Has anyone switched sides from programming to art?

Just wondered if anyone has switched (paid) jobs from being a programmer to being an artist or vice versa?

By artist I don't mean graphic designer either. I mean actual artist who draws the characters in a game etc. Not like a website designer.

Was it difficult? If you have a CV which just has programming jobs (which people may assume you are technically minded but not creative) how do you get hired to become a creative art person?

I suppose its not such a big leap as say between being a programmer and a quarterback or a cheerleader or deep sea diver.

One problem I think is that if you say you are a programmer people may perceive that as a good solid job, but if you say you are an artist people might think that is not a real job in a sense - or at least a more risky way to make a living. That is just public perception. So in that way it might be easier to go form artist to programmer.

Or do you feel "boxed-in" to stay in the type of job you're doing forever?

 

I think it's definitely harder to go from programmer to artist than the other way around, then again I say this as a programmer. I'm often on the lookout for artists to collaborate with, my search taught me that good artist are harder to find than good programmers.

I'm not looking to switch sides as I love programming and know my artistic limits, but go ahead and give it a shot, you might discover that you're a talented artist and end up hitting two birds with the same stone.

 

If you saw my art style you might describe it as "interesting". But that's why I make my own games. Because no-one with a right mind would employ me as an artist!

I don't think I have the attention span for art. Because you sit for ages making some nice art and when you finished it doesn't even do anything!

 

Can you show a sample of your art looks like?

 

All my life. I switched back and forth between engineering and graphic design/illustration. I started professionally in games largely on the art side. For the last 10 or so years I've been both at the same time, as a technical artist. I typically lean more on the 2d side, but do 3d as well. I don't do a lot of concept art, but character/environment/vfx and a lot of animation. Typically a bulk of my work is animation systems/tools and vfx. Being an artist and a engineer means I often serve as a translator between the two, and find technical solutions that address both sets of needs.

I mostly am directly recruited at this point, but back when I was seeking, I had several resumes/portfolios, art focused, engineering focused and ui/ux focused. I would use the one that best fit the role they were hiring for. These days I don't, as tech art is it's own field.

Basically, just ensure your portfolio reflects what you are selling yourself as. Other's perceptions or assumptions are irrelevant, as long as you can communicate your skill set effectively.

 

Which one do you prefer? Engineering or art? Do you find it hard to switch between the two? People say these disciplines use different sides of the brain. Probably not strictly true.

I find that I am enjoying doing 3D animation. Because its not as hard as making an interactive game. But you can still program in effects. Or program in lip synching solutions etc. But the end result won't have any bugs because its just a video file. So no-one can complain because its just art and art's subjective. Currently doing it mostly in Blender, but I wouldn't be against animating within Unity.

But then again, unless you're Pixar or Disney there's not much money to be made from indie animation movies as far as I can tell.

Also, it might just be interesting to me right now because its something new to learn. But once you master the basics it might become a bit more tedious to do all those keyframes.

 

If you've got prior experience that you're not going to be using then this is going to be a consideration regardless of what role you're swapping in and out of. If you want the change then you've just got to ask yourself if it's worth the cost of any retraining you're going to have to do.

 

I don't have a preference really, I fully enjoy both, but if I am doing one over the other for long periods of time, I like to switch back. They are definitely different mindsets (the whole left/right brain thing is a myth). It's not hard to switch unless I am deeply engrossed, then I just need to step away for a few minutes to relax before switching. It is definitely inefficient (for me), to switch after short periods of time. So I try to stay on one track for at least a couple of hours.

Though it is unavoidable at times, particularly vfx, where I am bouncing back and forth between photoshop, maya/blender and textmate. Because the visual and mechanical execution are closely tied. But that instance, they don't feel like separate tasks, it's all vfx. Character animation is really the only one for me that really requires narrow focus, the others I can bounce around.

 

I like to use music to help me get in or out of the mood. I mainly listen to move/game theme music to get in the mood for art, while for programming classical is the only thing that doesn't disturb me. And for art I spend some time just looking at my favourite concept art.

