Hello everyone, I am looking for some advice from the game design community. I am a self taught 3D environmental artist, I am still learning and teaching myself through courses on Udemy (thank god for the sales they have on there) and its going rather well. This has been my dream ever since I was fourteen years old (I am twenty-two now), I even built my own computer so I could have the proper equipment. However, I want to, no I need to up my 3D modeling game to the next level. Currently I am using blender and gimp, unfortunately for me a lot of companies require proficiency in Maya, 3DS Max, Photoshop, ZBrush, Substance Designer,
and Quixel Suite along with 5+ years of experience. While Blender and Gimp might be able to be used as substitutes for Maya, 3DS, and Photoshop I still have the issue of not being able to afford any of these. How do I learn something I cannot afford? How do I gain experience when no one will hire someone without any experience? I am extremely motivated to find answers to these questions. Thank you all for your time, I appreciate you taking the time to read this and respond. I hope every one of you has a wonderful day, thank you.
Sincerely,
An aspiring and grateful 3D environment artist
Oh my word…wow, thank you! 3DS Max is available to me now with an educational license.This is amazing! I also might be able to get access to substance designer, however zbrush is still unavailable. Hopefully that won’t be a big deal
Hey, I am also a self-taught environmental artist.
Some warnings and ideas…
Student licenses are not intended for educational use and they are usually marked somewhere in the file. Different companies do different things. I know that my daughter used student licenses but then could not convert those to commercial use. I contacted the company and basically, they said too bad. She will have to make them all over again in the commercial products. So use them for practice but do not sell them (as if they are marked you will get in trouble) or use in a commercial game or for freelance work.
There are some free and low cost solutions.
I use Maya LT which costs only $30 a month, much less than Maya. It works perfectly for game development as they made it to be used for that purpose.
Photoshop is only $10 a month for a commercial license. Pretty cheap when you think of how much it used to cost.
There was/is a student discount on some of Adobe’s suites so check and see. Some may be used for commercial use, but make sure you read the fine print.
Some of the others, like Substances, Quixel, etc., have great sales, usually around the holidays which you have just missed. I get mine then if possible and save lots of money.
There comes a time though, when you must just save your money and buy the commercial products.
Good luck to you! Environmental art is my favorite part of game development.
Buy Substance Painter 2 in a sale (or if the edu version is commercially usable then get that), together with Blender you can make game-ready textured 3D assets with just those two tools. Use them to earn some money, then re-invest into new tools, expand your skillset and repeat the cycle. ZBrush has a cheaper but limited version now, maybe look into that one too.
Maya LT isn’t Maya, with all those lite versions you need to really look into what the differences are in the fineprint, and if there’s even any point in using the low-tier version in the first place. I remember there used to be some talk about files being locked to steam accounts for Modo Indie and being unable to be opened by regular Modo versions, but it could be possible they dropped that.
No one really expects all applicants to fulfill 100% of the criteria they list as job requirements, all you need is to be better than every other applicant, have strong social skills and sell yourself reasonably well. If they didn’t list ambitious requirements they’d get so many applications they wouldn’t be able to handle them anymore.
Also as a fulltime freelance artist I think everyone who can be discouraged from persuing that career path, should be. On the plus side we’re a little further down the line of jobs being replaced by robots than e.g. taxi drivers. That will be an important factor for job choice very soon. So make sure you learn art skills that are harder to automate with procedural generation…
I would recommend Pluralsight tutorials to you, but they are kind of lacking in enviro art stuff. But if you need some good Maya/3D Max 101 tutorials, that’s the best quality for your dollar tutorials I’ve found. There is plenty of stuff for free on youtube, so you might exhaust that first before you want a subscription education service. But be aware that scrounging together tutorials isn’t the most efficient way to learn, and also be aware that not everything you’ll be taught will necessarily be “the right way”. And if you are a beginner, you won’t always be able to know the difference. But it’s kind of like working out – as long as you are at the gym and doing something, you’re going to be moving in the right direction.
Substance Painter and Designer will be essential for you as an enviro artist, and the good news is that they are one time payments and extremely cheap for what you get. Both programs can be got on sale for around 100 US $ on steam.
Aside from a 3d program, one or both Substance Programs, you’ll need to know how to get your work in engine and appropriately set up with all the right shaders and in organized materials, etc. If you are going for an industry career, I’d want to learn Unreal in addition to unity. There is some key differences for instance in the way they read normal maps. Not a huge deal, but you’ll need to know the difference.
