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Do a lot of visual artists have programming skills these days? Or I guess a better question is, do artists who have programming skills get higher pay, attentio

Do a lot of visual artists have programming skills these days? Or I guess a better question is, do artists who have programming skills get higher pay, attention,etc from employers in this field? I guess I’m curious to the state of the field of digital artists wrt programming. Great read!

127 6y ago
Both Houdini and Substance tools are basically programming for artists. Unreal Engine Blueprints is visual data-flow programming. So to answer your question: yes. The question isn't as much do you get higher pay for this, it's more about you can't even do most of the high tier CG work without knowing this style of programming. Zbrush may be one of the last things where you can just sculpt things, but even that can get really technical really quickly.
- kzrdude 6y ago
  Is there a stack exchange site or equivalent that allows easy access to existing solutions? :)
  - aprdm 6y ago
    odforce (https://forums.odforce.net/ https://forums.odforce.net/) is a known houdini forum.
xythian 6y ago
You might look into 'Data Artist'. It's a small but growing profession that's a bit of a hybrid of data scientist, data analyst, data journalist, and visual designer. https://www.jerthorp.com/ https://www.jerthorp.com/ is one such well known example.
aprdm 6y ago
An artist is mostly about the art and doing things that result in beautiful images approved by their supervisors! Knowing programming can make them more effective but it is not the job, you want something that your CG Supervisor approves and that looks beautiful in the screen. There are usually Technical Directors (TD) that work close to the departments and know programming more to help the artists. That said, some artists can be quite technical and know programming. The tool Houdini which produces FX (simulations for fluid, debris, fire, etc.) usually has a couple of programming wizards. They can be quite good in algorithms / hacking stuff together to make it work well in a scene, but not necessarily software design.
KaiserPro 6y ago
Its a broad range. But some camps have more programming skills than others. For example, matte painting _tends_ to be more artistic, where as FX and procedural tends to be more programming. However, the artistic mindset is still equally important, regardless of how technical you are, its still got to look good.
dagmx 6y ago
Most visual artists today do not have programming skills. It's a small minority of people in any studio who can code. But that's largely why I created the course (at the bottom of the posts). I had a lot of artists asking to learn to code, and it was easier to make the course than to do it 1:1 with each of them. With regards to pay and attention, people who can code are definitely more stable in regards to their careers. They are more likely to be kept on after projects, and generally have greater demand. The downside is you'll have less attention than artists. You're not really creating the final imagery, so you're a bit in the background. That means you will be better off in the early and middle parts of a career, but it's harder to make it to the really high end jobs like Visual effects supervisors etc...however that's usually 10-15 years into someones career as an artist, and only for a select few, so it's not really a negative IMHO. Though on the flip side, it's easy to jump to traditional tech roles as well, if you find you are hitting a ceiling.

127 6y ago

Both Houdini and Substance tools are basically programming for artists. Unreal Engine Blueprints is visual data-flow programming. So to answer your question: yes. The question isn't as much do you get higher pay for this, it's more about you can't even do most of the high tier CG work without knowing this style of programming. Zbrush may be one of the last things where you can just sculpt things, but even that can get really technical really quickly.

kzrdude 6y ago
Is there a stack exchange site or equivalent that allows easy access to existing solutions? :)
- aprdm 6y ago
  odforce (https://forums.odforce.net/ https://forums.odforce.net/) is a known houdini forum.

xythian 6y ago

You might look into 'Data Artist'. It's a small but growing profession that's a bit of a hybrid of data scientist, data analyst, data journalist, and visual designer. https://www.jerthorp.com/ https://www.jerthorp.com/ is one such well known example.

aprdm 6y ago

An artist is mostly about the art and doing things that result in beautiful images approved by their supervisors! Knowing programming can make them more effective but it is not the job, you want something that your CG Supervisor approves and that looks beautiful in the screen. There are usually Technical Directors (TD) that work close to the departments and know programming more to help the artists. That said, some artists can be quite technical and know programming. The tool Houdini which produces FX (simulations for fluid, debris, fire, etc.) usually has a couple of programming wizards. They can be quite good in algorithms / hacking stuff together to make it work well in a scene, but not necessarily software design.

KaiserPro 6y ago

Its a broad range. But some camps have more programming skills than others. For example, matte painting _tends_ to be more artistic, where as FX and procedural tends to be more programming. However, the artistic mindset is still equally important, regardless of how technical you are, its still got to look good.

dagmx 6y ago

Most visual artists today do not have programming skills. It's a small minority of people in any studio who can code. But that's largely why I created the course (at the bottom of the posts). I had a lot of artists asking to learn to code, and it was easier to make the course than to do it 1:1 with each of them. With regards to pay and attention, people who can code are definitely more stable in regards to their careers. They are more likely to be kept on after projects, and generally have greater demand. The downside is you'll have less attention than artists. You're not really creating the final imagery, so you're a bit in the background. That means you will be better off in the early and middle parts of a career, but it's harder to make it to the really high end jobs like Visual effects supervisors etc...however that's usually 10-15 years into someones career as an artist, and only for a select few, so it's not really a negative IMHO. Though on the flip side, it's easy to jump to traditional tech roles as well, if you find you are hitting a ceiling.