@@T0ly113 reason i got a job now, and don't forget try a little bit of freelance project tho, it kinda helps because you're also building a real project , not just personal
As a graphics programmer (AAA), I can say that everything said in this video is 100% true. I think this video is like gold as I've never seen anything this useful on web. Acerola, thank you so much for your work. I am sure a lot of students or people who are thinking about a career in this field would find your videos very valuable.
@@HonsHon meaning his work is being used in a triple A game production (or different industry but similar quality), but I assume that consists of a lot of AAAAAAAHHH as well
That intro alone gave me flashbacks to the course at Uni. "Modern displays go up to 1024x768".. and that's where you realized the prof had been using the same script for at least 20 years.
😂 yeah, it's just shocking sometimes how outdated the stuff in college can be. For example, I think it was in 2022 in our mobile development course when our lecturer (based on what was on his powerpoint slide) mentioned Android, iOS and *Windows Phone* as the main three platforms for developing mobile apps (I graduated last year BTW)
Bro this is literally me what the fuck I'm a CompSci major working on my own OpenGL engine to learn graphics on my own. My goal is a bit different than yours (I wanna become a college graphics professor), but it's so refreshing and inspiring to see that I'm not the only person who enjoys this field. Most people of my COMPUTER SCIENCE major don't even know what I mean when I say I want to study the field of computer graphics. It's such a niche topic. I sometimes almost feel like it doesn't exist. And you summarized what I love about it so well too. I love it because you're making art with code and math. It's so fucking awesome. Thank you for this video. I had left my engine abandoned for a couple of months cause of school, judo, the gym, etc. but you've given me renewed motivation. Thank you!
I’m a CS masters student trying to become a graphics programmer (and desperately avoiding webdev) and I’ve never seen a video as inspirational as this one. It’s really refreshing to see someone speak to the intermediate level, and to the lack of a straightforward way into graphics from an academic CS background. Great video!
@@morkallearns781 Writing react components that you can complete half asleep and dedicate your free time to things you actually care about isn't so bad
As a technical artist in multiple industries I really appreciate your segment about the difference between our roles. I’ve never heard it explained clearer! Especially as the roles of tech artists continue to blur
I'm a Principal Engineer who's working towards career changing from systems development (kernels, networking, storage, etc.) to graphics programming. Here's the path I'm taking. The books "Real-Time Rendering" and "Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation" are life savers. Make a portfolio with Vulkan demonstrating competency and understanding of graphics programming, build a simple toy engine, and then go chase down what you want. Bonus points if you add ECS to your toy engine as well!
what's usually considered a toy engine? Is that just composable high level abstractions for the underlying APIs like Vulkan or DirectX, or is it also some kind of editor and other stuff? If that's the later, do you build the editor from scratch as well? Just how much time is it going to take to make a somehow useful thing?
I graduated college in 1986 and my primary interest at the time was computer graphics. I work now as a boat designer and boat builder - rendering my ideas IRL, but I find the advancement of computer graphics in the past ~40 years mind-blowing. I would like to add that I feel to be a really good engineer/scientist you need to be an artist, and to be a really good artist you need to be an engineer/scientist. Conceptualizing and creating innovative new visions requires imagination and the ability to understand your tools and medium. High level STEM work is the art of imagining new solutions and then rendering them using and understanding of the math and physics need to design a solution. High level art is the science of imaging new visions and then understanding how your artistic medium can be manipulated into rendering your vision. Engineering is art and art is engineering. One isn’t better or more valuable than the other, they are two sides of the same coin.
Gotta say sometimes it is a bit disheartening to see such successful people that are also so young. Being 18-19yo with a diploma and a bachelor's is insane, let alone starting programming just 6 years ago and being so good at it! I'm 30yo and i thought i kinda knew my stuff after bachelor's, master's and PhD but the more I watch videos and see my super young colleagues around me the more I feel like I've wasted my time! But everyone had a different life path, no way on earth I could have skipped high school or afford any extra experience outside of Uni! Props to you man! Despite the learning, it's obvious that you are very talented and you chose the right calling for you, love your tutorials :)
@@honaleri if you don't compare yourself to others you're never gonna improve. There is a difference between being jealous or envious of someone's achievements and comparing yourself to others to learn from them, from their achievements AND their mistakes. If you're not (healthily) comparing yourself to others you'll always stay complacent in your own mediocrity, and you will also be unable to understand the effort someone has put into reaching those achievements.
@@gabryx7 Not in the least. What's healthy is only comparing yourself to yourself. Where is the ideal you in 5 years? 50? Ask those questions and put in the work to get there and be that person, without concern where others are and what others are doing. Because their path is a reflection of their life, experiences and choices that will have nearly no overlap with yours as an individual. Comparing, as you said, does nothing but dishearten you. Striving for a better self, doesn't require others examples. You'll only strive to be them. And that's a battle you are doomed to lose. Comparisons leave exactly one human being as the winner. Striving for a better self is only about ensuring the winner is the present you, and the present you is making progress against past you, to the beat of your own drum, in the one life you get. If other people are defining your sense of self and success... You've lost in a way nothing can ever make you win. Others will always define your worth...and at the end of the day, if they say you aren't enough... You aren't. When you are your own benchmark and the future you see for you is all you strive for. Others can have huge success, and all you'll feel is happy for them, or inspired to apply their tenacy to yourself. Never...disheartened. It's not a competition. Gaining maturity and life skills is just as important as degrees and professional progress. It's not meaninful to work on only one. At the end of the day if someone else can make you feel you've wasted you life by making the choices that were best for you, your values aren't healthy. No one else by simply existing should have that kind of influence over your perception of yourself. That's the mindset that's a problem. And I hope you nothing but a meaningful escape from such a painful and pointless feeling that comes from you feeling negatively about getting a PhD cause someone else is also successful. I wish you freedom from that. You don't deserve that kind of mind trap. No one does.
@@honaleri I don't need to prove anything to a random, stranger on the internet, I've put more than enough work :) Good luck to you though, I hope recruiters, Universities or any other institution will not compare you to others :) Edit: my bad I didn't read the rest of the message! Without the rest after the first paragraph, your answer sounded mean but it was quite the opposite
@@gabryx7 I specifically said I hope you never have to feel you need to prove anything to anyone else. If you felt confused, ull clarify, I was trying to wish you a good experience. Because the pressure you've put on yourself...isn't health or necessary and you deserve to be happy and free from that. Not sure how that makes me sour, but it's ok. I already know the kind of pressure you feel. So, it makes sense your first response is negative. I still want better for you. I think you must have read my comment before I completed writing it. My apologies if you did.
15:40 Fun fact: the Decima engine was named after Dejima, a Japanese island which was the singular trading post Japan had with the Dutch Empire during the 17th century. The engine didn’t have a name until Guerilla was prompted to give it one whenever Kojima Productions wanted to use it for Death Stranding.
I made a 3D engine in scratch in a weekend, and just from the small amount of time I spent programming a simple engine using blocks, I realised it was a lot more complicated than I thought it'd be. Happy birthday Acerola!
@@tonfilm while vvvv is probably better for practical purposes, I did this mostly because I was bored and wanted a challenge, not because I wanted a 3d engine I could work with. I don't like block coding in general, so I just made that engine to brag about and waste time.
Man, as someone about to finish a CS undergrad degree and hoping to get into graphics programming afterward, I can’t even express how much I needed to hear literally everything in this video.