It's sometimes a bit difficult for me to switch, and I literally get a very slight headache sometimes - not sure if there's some neurological mayhem going on.

 

Not directly related. But I've managed to box myself into a salary trap. There are a dozen jobs I'd love to try out. But each of them would require me to take a significant pay cut. And currently I'm not willing to spend the ten or so years that it would take to build myself up to the same level in another profession.

Sometimes our cages are of our own making, and are built out of luxury.

 

Nope, I stopped when I realised the stick figures I drew looked funny...

 

They didn't have three legs did they?

 

Yeah I have performed both art and programming roles. I'm a better artist than I am a programmer. Thread is a bit strange since most indies will be well used to performing multiple roles

If this thread is about career choices be warned that both programming and art have impossibly high standards these days, but if you are top quality in both fields, the programming one will pay you more money in general.

The reason for this is because ultimately, programming is the rarer profession and you can't ship a product with broken code but it can technically get shipped with lacklustre art.

I do prefer doing art but programmer is what I must be until we expand.

Regarding indie multi-discipline, does anyone else find that if you switch from programming to art and vice versa that it takes a day or two to get back to the quality level you were at before? I find that switching too frequently between professions reduces the quality of my output.

 

I normally don't spend more than a few hours on each one before doing the other for some amount of time, but I'm definitely sluggish for the first couple of hours. I've done some freelance art that took a couple of days and I have to say I think I was in another gear (that I don't usually reach) by the end of it.

 

I started out with Art but found I was happier doing Programming. I have't really tried to switch back but I still dabble with the latest workflows to stay up on everything and IMO it is harder to do the Art side of things than the Programming side of things. Granted, I don't do it daily so I'm biased in that regard. For most projects I usually do a little of everything. Switching too frequently will reduce your overall performance (seen this in literally every field and every scale project).

In terms of resume, people are still really interested in my mediocre art skills for some reason and it influences the work I get but I'm pretty sure this is due to the nature of projects I get into - where people who do a little bit of everything are more useful/lucrative. There is something to be said for that and if you can hold your own on a lot of different topics I think it really pays off.

Any person can basically do anything they want to. Nothing stops you but your own lack of motivation.

 

I've seen programmers who set their mind to switch to art. And learn very, very fast.

It MAY seem that it's easier for artists to switch to programming than the inverse, but that may be because there are so many more artists that it's logical to see more of them doing such a switch.

Though there may be a slight truth in the previous argument, starting to learn art may be more annoying and less structured than learning programming, harder to find inspiration at first and all, easier to fallback to sticking to what you know. Programming is a more valuable skill after all.

Still, everything has its technique, and you can learn pretty much everything with the hugely vast amount of art tutorials available, it's really just wanting to do it. There's not such a thing as lacking the ability to do art..

 

Really? Where are all these artists? LOL, I feel like programmers are a dimes dozen.

I think it's harder to switch to art because it's not something logical, it takes creativity, that's not to say programmers can't be creative, but their creativity is shown through the way they solve problems, not through visual art.

 

Maybe not, but I'm not sure that the disposition toward artistic things is entirely a choice.

 

You're right in saying it's not entirely a choice. I mean the reality for pretty much all artists is you just can't choose to do any degree amazing art at will, you're bound to certain limits and you know more or less where they are, and ever so slowly you take it up a notch and feel happy about it.

Of course it's not like anyone can just propose "I'll be an impressive artist in 6 months", if only setting one's mind to it. But that's the same for anything, programming, audio, etc. You just decide if it's worth the trouble. Focusing on too many things keeps you from specializing in one thing.

They're hidden in their caves!

 

Well what I mean is not so much in terms of skill, but more like personality. I think artists in general are people who have an urge to reflect things that they see that impress them, to give life to an emotional concept. Maybe when you don't feel this urge it becomes very difficult to do it.

I've spent more effort trying to avoid the artistic urge than pursue it - except when I've just been coding something for three days and I have a model to do ...

