To explain this point, let me give you a scenario I once faced myself. I walked to work one sunny morning and all was well. The journey to the office was a breeze, it was summer, birds were singing, the clouds were wispy and I’m fairly sure I could hear Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. So anyways, I walked to the office, sipped my favourite hazelnut latte and prepared to be briefed on the next project with a fresh sense of enthusiasm to nail another folio piece. The brief was an urban development, aerial shots on photography, mostly commercial and residential, maybe 100 buildings. It was partially designed so there was going to be a bit of back and forth with the client. All good stuff. So as we threw ideas back and forth about the final piece and came to a good conclusion, the subject of hours came to the table. I sat there and looked at what had to be done and considered about 300 hours with the staff/skill set and client requirements I had in front of me. So the PM started asking about hours, suddenly it was announced that we budget for 100 hours. 100!! Ok I thought; that’s not a problem; we can reduce some variables to get in line with the budget, not a problem. But no, it had to be of a level that required 300 but for 100 hours. Hmm. Seem familiar? So rather than stay my ground and be obstinate I pushed the challenge back to my co-worker and asked him for ideas on how we could achieve this. After a pause and not much of any suggestion I quickly realized I am in a no-win situation. They didn’t understand the process, and by process, I mean technically how to do this. Well to cut a long story short, we did the project; it went well, really well. So how many hours? Well after a lot of overtime and compromise from the team it was close to 300, and this was with senior people on the project. The client happily paid for the 300 hours and all was well, except it apparently should have taken 100!?! Another example was a very large project, enormous in fact, the hours suggested were tight, well let’s say about 5 times too tight. Again, the problem here was people calculating hours that are using methodology from 6, 7, 8 or more years ago and assuming that because technology moves forward things suddenly became quicker. Well, things did become quicker, but so did the quality expected become so much better. If I had to achieve what they did 8 years ago? Wow. I could hit the target easily and get home for Judge Judy and probably catch a movie on the way home.

So how does this situation occur? Well, in my opinion it’s the larger firms that are prone to this happening. Seniors that are business development orientated that like to play the artist. Now don’t get me wrong, I know of many people that can do this and I hold them in very high regard, the more senior people reading this will know what a challenge it is to lead and to keep up with every last technical development, tip, trick and new technique. It’s a challenge that consumes you. But there are still those leaders that won’t get involved in the work, and probably haven’t completed a piece of work from scratch for years (playing with it in Photoshop doesn’t count, neither does having copy of max on your PC, sorry).

So does this matter? Well, yes and no. If you are leader that is working shoulder to shoulder with your technical liaison, bringing them to client interaction, whoever that might be, that’s awesome, and you are one of the best. But talking with clients about technicalities you know a little about, making promises on deliverables and budgets with no understanding about how to do it is at best questionable in my opinion and is asking for trouble for you and your team of artists. You are spending their nights and weekends and ultimately overpromising and under-reaching.

So how do these successful firms do it? Well, look outside our industry, look at CGFX. While Digital Domain have the expertise and budget to pretty much do whatever they want, smaller firms have to carefully consider not just how but if they can viably achieve something within a budget using the tools and skills that they have. Production / Technical / Departmental Directors are all consulted and brought to the table. It’s an open discussion and one that is a team effort. Most importantly there is a clear distinction between ‘sales’ client side people and production. Not one person ‘owns’ a project, the team does and by that I mean a team of directors, coordinators and client side staff. Client side staff knows that’s what they are, and they are good at it, they don’t try to be the artist, only a visionary. It’s a vision they can create, an idea, but there is that line that crosses over to technical that they must be careful to not cross it.

So what happens if they do cross that line? Well for a start budgets are often miscalculated, but most importantly significant opportunities are lost. This is all about innovation. Typically these people are only seeing new technologies and techniques through the work of their competition. This is hardly a visionary or an innovative way to think about being the best at what you do. The best innovative work I see comes from those firms that are full of leaders that live and breathe this work, they are on the forums, talking to other artists, exchanging ideas at meetings with other firms and playing with new technical ideas. Let’s not forget Google achieved a lot of their greatest technologies from people on their 20% personal project time. Gmail for instance did not come from a VP of Google, but from one the many talented staff at Google that had a really cool idea and was encouraged to pursue it. Leaders need to realise that the next breakthrough in what we do is probably going to come from a bright young artist that just looked at what we do in a different way. Oh and let’s not forget The Matrix, where did bullet time come from? Those kids hadn’t even left college yet!

