You Are Not An Artist

[xPixelatedx]

An artist doesn't care for "how" in any way, shape, or form. An artist only wants to answer two questions: what and why. A programmer, on the other hand, doesn't care why - they only want to know what and how. An example would be in order, I suppose.

You are trying to make your character, we'll just say Shepherd for the hell of it, walk. That's right, you just want him to walk. As an artist, you need to understand WHY he/she walks the way he does. Not just what your engine is doing or how either cool or goofy the animation is, because that's all answering What. Your question as an artist is WHY? Why does Shepherd, and to a drastically greater extent, Garrus and other squadmates, walk the way they do. (Personally it looks to me like they all really need to pee, especially compared to the walking in ME2, but whatever.)

I've never had to give such an abrupt answer to a post here before, but No.

To classify art so rigidly is pretty demeaning to the whole process, and I get the distinct impression you (and many here who have made similar arguments) are not artists yourselves. Unless you are only making surreal art based entierly on colors while you listen to classical music, then the How is just as important as the Why. You have to be able to understand how things work in order to be a good artist. You can't make any great scenes showing motion or walking in your paintings unless you understand the basic mechanics of how people walk. You have to understand how anatomy works, both human an animal to design and make aliens, particularly aliens in video games, and yes that plays an important role in how they walk. You cannot be a creature or alien designer in any form of media without understanding the mechanics of how anatomy works. So what if you have to code it to? How is editing 1's and 0's until your creation moves smoothly any different then mixing paint on the end of a brush until you get just the right color? I should also point out that the human body is also considered an amazing work of art, and that is entierly based on the 'how', not the 'why'.
If videogames were a simple matter of engineering, why aren't all of them spectacular? Why is it they try and teach how to make them at schools, yet the results thereafter are so varied depending on the individual making them? Why can't we make a machine that mass produces original ones without the need for human creativity?

But lets be clear here... I am not saying ALL video games are art. And yeah, I certainly don't consider Mass Effect 3 art. They weren't trying to express or create anything, they were just making a cash grab. That was apparent from the start when it became clear they were giving up on telling a sci-fi opera in exchange for trying to appeal to the Jersey shore crowd and adding IGN stuff into their game. I am not saying the ME team never had artistic integrity, but it was apparent since before ME3 came out that they had long since abandoned it, just like any artist corrupted by money and fame.

 

[Vetta E-dom]

O god the OP... it hurts to try to read..ugghh


ChuckDM,"You write code. You are not an artist, you are an engineer. Allow me to explain the difference.

An artist doesn't care for "how" in any way, shape, or form. An artist only wants to answer two questions: what and why. A programmer, on the other hand, doesn't care why - they only want to know what and how. An example would be in order, I suppose."

Please if you know so very little about art/ engineering don't continue to post about it. The best artist, engineers, and who ever else all have a grasp of the "hows" and "whys" every job especially the art side. I'd actually go as far to say that the artist in games are probably more concerned with the "how"..

As a concept artist Ill just post that your a moron. and that your post is bad and you should feel bad. To quote you, " I won't elaborate on this any more"

Chuckdm,"from the writers, there are NO artists in any sense of the word designing video games." Interesting because this morning my boss asks for an mechanic unit to be drawn up, even though hes written about the different units and all their briefs etc, he has no context or design implemented for it he just has the idea we could use a mechanic unit, my job is to give the design context and a subconscious narrative as to why the design is in-play and a purpose. I get the overall feeling you don't understand the practical use of art and that you hold writers with too much esteem when it comes down to it writers rarely have any clue as to the what their writing fully entails when trying to look at it visually most of the actual "art of video games/movies/etc" come from the artist, matt painters, texture artist, programmers, sound designers, UI design, and who ever else I'm forgetting


Also while I'm not a texture artist, I have done it and most other departments cross over so lots of times Ill be modeling or painting textures.. But non the less for all the texture artist out there screw you asshole .

 

[FalloutJack]

Quick! Somebody tell me why I should give a damn about the way Shepard walks!

 

[zehydra]

"if you are an artist, you must maintain a measure of artistic integrity. This is pretty obvious. Yet, we have to assume that, should you ever be willing to compromise your artistic integrity, this would in turn render you no longer an artist."

Nope. Your notions of "Artistic Integrity" have nothing to do with whether or not a person is an artist.

Art has nothing to do with answering the question of "why" either, and it is absurd to say that a programmer has no say in the "why" as well.

Art has to do with the expression of emotion, or evoking emotion, that's it. Thus any person which does so through a medium is an artist to some degree.

 

[Syzygy23]

Jesus Criminy Christmas Mary n' Joseph n' Jesus n' JosephJesus.

Programmers can TOO be considered artists. An artist is limited by the canvas they work on. Saying that someone who writes code CAN'T be an artist because their medium doesn't allow for this or that is stupid and self defeating. That's like saying a painter isn't a real artist because they can't use their acrylics and watercolor paints to chisel the likeness of George Washington out of a block of clay.

Programmers CAN be artists, their canvas is the computer and their tools are compilers and keyboards.

 

[Typhusoid]

I must say, it comes across as rather arrogant of you to simply declare absolute standards for who is and is not an artist. Why do you get to decide? Furthermore, as many others have said, the idea that a person is either a programmer or an artist is a tad absurd. It is quite possible to be both.

Personally, I think we should stop arguing about labels. We should let people who make games/films/books/whatevers get on with it, whether we call them artists or something entirely different.

 

[DoPo]

Quick! Somebody tell me why I should give a damn about the way Shepard walks!

Because artistry! Also, it looks dumb.

 

[Sande45]

When I see for example a beautiful and lush jungle in Uncharted, that's art and everyone who contributed to that scene is an artist. Why would programming a 3d scene, animating it, adding textures, lighting, shaders, etc. be in any way less artistic than drawing that scene on paper? I think it's the fact that they're writing code/using programs instead of ye olde paint brush on ye olde paper that makes it feel less artistic, but then again books are also just written "code" and much of today's music is done with computer programs.

I think game creators can have artistic integrity just as well as authors, film directors and whoever else inhabits the broad spectrum of artists. You mentioned not killing off Tali as an example, but I don't see how this is supposed to reassert the point you're trying to make since it could be said about any similar event in movies, TV shows, book series, comics... And the other arguments aren't related to games only either.

 

[Godsfists]

Wow.
1. The sheer intellectual level (or lack there of)
of chuckdm for trying to define art in that way.
2. If you do not concider ME3 art, don't consider Star Wars, Shrek, Toy Story, Rocky etc. art.
3. If you think doing something for money and not "just for the sake of art" is not art
then you REALLY don't know anything about artist's lives.
4. If you say painting textures (silent hill 1 for instance)
is not an art, you are just.....wow.
5. If you think it is not art, you are right. It is not art TO YOU. Your loss.
Period.

 

[Godsfists]

Everyone is an artist. But not all of you get paid for it.

 

[MarlonBlazed]

Here are some examples of just how much work they put into making Shepard look as human as possible in his movement. Be forewarned these are some really deep emotional videos, you might cry.

Spoiler

 

[FalloutJack]

Quick! Somebody tell me why I should give a damn about the way Shepard walks!

Because artistry! Also, it looks dumb.

I'm sorry, but I...can't just...give a damn about it. And now, I'm...talking like...William Shatner.

 

[Faraja]

Part of me hates to even write this. But I know it's true, so I will anyway.

Now that the dust has settled over most of the ME3 fiasco (even if you like the endings, it was still a fiasco in one sense or another...) I wanted to make a point that I feel is getting lost on everyone these days.

You write code. You are not an artist, you are an engineer. Allow me to explain the difference.