PS I have to say that from my time in game dev I seem to have met many more programmers lacking artistic skills than vice versa.

 

Definitely writing a good working program or function is more rewarding than art, although nice looking art will get you much more notoriety.

However, I've only created art as a hobby and only been paid once for art creation (if you don't count program UIs as art or lol, cleaning tables and the kitchen in hotels or landscaping as art) and as far as games go it's becoming more and more a case of pre-made art being altered by computer programs to be unique and very competently done so given the time it takes to do original programming and original art...well, you'd better buy as much programming frameworks and art frameworks as you can and use that precious time making those unique to your app or game.

As a hobby use all the time you can afford to do either to your heart's content to do one, the other, or both, but I have a feeling you are wanting to 1) take a shot at becoming independently wealthy by making a game 2) if that fails then be paid well as an employee doing the either art or programming and so...in that case you'd better stick to one and given as you can't create a truly competent original game without original programming your choice has been logically made for you. Only learn art if it truly interests you going through the tedious creation process more than programming, which also can be tedious but not quite so much.

 

hm, i don't know
all the programming is in the background. you don't really see it, at least in games
so, when playing a game, and seeing all the models you made move around, sounds more rewarding to me
although i can also apreciate if everything thats programmed works really nice and smooth, but iam not sure a normal user notices such things
they definitly notice when something does not work as expected though

 

Well they are just art without programming. How long are you going to stare at a picture?

 

In game development they are both equally important. Without appealing art, you're not gonna pull the crowds toward your game.

 

Also the definition of "programmer" has broadly speaking, changed. In game dev, programmer meant you either knew C, C++ or ASM otherwise you can just piss off.

These days, programmer means anything from basic and lua all the way through to C# and C++. And let me tell you, C# is *WAY* easier to work with. You can skip having 3 years of horrible gotchas. In fact I do not think there is someone out there today, who has mastered C++ completely, while I do think there are quite a few C# masters

So it's easier than ever to program. In fact programming in Unity is the right term for it, mostly, you're calling engine functions. Even when you work with vectors or quaternions, there's a heck of a lot of helping coming from Unity. Then there's managed C#.

 

With me not so much. Or rather, it's not specific or worse if it is a discipline switch. It does take a day or two get in the zone when I switch tasks/features, but I experience that equally if they are two art tasks or two engineering tasks. Unless they are very similar in nature.

 

Personally, from my own experience and what I've seen on the forums, people either have a gift for programming or for art. For me, I'm trying to focus on programming, since I'm terrible at drawing, especially in 3D, let alone animations.

Now do some people switch? I'm sure some people realize they aren't good artists and go to programming, and vice versa. When I first started Unity I was trying to learn C# and Blender at the same time, but I decided to go to C#, and I haven't opened Blender since (I don't think I even have it installed anymore). So I feel that once someone spends enough time in a field, they aren't going to switch simply because it's a huge time investment at something you've already decided you're not as good at. I'm certainly never trying Blender again, the most drawing and modeling I'm doing is Paint3D when Microsoft fixes its bugs.

 

I think that there are actual tricks or techniques that the old masters knew and taught their apprentices that is not simply "look at stuff and try to copy it and repeat", which is more or less what I was taught at school.

Things like, "if you do these certain brushstrokes it looks like velvet", "if you put a white splodge there on the apple it makes it look shiny", "these colours and brushstrokes make a convincing wood effect". Things like that. All these little art algorithms that are quite hard to discover for yourself.

So anyone without a natural talent could learn all these art algorithms and be fairly proficient in painting. They might not be Rembrant but they could make a living from it. The trouble is I think a lot of these techniques may be lost in time.

I think there are a lot of tricks in graphic design too. Mainly, "put a drop shadow and a reflection on it".

So in a way being a good programmer or an artist is similar. It is just learning lots of algorithms.