Honestly i wish there was a video like this for every career path available. I want to learn Unreal Blueprints and after doing a course on basics, the path ahead felt nebulous and very uncertain. The way you lay down very clearly the path you followed in your field is inspiring.
No you dont.. look what happened to web dev, soft engineering getting over saturated after idiots posting everywhere online about their day in life. Prefer to be hidden
@@HerezCheez sure, which is what happens for gamedev too. Plenty of videos for beginners with clickbait titles like "learn gamedev in 5 days", then they teach you the same bare bone basics you find literally everywhere and they're done. What i would like is someone that tells it like it is, "hey student, this stuff is hard, but this path could simplify things for your years-long journey" P.S. i know i'm dreaming, but this video is very close to what i mean. Too bad i dont study graphic programming, i watch Acerola just like i watch Sebastian Lague, with admiration and understanding practically nothing. Acerola also for the dry comedy.
Happy birthday Acerola! I really needed this video, I’m currently struggling with just about everything you brought up in this video and this gave me the motivation and direction I needed.
Holy crap this came at just the right time. I'm in my 3rd year of college right now and is really considering graphics programming, but much like you there's not a lot of resources in my college to go by. This is going to be a godsend moving forward. Genuinely, thank you so much for all you've provided for aspiring graphics programmer like me. Now off to get real-time rendering
Seeing you blow up was amazing, and absolutely deserved. I always wanted to go into this area of computing but am currently just stuck in backend software after finishing university this year. Your story has really motivated me that it's still possible to move into this area. Thanks for all the videos and work you put into them, you deserve all of it
20:21 i have some programming experience from when I was younger, but most of what I've learned about CS and graphics development was self taught through the structure of projects I cared about. (Specifically making modding tools for botw lol). I've also been in the CS program in my high school for a few years cuz i felt i might as well. But what I've noticed is that everything we're learning in that program is super simple compared to what I was able to learn self-taught. And my high school's CS program is supposedly one of the best in the state. So I guess what I mean to say is that if you can find projects you are passionate about, I'd recommend developing those! You'll find yourself putting much more time into them than you would to a class, and you'll end up being exposed to much more in the way of concepts.
My road to becoming a techincal Artist: Making Levels for CS1.5 -> making levels for a Mod for HL2 (Demons vs Humans) -> starting a media it study at a public university -> getting into actual 3D modelling programs and making textures and working with Unreal 3 -> starting to get interested in node based shaders -> getting my first job and just having no one else to do the coding, so here we go i guess ^^ -> slowly falling in love with hlsl and optimization -> scoring a job at a small indie studio that make vr for quest and a like -> learning to make tools and addons for artists -> learning to build highly optimized content pipelines to get shit running on mobile VR -> being a happy tech artist who loves watching Acerola to relax. So i kinda stumbled my way from making Counter Strike levels and wanning to become an environment artist to becoming a swiss army knife specialized for working with and optimizing for mobile vr. I'd recommend just start with something you love, learn to swim and solve problems on your own and branch out when something catches your interest. It's a really worthwhile journey and i wouldn't change my life with nobody else :). Also if you know this is what you wanna do in life, make a vow to yourself and set becoming good at this craft the ultimate goal that you will pursue until your old and grey (might help to live in a european country with healthcare and all that socialist bullshit that protects you from existential angst). Best of luck
People calling you not professional feels like some external gate keeping because they feel insecure. I’d ignore them. Congrats on your job trajectory thus far, given your passion and clear intellect you will go far. Also: you have a clear talent for explaining highly complex ideas. Your videos are understandable even to a lowly systems engineer like myself.
20:44 I want to note that the game development school I graduated from taught Dx11, Dx12, shaders, and Vulkan. There was a bunch of classes grouped together for the graphics department which is what opened my eyes to the career. Definitely if you are considering this though, check the coursework and see what they teach you.
@@Mattapprendoespanol-gt9tj Full Sail University in Orlando. They have a game development degree which teaches basic Computer Science, Graphics, Engine Development, AI, and Unity / Unreal
"My videos are intentional low production value", bro I envy the quality of your videos so bad. You have such a good taste. You're my biggest inspiration.
I build my own portfolio projects, and study graphics. Your videos have taught me a lot - I used to program Gerstner waves, saw the overlapping, then you talked about it in a video, and ended up using layered sine waves. It changed my perspective enough to matter. You also introduced me to the idea of grass / cloud rendering techniques, because I hadn’t heard of those topics prior to watching. Plus, the videos are entertaining, well educated, and easy to follow. Low-key, some of the best graphics study-guides on the web.
To give y'all a basic idea of what shaders are capable of beyond just "shading", one thing you can do with them is move the apparent positions of a model's vertices. Valve uses this to simulate the swaying of trees and bushes in the wind. The result is that they can use "static" models that use less resources to render and can be lit using pre-baked lighting (since they don't move so much that it matters) and can even have their movement parameters altered by what skin is being applied to them.
You can do a lot more than that in shaders. Modern APIs quite literally let you _create_ entirely new vertices and fill a vertex buffer with them from within a compute shader, fill a storage buffer with draw parameters within another compute shader, then draw the vertices you just created with the draw parameters you just created indirectly by having the GPU reference its own memory.
"My videos are intentionaly low production value and amaturish at nature" -Fully edited -Filled with diferent inforgraphics -Music -Scripted -Has a list of resources -Even has a bloody list of musics used in order My man this isn't low production nor amaturish, you should feel proud about your work, it's really good Subbed
@23:23 He's also starting with Godot. For all of you interested in Godot, I suggest listening to Acerola, but seriously considering trying out Godot in a year or two when he's put out more stuff. Godot seems to be accelerating while Unity has hurt its reputation to a point that it may never fully recover. Other promising game engines are starting to pop up. Bevy is one. It's written in rust and doesn't have an editor atm though, so I wouldn't call it beginner friendly at all, but there's a lot to keep an eye out for.
Not to forget Stride, free and open-source. And it's entirely written in C# which is amazing because the engine and game code use the same technology. No layer in between. Also it has one of the best shader system in the world and it's very fast!
Godot is a better game dev experience than unity in pretty much every way. He's probably biased against it because how it exposes shaders is very opinionated (all the shader attribute mapping is handled for you) which could make his job more annoying if he's trying to do some really weird custom thing in the shader. In this case, you'd have to maintain your own version of the Godot engine which of course is not for beginners, but at the same time writing super complex shader code is ALSO NOT A BEGINNER TASK.
Godot's rendering pipeline is pretty underpowered compared to Unity's; it gives you a lot less control. (This is by design to make it easier to use.) I have managed to implement an Obra Dinn-like 1-bit dithering + edge detecting thing, but it's kind of ridiculous under the hood... But I like it better than Unity for like, "normal" projects. Most games I want to make don't require hyper-advanced graphics; I just want models or sprites on the screen and maybe some post-processing. (Granted I haven't used Unity in like 6 years and I was way better at programming when I started figuring out Godot...) Uh, try both I guess! Try things! If you're not doing this for fun it's not going to be easy. Discipline is hard and having fun is easy.
@gamechannel1271 I strongly disagree lol I did several streams trying out godot and pretty much everything about it was worse and more convoluted, the only true benefit to godot imo is the okhsl color wheel which I enjoy staring at but yes in a few years when jasper has put out more godot tutorials it'll be a great option for beginners.
i cant believe youre from bend also, as a freshman CS major going to U of O, this video is actually super helpful and inspiring. I love your videos and them, along with sebastian's videos, are what inspired me to really start trying to learn programming for school and fun.
this is a recent interest of mine and i'm super excited to see this comprehensive introduction posted - thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!!!
