Animation And Visual Arts As Life Purpose

[Human Mint]

Is there anyone that does animation as your life purpose?

I am drawn to animation making because I love the creation and connections of different scenes to build one short film, probably since I was 11.

The thing is I am currently studying music, very proficient at it and could expand my theory a lot there. Just getting started and I intent to keep at it. Should I go to an animation school beside music? I made some 3d models here and there, but never something serious. I was mostly frustrated by the process so I never created anything valuable or even complete.

But I think I can really make progress if I go study in a school for animator artists, so that in 5 to 10 years I will be able to create, with less effort, good visuals. Potentially combining it with music. Also, I think there are more good paying jobs in the animation field than in the music world, since CGI and visuals are very demanded.

Making animations is a super complex endeavor, specially if you want to make your own worlds and characters. But I find it super interesting. 

Have you made this your life purpose? If so, what were your biggest obstacles and your biggest motivations?

One thing is for sure, I simply can't rely on YouTube tutorials for this. I've tried it.

I want to be able to do this kind of visual art:

 

I am on a 3 month summer break from the music school, so I have more time to contemplate and plan the next steps on how to make a career out of this and if it really is for me. I understand it's not wise to jump from different careers constantly and that's why I ask this.

 

Edited Wednesday at 11:31 PM by Human Mint

[Leo Gura]

It's a very cool LP and it can pay very well.

You can definitely learn 3D visual arts a lot on your own. Don't use free YT videos, you must buy higher quality courses.

Don't wait for school. Get started making stuff immediately.

I taught myself a lot of 3D modeling when I was a teen. And the tools and learning resources available today are 100x better. Yes, it's very technical and takes a lot of effort and struggle to learn. But once you've have the basic skills it's quite fun and rewarding.

Don't compare your early work with the work of professionals. It take a lot of training to make pro-level stuff.

Edited Thursday at 12:05 PM by Leo Gura

[bazera]

@Leo Gura Have you seen image / text-to-video AI models, like Sora?

How do you think video AI models will change the animation and visual arts industry? I am a software developer who wanted to also learn 3D and animation and music, to make movies like this:

This is done mostly by a single person (script, animation, modeling, music). 

When I imagine making something like this, I get very excited. The same excitement doesn't come from imagining building software, as I do now.

But I hesitate to start seriously learning the technologies required to do short movies like this because I'm not certain if investing my time in this will be competitive with AI stuff.

However, I think the correct way of thinking is how we should integrate AI models into our workflow. 

[Leo Gura]

24 minutes ago, bazera said:

@Leo Gura Have you seen image / text-to-video AI models, like Sora?

Of course.

Quote

How do you think video AI models will change the animation and visual arts industry?

For sure. But it's unclear how exactly.

Quote

When I imagine making something like this, I get very excited.

That is a clear sign of LP.

Quote

But I hesitate to start seriously learning the technologies required to do short movies like this because I'm not certain if investing my time in this will be competitive with AI stuff.

However, I think the correct way of thinking is how we should integrate AI models into our workflow. 

I understand your fear.

It's unclear how good AI will actually get. There's a lot of hype right now. I've used art AI a lot and right now it's totally insufficient to replace human artists and probably will be that way for a long time to come. Just because it can produce a few nice looking pictures or videos doesn't mean it's usable for serious commercial projects. All the art made by AI is very derivative and limited, even though it can be beautiful.

Realistically there will be many new AI tools for artists made within the next 10 years which will speed up workflows significantly. But technical artists will still be required.

This notion that you will be able to just type a sentence into an AI and get a commercial quality of art is a childish fantasy at this point. But there will be powerful tools. It will take a decade just to develop those tools.

But this field will evolve rapidly so you'll have to stay on the cutting edge by using all the latest tools.

- - - - -

You have to keep in perspective that AI will change many industries. Especially anything related to tech/software/art/music/media. So this is just par for the course now. You still gotta build some kind of career for yourself. Pretty much any field you choose could be disrupted by AI in the future: teacher, writer, waiter, actor, musician, soldier, pilot, even CEO. What job is really safe at this point? But you still need to plan for a job.

Edited Thursday at 10:28 AM by Leo Gura

[bazera]

@Leo Gura Yes, the same in software development.

Check this out, GitHub just made a tool that can create and deploy some simple apps out of sentences. And this is the trend that the industry seems to be going towards. But the stuff I work at my job, it's impossible to make serious software like that out of a mere sentence typing to some AI model. But these models surely help us to build more quality stuff more quickly.

But now the issue is for the beginners in this industry. When I was a beginner and applying for a junior developer job (7-8 years ago), the situation was much simpler, and the bar was not as high as it is today. You have to know a lot more stuff as a junior software developer today than you needed to know 8 years ago (due to AI and also the advancement of technologies, more nuanced differences have been made in the industry and technologies).