 

Only if you still live in the 90s

 

Well David Hockney and few others believed the old masters made massive improvements in art when optics came on the scene There is a documentary called Tim's Vermeer that supports that point of view

 

The biggest misconception about art is that it's not logical, like the only necessity for artists is having constant creative sparks. Frankly, the biggest hurdle most young artists face is coming to understand that there are rules. Composition and dynamism are usually early issue, and then you get to things like anatomy, perspective and shading which are all about understanding and projecting the 3D space. Hell, there are artists that can pull out separate AO layers in their drawings.

... And I haven't even gotten to modeling yet... although 3D is mostly about understanding the tools more than anything. It's how understanding good topology is dependent on understanding how it's going to be rigged and animated. Then just think about how unlikely it would be for someone to become good at substances without having some understanding of the science behind PBR.

 

as a 3d artist i can confirm this
3d art is really more about technical knowledge. how do all the maps work (math wise), how do i create 3d models that perform well, finding clever ways to maximise performance, knowing all the rules for modeling, lots of physics and maths if you really want to understand how to make good textures for your shaders from scratch, for character artists you need to have deep anatomy knowledge, you also need to know all the different programs to a certain degree

so basicly... 3d artists are really more on the tech side than the art side

 

I suppose if you differentiate a 3D artist from a concept artist, you're right. But if you have to design something interesting yourself, it's not just a question of technical knowledge.

To produce something proportional and neat according to a reference is one thing, but to to design something emotionally evocative is a totally different story.

 

Thanks for putting it in perspective, shows how much I lack knowledge in this department.

 

yes, thats true
but strictly speaking from a job perspektive, a 3d artist will not be responsible for concept art, this is usually provided
at least in big studios

for indi devs, thats certainly different since the teams are usually small and few people have to do many jobs

 

Here's the thing though, can you define what you find attractive? Why would this not then be the technical scaffolding from which you build. Just think about how easy it would be to model some flowers, bunch them up nicely, throw in some dramatic lighting, and have a nice tranquil scene.

Humans are far more logic based than programmers tend to believe, the unconscious even more so.

 

I'm not saying that art isn't redicible to logical attributes, but that doesn't mean that anyone can realistically take advantage of that. Instinct and emotion is far easier to utilise - it's like Unity vs assembly language.

 

Concept art is about broad stokes, pallets and direction. A production artist is rarely just executing against reference. They have the same goals as concept just working were the rubber meets the road. And concept is rarely a creative free for all, they have their rules and structure as well, executing against story, design and creative direction. Its basically a series of refinements. Concept does rough and fast sketches to iterate quickly. Art leads refine, artists execute. Often with things moving back and forth along the chain several times. Sometimes there is a lot of crossover, sometimes not, it varies based on current needs team dynamics.

 

You know what, we should do a concept art challenge. I think it's grossly under-represented given its importance.

Maybe a picture, 20 lines of excerpt from a story you create around it, and a very brief description of what game you think would be fun to build on it.

 

Imagine using a programming pattern without knowing it's name. Maybe there are some things different to how you implement it and you might suffer some to pitfalls that would usually be outlined and discussed, but ultimately another programmer could see your code and notice you're using X pattern.

That is exactly what an artist's instincts are. Someone else has named it, studied it, and fully pulled apart every aspect of it, while instinct just vaguely guides people to say it's a thing. Simply put, you do not know how to fix something with instinct, rather you only know it's a problem. This is what separates a novice from an expert.

 

It's tempting to think that way, but art doesn't work in the same way as programming. The entire point of art is to convey an emotional message, not simply to function logically. If you look at your own work and you cannot feel your buttons pushed by it (either for better or for worse) I doubt it will be easy - or even pleasant - to be an artist.

Instinct is not simply a question of vague understanding. It's a question of a reaction that is disproportionally greater than the understanding that drives it, because it's pre-programmed. It is much, much more efficient to be driven by instinct than conscious thought, as long as the instinct has been well honed by effective practice. In fact most of the things we do physically that are most important are largely not accessible to conscious thought, and for good reason - conscious analyzing can quickly get in the way, not least because something that appears very simple can turn out to take a very high cognitive load to understand and manipulate.