I'm a senior applying to undergraduate programs right now, and you should know how important and refreshing this video is. Your passion for the topic is inspiring; but most of all, your perspective on the drive it requires to pursue what you love - after finding out what it is in the first place - is invaluable. thanks, man.
GDC scene nearly killed me, it is just so funny. Love this video, and I agree that catlike coding is an absolute goat. You channel, his website and so many other people always remind me how much better world is just because people are nice enough to share knowledge for the sake of it. Thanks to his tutorials I managed to build my own SRP, in a few days actually. Even managed to use it for a gamejam game (although heavily modified). It is not too bad, since SRP API does most heavy lifting for you (e.g. you don't need to make drawcalls you just ask unity to draw objects that meet certain criteria). You could probably make a video on it, that would be fun
Wow i just randomly stumbled upon this video, and I really appreciate you covering the aspects of tech art in the industry. I was a contractor for one of the big conglomerate studios as a technical artist. It's true that despite working the majority of my time programming, we generally weren't given the same weight. I think the bigger issue is that all these industries use technical artist too much as a catch all term for suge a huge spectrum of responsibilities. That also means technical artist are some of the roles that get cut or is not reliable due to the nature of your niche. Engineers and artist will just work double time to fill out the gap a typixal technical artist fills. Anyways I was one of those who got let go, and have been struggling to find work due to my narrow niche. And because of my education more of a hybrid in art/tech pivoting out of the industry with strictly just experience from tech art has been hard. After being out of work for several months, and although I truly did enjoy my time working in this game studio, it's best to leave the industry for me personally. Since what I actually enjoy doing has been programming. I'm going back to university next year to pursue a second degree in computer science. For any other prospective students out there thinking about taking the plunge in video games, I would caution that it is a cutthroat industry, and honestly not nearly as cool or fun as any other streams of work. Pursue your dreams, but also spend some time reflecting on why your dream is your dream, and if you have fallbacks when it doesn't work out.
you'll also make more money probably if you leave the game industry to do certain fields of programming for major companies that may be just as complicated as what you do in the game industry, depending on specifics.
This is a big aspect of the "generalist" dilemma. As technical artists aren't specialists, this means most people don't really understand what work they can, or do, actually perform. In today's world of specialist focused education paths and job roles, generalists are not valued. Because yeah, your bosses probably don't really understand what you do and anything they don't understand will have reduced value, and ..... couldn't a specialist just do it better even if I needed two of them to cover the range? Also money wise I hate to say it, but like Andy said it is not in gaming. While Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Sony, etc have gaming arms... they are not the profit machines that put those companies where they are. If you look at the fortune 100 you won't find even one strictly gaming company, not even Activision before the Microsoft merger would have made it.
@@DKarkarov This is very interesting to hear, as my experience has been the opposite. I find that as a Tech Artist, my role is quite high in demand across many studios. I even find that tech art roles pay better than many programming or art roles (assuming they are not senior/lead roles). I still get recruiters reaching out often toting 6 figure salaries. To me, I see a generalist tech artist as a highly versatile skill set, which gives the individual the flexibility to tackle a wide array of problems to solve.
@@Rbanhthere are exceptions to every rule. My job is also a generalist role and I also recently turned down a 6 figure job offer. But I also understand I have a strong resume, a proven track record of work experience, and a strong reputation at my current company. A person who is starting out or perhaps has not gotten the same opportunities would find things more challenging in the same job market.
Ace roller this video is either going to change my life or at the very least give me something to consider really strongly. Maximum respect for your dedication and good will.
As a graphics programmer hobbyist in a previous life, the thing I like most about your videos is that they show that you don't just "put water into a game" or things like that. What I'd like to see at some point is shadows - just so that people understand how awful they are to get right. And also so that your viewers will never be able to unseen shadow acne
I really appreciate your work. However, I feel personally attacked at the dig at web dev. Lol I ended up going the web dev route, and your videos truly make me want to jump out, but for now, the Golden handcuffs stay on. Programming really does feel like creative problem solving, and I love art, too, so who knows what my future holds. Thanks again.
Similar thoughts. Maybe one of the ways is to dip fingers in WebGL, Three.js, r3F, GLSL etc to get that knack for graphics programming going forward as a web developer and hope for the best in this ever-changing rock in spacetime..
I was a graphics and game programmer for many years, but ended up in web (LOB) to support my family. Sucks, but there are 1000 web jobs to every graphics programming job, and the gatekeeping is way less.
Happy birthday from Brazil Acerola! Love your videos. I'm a tech artist working for a mobile gaming company, and your content helps me expand my graphics knowledge every time. Thank you! I hope you will do more challanges in the future, since I couldn't take part in the last one
Great video, clearly laying out the harsh but honest reality. Graphics programming is the hardest type of programming (in my opinion) because you need at least 9/10 programming ability, 9/10 mathematics ability and 9/10 creative/art ability. That left/right brain equal skill requirement is a killer. As a hobbyist game programmer I get by with about a 9/10, 6/10, 6/10, in those areas. I'd really struggle with some of the math and creative flair needed as a graphics programmer. I actually think my rating is probably quite a common rating for a lot of game programmers.
As a full-stack software engineer who is clawing his way out of web dev by learning computer graphics and sharing projects on UA-cam, this video hits home.
I have a tiny disagreement. While I agree Unity is the best engine start with for graphics programming, I don't agree that Unreal isn't a good choice because it's more about using their stuff than making your own. I have a decent amount of experience with both graphics programming and Unreal, and I have to say it's not at all a cumbersome or difficult thing to create your own stuff from scratch in Unreal once you know the engine. Yeah, they have a great material editor, but that doesn't stop you from using your own custom shaders just like you can in Unity. The reason I'd say Unity is still the better choice, is simply because it's way easier and faster to get to know the engine in the way you need to use it for graphics programming. The strong focus on entity-component design pattern is more intuitive than Unreal's inheritance focus, and the separation between C++ and Blueprint in Unreal adds a layer of complexity before you can start proficiently programming behavior in your objects. Unity is just more barebones in what it gives you and how it does things, and for a beginner that's easier to wrap your head around. But at the end of the day there's nothing you can do in Unity that you can't do in Unreal, provided you have overcome the steeper learning curve and the more complex approach to scripting. There's a lot you can't do in Unity that you *can* do in Unreal though.
Thank you. I was looking for this as I was planning on starting with Unreal. Although, I might look into it after I check out Jasper's tutorials. From what I understood, the concepts and skills are pretty transferable to Unreal.
Its still weird to me that people in the US can just skip parts of school if they're good enough. Here in the UK no matter how good you are, you are stuck in your year based on how old you are. If I lived in the US I would've already graduated college right now, although right now I'm in the last year of high school.
As someone who is currently a Technical Artist (or rather, a Technical Director, but same difference), you really hit the nail on the head when it comes to the state of the industry! I'm literally applying to grad school right now for that very reason - not only am I actually more interested in being a graphics programmer than a TA, I would like to have a real job with benefits rather than be a contractor for the rest of my life lol
Wow I'm currently in the process of deciding whether to change industries and become a TD (ideally in animation) or go to grad school to study graphics. I think I'm starting to lean more into graphics but I'm also interested in doing shot work.
Hey there! I'm a CS undergrad too, going through a similar phase. I'm thinking of diving into graphics programming, but maybe after I graduate - gotta get my foot in the industry first. Started watching your vids in August, and it's awesome to see your success! Keep it up!
