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Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

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Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#51

Unicorn type person working in games here. Engineering, design, art, music, etc. I started my career as an abstract painter and sculptor. Then transitioned into 3d animation, then web design, then into back-end web engineering. Found I was decent at that, then moved into web games(flash). I've been making games and interesting public interactive projects ever since. Nothing you've probably heard of, maybe the ZX Plec…

> Unicorn type person What is that?

From my heard usage of the term it usually describes a person that has deep understanding of a lot of things and hence can do almost anything with it. Like imagine a full stack developer but with deep domain knowledge in every related field. Widening that knowledge is usually just one project with a new stack away. Often x10devs and INTJs as one might guess.

Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#53
Where I used to work my colleagues used commercially available game engines to build simulations for training purposes. Many of these were for military customers although some were civil (e.g. a safety trainer for coal mining). I therefore became interested in game development in general and played around with Unity for a while at home. From work, I'd gained an appreciation of the many different skills involved in game dev. In parallel I'd been using Poser and Daz Studio for 3D scene construction, with Octane for photorealistic rendering. I'm also a hobbyist photographer, and enjoy playing with light.

I eventually realised that I most enjoyed photorealistic rendering and that the asset marketplaces were often swimming in shovelware - so there was no real money in asset creation. Not that I was looking for serious revenue, but I had wondered if I could make enough money to pay for assets and licenses. I'd produced some promotional renders for asset creators and eventually came to the attention of someone who produces tutorials. So I decided to combine my 3D lighting knowledge with general photographic experience. I've now produced tutorials (sold on the Daz 3D marketplace) focussing on lighting 3D scenes using Daz Studio (and historically Octane). One of these has earned me enough money that I actually think I need to declare it on my tax returns!

[Edit] I sometimes use Blender to create simple 3D assets although I've never really gone up the learning curve. The 3D tools in Photoshop although simplistic are also sometimes okay for my purposes - e.g. if I want some 3D text in a scene. I keep meaning to have a look at Unreal and its rendering capability, but never quite get round to it.

Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#55
I have studied Art and Craft, Electronic Art/Graphics as well as Media Art over the years. Used Cinema 4D and 3D studio Max in the past, but am in love with Blender these days. Great for Modeling, Sculpting, Animation etc. Amazing community too!!!

I do a lot of video work using Blackmagic cinema cameras and Davinci Resolve. Solid as houses, features growing with every update. Also has Fusion built in which is a powerful Compositing and FX toolset. Been tinkering with Photoshop for more years than I care to remember. Also After Affects, which is great. However I have become less and less happy with Adobe over the years, so I'am currently working on weening myself off that teet.

Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately no, my time in industry was quite short, but I worked on some really fun projects in that time - generative hair, trees, lighting tools. The cg pipeline has so many parts so you never get bored, and each new production and artistic vision brings new problems to be solved. It’s a fun place to be for sure!

How short and which decade? Did you ever meet bigwigs like Lasseter and Katzenberg? And movies where I possibly seen your work? Tarazan perhaps?

I worked in the generative trees in Zootopia and sculpting tools for the characters in Coco.

The studios are small so you’ll see everyone (higher ups less often, but you’ll see lasseter - he’s gone now though or catmull walking around occasionally) I had the opportunity to meet lasseter once in a small group setting and he was the most intensely passionate person I’ve ever met about animation. Hearing him speak about it almost made me cry.

The creative energy (and people) was incredible to experience. The engineers were artistically inclined and the artists were technically very smart. The mix of tech+art brings in different ways of thinking which I think contributes to the unique creativity of the environment.

Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#57
post #26
post #20

I started as a painter, discovered multi-color 3D Printing and learned basic coding skills. I'm currently working on a Blender Addon that lets you modify G-code inside of Blender. Shifting more and more to the developer side of things, but still trying to work with both, can be a powerful combination. G-code importer can be seen here: [link redacted] Some results here: [link redacted]

not sure if it's rude to ask, but have you had any buyers of your nfts?

What nfts?

Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#58

Unicorn type person working in games here. Engineering, design, art, music, etc. I started my career as an abstract painter and sculptor. Then transitioned into 3d animation, then web design, then into back-end web engineering. Found I was decent at that, then moved into web games(flash). I've been making games and interesting public interactive projects ever since. Nothing you've probably heard of, maybe the ZX Plec…

> Unicorn type person What is that?

I've heard it used to describe professionally multi-skilled people in significantly different domains.

Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unicorn type person What is that?

From my heard usage of the term it usually describes a person that has deep understanding of a lot of things and hence can do almost anything with it. Like imagine a full stack developer but with deep domain knowledge in every related field. Widening that knowledge is usually just one project with a new stack away. Often x10devs and INTJs as one might guess.

Thats my understanding also, but I never know with how terms change quickly. So willing to be corrected!

Re: Ask HN: Any Artists on HN?

#60

Senior Visual effects artist here. Hi! 20+ years in the industry, worked on movies from Final Fantasy The Spirits Withing to Disney's Enchanted and a whole mess of forgettable cinema and TV shows. My axe is SideFx's Houdini. I've been in love with it since I first set eyes on it in 1998, but didn't use it in work until 2010. Until then I was using Maya. Yuck. It's now off my resume and I've left studios that made me…

I know some instrumental musicians who want to do original game or film soundtracks. Let me know of any suggestions or contacts.
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