Career Change Advice

[pvetter]

Just wondering if anyone could give me advice on pursuing a career change from graphic design to a career in architectural visualization. I have had training in 3ds max, but more from a character animation side. Any training (online or schools) without going back to get an MA in Arch?

[Tommy L]

Is there really a place called floyds knobs? wow. thats pretty cool

 

The most important thing you can have is a good portfolio (not necessarily architectural visualisation) and a good 'team-working-i-want-to-learn' attitude. These two can open lots of doors just as well as qualifications. Dont go to college to learn this trade, get a first rung job in a visualisation studio or architects practice. In the meantime get some tutorials done.

[eksg]

Learn how to read a plan first,modelling is easy since you have a background on 3d modelling. to model buildings etch is easy (in my opinion) compared to organic modelling. but composing an architectural 3d scene is way different than chracter modelling.in character modelling, you focused on a single object, wherein in architectural 3d visualization, you have to know, and to feel, the whole environment wherein the buiding would be placed.

 

goodluck on choosing your new career path.

[Ky Lane]

Mate, thats exactly what Ive done. Im a digital designer for a studio here, and Ive always loved 3dvis since I dabbled in it as part of my masters degree. So one day I thought, bugger it, I went and bought a new Dell, and downloaded the evals of all the software and didnt sleep much for a few months. Now, the studio I do web and graph design for, also contracts me to do 3d vis for them...best of both worlds!

 

All I can say is practise, and youd be suprised how often you can use 3dvis in everyday design. Easier to model a product and pose it in a virtual world than to organise a photo shoot sometimes!

 

Just practise. Do some love jobs. Get some portfolio work together so people will start using your new skills...and before you know it, youll be modelling till the wee hours of the morning like me

[sterealkey]

Good choice.

 

I also studied graphic design and was doing magazine/brochure work for a good couple of years, was lucky enough to get mixed up with the right crowd and they tought me studio max.

 

I was fortunate enough to have technical drawings as one of my main subjects in school, so I already knew more or less how to interpret plans and retrieve information from elevations. With no additional training or qualifications over and above my graphic design diploma I was able to get into architecture. I'm still new to it and not nearly on the level where I'd like to be yet - but I'm getting there.

 

The Autodesk school is here next to my office on the same floor, and now the manager promised me that if I can convince my boss to upgrade our workstations to Max9 then he will give me a course for free. Bonus!!

 

So I think switching from graphic design to architectural visualisation is one of the best moves you'll ever make

[CRD]

I'm currently going through resumes and I can give you some advice from the other side of the table.

 

A good percentage of the resumes I get are from people who are attempting to change careers. And I usually disregard the portfolios that only show 3d characters or drawings of people. To me, someone who spent all their free time making characters would not be satisfied with a job in Arch Viz.

 

So to show me that you really have the tenacity to shift your focus and develop a love of rendering architecture, I need to see something in your portfolio that would suggest that you want to make the shift. Sometimes it seems like some people who are pursuing gaming/entertainment jobs, try to make Arch Viz the first rung up the ladder and we try to avoid those people when hiring.

 

Architectural photography is a great way to show that you have an interest in spaces and an eye for capturing the feeling of a space.

 

If you don't have direct experience, then I want to see artistic potential that will tranlate well to Arch Viz.

 

Also, make sure you spell check your resume when you send it out. That's a giant red flag for starting off poorly.

[pvetter]

Everyone:

Thanks again for the comments/advice. Huge help. As far as the design side for those who used to do graphic design, do you miss the idea/concept to completion part?

[Tommy L]

Everyone:

Thanks again for the comments/advice. Huge help. As far as the design side for those who used to do graphic design, do you miss the idea/concept to completion part?

 

That part is very much evident in the 3d arch industry.

[pvetter]

Thanks for the reply Tommy L. How much creative freedom is there in visualization?

[Tommy L]

Like all graphics/design/architecture stuff, it depends on your client. If you work in a company, it depends on your boss. The better you get at this, the more you realise there are endless solutions to every brief, so when youre quick enough, you can knock out a few good looking options to convince even stubborn clients that the 'traditional' solution may not be the best. Then your skill as an artist is put into work, you can represent a space, a project, a viewpoint etc in any way the human eye can still interpret the image/animation.

 

When i left being an (trainee) architect to do this, my old boss said:

"if you start doing 3d you'll get pidgeon-holed and you'll hit a ceiling with pay"

 

Well, these are both true in a way. But I think unless you are a prolific designer, designing can be a shit job. Especially in architecture. So now i do much more creative stuff with 3d. Also, the work i get on the side, the fewer years i did at university and the easier transition to being solo makes the financial reward as good if not better than being an architect.