Just wanted to throw out my take as some random moron who decided he'd start reading academic papers about comp-sci and trying to figure crap out on his own: Any time you're reading a paper and you feel like a total dumbass, remember that the people writing it likely have invested YEARS of their life into this one exact subject. Even the lowliest paper is a titanic effort. And the people who wrote it did so precisely because it's a hard thing to figure out - if it was easy, you wouldn't be trying to track down a paper on it. So like, respect yourself, and respect the author too - this stuff is hard.
Ive been interested in game graphics since i played far cry back in the day. I might be a bit old to be sought after by employers once i've gone through all the learning. But worst case scenario i have a hell of deep hobby! Think i might put a bit more energy into this! Thanks for the inspiration!
dude that is insane. our stories are literally nearly identical. I had a mystery illness, I watched the same shows and streamers (dyrus was my fave) and I TOOK ARCHITECTURE! I also excelled in chemistry (organic chem captivated me) and I TOO PIVOTED TO CS BECAUSE MY CHEM DEGREE WASN'T OFFERED!!!!!!!!! BROOOOOOOO Fuckn love CS man, best coincidence of my life. Hope we meet up one day. Not to be a Stan, lol
Thanks for sharing your journey so far. I hadn't realized how difficult it was to get training, even in the U.S.. And, I'm glad to hear you are finding our book, Real-Time Rendering, of use - hearing that made my day. Also, happy to see you reusing our free "fair use" diagrams from the book in other videos. Keep up the great work!
I wrote my 3D engine for work in C++, along with a linear algebra math library for matrix and quaternion operations, etc. Primarily it runs with DirectX and HLSL shaders, but I made the engine agnostic so I can bolt on other graphic APIs for other types of renderers in the future, like OpenGL. It was a lot of fun to design and develop (and a lot of head scratching too), just wish I had more time to concentrate solely on graphics. Happy birthday btw.
This is literally the first time ever in all my years that someone on YT has successfully bamboozled me into watching through the ad read portion of a video... kudos to you, sir, and your feline companion.
I started out with P5js as well, and ended up becoming a web dev. I wanted to be a soundtrack composer instead of a programmer, but discovered that most people don't like good music, and there are no opportunities in the US unless you wanna freelance for almost no money while making very generic stuff that isn't unique or original whatsoever.
I question the use of "most people don't like good music". I would say that some people might not like music, sure, but "good" music is subjective. You might just have a particular taste in music (I certainly do) that isn't very common, so most people wouldn't like the music that you would make.
Its deprecated technology that is no longer developed. Nothing is stopping you from using it however the computer industry has begun to move on and it will become harder to run and use the latest innovations as time goes on
Its deprecated technology that is no longer developed. Nothing is stopping you from using it however the computer industry has begun to move on and it will become harder to run and use the latest innovations as time goes on
Thank you so much for this video! I'm in my last year of university re-thinking what I want to do and I've always been drawn to graphics - this video was exactly what I needed. Happy birthday!
The first 3 minutes did a great job of answering my question of "why hasnt anyone exposed me to a discipline that combines computers art and math" but Im still excited to get into this
I am so grateful for people like you who are willing to go in-depth about their experience. Even more so for going beyond and inserting memes onto every phrase.
What a genius, math and art at the same time sounds so complicated that it's easy to say that you and any graphics programmer is a really unique and brain powerful human beings
As someone who just recently graduated with a degree in CompSci and a focus in that on Game Dev... your videos are incredibly inspirational. The burnout of doing projects I wasn't interested in is strong and watching your videos makes me want to get back into making projects (that I am interested in!) on my own and see where it takes me. Thank you for doing all this!
Great video! There's one place around the 23:15 mark that I 100% agree with you with what you're talking about, which is fullscreen shaders. Godot needs a lot of work and it's very goofy trying to get them to work at first. Unity's system is much more straight forward. However, for surface shaders it's the exact opposite. Godot's surface shaders are very straight forward to create, and Unity's are quite goofy and convoluted.
whenever the content creators I watch include "retention clips" such as the cat during the ad I find it absolutely hilarious, keep up the good work haha
i feel like i leave a comment about animation on all of your videos (probably not true, possible that i have not even left one) but man your passion for graphics and the somewhat similar slightly adjacent nature of the subject always makes me so so excited about my own passion for my own niche subject. it's really neat to hear your story and compare and contrast it to my own (currently about to enter applying to internships mode, just gotta clean up my portfolio, put together a demo reel, etc), really makes the end goal seem a lot more tangible than i'm used to. also you mentioning godot tutorials often being kinda blind leading the blind reminded me that i recently discovered that a lot of blender rigging tutorials don't go into how to make controls at all which is absolutely insane to me. lots of pros and cons to being self taught. really enjoyed this video! have a happy birthday
Honestly love watching all of your videos man, your videos have gotten me to seriously consider having my senior project be something graphics-related. I still have 2 years to figure out what exactly my senior project will relate to, but I can't deny the fact that programming graphics is something that greatly interests me and you videos have been a good insight about what it is like to program for all of this. I'll continue to watch your videos for the foreseeable future, thank you very much :)
That's the kind of video that gives actual direction. Never heard about that Jasper Catlike tutorials. Gonna dive into it like I used to dive into MMORPGs
Absolute genius move splitting the sponsored segment with a cutie cat playing to hold my attention through the whole thing (my attention was 100% on the cat).
I've been a graphics programmer in the industry since 2008. For me, I didn't go to school to become one, I enrolled in a diploma program at a technical institute and some of the courses covered it a little bit. How I really got into it was personal projects and being interested in learning when I first got into the industry. I'd say most graphics programmers around know that you don't learn this stuff in school, so when hiring we tend to look at those personal projects to gauge overall interest and drive and how much of a personality fit you'd be for the team. Grades gets you in the door but those other things get you the job, so to speak. But yeah, most of the stuff in this video is great. I also appreciate highlighting the difference between being a graphics programmer (or rendering engineer) and being a technical artist. What most people consider being a graphics programmer is really being a TA, most of my time is spent adding features to the engine or porting to new hardware platforms. There's some shader work but it's just a small portion of the job. What's kind of interesting is the rise in engines (like Unity or Unreal) have actually made it harder to find good graphics programmers. Nobody does low level work now, it's all shadergraph portfolios. If you want to be a graphics programmer, I'd almost say don't use an engine. Start from scratch (and use C++), build your own demo "engine" that does some common rendering stuff. That will easily separate you from like 98% of all applicants. Personally, I've worked in several custom tech stacks and am working in Unreal now (building the engine from source). I've built cross-platform graphics engines from the various platform APIs and ported existing ones. It's still rewarding and there's always new stuff to learn. I highly recommend it.
