Need advice from the experienced users

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
21

I don’t think Maya is horrible Application, every application has pros and cons, I think Maya is well designed app and industry proved, but application like Blender is growing well, If i say Horrible 3d application, I’d say 3dsmax, which every time my clients work only with 3dsmax bothers me and I have to use this app.

@DSeva, I learned everything myself (learning from internet, thank to people who share their knowledge), no schools, I am freelancer and must say in my city I have much better knowledge in 3d that most of those who where in school, and I like freelancing. that 1 thing I could say.

Good luck.

22

I agree, a degree will be of little use, the only thing people really want to see is work you have done so they really know what you can do. They could care less if you know how to use a program if they don’t see enough work.

As far as that goes, sure you’d probably learn stuff but is that really worth the time and money when you have Google and forums?

Also, Maya? :confused:
Eh I’m personally, not a fan of that program for a lot of things. I think it sucks at modeling and UVs though the tools are mostly all there, I just find the process clunky and unyielding with too many unnecessary steps. I think part of it is that I’m so used to Blender now that everything else feels like crap. Modo is great at modeling though… just needs some improvements on some of their tools…
Sure it can do a lot of cool stuff with rigging and animation though!
Enough of my opinions though.

You can learn like all of that stuff off the internet for free or for much less cost in money and time.
Pick something you want to make in 3D, start simple, and learn what you need to do it. Make it look good so it can go into a portfolio too! Then pick something else that’s a bit harder, possibly relating to a different aspect of 3D. Continue like than and you’ll learn a lot! Consult google for tutorials, if you find a good paid tutorial series, try it. Use forums a LOT too.

23

I freaking hate 3DS Max. It’s like their UI and workflow philosophy is stuck in the 90s.
Maya is ok, but I think it’s garbage for modeling and UVs.

24

A degree is helpful if you want to work in another country. Getting a work permit/visa will be infinitely harder if you don’t have one. Schools have anohter advantage schedules and enforced deadlines, when you don’t have the pressure of deadlines to hand in assignment etc you will work at a much more slower pace unless you are really strict with yourself.

25

Yes indeed 3dsmax has an ancient interface I hope Autodesk can send 3dsmax to museum.

Well I worked with Maya more than 8 years, I was relax with its modeling and uv, its UV tools is really good (lots of tools), when I first came to blender it was so hard to work with blender and now I modeling/uv with it so fast as I was in Maya, I think it depends on habit, Maya also keeps nodes of editing that might be useful, however I found Rigging in Blender so interesting, you go in edit mode and pose mode, and you can transform whole skeleton in blender(in Maya transforming whole complex rig may cause problem), however there is a problem in blender and its node cyclic problem (scene graph seems) and is going to be fixed with new node-scene graph in near future I think.

26

Personally I think maya is just bad in my experience, it just wasn’t co operating, AT ALL.

But then again I though 3ds max’s interface is the best UI ever so, yeah I guess my opinion really is not worth that much when it comes to comparing 3d programs.

27

Okay… I thought it was great, might have something to do with the fact that it was the first app I used so…

The only reason I dislike max is really the fact that you need plugins to do anything,

Remember dupliverts? The free tool that comes with blender?

3DS max needs a plugin called rail clone to provide the same functionality,

Mental ray is almost a joke compared to cycles and cinerender, so you have to get Vray.

But it just hit all the right spots for me in modelling,

But everything else is pretty asinine(i.e it takes a whole 60 minutes to open in my computer)

28

I don’t think artist are created in schools, but their studies can give an artist the right kind of food.
Personally i think that if you want to be good at blender, take a pen and paper and learn first to draw or paint.
The reason, you get esthetics, you’ll learn to imagine things in 3d in your mind (instead of a computer).
If your good with that, you can get things into a computer; as then you know what you want.
Knowing what you want before, is just a starter…
From there you will need to dive into the technical side of your 3d program.
Learn it, play with it etc, the first 2 years are just an intro, if you spend a few hours each week.
After that you might dive deeper, blender.org does sell some training video’s, those might be helpful.
Also in that time i’d recommend to try a few times to work together with someone else.
You see in reality its about what other people want, its often not about what you think its about, i mean learn to work in a team.
You will also learn a lot that way, you learn about their tricks etc.

So give it 4 ~ 5 year with regular blender time i’d say you would get pretty good then.
The artist quality is just for a few, you might not even be an artist but still create good enough work (its about whats getting sold and whats not).

If i were you, i’d take blender as a hobby, you can do other things, web design or so, when the time is right, you might use blend4web or so to show off what you can do with web design and blender… that way you already have a job and bring in blender to that job, i think that’s how a lot of people endup using blender in their jobs.

29

Yeah guys I am in the business of education and most who say a degree is pointless I think are wrong.

Fact is just a degree does not do it. Obviously the work you can do is more important.

However two things most degree haters here fail to realize:

  1. a degree means you went through a formal education and had the strength to finish it.
    You know how many students slack and fail classes because they are too lazy?

  2. a class room can provide a learning and feedback environment no online tutorial session can offer

yes very good people can learn and master the art by just watching tuts. But that is not because of the tuts but because those
people are in general very gifted.

I tell my students it doe snot matter what school you go to because if you are good you are motivated to learn and will prosper in any school.

I went to a masters degree and learned really more there than in the 4 years under graduate. Why? Because master degrees require a different focus and offer also a different freedom. Specifically today with this bachelor crap where university is more an extension of high school master programs really set things different. Why companies don’t want guys with a MFA is because of MFA guys can ask for more money.

I hardly think anybody here who rants against a degree also has a masters. I went to a 3 year masters program.

Which brings me to my last question. 6K is not much to be honest but is that for one year two years half a year?

My degree was 30k. Thankfully they gave me a tuition waiver because of my portfolio.

30

That clearly biases your opinion against the interest of someone seeking “neutral” advice. You don’t hire people, you sell the product that supposedly helps people getting hired.

  1. a degree means you went through a formal education and had the strength to finish it.
    You know how many students slack and fail classes because they are too lazy?

We’re talking about an art degree, aren’t we? Finishing an art degree mostly means you showed up and did something. You’re unlikely to be graded on something like technical merit, because it’s art.

  1. a class room can provide a learning and feedback environment no online tutorial session can offer

It can completely distract you from getting anything done, too.

Why companies don’t want guys with a MFA is because of MFA guys can ask for more money.

That doesn’t make any sense. If companies don’t want you in the first place, how can you ask for more money?

My degree was 30k. Thankfully they gave me a tuition waiver because of my portfolio.

And that’s on the lower end, isn’t it? This is a lot of money. A degree has to make you the money invested back in order to make any economic sense. Art degrees are not even a requirement for art-related jobs, unless of course you want to become a teacher yourself ;).

31

I agree that a lot of people would find a college course being the best way to learn, but with the information out there today it’s clear that college may not be for everyone.

Heck, CNN Money reports that there’s at least 2 young billionaires in the world today who were college dropouts. They didn’t finish, yet they found a way to set themselves up to a high standard of living for life (even if they quit their job and spent every day in leisure). I just don’t think college would be as relevant today as it used to be if not for most jobs requiring a degree, this isn’t the pre-digital era where colleges were more or less the only locations where you can find instruction on certain career skills.

32

I’ve been doing pro 3D for 2 years, not a single client has even asked me if I passed high school (Don’t worry, I am college graduate ;)). Imo college for 3D art is not worth it, there is so much free information out there that can get you to the professional level. You just have to be passionate enough to put the time into it :slight_smile:

33

Here is the deal

BeerBaron before you accuse me of selling a product you should rather read about me and my teaching before you make such a dump uneducated comment and judgment again.

Guys like Steve Jobs made it but he did not come from a coal miner company and he was also in college. That is why I said if you as a person are interested in learning like Steve was nearly every good facility will be beneficial. Only because you graduate from a good school does not mean you are educated well.

Why would a client want to know what college or degree you have? That hardly ever happens. Do you think when you want to apply to a company the same will happen?

Man that level of fairy tale wishful thinking is pretty nice here.

Also guys comments like the web is full of tuts is kinda misleading. Knowing a software is not an artistic skill.
Art and such you hardly can learn from tutorials. My students always want tuts and I tell them I do not spoon feed them and it would be a waste of time for me to teach the software. I teach design - being good in the software is their job after I provided an intro.

College is as relevant as it always has been. Fact however in the US is that college academic expectations tanked. Colleges became also what in Europe we call trade schools another let down in the US. Also colleges here can mean a lot from very good research to for profit crap holes.

At the end it really comes down to where do you want to be / work at later and what for you would be the best learning environment. Simply to state that college for 3D art is a wast of time makes me rather think you picked the wrong school or you don’t really do much with 3D - which is a massively complex and deep subject.

One of my student friend made it to Pixar and later was let go because students from the art center were just better. I think some hobby 3D person I read some Blender tuts hardly will make it into such positions on a regular basis.

Reading about all those nice things in magazines is not the same as working in that field folks.

It really comes down to what did you do during college - were you just an A student doing your homework or were you a curious person learning about art/design and discovering yourself?

34

Holy thread necro Batman…

IRT - Beer Baron #30 - You and me have bumped heads a few times, but in this case, you hit the nail on the head. Credit where credit is due, great post.

IRT - Cekujnen - I don’t want to get into this really but let me just relay a story that unfortunately contradicts your advice, again, I’m not trying to argue or debate you. -When I was getting my BFA in Computer Art/3D we had Dreamworks reps come to the school for an open house/demo/Q&A. During the Q&A one of my peers asked the Human Resources rep from Dreamworks if it would be helpful if she continued her education and got a Master’s Degree after finishing her BFA. The response was, and I’m paraphrasing (“No, don’t go for an MFA, it raises a red flag right away for us. It means either your 4 year Bachelor’s was in another subject and you switched to art later, or it means that you were not confident/qualified when you finished your Bachelor’s in Art and that is a bad sign for us as a Bachelor’s is more than enough to get started and the industry moves very fast. In either case, it’s a bad sign and raises red flags as soon as we see it but at the end of the day it depends on your portfolio.” (again paraphrasing but that is pretty close) She also went on to mention that they have artists working for them who’s fine art was so good, and that they had no schooling/university whatsoever, and they paid them just to train them in house to learn 3D because they wanted them that badly (at that time). She made it clear that getting hired was entirely about the quality of your demo reel/portfolio and ability to present your skill set). Now I think that is ‘partially’ crazy logic about the MFA, but, that was the HR head of Dreamworks saying it (not me) (and that was about 12 years ago now, when salaries in this industry hadn’t completely crashed yet and “starting salary” was about $75,000 still, a few years earlier and it was even higher), so go figure.

Also (and again, I’m not trying to argue, I’m just stating what I feel is an actual fact.) IRT -the idea that you can’t learn the language(s) of art and traditional technique that applies across mediums with tutorials/books/feedback forums (and a lot of practice) etc… and can only really learn software techniques with tutorials…, is complete non-sense. It would be a very easy task to list books and videos, some free, some not (but affordable) that could easily detail all of the topics that could possibly be taught in a live classroom and after that it’s up to the learner to be driven/motivated/consistent and seek out feedback on their work as they progress. The only thing that you probably can’t find a reasonable substitute for (online) is a good live model (for figure drawing / painting) and also you or someone else, needs to light and set dress/stage the model appropriately. However, most major cities (and many Universities) have these resources that you can take advantage of for very reasonable fees until you can learn to do it yourself and hire models.

Someone brought up the idea that a “College Degree” might be necessary for artists looking for work outside of their home country. This is absolutely correct, it’s a huge bonus and often an absolute requirement for visa/work permit in another country, HOWEVER, the requirement isn’t that you went to art university, it’s that you have a university degree, period. You are simply better off investing in a different major for a multitude of reasons that have already been mentioned in this thread and elsewhere on these forums. Degrees in math, comp-sci, engineering, etc., are just better values and will leave the door open for way better careers.

You or anyone else, can kindly have the last word, I’m not up for any sort of a debate I just wanted to share info that was relevant and hadn’t yet been posted before.

35

I’m not “accusing” you of anything. Are you teaching fully non-professionally? If not, then yes, you are selling/offering a product - which is your teaching - either directly to students or to a faculty. There is nothing wrong with selling something! However, that means you are in the business of education so you are not going to give a neutral opinion to anyone seeking advice.

If you’re not even teaching professionally then it wasn’t obvious from what you said (I’m not gonna google your life history) but you still have no reason to act insulted.

I’m not saying that a degree is absolutely useless, I’m saying it has to pay off. You have paid 30K(?) for an MFA that supposedly doesn’t help you get hired by companies (according to you) or that is even detrimental to your hiring prospects at Pixar (according to Cancer’s account). The few arguments you brought up in favor of the degree are extremely poor. First of all, you have to rationalize your decision to get the degree for yourself. That also makes you a non-neutral advisor.

Unless you have tens of thousands of dollars and a couple of years of your life to blow on an art hobby, you will want to consider to opinions of prospective clients/employers above anything else, not the opinions of people in the education business or the people who bought into getting a degree.

36

Good advice: Finish your current degree! Its something to fall back on in hard times to pay the bills.

As for learning art - just do it. If you need tutoring to improve then go for evening classes in life drawing and that sort of thing. Don’t waste your money on a degree when your art can speak for itself.

37

I know how to learn anything I want to learn. I absolutely know that I could learn how to fly the space shuttle because someone else knows how to fly it, and they put it in a book. Give me the book, and I do not need somebody to stand up in front of the class. -Will Smith

Get your Degree, 3d animation is an unstable career, you can have a back-up degree to get food to your table :wink: Specially in Spain with the economic problems there…you can learn 3d animation online, for free everywhere…