CAD Software like Moi's place in the entertainment Industry.

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 From:  Deckard112
10308.1 
Hey all.

I've been teaching myself for the last 3 months and I struggle to understand aspects withing the entertainment industry. I started learning 3D with the aspirations of becoming a 3D-Concept Artist, but I quickly found out that these positions are incredibly hard to obtain / maintain.

That's when I kinda ditched my MOI tutorials to go with the flow and learn Maya instead. Since my primary goal is to set foot into the 3D industry and my secondary goal is to become a concept artist, I figured "well.. maybe I started too late to just simply follow my gut and experiment. I should probably work towards becoming a regular 3D-Modeller instead, and teach myself polymodeling."

I've been trying to shove Maya into my brain but it's a pain. Modelling/learning in MOI felt so much more intuitive and fun. But since I'm 28 already I don't want to screw around. I want to become employable asap.

So my question I guess is... Artists like Alex Senechal, Edon Guraziu etc... They work with Fusion & Moi. How and where do they fit in the pipelines of a studio? Isn't basically everything poly modeled? If I learn Moi or Fusion... how would I be of worth in the entertainment industry if everybody works with Maya or lets say 3dsMax?

Thanks for any feedback.
- David
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 From:  Michael Gibson
10308.2 In reply to 10308.1 
Hi David, well the industry is quite broad and varied so I don't think there is a simple answer to your question. Some places may not like you to use other tools and others won't care if you're able to do what they need.

But it is not unusual for CAD software to be used in the entertainment industry especially for modeling props and set designs.

- Michael
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 From:  BurrMan
10308.3 In reply to 10308.1 
My feedback? Google "3d artist jobs" and go get a job. Those other guys you mention, started with a job.

Instead of "i use maya. I use zbrush"..... ask yourself "what do i create?

Those guys you mention are obviously game asset devs. Guns. Suits. Robots. Concept warriors. Etc... any jobs for game assets like that?

Starting jobs may be "environment creation"..... so, can you make a scene for someone's game? Work with other to create concept then game ready environment. So, "your preferred software" adapted to blender/maya/max etc... then optimized in unity....

Like this guy for instance

https://dribbble.com/MikaelGustafsson

After you are working somewhere, the foot in the door starts....

Or, if you are REALLY GOOD, enter the zbrush contest. Or maya contest, etc... etc....

Win those and people will ask you to work for them....
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Message 10308.4 deleted 7 May 2021 by DFROSTER

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 From:  Cemortan_Tudor
10308.5 
easy answer will be polygon handle
1. poly by poly - every polygon u draw and manage individually: pro - low detail objects, cons - hell time expensive
2. subd modelling - adding a layer of subdivision to have a better smooth over the mesh: pro - faster, cons - lots of on/off switches between hpoly and low poly mesh
3. cad softwares manage easily fillets and round shapes: pro - u have to worry only about shape, exports will handle polygons -> perfect for concepting, cons - can't manipulate so easy as poly-modeling softwares
& integration
game: cad - retopology
film & render: most dosn't care
- Tudor -
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 From:  Metin (METIN_SEVEN)
10308.6 
My two cents regarding this subject:

Right now, ZBrush is slowly being caught up by Blender's Sculpt Mode being supercharged by a gifted Spanish developer, but ZBrush still wins when it comes to a consistent, unified workflow, high-polygon sculpting, quad auto-retopology and more.

When it comes to polygon (subdivision) modeling, I tried Maya a few years ago, and think it's dated and bloated compared to Blender. 3ds Max likewise, although I've got the impression that Max is making a slight comeback lately. For example, they've integrated a really good quad auto-retopologizer that's comparable to ZRemesher / Quad Remesher, and they recently introduced an affordable Indie subscription. Too bad Max is still not available for macOS though.

I'm not a fan of Blender wanting to be everything, including a full-fledged 2D animation tool and video editor. Right now they're focusing on Geometry Nodes (procedural modeling with nodes), going for the Houdini users.

Just about the only area where Blender still really sucks is NURBS. That's why I think there will remain a place for MoI as a complementary tool next to Blender.

Michael, you might want to consider embracing the rapidly growing Blender community by integrating a bridge between MoI and Blender. I would surely welcome that, and promote it in the Blender community.

EDITED: 22 Jun 2021 by METIN_SEVEN

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 From:  Rudl
10308.7 In reply to 10308.6 
also because of the upcoming e-cycles
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 From:  Metin (METIN_SEVEN)
10308.8 In reply to 10308.7 
I guess you mean Cycles-X? :)

That's a promising new iteration of the Cycles renderer. I'm curious how it'll work out, but in the mean time I still prefer Octane and LuxCoreRender. Both have better specs than Cycles, such as shaders with more advanced Fresnel, better caustics, and Octane is fully spectral.

