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Guide to keeping 3D artists happy?

polycounter lvl 9
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Beestonian polycounter lvl 9
G'day poly count. I've lurked here for a little while and it's time to post a thread to get the ball rolling.

I'm a 2D artist, illustrator border-lining a designer roll. I will be working in a project group heavily over the next few months and I haven't had much of the pipeline experience that I'd like, so I'd love to know a little bit more from you 3D people on how to do my Job properly :)

So as a 2D artist there are certain things that I've noticed are easy ways to make a 3D artist hate you. For example, Painting indicative details rather than clearly illustrated line work makes lives difficult because the purpose of orthographic art/concept work is clarity for the modelers. Because clarity is key and ambiguity doesn't help anyone.

I know the best way is to practice the work of people next in the pipeline to you to know what kind of information makes your job easy/difficult, and I've done a little bit of that, again not as much as I'd like. Nonetheless, are there people here who've had any experience with illustrators/designers who perhaps don't understand the needs of the modelers/technical artists, and what are some common pitfalls that you've run into on our end that might make you want to strangle us? How do we avoid them? All advice welcome :)

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  • ChaosEidolon
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    ChaosEidolon polycounter lvl 17
    High five for even posting this! Yeeeah! A concept artist that cares *tear*

    1. Make your orthos line up!!! If you make an ortho of a concept and the details don't line up it actually harms the 3d artist's process more than it helps. It depends on how closely they are expected to match the concept, but if it's precise, and things don't line up, he's better off trashing the orthos you spent all that time on. Sad for you and for them.
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    Hookers, booze and...I don't know, coffee in the morning maybe?

    On a serious note, pretty much your standard stuff. Avoid abstract concept art, define the forms, line, etc.

    Depends on the artist, but many peeps know their technical stuff, so working WITH them to make ends meet would be ideal.

    For example, I read this somewhere, so memory is hazy, but basically, the concept lead made a monster which had alot of tentacles coming out of it (mouth, back, hand, etc) and a couple of artists who had some robust knowledge in what the budget was and the technical aspects of the project, told him that the monster would seriously need to be scaled down, UNLESS it was going to be a SINGLE BOSS.

    Long story shorts, everyone hated the guy and had to get some other leads involved to make him understand that this monster wasn't going through, and the monster ended up having only a couple of tentacles on the mouth and being boss, with some radical changes from what it originally was.
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    Long flowing permed hair.


    Exaggerated foreshortening from obscure angles.
  • Bibendum
    This is really a question better posed to the people who will be making your concepts because it varies by artist.. The safe bet is obviously to make crisp, tight concepts with callouts for every object and overlap, leaving no problem unsolved.

    Not every 3D artist likes working like that though. I generally won't model over an ortho so the proportions don't need to be exact and I prefer concepts with suggestive detail because it gives me something to figure out and make my own instead of modeling out ideas exactly as someone else had envisioned it.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    don't worry, we're too busy getting driven crazy by designers to get upset at concept artist.
  • monster
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    monster polycounter
    Modelers aren't the only victims of unwitting concept artists. Here's some tips that can make Animators lives easier too...

    1. Limit flowing cloth to the main character in the game.
    2. Tentacles suck to animate, it's typically a perf restriction as well.
    3. No long dangling thing between the legs, like this: Link
    4. Show the animator the final concept so he can do a sanity/technical check on it before it is passed to the modeler.
    5. Characters with long fingers look funny when they try to lift something.
    6. Lot's of straps on a character is very tough to skin/rig.
  • Lombos
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    Lombos polycounter lvl 6
    Fresh baked lemon squares.
  • St.Sabath
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    St.Sabath polycounter lvl 11
    don't worry, we're too busy getting driven crazy by designers to get upset at concept artist.


    +1 So true.. hehe
  • ChaosEidolon
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    ChaosEidolon polycounter lvl 17
    Lombos wrote: »
    Fresh baked lemon squares.

    omg yes... gimme
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    same thing i said in some other thread...

    Buzz_and_woody_Dicks_dicks_everywhere_RE_A_Sad_Day_for_Tennis-s914x508-76506.jpg
  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    on a more serious note, this is taken from this thread
    INFO: There’s something I’ve noticed in my experience so far and that is, no matter how cool an idea sounds when you first talk about it with people, each step in bringing that idea towards reality in some fashion or another diminishes its original magnificence.

    What I mean by that is, say we need a new epic chick character for our game, here’s what might happen in the typical course of things:


    1) We brainstorm what she might look like with Concept artists & Art director.