I’m so glad you are so passionate about graphics programming. I recently found what I was passionate about and can not wait. I think it’s beautiful and so rare nowadays
From my experience as a student in computer science trying to get started with computer graphics as a hobby, depending on what you want to do, some of your first CG projects will take weeks or even months to complete. You'll probably have an hard time keeping your motivation intact after a long time. Well, I don't know about you, but I did. I would advise you to try to find a community to share your progress with. For example, there are a lot of small game dev discord, with peoples trying to build a portfolio, or just having fun. Being part of a community of people posting their progress everyday is what's helping me keep my drive. And as a bonus, you'll often see people ways better than you exchanging about the state of the art or just willing to explain stuff to you.
so humble to share this on the wild internet, i m not interested in graphic programmer since i work as 2d artist, but it's interesting to know the tech behind games and you have a passion to tell the knowledge, thanks for sharing :)
love this!! i'm a college sophomore who is just beginning to play around with graphics and data visualization and it's so cool to have a list of resources like this
I recently got into writing shaders but not in the traditional sense. I’ve been learning about signed distance fields and ray marching to make a simple 3D world and learn different techniques in Shadertoy. It’s tough and sometimes I bang my head against the wall when something doesn’t work as intended but it’s fun and my friends get surprised when I showed them my work because they’ve never thought of doing it before. My current challenge is remixing the Pixar lamp short as a meme and to use my current skills with the ray marching algorithm. I can’t wait to finish it and place it on a future portfolio. I’ve known your videos for 2 years now and it’s very educational and helpful for me. Great job and I can’t wait for what you do next 😎✨
Get a free 30 day trial and 20% off an annual plan at brilliant.org/acerola ! #ad
Thanks for 100k subs! 1 million next ofc
Happy Birthday
me too
Happi berd day!!!!!!!
Happy birthday my good sir
happy birthday
My biggest lesson from this video is that I should have a portfolio and not just leave my finished/abandoned projects in the trash bin
This is true for every aspect of CS, btw
@@T0ly113 reason i got a job now, and don't forget try a little bit of freelance project tho, it kinda helps because you're also building a real project , not just personal
Yes. Guy who shows he can do the thing >>>> guy who has a piece of paper that says he can do the thing.
lesson that everyone told you, but you cannot comprehend
sounds like it was his first time being told, chill @@Mus_2001
As a graphics programmer (AAA), I can say that everything said in this video is 100% true. I think this video is like gold as I've never seen anything this useful on web. Acerola, thank you so much for your work. I am sure a lot of students or people who are thinking about a career in this field would find your videos very valuable.
why you scream in brackets?
@@Special1122 Plz tell me you are joking kkk.
AAAaah xD
@@EnderMegawhat joke? I was wondering same thing
@@HonsHon meaning his work is being used in a triple A game production (or different industry but similar quality), but I assume that consists of a lot of AAAAAAAHHH as well
That intro alone gave me flashbacks to the course at Uni. "Modern displays go up to 1024x768".. and that's where you realized the prof had been using the same script for at least 20 years.
😂 yeah, it's just shocking sometimes how outdated the stuff in college can be. For example, I think it was in 2022 in our mobile development course when our lecturer (based on what was on his powerpoint slide) mentioned Android, iOS and *Windows Phone* as the main three platforms for developing mobile apps (I graduated last year BTW)
@@yewo.m Tbf Windows Phone still exists technically, I know a guy who uses it, and probably teacher wanted to fill a 3rd spot for "quota"
Bro this is literally me what the fuck
I'm a CompSci major working on my own OpenGL engine to learn graphics on my own. My goal is a bit different than yours (I wanna become a college graphics professor), but it's so refreshing and inspiring to see that I'm not the only person who enjoys this field. Most people of my COMPUTER SCIENCE major don't even know what I mean when I say I want to study the field of computer graphics. It's such a niche topic. I sometimes almost feel like it doesn't exist.
And you summarized what I love about it so well too. I love it because you're making art with code and math. It's so fucking awesome.
Thank you for this video. I had left my engine abandoned for a couple of months cause of school, judo, the gym, etc. but you've given me renewed motivation. Thank you!
I’m a CS masters student trying to become a graphics programmer (and desperately avoiding webdev) and I’ve never seen a video as inspirational as this one. It’s really refreshing to see someone speak to the intermediate level, and to the lack of a straightforward way into graphics from an academic CS background. Great video!
What do you mean you don’t want the culmination of all your hard work studying computer science being writing React components?
@@morkallearns781 You could build angular components instead! :)
@@morkallearns781 Writing react components that you can complete half asleep and dedicate your free time to things you actually care about isn't so bad
avoid webdev like a plage
@@entropywizard web devs, ui/ux get fired right after they finish the website. max you last 1 or 2 years in one job.
As a technical artist in multiple industries I really appreciate your segment about the difference between our roles. I’ve never heard it explained clearer! Especially as the roles of tech artists continue to blur
I'm a Principal Engineer who's working towards career changing from systems development (kernels, networking, storage, etc.) to graphics programming. Here's the path I'm taking. The books "Real-Time Rendering" and "Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation" are life savers. Make a portfolio with Vulkan demonstrating competency and understanding of graphics programming, build a simple toy engine, and then go chase down what you want. Bonus points if you add ECS to your toy engine as well!
yeah I didnt mention PBR cause it's imo a bit more of an advanced resource but it's great and also free
@@Acerola_t oh 100%, PBR is "I want to use my graphics card to question reality", def not for beginners lol
what's usually considered a toy engine? Is that just composable high level abstractions for the underlying APIs like Vulkan or DirectX, or is it also some kind of editor and other stuff? If that's the later, do you build the editor from scratch as well? Just how much time is it going to take to make a somehow useful thing?
I graduated college in 1986 and my primary interest at the time was computer graphics. I work now as a boat designer and boat builder - rendering my ideas IRL, but I find the advancement of computer graphics in the past ~40 years mind-blowing.
I would like to add that I feel to be a really good engineer/scientist you need to be an artist, and to be a really good artist you need to be an engineer/scientist. Conceptualizing and creating innovative new visions requires imagination and the ability to understand your tools and medium. High level STEM work is the art of imagining new solutions and then rendering them using and understanding of the math and physics need to design a solution. High level art is the science of imaging new visions and then understanding how your artistic medium can be manipulated into rendering your vision.
Engineering is art and art is engineering. One isn’t better or more valuable than the other, they are two sides of the same coin.
I’d like to know what motivated you to change careers?
Gotta say sometimes it is a bit disheartening to see such successful people that are also so young. Being 18-19yo with a diploma and a bachelor's is insane, let alone starting programming just 6 years ago and being so good at it! I'm 30yo and i thought i kinda knew my stuff after bachelor's, master's and PhD but the more I watch videos and see my super young colleagues around me the more I feel like I've wasted my time!
But everyone had a different life path, no way on earth I could have skipped high school or afford any extra experience outside of Uni!
Props to you man! Despite the learning, it's obvious that you are very talented and you chose the right calling for you, love your tutorials :)
What's disheartening is you are 30 and still comparing yourself to other people...
That's... not right.
@@honaleri if you don't compare yourself to others you're never gonna improve. There is a difference between being jealous or envious of someone's achievements and comparing yourself to others to learn from them, from their achievements AND their mistakes.
If you're not (healthily) comparing yourself to others you'll always stay complacent in your own mediocrity, and you will also be unable to understand the effort someone has put into reaching those achievements.
@@gabryx7
Not in the least.
What's healthy is only comparing yourself to yourself. Where is the ideal you in 5 years? 50? Ask those questions and put in the work to get there and be that person, without concern where others are and what others are doing. Because their path is a reflection of their life, experiences and choices that will have nearly no overlap with yours as an individual.
Comparing, as you said, does nothing but dishearten you.
Striving for a better self, doesn't require others examples. You'll only strive to be them. And that's a battle you are doomed to lose.
Comparisons leave exactly one human being as the winner. Striving for a better self is only about ensuring the winner is the present you, and the present you is making progress against past you, to the beat of your own drum, in the one life you get.
If other people are defining your sense of self and success...
You've lost in a way nothing can ever make you win. Others will always define your worth...and at the end of the day, if they say you aren't enough...
