Skills Developed within animation, vfx and games design are pretty much all transferable. meaning that no matter which sector you go into, these skills all apply one way or another into the other sector.
These skills include:
- Specialist Skills- be a generalist with specialist skills. Be able to work in other groups and cover a range of functions, but be able to be a specialist in one sector.
- team work – team work is key within all the sectors above, as you all work together to produce one thing, whether it be a movie or a game.
- creativity and efficiency – you must be able to think creatively to overcome problems within design and in general.
- the ability to think about the big picture – VFX is about the overall pipeline and not just one shot, so you must be able to thinking about all aspects of it rather than just one
- meet deadlines – deadline are a massive thing within these industries, if you miss the deadline, the game or movie may not get published or released, meaning people may not get paid.
- working to a brief – in the industry, you need to get the shot right for your customer, not for you, so you must be able to change things based on your client.
- respond well to criticism – criticism may come in the form of your client not liking a certain shot, and so you may need to change it in accordance to their liking.
- presentation skills – ideas will always need to be presented, whether to another colleague, your boss or to the client to show how you will do certain things, or just for certain ideas. You need to be able to explain yourself concisely and clearly so everyone can understand.
- knowledge of cultural references – VFX is about making photo real characters or images. These need to be believable so that it feels like they are within that world.
- observation skills – being able to mimic vfx or an animation is key to making a great scene. So we need to be able to observe movement and then apply that to the shot to make things seem as real as possible.
- planning – being able to plan ahead is great, in case you come into any problems, you will have a plan to try and over come them.
- be able to draw – drawing isn’t essential, but it is a great way to get your ideas across to others
- be proactive and self motivated, always learning – no matter where you work, you will always learn something new, whether it be a new piece of software, or a new way to tackle a problem!
- be confident – ask questions – asking questions is essential to over coming problems, this will help you learn how to do it later, and it may also help you to help someone else in the future
- know the language – within any sector, they use a certain type of “language” to help clearly communicate between each other and companies.
- awareness of cinematography – you will need to be aware of key terms, how certain things are produced and be able to analyse shots
- maths – trigonometry, matrices, vectors, applied mechanics, algebra, scripting, physics – maths is always going to be a big part of games and animation, whether it is keyframing, physics, blast radiuses or other things, maths isn’t essential to an artist, but you will need to have an appreciation for this section, just like how a programmer doesn’t necessarily need to be able to draw, but needs to have an appreciation.
- computer literacy- this is essential to be able to navigate within computers, applications, files and understand how to use shortcuts.
- film theory – Film theory is always helpful, in case you can apply it to a shot later on, and how narrative and structures work.
- knowledge of vfx history – VFX has come a long way, be looking into the history, you may be able to learn from the past and apply it to new shots
- knowledge of editing – editing is a big part of the shot, this can be removing boom mics, cables, or other things that shouldnt be visable within the scene.Although your career choice may not require editing, it is good to know the basics.
- style and vision – each sector may require to work to a certain style. Whether is being photo-realistic, cartoony or just another style, you must be able to work with different ideas to produce the next movie or game.
- understand optics – optics is how the eyes work. By being able to know how your eyes work, VFX can be used to trick the viewer into believing something is there, or to make them look to a certain area of the screen.
- be innovative. – although vfx and games have been around for a long time, everyone is still learning. These skills and ideas are being improved everyday and may lead to new ideas in the future.
Bethany Cassap 