Good luck
Oh, and about not being able to afford things… most of these programs offer lengthy free trials. I don’t know about substance programs, but the autodesk programs you can use for education purposes for 3 years at no charge, and zbrush gives a 90 free trial i think. If you have the substance programs, I don’t think you will even need photoshop often if at all.
But don’t let money keep you away from your dreams. Where ever you find yourself making an excuse for why you can’t accomplish something, look for a solution instead. Coming up with the $200 needed to buy the substance programs is nothing. Mow some lawns, work part time fast food, sell some old junk you own, baby sit – unless your a felon with gang tattoos on your face, there really is no excuse!
Thank you for the advice, I am a little confused, can I not use any of the work I would produce with an educational license in my portfolio? I would not be making any money off of it, it would just be used to show off that I am proficient in 3ds max. I read the fine print and the way it was worded it seemed that I could do that but I could very well be wrong. I just wanted the program so I could learn how to use it, then thats an extra skill I have. My goal is to be proficient in Blender, 3DS Max (I can’t see Maya being too useful seeing as I already know two), Photoshop (this is where all my trouble is going to be because I need to learn how to make bump, displacement, rough, spectacular, and normals, I have been using the free version of CrazyBump to make these maps for me thus far). Thank you for the encouraging words! I really appreciate it! It means a lot
Well I was under the impression that Substance Designer and Painter was subscription based, but if that is not the case I am going to save up the money to be able to afford it. I just cannot afford multiple hundreds of dollars being put into subscriptions.
Everyone gets discouraged at some point or another, but what sets people apart is those who get discouraged and keep pursuing. Thank you for the kind words, I am doing everything I can do to make my art style unique while still being able to blend my work with other art styles.
Substance Painter and Designer are not subscription based, and the autodesk products you can use with the education license, you just can’t sell whatever you produce while using an educational license as has been mentioned.
I think the substance programs are on sale right now on steam for 30%, or at least they were a day or two ago.
Another great thing about the Allegorithmic products, they have superb tutorials and documentation. The videos for substance painter supplied by Allegorithmic are some of the only tutorials I can watch a single time and completely understand what is being taught.
I will look into Pluralsight, thank you for suggesting that. Can you create game ready assets with just Blender/3DS Max and substance designer/painter? If so, then what exactly is the point of photoshop? Is it purely just for cleaning up your images? Or is it primarily for creating bump, displacement, normal, rough, and spec? I know you can create bitmaps from photoshop but that seems so old school.
So for programs to learn you suggest that I stick with Blender/3DS Max, Substance Designer and/or Painter, UDK, and Unity?
I work full time as a glass manufacturer, 8am-5pm when I get off work I shower, eat, and start working on my enviro art. I also live on my own so theres not a whole lot of disposeable income. But if it is just a one time fee for substance designer, I am more than willing to invest my money into it. Thank you for the words of encouragement
You will need to research designer a bit. I know its an important tool for enviro art, like creating tileable textures, but i think it does a lot more than that. I haven’t used it yet though i did just purchase it.
3ds max or maya, either one. It’s a matter of preference, and there is plenty already written about what are the strengths of one versus the other. But there are other 3d applications out there besides the autodesk ones and blender, so I’d do some research on that as well. I started with Maya without any knowledge about what existed, and now that I’m familiar with it and its an industry standard i just stick with it. I’ve heard people say its not as user friendly as others, but I find it simple enough. I looked at 3Ds max one time and it made my head spin, lol, but that was probably just because I am accustomed to maya.
Substance Painter can create all of your texture maps for you, and a lot easier than with photoshop. It certainly wouldn’t hurt at all to know photoshop, especially if you want to sketch concept images, etc., but I don’t think it is essential if you have substance painter solely for creating game assets.
I’m no expert, pretty much a raw beginner myself, so don’t take my word as gospel truth. Some actual experienced environment artist can probably explain what programs they use the most and why. For that, I might also look at other forums like polycount or just browse around artstation and see what programs people making art like you want to make are using.
Oh, and Zbrush. I don’t know if this is an essential program for environment artist – well, at least not right away. But I really have no idea – I just don’t know what an enviro artist might use it for besides sculpting rocks or props. You can use a 90 day free trial, but if you are like me its going to take you a full month just to get a hang of the viewport controls. It is pretty different from the other 3d apps so don’t get discouraged if you feel like its difficult to learn. In my case, I am glad that i learned 3d 101 in maya before getting into zbrush. In general, my opinion is that zbrush is a more advanced tool for more advanced techniques, so having some 3d 101 primer really helped me.
