Covering The Basics - sumea article

Some really great points Joel, I'd also add that you need to do art for yourself, not just to show off to others.
Destroying a personal challenge is a better ego boost than a thousand pats on the back.

quote:Too many times I see someone complain they can't produce good looking organic surfaces, so what do they do? Make huge metallic war machines, static objects, weapons etc, instead of simply looking at photographs, or going outside, and studying their subject matter and practising.

Could'nt agree more.

quote:Do you know the basics?

I'm getting there friend. [:)]

I think that to a large extent that this article breaks down what are the 'basic' elements, though I dont fully agree with what the writer thinks they are. "just what colour is brass under a blue light? " I dont know, If I needed it I would look it up but a mental data base of that type of information goes beyond the realm of basic in my opinion.

But other then that the article does little in the way of trying to teach, other then saying the usual, if you cant do something, don't bitch, study and practice it till you can. Mind you Im not sure there is much more you can say in a teaching vein in an article, or maybe the the article is just an observation.

Nut shell: Interesting, may get people thinking about what it is they really need to know on a basic level, but the answer is still the same, Get out there and Practice.

Pantmonger

i think it was meant more as a just a general observation, I agree that the brass issue itself isn't what I'd call basic but the understanding that the colour of an object changes based on its material and the lighting is a basic concept an artist needs to grasp.

quote:Originally posted by Malus

i think it was meant more as a just a general observation,

Thats what I figured. Dont get me wrong I wasn't bashing the piece, just I was not sure of its aim, so when I wrote comments on it I was trying to cover all possable intentions.

Pantmonger

Quite a good article - with a few thought provoking comments but I'm not a fan of the colloquial writing style. Now that I'm wearing my pendantic hat, there were about 4 spelling errors and a few grammatical slips such as not starting a new sentence with a capital letter.

While that may seem like a needlessly negative comment (it's not intended that way), it undermines the good comments that are presented in the article. I for one find it hard to take an article seriously if it feels the need to use an emoticon to convey an opinion.

I do agree with the main theme of the article. It's too easy for artists to draw what they know and stick to what they like doing. I for one am reasonably guilty for doing this, so of late I've tried to expand my topics and subject matter.

I probably would have listed the third category (mental/social) as 'theoretical' - art theory can be applied to give you those answers you seek.

As a final point - I think more games artists need to have more traditional training. This will greatly help their 3d work.

Quite a few interesting thoughts there.

I think a few of the things he talks about arn't neccessarily the basics. Things like colour theory and understanding of how light interacts with various surfaces are IMHO fairly advanced approaches to the age old problem of how to make something look cool. He's right in that a lot of people don't know these principles. So does that make them basic or advanced?? Anyone can show you a colour wheel and say these colours are complimentary, these are opposing... use them in this way, but to really understand when and how to use them takes a lot time and experience I think.

For example, it took me ages to understand the the trick to painting game textures is in the edges and highlights of surfaces. Nothing explains the consistency of a surface better than what it's specular highlight is like. It took me years to figure this out and by the end of it, I was kicking myself. I couldn't understand how I hadn't understood this fairly simple principle before.

But yeah, good food for thought...

Good article.

I've certainly seen some good examples of this. It is amazing to see what l33t artists can do with 15 different photoshop filters and a lens flare... [:P]

Thanks for the feedback everyone - it's good to see that people actually read it in the first place, let alone the positive comments. A few good points of criticism here too, and it'll all be taken into account next article.