─ Metin

visualizer • illustrator • 3D designer — metinseven.nl
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 From:  Art (ARTURBRZUZA)
10308.9 
There are a lot of highly skilled VFX artists in the entertainment field who we have never seen their stuff on online portfolios ( but we have seen their work in movies) that are good enough in their craft that the software they use is not as important as the quality of work they are known for producing within the industry and connections.
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 From:  pior (PIOR_O)
10308.10 In reply to 10308.1 
"I started learning 3D with the aspirations of becoming a 3D-Concept Artist"

I believe you are being mislead by what you are seeing online, and also being confused by the terminology.

Concept Artist and 3d Modeler are two very distinct jobs (with sometimes some overlap, more on that below). The job of the concept artist is to come up with the designs (using any means necessary, from charcoal sketches to digital paintings, or even sometimes using physical kitbash models) ; and the job of the 3d artist is to take said designs and interpret/reproduce them in a way that fits into the desired 3d pipeline (game or film).

While concept artists may use 3d tools, the only thing that really matters in the end is the picture/design they produce. Because of that, even though it can be good to know some 3d for that kind of job it is absolutely not a requirement. As a matter of fact it can greatly slow things down if not used wisely.

Now of course you will see some artists online demonstrating a hybrid skillset, integrating 3d into their concept work to a point where most of their time is spent in a 3d app rather than a digital painting app. But their design skills didn't come from mastering the software - they came from their knowledge of shape and form, their slowly accumulated visual library, and so on. Of course some people do manage to slowly grow their visual design skills "by proxy", so to speak - but they usually take much longer than those who go straight to 2d and then add 3d later. For the simple reason that iterating on a design is 10x if not 100x faster in 2d than in 3d.

Now back to your case : if you are a beginner aspiring to become a concept artist, you should definitely *not* worry about 3d tools at all, at least for a year or so. Your time would be much more wisely spent by focusing on your drawing skills. Being distracted by 3d will only slow you down, and might even negatively affect the quality of your design output.

However if your aspiration is to become a 3d modeler, then you should focus on being technically excellent at that, while also developing your eye by taking some art classes o the side, as that will make you better at understanding and interpreting the designs that are being handed to you.

Of course in some rare cases a studio might be looking specifically for someone doing what you describe as "3d concept art", but this is really quite rare, and the only people able to fit that kind of position already have years of design experience allowing them to juggle with the tools that way. But believing that learning 3d software first and foremost will get you there is, in my opinion, a mistake. Also, an art director would likely not look specifically for a "3d concept artist", because doing so would cut off some potentially excellent candidates who can do fantastic design work without even needing to touch a single polygon. Think for instance of all the great mecha and creature designers who worked on films and tv series way before 3d was even a thing.

Also, if a "3D concept artist" outputs, say, a render of a spaceship done in Fusion or MOI, the spaceship will either be :
1 - rebuilt completely from scratch by the actual 3d modeler, or
2 - rebuilt from scratch, using some of the "concept model" as a guide. But that is not as straightforward as it seems, as the renders of the "concept model" might have been stretched/liquified painted over to achieve a certain look, and the model is then obsolete. Also, some 3d modelers are not too happy when half of the job ( = figuring out the shapes in 3d) is taken away from them. Some don't mind, but some do. It all depends on the studio, the project, and so on.

Overall It is extremely rare for "3D concepts" to plug into the actual pipeline of games and movies for all the reasons mentioned above. These models mostly serve as previz.

I hope this makes sense ! At the end of the day, just do what you like using the tools that work well for you. If you're good at what you do people will want to hire you, it's as simple as that really.

EDITED: 24 Jun 2021 by PIOR_O

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 From:  Frenchy Pilou (PILOU)
10308.11 
Very pertinent!
---
Pilou
Is beautiful that please without concept!
My Moi French Site My Gallery My MagicaVoxel Gallery
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 From:  PaQ
10308.12 
I work for a company (mobile games) that is really open about the tool used in production (according you don't ask for a solid work license to draw 4 cubes).
I'm more a tech artist there days, but I use Moi all the time when I need to quickly block out something, or for quick prototyping ... it's my best companion.

I have meet a good amount of concept artist, and from what I can see, for them it's all about speed ... I have seen many of them using sketchup, blender, zbrush.
They don't care that much about topology, normals, uvs, polycount ... and most of the time, after a little demo, they embrace MoI, for non organic work of course.

The fact Moi produce crisp poly model is also an advantage, at least you can provide some useful model later on. Even if "they" probably will be rebuild from scratch to fit in the pipeline, it's not a nasty triangulated mess to start with :)
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 From:  2byts
10308.13 In reply to 10308.12 
I work in the Entertainment Industry and use Moi3d all of the time in it.


In our business, everything needs to be in polygons, regardless of where the data comes from.

The closest in similarity to Moi3d is Fusion 360, and some artists have been creating quality work with it. Its really popular with hard surface designs and concept work.