    2) We find concept art or photo-reference to start the visualisation.

    3) Concept artist produce some pieces.

    4) We pick and refine a concept.

    5) We model and texture the character.

    6) We rig the character.

    7) We animate the character.

    8)
    We see the final result in the game.

    At each one of these steps, the original grandeur will almost certainly get watered down further and further, due to concept art clarity, technical issues, shader issues, rigging restrictions, animation problems, communication problems between departments and many other things. A lot of these can be avoided somewhat by designing within a closed box and 'to the system', but I truly don’t believe in stymieing the creative process by technical limitations so early on.


    I believe it’s especially important for unique concepts to start off WAYYYY out there; go for the absolute extreme version of what you want to do:

    Dude: We want her to be sci fi and in a mech suit!
    Me: NO!! We want an epic space bunny girl in an mech suit with 2 rail guns the size of warships and one of them transforms into a giant clawed fist for close quaters melee action!

    Dude: But our game is pacman.
    Me:
    Too Bad.

    Start crazy because no matter what idea you run through that pipeline, it’s going to be watered down by the time it reaches the game. If you start off mediocre it will end up super ordinary at best. So start with super awesome insane biblical epic-ness and hopefully you’ll end up with awesomeness.


    one thing i would say though, is to actually have a crack at modeling and even animating one of your concepts. you'll quickly come to realise the things that do and don't work in final production, and that will make you a better concept artist.
  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    I know a lot of guys i've worked with do do some 3d and it helps them. Not only with perspective but keeping shapes that are capable of doing in 3d.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    stop doing orthos, they never really line up no matter how good the concept artist is, you don't like to do them and we always have to struggle with them. Rough proportion orthos and some 3/4 perspectives from front and back should do in most cases. unless you can actuelly construct them correctly, though i have yet to see the production with bulletproof orthos working like constructionsheets.
  • PredatorGSR
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    PredatorGSR polycounter lvl 14
    If you're doing environment concepts for a room that will actually have gameplay, paint over a grayboxed room and/or after having talked to design to see how the room needs to work. Otherwise, we all ooh and ah over a beautiful environment concept, and then immediately trash everything except a handful of elements that we can actually use. Many times we can't even use that, because whatever was in the concept artists head had nothing to do with how the room needs to actually work, so we have to hope we can maybe re-use some of your cool elements later when they make sense.

    If a concept is requested to solve an art or design issue, talk to everyone who is requesting the concept to make sure you know what needs to be solved.

    I think the biggest theme is that concept can't work in a vacuum because otherwise the concepts will be useless when it actually comes time to apply them to the game.
  • Brendan
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    Brendan polycounter lvl 8
    General rule of thumb:

    1/ Don't make impossible shapes. Things don't have to line up perfectly in an ortho, but as long as they roughly work, then it's fine. Leave the non-euclidean stuff to the designers. Generally if you can sketch out a few views of different components or sub-sections it'll weed out the impossible forms.

    2/ Remember, unless you're drawing something small or a background, your place in the pipeline comes after the designer, not before. Grayboxes are great because they're generally indicators of a) what goes where and b) what is likely to STAY there. This also applies to characters and enemies - your designers and art directors should be talking about shapes and forms that signify things (a weak enemy will be, a strong enemy will have this look, etc)

    3/ For most things you make, props and what not, WILL be abused. They should work at half-size and double-size.

    4/ Nail down style early; this saves your modeling and texturing team a lot of work.

    5/ Technical limitations aren't just poly count and texture resolution. Post processing, draw distance and overdraw can also conspire to ruin concepts.


    Apart from that, have fun and try your best.
  • Malus
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    Malus polycounter lvl 17
    Talk to them...this is all. :)
  • EtotheRic
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    EtotheRic polycounter lvl 18
    What is very useful is to pass on any photo reference you may have used for the concept so the modeler will know the specific type of material, detail, colors and so forth. Often times there isn't time to make a super tight and detailed line drawing so having some accompanying photo reference is an easy compromise. Also, if you paint in colored lighting it's helpful to note what the actual color should be rather than see a purple suit later. ;)
  • Beestonian
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    Beestonian polycounter lvl 9
    Hey thanks everyone :) Especially ChaoeEidelon's enthusiastic post, makes me feel welcome.