But as I said, I always wanted to build 3D movies with music beautiful visuals, and storytelling. However, I hesitate because the time I need to spend on learning all the technologies required to do that is the time that I won't spend on my current career and industry, which is also changing very rapidly. 

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, bazera said:

However, I hesitate

Just keep in mind that that hesitation could be the biggest mistake.

Success requires making bold decisions, bold investments, and strategic risk.

Sitting around doing nothing is also a risk.

Edited Thursday at 10:34 AM by Leo Gura

[Staples]

This is a VFX career path. I'd recommend learning Nuke and Blender to start. Maybe Houdini if you like it. Get a showreel together of basic work and get a junior level role ASAP. All the best learning in this work happens when you get creative under pressure on the job.

Edited Thursday at 11:33 AM by Staples

[Human Mint]

You're pushing me enough to take some action, that's good.

27 minutes ago, Staples said:

I'd recommend learning Nuke and Blender to start

I didn't know about Nuke, only used Blender. But I always wondered what software you use if you want to merge real life footage with CGI

Edited Thursday at 11:52 AM by Human Mint

[Leo Gura]

Adobe AfterEffects is huge.

[bazera]

How many hours of work/study are required to become decent at Adobe After Effects or Blender? 

So for example do you consider it possible to become decent at making high-quality 15-20 minute short 3D VFX movies with like investing 5-6 hours every week for 6-12 months? Just talking about the visual part, not the audio/script.

[Staples]

The Ayunda video was made by Robin Zeeb. Go DM him and ask him how to learn to do that. He's a one-man band.

34 minutes ago, bazera said:

How many hours of work/study are required to become decent at Adobe After Effects or Blender? 

So for example do you consider it possible to become decent at making high-quality 15-20 minute short 3D VFX movies with like investing 5-6 hours every week for 6-12 months? Just talking about the visual part, not the audio/script.

You need to make it your job to get good, simple as that. Do something else as a hobby or go all in.

Edited Thursday at 01:06 PM by Staples

[Human Mint]

1 hour ago, Staples said:

Get a showreel together of basic work and get a junior level role ASAP. All the best learning in this work happens when you get creative under pressure on the job.

I'll consider this. Building a showreel as my portfolio is a good way of getting started and knowing what steps to take next.

I'll probably stick to Blender since the workflow there is well designed... On the other hand I don't want to limit myself with just one tool.

[Staples]

8 minutes ago, Human Mint said:

I'll consider this. Building a showreel as my portfolio is a good way of getting started and knowing what steps to take next.

I'll probably stick to Blender since the workflow there is well designed... On the other hand I don't want to limit myself with just one tool.

Blender is a jack of all trades tool. Learn it a bit since you can do a bit of everything there, but there are more specialized tools you will mostly use later on

EDIT: Kind of not true. It's free so pragmatically it makes a lot of sense in smaller teams.

Edited Thursday at 01:05 PM by Staples

[bazera]

@Staples

28 minutes ago, Staples said:

You need to make it your job to get good, simple as that. Do something else as a hobby or go all in.

But I can't just change jobs at the moment. In your experience, how much progress can be made in Blender for example by investing a couple of hours every week, in a year?

I might consider changing my career from software development to this, or somehow integrate the two, or keep the software career and develop 3D skills on my free time, and maybe create some kind of YouTube videos as part of that. 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, bazera said:

making high-quality 15-20 minute short 3D VFX movies

It all depends on the complexity and quality of the effects.

A 90 minute Hollywood quality VFX movie can cost $100 million and requires a team of 100 people working for 2 years.

In your first year you should not be expecting to make pro-level things. It takes years to build skill up to that level.

Some solo guy making awesome clips probably has 10-15 years of experience and insane talent on top of that. Learning such skills is very deep work. You don't learn it in 6 months.

Edited Thursday at 01:50 PM by Leo Gura

[mmKay]

You reminded me of this guy

Than being said, 2D Animation and minimal storytelling is fairly simple and YT loves it. And it can become lucractive quickly if you enjoy it. It could be a stepping stone for you.

This guy created a random silly character, drew the frames by hand, did his own voiceover and then released a plush toy of the character and sold 733 units for 27'99.

He has been uploading videos for 2 years only.

https://plushfoundry.com/products/restful-cube-by-nobey-one
 

the marketing is great as well : " Can this guy crash at your place? Won’t make a mess on the couch, promise. "



Have a look at this method for animating with Ebsynth. It's computer assisted rotoscopy so that you don't have to draw each frame individually. Pretty revolutionary.
 

Definitely don't get discouraged . We don't know what software is coming our way and how much easier and quicker the process can become.