It’s by client side leaders making a decision to either be ‘In’ this or bring your technical liaison to the table that will move us forward faster. The technical liaison needs to be doing this, not overseeing it, they need to be ‘in’ the industry, ‘in’ the tech, living and breathing what’s new and experimenting with new technical ideas. Now this technical expert may not make you money, but he will win you the project and maybe a few prizes along the way.

Smaller firms don’t really have the luxury of this level of staffing and its these smaller firms that have to keep up to date, they are forced to be innovative because that is their key strength. Adaptability and technical innovation will always shine through, they often don’t have a marketing team, the work has to speak, shout and scream for itself.

One last thought to consider is if you are not technically aware of your industry as of yesterday; don’t try to be in front of a room of people (your team of carefully selected artists) that probably are. It screams your inadequacies. Telling someone to throw lights all over the room, to screen things in Photoshop or to make half your scene glow tells any worthy artist you have no idea what you are talking about, but once upon a time you might have done. Instead, concentrate what you are good at, leading, inspiring and bringing people together to ‘want’ to do this. And for love of god, find someone that is good at doing the work and innovating, keep them close, real close. Remember, artists are doing this for many reasons, the top one is either money or far more likely, because they love it, they get off on it, it’s kind of cool, so show them something new, improve their skills and help them develop, you’ll end up with a far more responsive and cohesive team.

So if you are leading a small team/firm, or aspire to do this, consider your position and how you wish to grow, place your skill set carefully on the table and do it with a pedigree of experience and knowledge.

First of all, it’s not what it used to be.  Times have changed from the days of luxury binders with a series of 11×17’s full of grey renderings. Todays artists need to show both artistic ability, technical knowledge and show its application to a variety of sectors and applications with the design spectrum. But the challenge is, this spectrum is so far and wide and the choice of what to show is almost limitless, a lot of artists are left not knowing what to show and how much to show. In these modern times its easy to put together endless images and an epic show reel, but what does the  interviewer really want to see?

First of all you have to realize that an interview, like any other business engagement must be considered from the other person’s point of view. This meeting is all about them, what their challenge is, what they need and how can you make their job a lot easier. If you go in with this approach you are already on the way to close the deal. For instance, if you are interviewing at an interiors firm, they are going to want to see interior shots predominantly, if its a broadcast production house then you need to show something beyond architecture. Remember that the interviewer is (hopefully) a busy person, you could be one of ten people they are interviewing and they have been asked to do this on top of their day to day schedule. They are essentially fitting you in and making time for you. With this in mind your folio should be to the point, specifically focused to the company you are interviewing for, and show every skill they are looking to see. So with all this in mind, here is a breakdown of some of the basics.

Finished work, high end.
A basic one, but you need to show some complete photo-realistic projects, you should have completed the work yourself or have made a significant contribution to the work and be able to talk about your involvement. The range of work here should be very high end beautiful imagery. It sets the tone and straight away says that you have been involved in this kind of work and appreciate how to do it. The amount of this work will be dictated by the folio of the firm you are looking to join. If they only do very high end work, the work should be focused in this area.

Finished work, concept.
The reality is that we don’t get 200 hours an image too often, sometimes its just a couple of days to create something. You must show that you can create stylized work with alternative approaches to convey imagery in a short space of time. This might be mostly photoshop work, that’s ok. Just show that you can think outside of the box and are not locked into 3D thinking. This is especially important if you are looking to join a design firm, they will want to quickly explore designs with your skills for internal and external presentations. Show them you can do this.

Skills
Because your work is probably a team effort its wise to break down what you can do individually. The key skills are modeling, lighting, rendering and finishing. We will talk about animation in the next chapter.

Skills, Lighting.
Create a scene, and light it! The furniture doesn’t have to be yours, this is all about lighting and lighting only. Show that you can use HDRI, light interiors with no windows, feature lighting, sunsets etc. It’s very acceptable to talk about the image as a lighting study only. Focus the interviewer on what skills you are showing them.