    So things to remember for me from this is to keep your ideas practical within the scope of the game, understanding the limitations of the engine or mechanics and balancing the distribution of geometry/bones/skinning data where you need it most. So when Hazardous says, "Start crazy as it will be watered down later" I guess you kinda have to trust your team to keep a conservative scope, because sometimes I'm working with our designer and he's always layering on new mechanics and systems and I interject with 'whoooaaa slow down, we only have a few months to make this project" :P

    So I guess the process Hazardous describes is a bit like this :D (Concept = paper)
    pub_cartoon.jpg

    I do talk to our modeler as well and he seems to be pretty happy with what I produce for him at this stage, but to a certain extent I feel like there's not -enough- feedback - my brief is 'this is our game, we're doing penguins, go nuts.' So I suppose I'm viewed as the game aesthetics expert, but it feels like without proper feedback I'm flying blind :P

    So I also guess it's handy to design to people's strengths - if someone has a lot of trouble skinning/rigging a particular type of 'thing', then limit your use of it until they have more experience with that 'thing'? Or if some animators are better at animating exaggerated expressions and gestures, then similarly scope the designs of characters to be likewise exaggerated.

    And yes, I have been doing my own characters and environments as part of my course (I go to Qantm College, Brisbane.) I have my own limitations and weaknesses that some other modelers and animators don't have, so I guess my pool of experience isn't that great of a yardstick for figuring out what's practical and what's not, given I'm still a student.

    So short of it is, make things scale-able, practical, play on your teammate's strengths, work within the context of the project, and let as little as possible rely on high-power systems like cloth physics and hundreds of belt buckles, etc.
  • ae.
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    ae. polycounter lvl 12
    Line Drawings FTW! I hate when i get a concept of a bunch of brush strokes it doesn't help.

    also hearing that some concept artist's refuse to do line drawings because they think its not and epic mood painting piece ugh
  • EarthQuake
    How to be an awesome concept artist:

    1. Learn basic 3d modeling
    2. Block out shapes in 3d
    3. Paint over 3d shapes to create concept, no "cheating", stick to the actual shapes in 3d.
    4. Present modeler with 3d blockout.

    You can also use the blockout to paintover accurate orthos too, weee! This is mostly for hard surface stuff, but might help for organics too? Really productive for anything mechanical.

    Bonus points if the blockout mesh is checked ingame for proportions before any of the heavy-lifting type modeling work is done, this is more of a project thing than a concept artist thing though.


    "Translating" a concept with half-baked perspective and lines drawn to "look cool" regardless of 3d space can be a real pain.


    If you're not able/do not have time to learn basic 3d modeling skills, work with the 3d artist while doing sketches, have him whip up quick blockouts to match your sketches, then do final renderings over said blockouts.
  • ae.
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    ae. polycounter lvl 12
    EarthQuake wrote: »
    How to be an awesome concept artist:

    1. Learn basic 3d modeling
    2. Block out shapes in 3d
    3. Paint over 3d shapes to create concept, no "cheating", stick to the actual shapes in 3d.
    4. Present modeler with 3d blockout.

    You can also use the blockout to paintover accurate orthos too, weee! This is mostly for hard surface stuff, but might help for organics too? Really productive for anything mechanical.

    Bonus points if the blockout mesh is checked ingame for proportions before any of the heavy-lifting type modeling work is done, this is more of a project thing than a concept artist thing though.


    "Translating" a concept with half-baked perspective and lines drawn to "look cool" regardless of 3d space can be a real pain.


    If you're not able/do not have time to learn basic 3d modeling skills, work with the 3d artist while doing sketches, have him whip up quick blockouts to match your sketches, then do final renderings over said blockouts.

    +1 :thumbup:
  • xk0be
    I'm a noob , can I see an example of these impossible shapes that people are suggesting to stay away from? I have no idea what that means, how can there be something that gets drawn but can't be modeled? What does impossible mean in this case?
  • Brendan
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    Brendan polycounter lvl 8
    It usually means something that looks right and plausible from one or two perspectives (usually front and/or side), but just won't work when modeled.

    Like for example, if I ask the concept artist to draw up a window and a room that the player will walk past and be able to look in, and they send me this:

    400-04694187w.jpg

    Then they're going down the well.
  • Beestonian
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    Beestonian polycounter lvl 9
    I have done some basic character/creature/environment modeling, texturing and rigging, none of the advanced lighting/cloth physics/scripting, so I have a basic idea of what can communicate good volume and what's annoying to work with, but I'm inexperienced with 3D so I need to work on it a little bit more before I can make a definitive decision as to where to set my limits.

    Also Brendan, I don't know if it's just my permissions on this forum or something but I'm getting a 403 error on your image, so it's not displaying. I'm getting a lot of those on this forum so it could be an issue on my end. Maybe upload to imgur or something? :)
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