I love it!
One of the two jobs I have this summer is creating voxel assets for a . . . vehicle game? Through my professor I was recommended to do all the character assets for a studio run by alumni of RIT. I actually don't know much about the game since I'm only communicating to them through my professor, but I guess it helps me avoid saying the wrong things or not being able to express ideas correctly. Still, it's a dynamic I'm not used to; I've never worked with a 'client' (other students on projects) that I don't directly meet with.
Unfortunately I cannot share any screenshots or process pictures because the art is confidential (so professional!), but I wanted to write down my thoughts on the process so far.
Film is not video games, and video games is not film. My program (film and animation) and the game design program haven't really done anything substantial together. We had one animator a year ahead of me that did a game instead of a film for his thesis, but it seems like he was not pioneering that gap like I am; it's probably due to the year I spent in the school of Interactive Games and Media before I switched over to film and animation. It was the greatest and most substantial choice I have ever made in my life, and entering film and animation through that round about way has given me a unique perspective on how these two media majors fit together. With the exception of the professor that is advising me through this game asset job, I don't think any of the other professors understand what really goes on in the other major. They just aren't exposed to each other, and no one has the time or interest to learn. The new Magic Spell Studios is trying to bring all these majors together, but it's new and has a lot of work to do before students can work seamlessly together.
With that in mind, the studio and concept artist I'm working with aren't 3D film and animation majors; I'm not seeing their vision and they're not giving me the correct language to work with. I get hung up on the quote "we want to prioritize cool models over following the concept art with complete accuracy." The concepts I'm being given are two versions of the vehicle, a 3/4s view drawing, and then the same thing but loosely converted to voxels. Because of this, my first two versions were pretty simple and missing a lot of detail, but I was just going off the voxel concept art. If they were looking for something very specific they would need to give me orthographics, but that's taught more in film than game design. I wish they had just given me the concept art and told me to take artistic liberty to create something more advanced. Although it seems frustrating, I'm actually learning a lot about communicating with people who don't come from the same background as me. Even though I have a pretty strict amount of hours I cannot go over, I'm more willing to work for less pay if it means I'm going to put out a better product.
I know, I know. That's a really bad habit. But it's one of my first paid jobs - when I'm looking for an internship or job later on, this is what they're going to see. It needs to be cool as heck and show that I was able to take the designers dream and run with it in a way that only an experienced modeler could do. (Calling myself an experienced modeler is a bit of a stretch, but fake it til you make it, ya know?)
It's time to switch gears, the seat belt sign is now on.
Voxel art. Magicavoxel. It's nothing against you personally, but you have made my life ten times harder and also ten times easier. I don't know what that means either.
The general consensus is that pixel art and voxel art is for beginners/remedial/easier/made for non-artists. Through this process, I've learned that it is very misunderstood. The disparity of these vs more 'professional' work comes from not having access to more advanced programs and not being able to understand said programs. I could work in Maya for 50 years and not see all of it's functionality. With that stereotype comes the idea that anyone can do pixel art and voxel art.
Except that's not the case. The difference between a good model and a great model comes from either a lot of experience or an advanced understanding of traditional art principles. Color theory comes into play when you are trying to add depth and interest (mostly for pixel art, but I've seen a lot of the lessons I've learned from creating pixel art crossing over into voxel art). You cannot take a color and drag it up or down the color interface and get the correct shade, you need to understand where the spectrum lies and at what point colors become muddy or unrealistic. Voxel art is even harder. It's just my opinion, but modeling something I see with as much accuracy as possible is easier than trying to find the most important parts of the object and what can be removed without it becoming unrecognizable. That takes more time and more polygons, so here I am instead - creating low poly and voxel 3D models all summer - instead of wildly impressive portfolio pieces. I understand why I have to do it for these small, short games, I'm just bitter.
This comes back around to my project. The concept artist is a good 2D artist, but does not understand the direction needed to work in limited 3D space. Honestly, I don't think I'd be able to draw concepts as voxel images; trying to create a 3D grid based model without the 3D or the grid is hard. I was given an example model by one of the team members, but I don't think he/she was able to fully express what they wanted in it. I followed it closely, but as I'm continuing this project I feel like I need to take more liberties and use my knowledge and skill to go beyond what they made. I assume they hired me because they wanted something they couldn't make by themselves, now I just need to actually create something they like and avoid wasting a lot of hours with experiments and revisions. Oh boy.
Let's talk about MagicaVoxel. For a free program, I give them props. But going from a billion hours in Maya, one of the strongest 3D programs out there, to a limited and flawed application was challenging to say the least. Y'all. The program isn't bad, it even has a rendering platform! But the way to use the color and paint tools is so unintuitive. If I wanted to chose a color and then create another shade of that color, one would assume you would use the color sliders. It doesn't create a new swatch, it changes the color in the palette and ON THE MODEL. I get why they might do that, but it's so hard to get different shades of the same color when I have to chose a completely new swatch to work with. Thankfully there's a rigging tool for bringing MagicaVoxel models into unity to animate them. That's something I can work with.
I'm learning so much and I'm so thankful I can be paid to work on a game so I can focus on my art and not have to work at Cracker Barrel all summer. Being narcoleptic and a hostess is kind of the worst thing in the world; I could write a book about it. But this has also freed up time for personal art, something I was too tired and emotionally unable to do the past two summers. With no school work breathing down my neck, I can take the time to learn more about Maya and art in general. I'm sure I'm going to miss that once the semester starts. Until then, I'll be learning to animate block-y models . . . somehow.
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