Skills, Furniture.
Model your favorite chair or piece of furniture, do it very carefully, show stitching, ripples, everything, but limit yourself in time also. It needs to be something organic with soft surfaces, the more detail the better. Do a series of vignettes that show you detail modeled the piece. All images should be on one screen/page. Also show a hidden line wireframe version of the model with its poly-count, this will show an educated interviewer that the model is efficient and carefully modeled and not 200,000 polys and fudged in photoshop.

Sketching, composition layout and story-boarding.
The better firms out there will do composition layout on every image before anyone gets to 3D. Like planning an expensive shoot, someone will put pen to paper and sketch out ideas of what the image will look like. If you have done this, show an example, if you haven’t don’t worry, as I mentioned its only a few firms do this, but it shows forethought and attention to planning. Story-boarding and sketching are also important, if you can’t sketch well, that’s OK, show animation planning in whatever way you can, but show planning.

2D finishing work.
Not enough people show finishing skills. Take a raw rendered image, and finish the shot in photoshop or your favorite program. The point here is to show you can take a raw rendered image and add the artists touch to the image. This will include highlights, low-lights, shadow, spec, reflection, entourage, props, color correction, DOF and many others. Show that you understand how to craft an image rather than just rely on the computer to make it real. If you have any matte painting work, here is where you show it.

Personal work.
This is where you can show your ‘cool’ stuff, maybe your projects you are doing at home, highly stylized work and work that may not be typical day to day style. This is showing that you have a personal style, you are not a 9-5′er and this is your passion and not your job. You can also show photography, painting, sketching and any other skill you haven’t already shown. Keep this work till the end.

So how much should this all be? Well I have interviewed enough artists and can tell you after 20 images, an initial lean downward has happened. Keep it between 10 and 20. The complete finished images should be at least 4-5 images. You might want to keep other images on a thumb drive or another folder on your laptop, so if they want to see more of one thing, you can pull out another set of images.

How should you present it? Take your laptop with your folio, a thumb drive with your folio, and email it to yourself from an address you could pick up at their location. If you don’t turn up with your folio you are wasting everybody’s time. The last thing you can do, and one I highly recommend is put your folio on a website, make it secure of you have to, but this is the easiest way and the safest way to make sure that when you get there, if all else fails, they have an internet connection. You can do this on your own website or just go to coroflot.com, deviantart.com or any other folio website. Its free and easy.

Wear something smart casual and above all else, LOSE THE ATTITUDE!! I say this after so many artists have walked through the door and told me how great they are, why I should be humbled and how they have 5 offers already. Would you go on a first date and say that? No! Be respectful, friendly, and remember, the interviewer is not only looking at your skills but how you will fit with the team and how you will work under pressure.

One last thing Ill mention is copyright. Check with your past employers if they are ok with you showing the work you did under their employment in an interview, or on a website. They may be under a confidentiality agreement, and if they are, so are you. Get permission first. Sometimes this is just a formality, sometimes it’s a serious difficulty and furthermore a fundamental problem that you are going to have to consider.

Next: What should your reel show?

At this juncture I should probably step back and consider something useful to write! Thanks to the following sites for their support.

cgarchitect.com / evermotion.org / 3dmax.de / 3dvf.de / aeccommunications.com

. . . . and also thanks to the many blogs that autofeed from Eyecandy!

I also often think about being a junior artist, a first role, what would it be like these days? Would I be sat down with a ‘buddy’? Would I be appointed a mentor, put on a training program, carefully assigned tasks that would enable me to grow and be nurtured to a senior role where I would learn to progress my position and see value in the company with a solid commitment?

So, with these thoughts, I wonder about the industry, who is managing our talent, growing it and guiding those artists to one day become more than what we are. Also, who is engaging with clients? Who are these people, who did they get there and are they worth the money?

Well, the first thing to be happy about is that there are exceptional leaders in our industry, exceptional artists, free collaborative thinkers that are willing to engage in industry progression though community activation. It’s free attitude of these people that engages new methodology and process, delivering innovative work. But there is always a negative side to a young and growing industry. And that problem is professional immaturity.

The artist’s ego is everywhere. I remember countless interviews where artists would demand a reason why they should work for my employer, (a top 20 multinational award winning consultancy) and not someone else, or they would demand a salary that’s 50% -100% over what they are worth. I have also interviewed people that assure me they have management experience, were a director or leader, but when questioned on conflict resolution, mentorship or skills profiling, they are lost. Somehow we have grown so fast that we have artists with 3 years experience as directors, two years as management. If I proposed that staff profile to any sizable design consultancy, I’m sure they would laugh at me and think just as big an idiot as the candidate I was proposing to make manager. But why? Surely in 3 years you can learn what you need and may have done 100’s of projects, so what’s the problem?