Edited Thursday at 03:11 PM by mmKay

[Ash55]

18 hours ago, Human Mint said:

Is there anyone that does animation as your life purpose?

I do 3d game art and building my self up to do my own animation

 

18 hours ago, Human Mint said:

Have you made this your life purpose? If so, what were your biggest obstacles and your biggest motivations?

I dream to make my own full featured 3d animation. Its definitely a really hard path but i love every step of it, am super grateful and super happy in my life

 

18 hours ago, Human Mint said:

The thing is I am currently studying music, very proficient at it and could expand my theory a lot there. Just getting started and I intent to keep at it. Should I go to an animation school beside music? I made some 3d models here and there, but never something serious. I was mostly frustrated by the process so I never created anything valuable or even complete.

I wanna make 2 points here pursuing trying to study so many things is not the best strategy I have done that, Focus on one aspect only one field only master it and then move on you could focus on character art only for 2 or more years get really good at it then move to a different thing, keep things as simple as possible and try to be very focused lets say now you spent 2-3 years doing character and  you can do a really good character  now you can study other thing maybe game vfx, you can spend 90% of your time focused on character and 10% on music.

For art school, i should highly advise you not to go to art school but rather buy courses online, attend events for game development art animation etc, why its too much time investment and you can simply learn much more but getting a basic job for 2 years after 2 years of studding from online materials, You can relay on books YouTube course online groups forums meeting and talking to other people much better than sinking 4 years of your life  in university or getting a really expensive art school

 

18 hours ago, Human Mint said:

One thing is for sure, I simply can't rely on YouTube tutorials for this. I've tried it.

I want to be able to do this kind of visual art:

 

Now if you want something like this i recommend learning Houdini, Funny am actually working on a Houdini course but not about that about game art , you can create it in many other ways but Houdini particles and DOPs are kind here


I have several years of expiration as 3d artist since 2015, and i put effort on 3 animation projects they didn't see the light yet but soon the world will see my animation, if you need further guidance i can offer my discord to help you out with your journey, I don't have my studio yet but i have enough experience to  point out any potential traps and best practices and best way to learn.

[Human Mint]

They say Houdini is very powerful but has a steep learning curve. I like the procedural aspect of 3D art, which can be done in Blender too, but aparently Houdini is best. I did an online course on geometry nodes in Blender. But again, I did not push through so it's like going to the gym once a month.

I am passionate about character design. Probably with that alone I'll spend a lot of time getting good at it. Which encompases sketching, sculpting, modeling, rigging, and finally animation. I can do that on Blender. Then I can create ambients and scenery in Houdini, where I can import the characters I made in Blender. Do youo think is a good workflow?

Thanks, I am thinking through your answers.

[Human Mint]

5 hours ago, Staples said:

The Ayunda video was made by Robin Zeeb. Go DM him and ask him how to learn to do that. He's a one-man band.

I DMd him and responded vey quickly. This it what he said:

"...To give you a brief overview of my workflow - I create all 3D scenes in Blender. Blender is open source, free and gives you pretty much everything you need to create great scenes. It can be a bit frustrating at times as it's not the easiest program, but once you get past the first 2 weeks you'll get into it . I do the editing in Adobe Premiere. I edit the audio files in premiere and Audition. I create many of my audio files myself with my small recording device and then edit them later in the program. However, I obtain many audio files from various online libraries or sample packs. But for the beginning I would recommend you to start in Blender. It's free and there are lots of tutorials on YT."

[Ash55]

19 minutes ago, Human Mint said:

I like the procedural aspect of 3D art, which can be done in Blender too,

I use blender I tried blender geo node its really bad compared to Houdini and my philosophy when it comes to my career never take shortcut because in this instance trying to learn Houdini yes Houdini is  not easy to learn and you need to understand so many aspect about 3d programing math art but once you can use it, it will save you SO MUCH TIME, if you didn't learn Houdini and you went with the easy options, you will start hitting roadblock after you invest the time to learn what you leaned

You need to think long term if you wanna do animation, thinking short term and taking shortcut will end up making you having made no real progress

If I would wanna create a character and animate it i would personally use Zbrush "am used to sculpting in Zbrush and really comfortable in it but blender is fine " then blender i can stay in blender after modeling in Zbrush or move to Unreal Engine since am really good rendering with it, there is no perfect pipeline or workflow it all depends on what you need what is best, how much money it will cost etc

I highly advise you not to waste so much time in uni or art school and set clear goal buy some high quality course/s and start digging building skills getting a job or freelance work right after that don't waste time and energy in university or art school, you need to but so much effort your self, and no body gonna care if you have a degree or not if you can make the best character or environment and read "Mastery George Leonard"

At the end of the day doesn't matter what tool you use as long as you are really effective and efficient using it

Edited Thursday at 06:53 PM by Ash55