 

I dont know what you do now, as in how 'creatively free' it is, but theres no shackles in this job and a million and one techniques. You learn EVERY day and it gets more interesting the longer you do it.

[pvetter]

Tommy L.:

good stuff. thanks for the advice. My creative atmosphere right now is pretty open, I do motion graphics,print, and a little web. I think I can relate to what you said about dealing with clients.

 

I took a lot of drafting classes in high school, but that has been awhile.I currently have a BS in Computer Graphics Technology. With a new baby, it would be hard to go back and get an MArch degree, but it was refreshing that you discouraged that.

 

To get the basics (refresher course) in drafting, I was going to take a few classes at a local community college. Would you advise this? Also, there is a town in Indiana called Floyds Knobs:) Thanks again for the advice.

[Tommy L]

a few classes in anything cant hurt. Id recommend photography. Helps enormously on a practical level (composition and the physics of light and cameras) and looks good on a cv.

[pvetter]

Thanks again for the advice. I appreciate it.

[njohneer]

To get the basics (refresher course) in drafting, I was going to take a few classes at a local community college. Would you advise this?

 

Hi,

 

One year ago I was at an IT help desk. Nine months ago I took AutoCAD 101 at Richland Community College in Dallas. Six months ago I was hired as a 2D drafter for an engineering consulting firm. I was shocked at how little I knew how to use AutoCAD in my new job! The course allowed me to get a job, but it did not teach me how to do my job.

 

The workspace looked familiar, and I knew how to draw and erase lines, but beyond that I learned 95% of my job on the job. Now, six months later, I'm already an expert level 2D AutoCAD user.

 

I do not recommend taking a class. What I do recommend is picking up these books and working through them yourself to get a feel for drafting in AutoCAD:

 

AutoCAD 2008 Bible by E. Finkelstein

AutoCAD: Secrets Every User Should Know by D. Abbott

AutoCAD 2008: A Problem Solving Approach by S. Tickoo

 

All the best,

Nathon

[Duchess]

You know it's funny, I majored in animation so that I could someday create children's cartoons.. and now I'm doing architectural 3d work. From what my employers have said, it was my skills in 2d and post production that set me apart from the other applicants. Might be something to consider!

[Noise]

Cut out the middle man and - if you can, approach an arch vis company to work free for a month (if not longer) with the view to see if its all you expected. You might save yourself years of following a wrong path that isn't right for you.

 

If this isn't possible and you still want to learn the skills - purchase a dvd from evermotion with pre-made scenes and learn how the technicalities of an image is generated. This will give you an insight to modelling, texturing, lighting, settings, cameras and how this all fits with max. This is VRay based but to be employable, this is the best plugin to know.

 

Play to your strengths - use your skills as a graphic designer to create a portfolio that appeals to the artistic side of 3D. Any 3D employer will pigeon hole you as a technician or artist immediately depending on your portfolio - artists are much more desirable as they can finish images and finished images are the currency that all 3D companies market on. Also, autocad was written by the devil, a necessary evil to know the basics but to be kept at arms length.

 

good luck

[womble]

I'd have to disagree with Noise there. Selling yourself short (i.e. giving your services away for free) is just totally undervalueing yourself right from the start and even if you do gain a lot of experience from the firm, you've started off on the wrong foot with them and they'll never properly value your work.

 

I'd also have to disagree about the evermotion ready-built scenes. I find a lot of them totally dull and uninspiring. I'm not sure exactly what they are meant to teach people just by looking at them.

 

If you want to practice, then you need to find some plans and elevations for a building (a small house or something) and model them up. Give yourself a deadline (maybe a 2 weeks of 1 or 2 hours an evening) and when you reach that deadline, see how you've advanced, spend a couple of hours photoshopping, and then start another project.

 

You could also take a well known piece of architecture and try to model it by eye, although from my experience you'd be modelling by eye very rarely in an architectural workplace. It's almost solely from CAD linework.

[Rconce01]

Just wondering if anyone could give me advice on pursuing a career change from graphic design to a career in architectural visualization. I have had training in 3ds max, but more from a character animation side. Any training (online or schools) without going back to get an MA in Arch?

The best advice I can give you, is that it is definitely worth getting a degree in architecture if architectural visualization is a long term goal. I have found that you have great leverage and respect alongside other industry professionals even superiors when you know what you are doing and have a degree to back it up. Many times I see people get milked workin late making little money just because they have no degree. Although the only 3d course I learned in school served as inspiration to go to all the sites and forums and learn even more, I can say my degree and the fact that I graduated with honors has given me a great advantage over the competition. The more courses you can take and degrees you can get will be good. Soon I’ll be back for a masters which will hopefully get me sooner or later to six figures. Stick to your plan and your bound to succeed.