You aren't.
When you are your own benchmark and the future you see for you is all you strive for. Others can have huge success, and all you'll feel is happy for them, or inspired to apply their tenacy to yourself.
Never...disheartened.
It's not a competition.
Gaining maturity and life skills is just as important as degrees and professional progress. It's not meaninful to work on only one.
At the end of the day if someone else can make you feel you've wasted you life by making the choices that were best for you, your values aren't healthy. No one else by simply existing should have that kind of influence over your perception of yourself.
That's the mindset that's a problem. And I hope you nothing but a meaningful escape from such a painful and pointless feeling that comes from you feeling negatively about getting a PhD cause someone else is also successful. I wish you freedom from that. You don't deserve that kind of mind trap. No one does.
@@honaleri I don't need to prove anything to a random, stranger on the internet, I've put more than enough work :) Good luck to you though, I hope recruiters, Universities or any other institution will not compare you to others :)
Edit: my bad I didn't read the rest of the message! Without the rest after the first paragraph, your answer sounded mean but it was quite the opposite
@@gabryx7
I specifically said I hope you never have to feel you need to prove anything to anyone else.
If you felt confused, ull clarify, I was trying to wish you a good experience. Because the pressure you've put on yourself...isn't health or necessary and you deserve to be happy and free from that.
Not sure how that makes me sour, but it's ok. I already know the kind of pressure you feel. So, it makes sense your first response is negative.
I still want better for you.
I think you must have read my comment before I completed writing it.
My apologies if you did.
What is a graphics programmer but a miserable pile of floating point tricks?
half precision floating point tricks at that
@@artemisDev Sometimes even r11g11b10 because half is for rich people
my screen buffers are 64b float 😍
Floating point tricks in parallel
@@OverwatchUAthe real half precision is using RGB565
15:40 Fun fact: the Decima engine was named after Dejima, a Japanese island which was the singular trading post Japan had with the Dutch Empire during the 17th century. The engine didn’t have a name until Guerilla was prompted to give it one whenever Kojima Productions wanted to use it for Death Stranding.
I made a 3D engine in scratch in a weekend, and just from the small amount of time I spent programming a simple engine using blocks, I realised it was a lot more complicated than I thought it'd be. Happy birthday Acerola!
Also weren't doing urself a favor by using scratch
@@notbillymays no I guess not, but it was still a fun programming challenge nonetheless.
Why didn't you use vvvv? It's a real-time visual programming language and already has a 3d functions...
@@tonfilm while vvvv is probably better for practical purposes, I did this mostly because I was bored and wanted a challenge, not because I wanted a 3d engine I could work with. I don't like block coding in general, so I just made that engine to brag about and waste time.
When someone says about scratch in comments, do they mean edu mit web site scratch?
My main takeaway from this video is that my childhood sucked.
same...
How's that the conclusion?
same
Bro needs a hug and a pat on the back
Carl weathers arnold schwarzenegger handshake gif
Man, as someone about to finish a CS undergrad degree and hoping to get into graphics programming afterward, I can’t even express how much I needed to hear literally everything in this video.
Honestly i wish there was a video like this for every career path available. I want to learn Unreal Blueprints and after doing a course on basics, the path ahead felt nebulous and very uncertain. The way you lay down very clearly the path you followed in your field is inspiring.
No you dont.. look what happened to web dev, soft engineering getting over saturated after idiots posting everywhere online about their day in life. Prefer to be hidden
@@HerezCheez sure, which is what happens for gamedev too. Plenty of videos for beginners with clickbait titles like "learn gamedev in 5 days", then they teach you the same bare bone basics you find literally everywhere and they're done.
What i would like is someone that tells it like it is, "hey student, this stuff is hard, but this path could simplify things for your years-long journey"
P.S. i know i'm dreaming, but this video is very close to what i mean. Too bad i dont study graphic programming, i watch Acerola just like i watch Sebastian Lague, with admiration and understanding practically nothing. Acerola also for the dry comedy.
Happy birthday Acerola! I really needed this video, I’m currently struggling with just about everything you brought up in this video and this gave me the motivation and direction I needed.
Incredible start of your career. Your perseverance is great. I hope you get what ever makes you happy.
Holy crap this came at just the right time. I'm in my 3rd year of college right now and is really considering graphics programming, but much like you there's not a lot of resources in my college to go by. This is going to be a godsend moving forward. Genuinely, thank you so much for all you've provided for aspiring graphics programmer like me.
Now off to get real-time rendering
Seeing you blow up was amazing, and absolutely deserved. I always wanted to go into this area of computing but am currently just stuck in backend software after finishing university this year. Your story has really motivated me that it's still possible to move into this area. Thanks for all the videos and work you put into them, you deserve all of it
20:21 i have some programming experience from when I was younger, but most of what I've learned about CS and graphics development was self taught through the structure of projects I cared about. (Specifically making modding tools for botw lol). I've also been in the CS program in my high school for a few years cuz i felt i might as well. But what I've noticed is that everything we're learning in that program is super simple compared to what I was able to learn self-taught. And my high school's CS program is supposedly one of the best in the state.
So I guess what I mean to say is that if you can find projects you are passionate about, I'd recommend developing those! You'll find yourself putting much more time into them than you would to a class, and you'll end up being exposed to much more in the way of concepts.
The mans a goated Graphics programmer and UA-camr. Love your content man, I've binged so much of it
My road to becoming a techincal Artist: Making Levels for CS1.5 -> making levels for a Mod for HL2 (Demons vs Humans) -> starting a media it study at a public university -> getting into actual 3D modelling programs and making textures and working with Unreal 3 -> starting to get interested in node based shaders -> getting my first job and just having no one else to do the coding, so here we go i guess ^^ -> slowly falling in love with hlsl and optimization -> scoring a job at a small indie studio that make vr for quest and a like -> learning to make tools and addons for artists -> learning to build highly optimized content pipelines to get shit running on mobile VR -> being a happy tech artist who loves watching Acerola to relax.
So i kinda stumbled my way from making Counter Strike levels and wanning to become an environment artist to becoming a swiss army knife specialized for working with and optimizing for mobile vr. I'd recommend just start with something you love, learn to swim and solve problems on your own and branch out when something catches your interest.
It's a really worthwhile journey and i wouldn't change my life with nobody else :). Also if you know this is what you wanna do in life, make a vow to yourself and set becoming good at this craft the ultimate goal that you will pursue until your old and grey (might help to live in a european country with healthcare and all that socialist bullshit that protects you from existential angst). Best of luck
People calling you not professional feels like some external gate keeping because they feel insecure. I’d ignore them. Congrats on your job trajectory thus far, given your passion and clear intellect you will go far.
Also: you have a clear talent for explaining highly complex ideas. Your videos are understandable even to a lowly systems engineer like myself.
20:44 I want to note that the game development school I graduated from taught Dx11, Dx12, shaders, and Vulkan. There was a bunch of classes grouped together for the graphics department which is what opened my eyes to the career. Definitely if you are considering this though, check the coursework and see what they teach you.
If you don't mind me asking, what school did you go to?
@@Mattapprendoespanol-gt9tj Full Sail University in Orlando. They have a game development degree which teaches basic Computer Science, Graphics, Engine Development, AI, and Unity / Unreal
@@Mattapprendoespanol-gt9tj Full Sail in Orlando
"My videos are intentional low production value", bro I envy the quality of your videos so bad. You have such a good taste. You're my biggest inspiration.
I build my own portfolio projects, and study graphics.
Your videos have taught me a lot - I used to program Gerstner waves, saw the overlapping, then you talked about it in a video, and ended up using layered sine waves. It changed my perspective enough to matter.
You also introduced me to the idea of grass / cloud rendering techniques, because I hadn’t heard of those topics prior to watching.
Plus, the videos are entertaining, well educated, and easy to follow.
Low-key, some of the best graphics study-guides on the web.
Happy birthday Acerola! Thanks for making these fantastic videos. :D
I just want to say that putting a cat on screen while you do an ad read is so manipulative, and I just love that for you.
To give y'all a basic idea of what shaders are capable of beyond just "shading", one thing you can do with them is move the apparent positions of a model's vertices. Valve uses this to simulate the swaying of trees and bushes in the wind. The result is that they can use "static" models that use less resources to render and can be lit using pre-baked lighting (since they don't move so much that it matters) and can even have their movement parameters altered by what skin is being applied to them.
As I recall, they also use it for facial animation.
...and then start delving into compute, and you can do all kinds of things to data in a shader
You can do a lot more than that in shaders. Modern APIs quite literally let you _create_ entirely new vertices and fill a vertex buffer with them from within a compute shader, fill a storage buffer with draw parameters within another compute shader, then draw the vertices you just created with the draw parameters you just created indirectly by having the GPU reference its own memory.
GTA V does this as well. I remember modding the game and finding out how it worked and being amazed at how clever it all was.
Everyone uses that to simulate foliage animation bro. Not sure where you're getting the Valve thing from, but Ok...
"My videos are intentionaly low production value and amaturish at nature"
-Fully edited
-Filled with diferent inforgraphics
-Music
-Scripted
-Has a list of resources
-Even has a bloody list of musics used in order
My man this isn't low production nor amaturish, you should feel proud about your work, it's really good
Subbed
@23:23 He's also starting with Godot.
For all of you interested in Godot, I suggest listening to Acerola, but seriously considering trying out Godot in a year or two when he's put out more stuff.
Godot seems to be accelerating while Unity has hurt its reputation to a point that it may never fully recover.
Other promising game engines are starting to pop up. Bevy is one. It's written in rust and doesn't have an editor atm though, so I wouldn't call it beginner friendly at all, but there's a lot to keep an eye out for.
Not to forget Stride, free and open-source. And it's entirely written in C# which is amazing because the engine and game code use the same technology. No layer in between. Also it has one of the best shader system in the world and it's very fast!
Don't look at bevy, take Fyrox
Godot is a better game dev experience than unity in pretty much every way. He's probably biased against it because how it exposes shaders is very opinionated (all the shader attribute mapping is handled for you) which could make his job more annoying if he's trying to do some really weird custom thing in the shader. In this case, you'd have to maintain your own version of the Godot engine which of course is not for beginners, but at the same time writing super complex shader code is ALSO NOT A BEGINNER TASK.
Godot's rendering pipeline is pretty underpowered compared to Unity's; it gives you a lot less control. (This is by design to make it easier to use.)
I have managed to implement an Obra Dinn-like 1-bit dithering + edge detecting thing, but it's kind of ridiculous under the hood...
But I like it better than Unity for like, "normal" projects. Most games I want to make don't require hyper-advanced graphics; I just want models or sprites on the screen and maybe some post-processing. (Granted I haven't used Unity in like 6 years and I was way better at programming when I started figuring out Godot...)
Uh, try both I guess! Try things! If you're not doing this for fun it's not going to be easy. Discipline is hard and having fun is easy.
@gamechannel1271 I strongly disagree lol I did several streams trying out godot and pretty much everything about it was worse and more convoluted, the only true benefit to godot imo is the okhsl color wheel which I enjoy staring at
but yes in a few years when jasper has put out more godot tutorials it'll be a great option for beginners.
i cant believe youre from bend
also, as a freshman CS major going to U of O, this video is actually super helpful and inspiring. I love your videos and them, along with sebastian's videos, are what inspired me to really start trying to learn programming for school and fun.
this is a recent interest of mine and i'm super excited to see this comprehensive introduction posted - thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!!!
I'm a senior applying to undergraduate programs right now, and you should know how important and refreshing this video is. Your passion for the topic is inspiring; but most of all, your perspective on the drive it requires to pursue what you love - after finding out what it is in the first place - is invaluable. thanks, man.
GDC scene nearly killed me, it is just so funny.
Love this video, and I agree that catlike coding is an absolute goat. You channel, his website and so many other people always remind me how much better world is just because people are nice enough to share knowledge for the sake of it.
Thanks to his tutorials I managed to build my own SRP, in a few days actually. Even managed to use it for a gamejam game (although heavily modified). It is not too bad, since SRP API does most heavy lifting for you (e.g. you don't need to make drawcalls you just ask unity to draw objects that meet certain criteria). You could probably make a video on it, that would be fun
Wow i just randomly stumbled upon this video, and I really appreciate you covering the aspects of tech art in the industry.
I was a contractor for one of the big conglomerate studios as a technical artist. It's true that despite working the majority of my time programming, we generally weren't given the same weight. I think the bigger issue is that all these industries use technical artist too much as a catch all term for suge a huge spectrum of responsibilities. That also means technical artist are some of the roles that get cut or is not reliable due to the nature of your niche. Engineers and artist will just work double time to fill out the gap a typixal technical artist fills.
Anyways I was one of those who got let go, and have been struggling to find work due to my narrow niche. And because of my education more of a hybrid in art/tech pivoting out of the industry with strictly just experience from tech art has been hard. After being out of work for several months, and although I truly did enjoy my time working in this game studio, it's best to leave the industry for me personally. Since what I actually enjoy doing has been programming. I'm going back to university next year to pursue a second degree in computer science.
For any other prospective students out there thinking about taking the plunge in video games, I would caution that it is a cutthroat industry, and honestly not nearly as cool or fun as any other streams of work. Pursue your dreams, but also spend some time reflecting on why your dream is your dream, and if you have fallbacks when it doesn't work out.
you'll also make more money probably if you leave the game industry to do certain fields of programming for major companies that may be just as complicated as what you do in the game industry, depending on specifics.
This is a big aspect of the "generalist" dilemma. As technical artists aren't specialists, this means most people don't really understand what work they can, or do, actually perform. In today's world of specialist focused education paths and job roles, generalists are not valued. Because yeah, your bosses probably don't really understand what you do and anything they don't understand will have reduced value, and ..... couldn't a specialist just do it better even if I needed two of them to cover the range?
Also money wise I hate to say it, but like Andy said it is not in gaming. While Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Sony, etc have gaming arms... they are not the profit machines that put those companies where they are. If you look at the fortune 100 you won't find even one strictly gaming company, not even Activision before the Microsoft merger would have made it.
@@DKarkarov This is very interesting to hear, as my experience has been the opposite. I find that as a Tech Artist, my role is quite high in demand across many studios. I even find that tech art roles pay better than many programming or art roles (assuming they are not senior/lead roles). I still get recruiters reaching out often toting 6 figure salaries. To me, I see a generalist tech artist as a highly versatile skill set, which gives the individual the flexibility to tackle a wide array of problems to solve.
@@Rbanhthere are exceptions to every rule. My job is also a generalist role and I also recently turned down a 6 figure job offer. But I also understand I have a strong resume, a proven track record of work experience, and a strong reputation at my current company.
A person who is starting out or perhaps has not gotten the same opportunities would find things more challenging in the same job market.