The other CAD apps out there are focused for Product / Industrial / Automotive Industries so the workflows will be to convoluted for Entertainment needs.
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 From:  Rich (-RB-)
10308.14 
I'm currently a Concept Artist at Marvel in the film Art Dept., having moved from Architecture / set design and film drafting. Rhino is used quite a bit in the drafting world in set design (I was a big SkUp user because of Architecture) and MoI is a fantastic tool to integrate nurbs into your workflow. If you are looking at Set Design or Props, MoI will be a great way to learn the nurbs/profile mentality and incredibly useful to communicate to scale with Props especially (as they love a nice clean .3dm usually.) I'd then move into a package like Rhino if that was your bag. I would say if you would like to - build - things (to be a film Art Director, say) stick with CAD packages they can take you pretty far. Something's real-world scale is very important...Edon and artists in a similar vein generally have little contact with Construction or Props directly as Concept-ers usually hand off models to the drafting team or Art Directors who rationalise it. Game design, obviously this isn't a concern.

If you are looking to purely concept or illustrate...I'd highly recommend ZBrush for its ability to act across most object topologies and high poly counts. The key factor is being able to work across both organic and inorganic very quickly (ZModeler is an incredible hard surface tool.) I've been through quite a long process trying to marry everything together and have come to MoI and SketchUp for most CAD based solutions (set design, props) ZBrush for illustration/concept. 3DCoat is discussed a lot but ultimately falls short for a few reasons (was a user for several years), one being the slightly buggy tools (just have a browse on the 2021 bug release forums) and the lack of good help/tutorials for new users. I agree the ZBrush UI is very confusing at first, but there are so many great tutorials out there you pick it up quite quickly so it becomes a non-issue.

BTW relax on the age - I got this gig at 37 eep, it's nothing to do with age it's your ability to hang in there (also you'll never be 'good enough' even when you get there!)

- Rich

EDITED: 5 Jul 2021 by -RB-

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 From:  Metin (METIN_SEVEN)
10308.15 In reply to 10308.14 
Good points Rich, I totally agree.

I love MoI's efficient UX and clean UI. MoI keeps amazing me when it comes to how few actions are needed to establish a relatively complex shape.

ZBrush is indeed a fantastic tool for high-polygon sculpting. MoI, ZBrush and Keyshot form my holy 3D creation trinity. I set up my scenes in MoI, blend everything together and add details in ZBrush, then render the result in Keyshot.

I also own 3D-Coat, and have worked with it for a while. Despite featuring lots of great tools, 3D-Coat's brushes just don't feel as fluid as the ZBrush brushes. A lot of 3D-Coat tools are just a little less competent than the ZBrush equivalent. For example, ZRemesher is just a bit better than Autopo.

─ Metin

visualizer • illustrator • 3D designer — metinseven.nl
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 From:  KanakaRed (ROTARYMAN13B)
10308.16 
I can't speak for all avenues of the entertainment industry, but I can speak for the practical effects side of it. The company I work for has made 3d printing pretty much the backbone of its business, so almost 90% of what we do first goes through some form of DCC app before its becomes a tangible asset. What I have learned over the years is that each software has its place and are better suited for certain tasks. Moi3d has taken over the lion's share of my hard surface modeling due to the fact that I have to interact with the mechanical engineers that are building the animatronic substructures of what ever it is we are making. Being that Moi is a surface modeler its much easier on them to give them step files that they can directly work off of as opposed to an OBJ file that not many CAD programs can work with. That said I still use programs like Maya, Modo, Blender, Max to do certain jobs that just seem a little tricky to do in Moi in a timely manner. Like organic hard surface models that have a lot of compound surfaces that are just faster to do with SubD surfaces and don't require the cad like precision. For full Organics models like characters and creatures, Zbrush is used pretty much exclusively. So for me its more about what the job is and what is the best tool to get the job done in a timely manner. Pretty much every day I use a combination of Moi, Modo, and Zbrush to achieve my daily tasks. But again my duties are 3d print orientated.
For concept art, if your focusing on creature or character, Zbrush will probably get you 90% of what you need. If your looking into hard surface having some knowledge of a poly modeler will be useful, be it z modeler inside z brush or a traditional 3d animation packages like modo/maya/blender. Moi is also useful but probably more for a supplementary tool. Concepting need to be quick, and plenty of variations happen, so using Moi as a primary tool may not be the right choice unless your design very mech orientated designs. That said, Moi is still a hell of a lot faster than traditional cad programs like Fusion or Solidworks for getting an Idea out. Plus there are occasions where It can be definitely faster than traditional poly modeling when it comes to building clean hard surface shapes.

I guess where I am getting at is don't try to shoe horn everything into one program, leverage each program's strengths and mitigate their weakness. Knowing that you'll be able to maximize your productivity.

Cheers,
Greg
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