In my opinion, I think that it’s a problem with artists becoming great artists and suddenly being given a team. We have all seen mentorships, but few realize that a mentorship goes both ways, not only does the artist learn from the senior, but the senior begins to learn how to motivate and educate with diplomacy and delicacy. Even with managerial education there is a long learning curve of people skills. Surely only after that individual has a proven track record, possibly years of people management, can he or she be considered to manage people.

Many people have asked me how I got to where I am today. I always answer the same way, ‘I’ve messed up more than most and slept less than most’. All the skills that myself and many fellow managers and directors use comes from years of learning what works, understanding people, then making process work for people. People, especially artists will not work for process, they resent it, its institutional and close minded, the opposite of what an artist or any agency should be. I for one am proud to say that I have encouraged many artists to move into this industry which now have a very successful career, they are now doing what they love, but that took a long time to do. Sometimes years, but it’s worth it, for them, for me, and one day our industry.

So what can we do to bring some credibility to the word director or manager? I hope that we as directors can take on the responsibility and bring ourselves to become better leaders and show the industry the large gap between established directors through maybe 10 years+ of commercial work and those given the title as an incentive. It’s up to us to show true leadership, to show diversity, diplomacy and collaborative free thinking. We can do this and give our industry a huge push for better artwork, better client relationships and prove our titles.

Next: Part 6, When directors can’t make the art anymore, what then?

A few months after MacWorld later I was speaking with a 3D consultant, he had just returned from a reseller convention at Apple. I was talking about what was new and coming up, what could I look forward too. He looked down at the floor, paused and told me that Apple had just announced that 3D was not an industry they were aggressively pursuing anymore. The new Imac was dominating their sales and was putting them back in the leading position they had enjoyed a few years prior. This is where they saw their future.

Well we all know now that wasn’t a bad idea. The Imac, Ipod, Iphone, It wasn’t such a bad move. Apple changed who they were as a brand. They were now a lifestyle products company, not a techie computer firm anymore. Everything about them was engaging, approachable and simple and most of all fun! This is wonderful news if that’s how you like your tech that way. But a CG artist cannot rely on one piece of software out of the box, we don’t work that way. We want to pull it apart, rebuild it, customize it, do things differently; we don’t accept conformity because the real world is full of infinite variables that we have to simulate constantly. We survive or fail based upon an ever changing technology, literally every day something changes. And we rely on thousands of developers writing abstract pieces of script or code to give us an edge in our work that we can use immediately, not wait for a software update or patch. We want to be able to use all the options of hardware connectivity and start doing things with tech it wasn’t designed to do. You only have to see how much Linux is used in effects studios to recognize how much freedom they need. Well freedom comes with complexity, but that’s our world everyday. We are OK with that. Perhaps Apple realized that and made a sensible retreat. We didn’t fit their simple fun ideology.

Back in the day, SGI were legendary, movies proudly showed off an SGI compter, maybe an Onyx or an O2 sitting so cool on the table. They were a desktop dream. But then PC processing power started to climb, fast. SGI must have realized this as they hastily introduced SGI Pentium computers. I think it was a few years later they were pretty much gone and now filed for Bankruptcy. Apple chose to focus on what they were good at, making simple, effective computers not chase high end super computing, we were happy to work with the pace of Apple Mac and Intel, it was fast enough now.

I remember the first day my new employer sat me down in front of 3D Studio. First it was on a PC, weird, then it was all techie and unfriendly, weird. But slowly I realized that I wanted all that functionality, I needed it. Just like the first time you use Vray, you change a couple of settings and render, ignoring all the other numbers you can tweak. Well after a while all those values mean something, like speed, memory efficiency, saturation, burn control, data tree configurations, its endless. And the truth is, we need all that functionality. Its not plug and play but who wants that anyway, we want to do something that nobody has done yet.

With all this said, Apple are still there, they have the Apple halo, untouchable and always with an army of followers, but not the 3D hardware designers of the visualization industry they were and to be honest I think they did the right thing. They still have 3D followers and a large user base with many 3D products but their days of 3D leadership are long over. They instead have dominated and lead with ease in consumer products, graphics and video, they have stuck by the mantra they set over 10 years ago. Do what you’re good at and give the people, the masses, what they want.

Next: Part 5, The mistake of fastracking artists to management.

I didn’t subscribe to this negativity. I saw an opportunity. If you are a plumber and someone is willing to do the job for half the price you can, HIRE HIM! And then hire another and do twice the work at profit, seems simple enough. But many people let barriers cloud their aspiration of success. This was very true in this case. Humbug, I thought.

The 3D world is going through such a phase right now. Globalization is the hot topic. Arch firms are sending work to China or another country with lower rates. Interestingly and perhaps humorously they are willing to do this but very unwilling to hand off concept to a design build firm charging a third of their rates. Hmmm. Whatever way you wish to see this shift, it has undeniably changed our industry and has caused a lot of artists to stop working and change career.  Its a sad story and it causes a lot of disappointment. However, there is a good side to this coin.

Lets look at other industries. In fact almost every industry uses overseas production facilities to make a cost effective product. Believe me, Mercedes Benz are not made in Germany, Nike do not have a factory of workers making all their products in the heart of California. They are smart, they keep the creative teams in their respective countries and direct select firms overseas to produce their products. The larger firms have their own productions offices overseas, smaller firms use localized and local owned production firms to lower costs and keep service / quality high. So why not in 3D art?

The key lies in adopting a new pipeline, sending work out in chunks that can be started and finished independently and handed off. I have seen firms try to work an overseas team as part of the local production team. I disagree with that notion. Its too complex, too difficult and causes each production team to blame the other the moment they hit a technical difficulty. The process needs to be divided with clear standards of hand over and clear process throughout. I have also seen small firms (under 50 staff) try to setup their own overseas operation. Still to this day I have no idea why, paranoia perhaps? There are very respectable operations overseas with hundreds of artists that can be dynamic and have the resource both technical and staff to tackle almost any project out there. Why take on all the responsibilities and risks of ownership when you can subcontract (on exclusive contract if needs be) and take on the responsibility as and when your business requires and can afford it. This is basic dynamic economics. As long as the art and direction is kept in house, like Nike and Mercedes and others, the process works. Clients get the quality and artistry they came to you for and the cheaper production costs. Its a win win for everyone.

Perhaps it will be months, years before the industry finds its feet and this is an established and proven practice. I don’t want to pretend this is anything new either. Firms have been subcontracting out for years now. Some firms are only two people strong with a relationship with an overseas production office. It works well, and if those smaller firms can staff up to 10,20 or even 30 artists, directors, imagine the amount of throughput they could be creating with overseas production. The important thing to remember is ALL art stays in house, ALL direction comes from in house. ONLY chosen technical production goes out. If these and a few others are followed the system works well and could be the road map for us all to grow together within this shifting industry and welcome foreign talent and investment.

Coming soon. Part 4. What ever happened to Apple?

The answer to that question has not ever been answered entirely, its subjective. The designer wants to be an artist and the artist wants to redesign. It’s a paradox. The problem was approached by firms hiring designers that could do some 3D, but as the technology grew independent of CAD, those individuals slowly became master of none and often shifted back into design. The ones that moved into 3D art were the brave. The industry didn’t exist back in those days. Sure you heard of a few names, Hayes Davidson were leading a flock of HD like firms. But it was a tiny group of people doing this.

Well as things developed, the technology grew fast, very fast and then exploded. I use that word with great vigor. It literally exploded. Vray, MentalRay, Final Render, Brazil were suddenly all common names and on the desktop of young artists. Cracked version were everywhere, I didn’t know anyone that had a legit copy unless they were working for an agency. The offshoot of this was the technology getting into the hands of everyone. Autodesk did this years ago. Few people realize part of the reason they have such dominance was a very intelligent upgrade policy they had for a while. Knowing how much AutoCAD had been cracked they offered everybody to upgrade, no questions asked. Of course every man and his dog did it, this gave Autodesk huge market growth and the inertia to make one of the best pieces of CAD software ever written. Well a similar inertia took place with advanced rendering. Everyone was scrambling to figure out which was the best one. I was interviewed about this in a London Magazine. They interviewed myself, Hayes Davidson and a leading architecture firm. I was the Vray guy. Brazil had screwed me over on a project and Splutterfish weren’t that much help to be honest. Vray was my guy.

