little ed hardy tho...)? Or a Sci-Fi hallway as if it was designed by a 6 year old girl? or a set of free weights designed for cats?
In all, I'm not a fan of using the word "cliche" in regards to artwork and creative things, I prefer to think as those type of things as "expected." The goal shouldn't always be do "DO WHAT NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN BEFORE," but just to try and not do what is expected, and most important of all, have fun with it.
I find the majority of the advices given to be sound, no matter how offensive that might sound for some of us who actually might enjoy cliches or have grown accustom to seeing it because of our jobs.
There are things that when done by someone with a lot of creative experience they might not be considered cliche.
For example, a world class photographer might be able to take a masterpiece of a landscape photo with a tree in the foreground, a lake and a mountain which are all cliche. In this case he has the experience to pull it off and enough credibility from the audience to ignore his use of cliches or admire the results precisely because he used cliches. This is however very hard to pull off. Somebody who just started on this road does not have these luxuries so his chances are slimmer. Not to say he can't but still it's a good thing to understand the odds.
I notice that the general direction of the thread is going to the "you can make it cliche but make it awesome" which I do not agree with. The question is clearly "what do you consider a cliche model". Also, the context is not that of someone who can get away with cliches easily as I explained in the previous paragraph.
Given the fact that the OP is getting out of school and getting onto a competitive job market, I think he should try to stay away from cliches. Given the same level of skills, employers will probably prefer the candidate that shows the most creativity and playing with cliches might turn out too be too much of a gamble in this context.
1.
A Shrimp
2.
A cut tree stump.
3.
Inner ear.
You got choices.
O/T cliche?
I got tired of generic male/female models, at least yesterday i was like shit, another one of these..and i am sculpting 1 today lol, go figure.
Though you can't really get away from those two since they are both around you 24/7 in real life so, guess you can't get tired of those two?
Marine/army/any soldiers, iron person.
crates/barrels, anything wow, soon nuts and bolts.:poly136: