I DESPERATELY need help finding 3D app usage, jobs, skills, etc...

[Dan Huff]

I saw a thread some time ago (not necessarily on THIS forum) containing a link to an article someone had written discussing the different 3D apps, the number or percentage of jobs relating to those apps, etc. I remember Maya was used more in film, Max was used more in games, etc, and I was wondering if this was still the case??? I know Maya has been gaining a lot of popularity among the game developers, and Max has been used increasingly for some film work. Has anyone else seen an article similar to the one I described, that I failed to bookmark???

Is there some way of finding more information concerning the software preferences of major animation and game companies, the different types of positions for people they employ, the responsibilities of the different jobs, etc??? How about the number of legal copies of these softwares in circulation, as a general reference?

I have a pretty decent understanding of 3D in general, but I'm doing a research paper for a Technical Writing class in college and I need to find articles or official documentation of some of this information, something that can be referenced in the body of the report, as well as the reference page in the back.

ANY information or leads will be GREATLY appreciated, as I am running out of time. Searching out this type of info has been much more difficult than I anticipated!

Dan Huff
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/

[Dan Huff]

I saw a thread some time ago (not necessarily on THIS forum) containing a link to an article someone had written discussing the different 3D apps, the number or percentage of jobs relating to those apps, etc. I remember Maya was used more in film, Max was used more in games, etc, and I was wondering if this was still the case??? I know Maya has been gaining a lot of popularity among the game developers, and Max has been used increasingly for some film work. Has anyone else seen an article similar to the one I described, that I failed to bookmark???

Is there some way of finding more information concerning the software preferences of major animation and game companies, the different types of positions for people they employ, the responsibilities of the different jobs, etc??? How about the number of legal copies of these softwares in circulation, as a general reference?

I have a pretty decent understanding of 3D in general, but I'm doing a research paper for a Technical Writing class in college and I need to find articles or official documentation of some of this information, something that can be referenced in the body of the report, as well as the reference page in the back.

ANY information or leads will be GREATLY appreciated, as I am running out of time. Searching out this type of info has been much more difficult than I anticipated!

Dan Huff
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/

[s.winders]

What you are looking for is something like this Danny http://www.pixelnews.com/ look under The Roncalli report link.The report is way expensive but there is some info you might find helpful


General rule of thumb seems to be learn Max if you want to work on games.Most often people want their movie work etc done in Maya or now also sometimes LW.Once upon a time producers would not accept anything less then Maya on an SGI system as well.


Stu.

[Dan Huff]

Than you Stu There WAS some interesting and quite possibly useful info at that site. I just about fell off my chair after I saw their price list


Another site I found quite useful:
http://www.3drender.com/jobs/index.htm Check out the Job Count and Industry Average section near the top of the page. Of course, it is stated that the statistics deal with companies working primarily in feature film and high-end commercial production, but--whoah Check those figures!

Dan Huff
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/

[s.winders]

Very interesting


I would have thought LW would have made more ground then that,and Max lost a lot as well.Shows you how fickle the market really is Danny.Softimage being way down there shocked me to bits,its every bit as capable as Maya,but I guess Alias marketing department are just damn good at their jobs.


I have lost count now of the amount of time I have seen someone post on any forum not necessarily CG mind and totally extol the virtues of Maya.Ask a few questions or so about it and what they do with it and it does not take long to realize they have soft they dont understand and its like a prestige thing to them as opposed to a capable tool.


Stu.

[jens g.r. benthien]

Cinema isn't even mentioned in the list. I really don't know how Maxxon can claim they are the hottest company in Hollywood concerning 3D animation...

Appears to me that I 'bet on the wrong horse', but what the heck, I'm not in the CG animation industry, so I don't think I have to worry. What counts is the result...

jens

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://www.sacalobra.de

----------//--
If you don't know how to dream you'll never be a designer.
----------//--

[s.winders]

C4D has been used in many films jens,just in places in films not wholy like say Maya or LW or Softimage.But then again as C4D grows and it still seems to be growing the tool will get better and they wiiill spend more on R and D,but to catch up to say Maya is a pretty big ask at this stage,but you never know one day


A lot more studios have copies of C4D now as opposed to the year before,and there are also studios where C4D for 3D is wholy used,thats something new


But as for the biggest thing in Hollywood that is pure marketing in a market which is getting very cut throat now.


Stu.

[Ron Pfister]

Ah, the eternal question. Much like which operating system is best the debate about which 3D app rules and which is most likely to help you to land a job will go on forever. I'm a Cinema user now, as most regulars here know, and I've found the program to provide more fire power than I can hope to use. Whenever I need to learn a skill, a way of creating a face or a lamp...whatever...I start looking for tutorials that are written not only for Cinema but for LW and Maya and Max. The basic principles of 3D model creation are almost universal. Each app mentioned here has it's strengths and weakness'. The greatest weakness that applies to each package is the user. If you don't understand the way a program is designed to work, and you don't have the basic skills needed to build 3D models you can forget being a salable product in the job market. Maya, Houdini will do you no good if you lack the basic skills.

As far as starting out, try the demos. Find a demo that feels comfortable with an interface that makes sense to you. After you've found one start working your ass off, or as Gary Bouton told me back in 1997, start 'BootStrapping'. Learning everything you can about 3D and the product you've chosen is important. No-one walks into Hollywood with a copy of Maya under their arm and finds themselves instantly hired. The pros working for film and gaming companies have paid their dues with countless hours of work, work, work and more work. It ain't what you have, it's how you use it.

Very best,
Ron

Ron Pfister
http://www.imaginationmagic.com

[Dan Huff]

Ron, this wasn't one of those "which software is the best" threads. I've got a fairly decent grasp on the software, but what I lack is documentable data. I've been using Max(see my praying mantis at my website) so far, and am familiar with a lot of the differences between most of the different apps, but I just need info for a college research paper.

But those truly WERE words of wisdom to the uninitiated!

Dan Huff
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/

[Gary David Bouton]

Unlike leading word processors and image editors, there is not now, nor has there ever been a "definitive" modeling/rednering/animation suite---the market is small and fractionated, and it's been that way ever since I started collecting statistics on the field in 1996.

And unless you live in Hollywood and get your facts from the source, you can't trust press reports about Software X Y or Z being used on film A B or C. SoftImage is used a lot, as is Maya. Maya was the top-to-bottom solution for "Stuart Little", but as I hear it from a friend in Hollywood, and awful lot of prprietary modeling solutions are used. C4D, Pixar Renderman, and so on. SONY ImageWorks, FWIW, was heavily involved in the Matrix Unplugged, and the first Matrix ran every frame through RenderMan to get a "look".

It's all a happily confused mish-mash of what works for a production studio. A friend of mine in Hollywood who interviewed at PIXAR was told this much:

If you put robots or space ships on your reel for employment, they will kick your ass out on the street. They, like most companies don't want to see what has been done better years ago. They want to see a NARROW talent: are you a good director? Then only show movies that demonstrate your directing talent, and they will overlook your rendering prowess, for example. Do you do good at lighting? Then show lighting examples, but studios are made up of TEAMWORK--you do not have to be great at every aspect of 3D. In fact, they do not want to see you trying. Instead, they want a focused hopeful.

And they will also assume that you can adapt to the software THEY use. So it definitely doesn't hurt to at least open up a bunch of different demos of programs such as SoftImage.

But only if you seriously want to do this for a living.

My Best,
-g-