3DS Max is what I started with when I was 14 years old, and thats what I would like to return to. It took me a while to learn blenders GUI, but now that I’m used to it 3DS Max just feels so weird and out of place.
I am going to try and obtain an educational license for substance designer and painter, because everything I read points to it needing a subscription, except from some things people are saying here, its conflicting. I assume that if you buy it from Steam for its current price ($98) you would need to spend additional money to unlock a license to use and thats what my main fear is when it comes to buying that program even to learn it.
Zbrush is more for use in character modeling right? A 90 day free trial just is not enough for me to learn it well enough
On Steam the price of $98 is probably the full price. The subscription does have some benefits, it comes with lots of nice substances you can use in your game.
You asked about Photoshop. I use it all the time. I do not make my maps there, but use tools such as Bit3Materials from the same company as Substance Painter and Designer. I have used Crazy Bump too in the past, not so much now.
Photoshop is just so useful for little things…inverting an image, which is useful for making some maps, changing the hue, brightness, or contrast of an image, making alphas for images that need to be partially transparent, like hair or grass, painting textures or using Photoshop to alter a texture, etc. When making our clothing textures, the textures go from Substance Painter to Photoshop so I can adjust them and make them ready to use in Unity.
I would say that I use PS more than anything. I also use it to modify textures I buy or the textures that come with some models. Also good for blurring a sharp edge on a texture, getting rid of repeating bits, like a blotch in the middle of the texture…
Substance Painter and Designer you buy from steam and that is it. No other fees or subscriptions. Who is telling you this? (Aha! I think you have misunderstood what Teila is talking about when she refers to the subscription. That is an optional service that gives you access to new materials and other goodies as they become available. But it is by no means something you must have, its just extra goodies.)
Zbrush can be used for a lot of things. In fact, you can even do basic block modeling in it, so if you wanted to learn only one program, Zbrush might bet the best option because you can block model, sculpt, and texture all inside that one program. I don’t know of anybody who only uses Zbrush, but I’m sure its possible.
You won’t master it in 90 days, but you can definitely become comfortable with it. But I wouldn’t want to learn Zbrush and another different 3d app at the same time.
Absolutely not! You’d be much better off with e.g. Blender, if for some wacky reason you’d want to limit yourself to 1 tool, which you shouldn’t do. Zbrush is a great tool for many special purpose tasks like highres sculpting, but there are tons of things that would be easier to do in something like Blender.
Right tool for the job and all that…
I was looking at allegorithmic’s website and they have four different licenses labeled Indie, Pro, Enterprise, and Education. Thats why I thought the version on steam was really backhanded because it seemed like you would buy it, everything seems great, then they won’t let you use the program and will force you to buy a license. I don’t know why I thought that but thats what I thought haha. Thank you for telling me otherwise
As for the programs, I will eventually learn Zbrush. I am not going to worry about it right now as I already need to learn 3DS Max and Substance Designer/Painter. If I can get away with my basic knowledge in photoshop that would be great, but since I’m not really sure what you would use it for (substance designer seems to blow photoshop out of the water) I can’t really see the benefits of learning it. Aside from the fact that most companies put it in as a requirment, I think Substance would be an adequate replacement but that is ultimately up to whoever I am asking for a job I suppose. But thats a long way down the road
I am not trying to limit myself, an artist needs more than a single brush. I am just trying to figure out exactly what I should learn and why, I have already learned blenders interface, now I’m working on understanding materials and textures within blender. I feel like that is a solid basis to work off of but I could be wrong.
I know this forum isn’t a one stop shop for all my questions, thank you all though for answering everything you could. My next steps are to learn Substance, then 3DS Max, and then maybe photoshop if its real useful. Are there any other programs or anything else I should know?
If you would be willing, I would like to have an extended conversation with you about your workflow and maybe some other tips and tricks? There is just so much information being thrown at me from every single direction, and sometimes its just so hard to prioritize them in the correct order. Honestly I have considered emailing some indie-ish devs like Tripwire and Behaviour Digital and asking them some of these questions but that just seems like a terrible idea.
Crazy bump is nice, I just do not understand all of the values yet so it makes it difficult to create the texture I am going after.
Thank you for explaining the photoshop conundrum to me that makes a lot more sense to me now.
What I will say is that I have a great deal of fun creating meshes and it makes hours go by insanly quickly. I started on my “class” today at 6pm, its 9:20pm and I feel like I just started. Its fantastic
I think you would do better talking with a professional. I do this for my own games, but I am sure I am not at all efficient and not as talented as an artist who works for a game company. I suggest finding a forum for artists, maybe ones that use 3ds Max as I do not.