An artist doesn't care for "how" in any way, shape

Yes, an artist really does care how. Ask any animator, and they'll tell you they care how. They care a whole hell of a lot. The 'how' plays into just about everything. Using your walk example; in the basic sense, you do care how you're character is going to walk. By that I mean the character rig and the keys. With your character's personality, you care how. How would your character handle an obstacle in his/her path? How would his/her foot rise/fall? How would your character run? How would your character duck? How would the rest of your character's body react to the movements? How would your character's clothing/armor/accessories move?

There's a great deal of 'how's' for an artist.

 

[Gennadios]

Feels like an argument for entirely different game, really.

The thing is that ME built it's reputation entirely on player agency. When one does that in a game, they sacrifice control over the story, one needs to be fully committed to to giving players as open-ended a narrative as possible and to shove ones sh**** pseudo-space race parables up their fanfic writing ass.

When that doesn't happen, games like DA2 and ME3 are made, where so much effort is put into having a single pre-rendered end-game resolution that those endings simply don't make sense under many of the contexts that players have developed themselves over the course of the story.

It takes a certain type of skill to write open-ended games, Bioware no longer has it.

 

[giantgemclips]

Allow me to explain the difference.

An artist doesn't care for "how" in any way, shape, or form. An artist only wants to answer two questions: what and why. A programmer, on the other hand, doesn't care why - they only want to know what and how.

edited: I see you are not the coder...//

Are you aware that good artists study the how? That they study countless examples of anatomy in order to understand how the body moves through space or how one exists in the world they put that person into?

Are you aware that composers (me being one and one that has his degree work in composition) not only study music theory but also study acoustics?

Are you aware that composers study how instruments are set up as well as what are considered technical limitations to particular instruments, how to write passages to take advantage of different fingerings, registers and even how harmonics or even how, on certain instruments, multiphonics can be achieved?

I think you are limiting yourself to the "romantic view" of what an artist is and not the reality.

 

[8a88leph1sh]

Video games have more than just programmers working on them. Directors, musicians, composers, writers, designers of all sorts, animators. Video games aren't just lines of code: they have story and the developers of said story can do whatever they fucking want to despite how pissed off that may make you.

Other times an artist may go out of their way to make their audience happy. This doesn't have to sacrifice their artistic integrity, mosts artists ENJOY giving fans a pleasurable experience while maintaining the right to sometimes say: "WHATEVAH WHATEVAH I DO WAT I WAN!!"

This freaking topic has been beaten to death. Seriously. Stop bringing it up.

 

[lacktheknack]

>Implying engineers cannot be artists.
>Implying programming cannot be artful.
>Implying a very narrow definition of art.

This.

I have a friend who writes good code - VERY good code. One time, he wrote a program which was so elegant, compact, well-designed and efficient that it was regarded by other programmers as "a piece of art".

And it evoked great emotion from programmers who saw it, so who are YOU to say that it's not art?

Also, the OP says that an artist does not care at all about the "how".

I can safely conclude that the OP is either not an artist, or a very mediocre one.

 

[II2]

I won't elaborate on this any more except to say that, aside from the writers, there are NO artists in any sense of the word designing video games. The writers explain WHY. Everyone else on the whole damn dev team is just trying to answer one single question: HOW do we translate this awesome script into a good game?

I don't think this statement actually reflects your overall intelligence, but I think you harbor some profound misconceptions about what videogame development is and how it works.

 

[Schtoobs]

I came in here having never before considered the topic. After reading the OP and everyone else's comments I'm thinking OP is wrong on this one. Shame because it was such a long post and probably took quite a bit of time and effort... just not enough objective thought. Maybe spend less time proving your point and more time making sure you have a valid one.

Also don't start with "I know it's true" unless you want to invite a load of dissenting voices. It just sounds like a challenge.

For my part I think art and engineering are not mutually exclusive skills. Art is so subjective that any debate involving it's definition or boundaries will inherit the subjectivity and fuzzy grey areas.

A+ for effort though.