Aiming towards an environment artist tips?.

2 replies [Last post]

July 1, 2009 - 4:29pm

4176 reads

Posts: 14

Hey guys, was wondering if anyone could supply some tips, especially if you've made it into the indstry as an environment artist (*looks* at riki xD)

I just finished my first year of University, and I want to head down the environment
artist route.
I plan to start looking for a job/internship in the next year for my 3rd
year of University in a games company, so i can take a year onto that to
gain some valuable experience before i finish my 3rd final year.

What would you say i should focus on creating and learning to display in a
portfolio.
Things that might make one stand out from the rest,
What kind of things do I want to show a future employer that I want to be an
environment artist.
and that my portfolio shows the skills to excel this?

Regards,
Luke

Riki

July 1, 2009 - 5:20pm

Posts: 1390

Great question, thanks for posting.

Someone made a similar post here, but I never gave an answer:

http://eat3d.com/forums/general-chat/what-it-takes-be-environment-artist

Also I think many other members could chime in because I personally know a few of them that have either broke in within a year or already are environment artists.

The first thing I would say is quality over quantity, make sure what you do for your portfolio is as good as you can get it. Dont kid yourself in to thinking you will just polish it up later but try hard to get what you are currently working on to as polished of a level as possible.

For breaking into an environment artist position, I would suggest demonstrating that you can create complex props from high res to low res and textures. Also presenting these models i always important, and that would be with lighting and composition. For example, the texturing DVD would have not looked as good if I just kept it in max with no lighting, but you can see with just a little, you can squeeze much more out of it.

Also I would look at studios you wish to work at and take a look at some of the games they make and stuff like that. Try and have a variety of stuff in your portfolio. I would shoot for a weapon, a vehicle, some destroyed concrete structures, modular buildings, mountain pieces, and stuff like that.

I think a good idea would be to create a small level in UE3 and populate it with your own assets, although this could take far too much time. However it would be good to show that you create the tileable wall and ground textures and stuff like that. That brings up a good idea I think that you can make some good tileable textures and show the process if you used zbrush to make them or whatnot, then show them composted nice on a bsp in UE3 (similar to what I did for the materials dvd).

There are many variables but first thing first is I would have some fun and just make something next gen from start to finish and get it in a game engine, the more you go through that process, the more you will focus less on how and more on making it look good. It could help to post a link to your current portfolio or any wip images you have, then some of us can help guide you.

I hope that helps mate, keep up the hard work!

-Riki

luke18

July 2, 2009 - 6:10am

Posts: 14

Thanks for the reply mate.
That other topic was really interesting as well, didn't see that.
Thanks for the ideas, i was once thinking about doing the UT3 map idea, so i think i might throw down a few concepts are see what i can come up with. I'll post some wips soon!

Aiming towards an environment artist tips?.

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