When it comes to art, I think the most effective ability is that of being able to be moved emotionally, either positively or negatively (i.e. you did something wrong or out of place), by the product of what you're doing, as you are doing it. In fact I think it's the same with game design - if you cannot feel the rythm of gameplay as you iterate, it's very hard to make a good game. This is something I'm finding out now, that I didn't quite expect.

Anyway, who knows, maybe ymmv, but although I'd like to think I'm perfectly unique, I usually find out that it isn't the case unfortunately.

 

In terms of instinct, it's worth noting that instinct is important in programming to. After a while you build up 'engineering intuition'. Much of this involves simply knowing what's right from past experience, rather then pure logic.

It's practice and training that builds intuition and instinct. In art and programming.

 

How do eyes show emotion? Take anger for instance. The eye pitches up, usually with the head pitching down to track the target, to the point where the pupil is almost, if not partly, under the upper lid. Add in the dozen or so other signs like the pinched in eyebrows with the outsides raised upward, the nostrils flared, and reddening skin, and there will be little doubt the person is angry.

Expand on this and you'll find that every emotional state has pretty well defined physical characteristics. I know I'm talking about literal emotions here, but it's not that big of a jump to large compositions that tell a story. People are pretty predictable. Pick up artistry, stage magic, and social engineering wouldn't work otherwise (and I've dabbled in all three).

 

Very true, but the difference is that the practical 'test' for art design is not a logical one, whereas for programming it is. One's ability to evaluate code is based on one's ability to understand logically what the code is supposed to do and whether it carries out this function. Whereas evaluating art design is a question of being able to emotionally understand what the art is supposed to convey, and to feel whether it succeeds or not.

The real issue with art design is that the desired result is an effect, and not a function. What is scary, or beautiful, or appears strong or weak, what evokes disgust or attraction, or what attributes evoke certain emotions, is dependent on a huge parametric equation of variables that don't have a consistent or clearly defined relationship with eachother, produced by all the history we have spent on this planet. It's far more effective to be able to tap into and magnify this 'primordial' sense than it is to try to analytically arrive at an answer to an art problem.

Interestingly though, computers may turn out to be very good eventually at art, because of their ability to handle orders of magnitude more information than the human brain - effectively filtering designs through the history of human experience to arrive at an effective result.

 

If you think about this statement, you'll already see that there is a huge amount of unspoken understanding already built in. According to wiki, the face has 43 muscles. You haven't described their positions and characteristics in any detail, because we already instinctively know very much about the overall characteristics of a face in particular emotional states.

If someone with a reduced sense of emotional reaction to someone's face took the information you just provided and attempted to create a face out of it, I doubt the result would be very good. Whereas someone with a hyper-sensitive reaction to someone else's facial expression, would very quickly arrive at an effective result, by starting off with the information and iterating through trial and error, guided by their own reactions.

In the land of the blind, having one eye makes you extraordinarily effective but I have to say that from what I have seen, read and experienced about these sort of things, the most effective people are always those who have a strong sense of natural empathy combined with a practical understanding of what they want.

 

While art may convey "emotion", that isn't always the case or a necessity. Visual art is communication, that may be an idea, emotion, information or simply aesthetics.

 

IMO the most crucial element is the emotion. It can be made stronger by having some sense of correctness - for example jokes are funnier when they convey some sort of deeper understanding or relationship, such as puns, and art benefits from symmetry and balance and all that sort of thing.

Btw I think it's kind of interesting this ad I saw for some kind of Hans Zimmer online class, if you watch the beginning and see how he listens and reacts to what he is playing as he is playing it, I think it shows how important this ability is for any kind of artist.

 

Sure, that can be a component in many cases.

 

Is that class any good? Did anyone here take it? I'm kinda considering it.

 

I'm guessing it's going to be pretty useful. I might end up doing it, but for my game right now I'd rather just buy some quality music.