Anybody here work as a CAD drafter... Im looking to switch from game artist!!!

[nicholasresa]

I've pretty much hit a dry spell in terms of employment as a game artist and since I started in CAD drafting I'm starting to look into other fields. My coding skills aren't up to par yet with my end goal as a front-end web dev, so being as to how I'm pretty close to the oil industry (which is currently booming) I've been into looking to picking CAD back up. I know it will take a little time but considering my background I should (theoretically) be able to pick it back up starting with Solidworks.

 

My main hurdle is that I did CAD 15 years ago and the whole game has changed.

 

Anybody here converted over? Any advice? Warnings? What to learn first?

[davidtuck]

Hey Nicholas,

 

I work in Austin too and you're right, learning Solidworks to get into oil industry work is probably a good way to go. I know that some of the companies in Austin that do Mechanical projects for the oil industry such as National Oilwell Varco use PTC Creo, but a lot of them just want you to know one of the big boys such as Solidworks or Inventor. They figure they can train you up on Creo quickly if you already understand modelling and assemblies. I dont know if this information helps in any way, but good luck!

[mills-illustration]

You are going to be doing a lot of monotonous boring stuff with CAD. You will find consistent work though. Don't expect just to jump into another field such as oil industry drafting coming from video games. Most of those jobs require some form of engineering education. You don't just draft all day anymore. You have to understand what you are drafting and designing as well as putting together bills of materials, etc. You might also want to look at autocad civil and inventor as those products are used a lot too.

 

I made this mistake with architectural technology. Now I am trying to salvage what I know and work in arch-viz.

[jasonmyers]

TL:DR - I'm a CADD Tech in the Surveying/oil field/pipeline/municipal field(s), and I've never ever gone to school for an ounce of Engineering. If you're the creative type, you'll be very bored...and if you're like me, I end up spending way too much time getting things to look pretty as well as being informative. So yeah...hope you like "Advanced Connect the Dots"! Unless you get into mechanical drafting...thats quite a bit different. Had in Internship with Caterpillar, and they use ProE/Creo, and literally EVERYTHING on their machines is modeled out to spec. Even the zip-ties and wire splices...

 

 

Don't expect just to jump into another field such as oil industry drafting coming from video games. Most of those jobs require some form of engineering education.

 

Novella Version:

 

As a CADD Tech in the Oil Field/Pipeline/Municipal/Surveying field, huh?? Engineering? Errr...

 

Engineering and CADD are 2 separate things. I mean, I guess, depending on the company you work for and their size, then I could see how Engineering and CADD would be under the same job description. But having worked here for a few years, and only having an associates degree in CADD (Let alone, one that very very minimally touched on anything related to civil drafting..seriously...ONE class about surveying, and it was very VERY basic info), I do work on everything from subdivisions, lots, and tracts, to oil wells, topographic surveys, stockpiles, etc. We've got our hands in just about everything, and yes, there are specific practice areas, such as said municipal, oil field, pipeline, survey, airport, highway/transportation, etc...but, not one of those fields, as an entry level CADD Tech, requires you to have any kind of engineering education. When I started, I was kind of a 'floater', so to speak, meaning I did work for multiple different practice areas. Basically, they shoved work at me, gave me some examples of stuff that was done in the past, and asked me to draw it up. Granted, they had a few processes outlined in how things worked, such as correcting shot codes and converting point files into csv's, setting drawing units, importing said point data, working with the line work (connect the dots...la la la!!..thank GOD for +/-/! lol), breaklines, topo surfaces, etc...and things have improved substantially since I started there a couple years ago...

 

...but, if there's one thing I've learned in my time in this job is 1.) Its feast or famine. Winter months are much slower than summer, for obvious reasons, and 2.) You pretty much kinda fly by the seat of your pants for the most part. I attribute that one to the fact that a lot of the PLS/Survey Techs are used to doing stuff one way, and then all of a sudden they have some 'line-drawing nerds' telling them they're doing stuff completely wrong. They don't like change...and most people don't when they've been doing a certain workflow a certain way for X number of years...Thankfully, one of our best Surveying PAL's is on our side...hell, he's actually the one that has gone out of his way to go against the grain and make the changes happen. Suffice it to say, that doing it the 'old' way has ended up costing the company a couple hundred grand on more than one occasion, because a survey was performed in one unit (Lets say, U.S. Feet), and imported into a drawing that was based off of another (International Feet)...sooo, the farther away from 0,0 you were in your coordinate system, the worse the difference would be between the two unit settings. A couple foundations had to be excavated and re-poured because of it. It became a pretty big deal, pretty quickly lol

 

Aaaannyway, if your serious about getting into CAD and working in the oilfield/surveying industry, or anything related to that, then I absolutely agree. Learn Civil3D, ArcGIS, Raster, etc. Once your comfortable with working with surveying data, maybe start taking a look into using LandXML for generating reports for you. I had to sit down and teach myself how to use that stuff from scratch, and I never did really get super proficient at it, but the potential is there for some slick time saving workflows, such as having Civil3D generate a legal description for a land parcel for you automatically, worded in company-specific formats, and no fat-fingering of a bearing/azimuth. Oh, and definitely LISP/scripting. I've really started looking into making stuff more automated, as a lot of the time, I find myself spending more time on little piddly stuff that ends up being super time consuming, because of a combination of using old setups and a lack of specific tools. Then again, there's a LOT of stuff that I still don't know about Civil3D!!

 

Personally, I'm kind of in the opposite boat as you are...I'm in that field of work, but looking to pursue a switch to ArchViz work. I've got a lot of touch and go experience with a bunch of different software platforms, and different areas of CG/visual art. Been messing around with 3DS Max since the R3 days (late 90's), as well as stuff like Sketchup, a bit of Modo, Cinema4D, and then Photoshop and Lightroom for image editing (got pretty heavy into photography for a while lol). And I've always been very detail oriented and a super visually based thinker/imaginer/creator...so now I'm on the hunt for an education in 3D Modeling/animation/rendering/development/etc to really nail down and refine my skillset. Unfortunately, I'm fairly limited in what resources I can utilize, since I'm going through the VA and their VocRehab program, so every time I find something that has a bunch of amaaazing resources and learning tools, I'm let down by the fact that I can't afford it, and the VA won't pay for it. Basically, its gotta be something at an institute. I've looked into places like Full Sail, and their 3D Modeling and Animation course seems to be a joke. According to their reps, the only modeling software they use in that program is ZBrush... o_O Soooo...no hard surface modeling, then, orrr wha?

 

Anyway, man, feel free to fire away with any questions you might have for us CADD guys. Not entirely convinced I'm liking falling into that category, but the way I look at it is, is that its just more knowledge that I have to develop a process and utilize more assets to get the job done...so long as I don't re-invent the wheel or over-think it! LOL

 

*deep breath* haha