One day I was working on a new proposal. The fee was close to £75,000, about $122,000. I was wrapping things up when a supervisor approached me with a letter. I read it and couldn’t believe my eyes. With their rates they could do this for £5,000!!!! How I asked myself? They were from Bulgaria, the work was good, not great but good enough that they could of spent twice as long and made the work great and still be WAY under my fee. Oh crap! It hit me. We are now global.

From China to India to Vietnam everyone was learning about this 3D business, and getting good, REAL good! They were charging $4 an hour, my charge out rate for a Senior artist was closer to $100. I couldn’t compete.

For a while we all ignored it, but slowly these firms broke into the marketplace, going direct to arch firms and clients. We would get comments like ‘well company X will do the image for $300, can you do it for that?’. It was a problem and one that has almost killed the industry.

But, there is good news, the work was mostly excellent, technically great, but firms were getting frustrated with trying to art direct. When the work had to go back and forth 10 times to get it right, the fee started to rise, a lot. If it didn’t rise, the deadline approached and you got 90% the look and feel that you wanted. This isn’t true for all overseas firms. Some were awesome, amazing, stunning! But most were technically good, just technically.

So this brings us back to the two emerging categories, the technically brilliant 3D renderer and the 3D artist. You need them both on your team, but now you needed a third group, the overseas technical renderer. This worked for a while but soon we realized that the artist sitting in the corner that can’t finish the shot is only as good as the artist in Taiwan, but your guys costs another 30-50 dollars an hour. Firms were starting let go the renderers and bring on artists and art directors. It was the start of a big change and would reshape the way every firm out there would work.

In the next part of this series I’ll talk about how the industry mistakes and successes due to 3D art globalization and what we might have to do to survive it.

Next. Part 3. Make art, collaborate or fail.

’3D Visualization is like good sex, a lot of people are talking about  it, but not many are doing it.’

How right he was, the buzzwords were all starting to become commonplace. Words like parametric, surface skinning, object orientated databases and on the odd occasion, ray tracing. We all spoke about the techie side of the industry, because it was exactly that, it wasn’t pretty back then. But like the opening line to that lecture, not many of us were really doing anything fun with that technology, unless we had a million dollar budget that is. Of course now, some of these words are now redundant, not because the technologies have been superceded, but the user doesn’t have to know about them. For instance, walk into a studio and ask for a show of hands how many people know what that teapot tool is for and what it’s called. I would guess that first answer may raise a few hands, but the second?

Well it’s called the Utah teapot, digitized from a Melitta teapot by a chap called Dr Martin Newell. Who you may ask? Well Newell was also responsible for a sorting algorithm known as Newell’s algorithm. This fixed a few problems with another graphical algorithm for sorting and cutting overlapping objects. So what I hear you cry, who cares! Well those technologies enable us to do much of what we do today, and we still use them, without thought, thanks to people like Dr Newell. If you have ever used AutoCAD, Illustrator or his own baby, Ashlar Vellum, you will have experienced his ‘drafting assistant’ technology. One that in my opinion changed the market place for electronic drafting. I was lucky enough to meet Dr Martin Newell a few times; we even worked for the same firm at one point. He came across as a very collected and giving man without much bravado. He was breaking ground every day and essentially developing new technologies one by one.

Years later the industry has changed. Technical ability and Artistry have separated. Users are now looking for different things and in my opinion the industry has matured for the better. I create two distinctions in users.

Artistry. There are those users that have come from a variety of backgrounds and are using their talent create beautiful 3D art. Software is a tool for them, tablets, just another pen. These people are often easy to spot, they tend to care less about tech, and their focus is in look, feel and story.

Technical brilliance. I see this growing with an unprecedented speed. People all over the world are becoming excellent at making 3D art accurate and startlingly real. Software has now become so easy to learn that almost anyone can make an image look almost real. In time and with enough hard work these people can produce some awesome work.

But this separation has created problems, BIG ONES, and its rotting away our industry. In the next part of this series I’ll talk about how the separation has occurred and its snowball effect on our industry.

Coming soon; Part 2, Art and Accuracy are not the same.