6:04
Now then that's taken care of we can finally start the battle of the power of TWOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Ace roller this video is either going to change my life or at the very least give me something to consider really strongly. Maximum respect for your dedication and good will.
As a graphics programmer hobbyist in a previous life, the thing I like most about your videos is that they show that you don't just "put water into a game" or things like that.
What I'd like to see at some point is shadows - just so that people understand how awful they are to get right. And also so that your viewers will never be able to unseen shadow acne
I really appreciate your work. However, I feel personally attacked at the dig at web dev. Lol
I ended up going the web dev route, and your videos truly make me want to jump out, but for now, the Golden handcuffs stay on.
Programming really does feel like creative problem solving, and I love art, too, so who knows what my future holds.
Thanks again.
Similar thoughts.
Maybe one of the ways is to dip fingers in WebGL, Three.js, r3F, GLSL etc to get that knack for graphics programming going forward as a web developer and hope for the best in this ever-changing rock in spacetime..
I was a graphics and game programmer for many years, but ended up in web (LOB) to support my family. Sucks, but there are 1000 web jobs to every graphics programming job, and the gatekeeping is way less.
Happy birthday from Brazil Acerola! Love your videos. I'm a tech artist working for a mobile gaming company, and your content helps me expand my graphics knowledge every time. Thank you! I hope you will do more challanges in the future, since I couldn't take part in the last one
Great video, clearly laying out the harsh but honest reality. Graphics programming is the hardest type of programming (in my opinion) because you need at least 9/10 programming ability, 9/10 mathematics ability and 9/10 creative/art ability. That left/right brain equal skill requirement is a killer. As a hobbyist game programmer I get by with about a 9/10, 6/10, 6/10, in those areas. I'd really struggle with some of the math and creative flair needed as a graphics programmer. I actually think my rating is probably quite a common rating for a lot of game programmers.
Truly appreciate finding you and your videos. Thanks
As a full-stack software engineer who is clawing his way out of web dev by learning computer graphics and sharing projects on UA-cam, this video hits home.
lol, doing the same thing
@@bransongitomeh5186 it's been quite a grind on my end. Hopefully we can both get the roles we are aiming for!
Mr. Ace Roller, you're a blessing! Without you I wouldn't be half as interested in graphics programming.
I have a tiny disagreement. While I agree Unity is the best engine start with for graphics programming, I don't agree that Unreal isn't a good choice because it's more about using their stuff than making your own. I have a decent amount of experience with both graphics programming and Unreal, and I have to say it's not at all a cumbersome or difficult thing to create your own stuff from scratch in Unreal once you know the engine. Yeah, they have a great material editor, but that doesn't stop you from using your own custom shaders just like you can in Unity.
The reason I'd say Unity is still the better choice, is simply because it's way easier and faster to get to know the engine in the way you need to use it for graphics programming. The strong focus on entity-component design pattern is more intuitive than Unreal's inheritance focus, and the separation between C++ and Blueprint in Unreal adds a layer of complexity before you can start proficiently programming behavior in your objects. Unity is just more barebones in what it gives you and how it does things, and for a beginner that's easier to wrap your head around. But at the end of the day there's nothing you can do in Unity that you can't do in Unreal, provided you have overcome the steeper learning curve and the more complex approach to scripting. There's a lot you can't do in Unity that you *can* do in Unreal though.
thx you helped me
Thank you. I was looking for this as I was planning on starting with Unreal.
Although, I might look into it after I check out Jasper's tutorials. From what I understood, the concepts and skills are pretty transferable to Unreal.
Happy birthday, mate!!
Mine was yesterday.
Its still weird to me that people in the US can just skip parts of school if they're good enough. Here in the UK no matter how good you are, you are stuck in your year based on how old you are. If I lived in the US I would've already graduated college right now, although right now I'm in the last year of high school.
it was genuinely the worst choice I've ever made in my life the permanent damage it does to your brain is just not worth the potential time saved
As someone who is currently a Technical Artist (or rather, a Technical Director, but same difference), you really hit the nail on the head when it comes to the state of the industry! I'm literally applying to grad school right now for that very reason - not only am I actually more interested in being a graphics programmer than a TA, I would like to have a real job with benefits rather than be a contractor for the rest of my life lol
Wow I'm currently in the process of deciding whether to change industries and become a TD (ideally in animation) or go to grad school to study graphics. I think I'm starting to lean more into graphics but I'm also interested in doing shot work.
Hey there! I'm a CS undergrad too, going through a similar phase. I'm thinking of diving into graphics programming, but maybe after I graduate - gotta get my foot in the industry first. Started watching your vids in August, and it's awesome to see your success! Keep it up!
Oh. He was a child genius.
I'm so glad Sebastion was mentioned. I have watched almost every single one of his coding adventures!
Just wanted to throw out my take as some random moron who decided he'd start reading academic papers about comp-sci and trying to figure crap out on his own:
Any time you're reading a paper and you feel like a total dumbass, remember that the people writing it likely have invested YEARS of their life into this one exact subject. Even the lowliest paper is a titanic effort. And the people who wrote it did so precisely because it's a hard thing to figure out - if it was easy, you wouldn't be trying to track down a paper on it. So like, respect yourself, and respect the author too - this stuff is hard.
From a CS major, this guy deserves a standing ovation! Great video :D
Ive been interested in game graphics since i played far cry back in the day. I might be a bit old to be sought after by employers once i've gone through all the learning. But worst case scenario i have a hell of deep hobby! Think i might put a bit more energy into this! Thanks for the inspiration!
This video needs to exist for every niche of every field.
6:04 BFDI MENTIONED 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼‼🗣🗣🗣🗣
these videos are honestly some of the best videos on the topic of computer science on youtube.
dude that is insane. our stories are literally nearly identical. I had a mystery illness, I watched the same shows and streamers (dyrus was my fave) and I TOOK ARCHITECTURE! I also excelled in chemistry (organic chem captivated me) and I TOO PIVOTED TO CS BECAUSE MY CHEM DEGREE WASN'T OFFERED!!!!!!!!! BROOOOOOOO
Fuckn love CS man, best coincidence of my life. Hope we meet up one day. Not to be a Stan, lol
Nice try, Acerola ;) /s
One of the best videos if not the best to watch before getting into graphics. Great video, thank you.
WHY IS TWO FROM TPOT THERE
Happy Birthday Acerola!
Im very thankfull for your instructive content
Thank you for existing and making this video
wtf, Bro speedrunned his diploma just to hang out with his friends
Thanks for sharing your journey so far. I hadn't realized how difficult it was to get training, even in the U.S.. And, I'm glad to hear you are finding our book, Real-Time Rendering, of use - hearing that made my day. Also, happy to see you reusing our free "fair use" diagrams from the book in other videos. Keep up the great work!
I wrote my 3D engine for work in C++, along with a linear algebra math library for matrix and quaternion operations, etc. Primarily it runs with DirectX and HLSL shaders, but I made the engine agnostic so I can bolt on other graphic APIs for other types of renderers in the future, like OpenGL. It was a lot of fun to design and develop (and a lot of head scratching too), just wish I had more time to concentrate solely on graphics.
Happy birthday btw.
This is literally the first time ever in all my years that someone on YT has successfully bamboozled me into watching through the ad read portion of a video... kudos to you, sir, and your feline companion.
I started out with P5js as well, and ended up becoming a web dev. I wanted to be a soundtrack composer instead of a programmer, but discovered that most people don't like good music, and there are no opportunities in the US unless you wanna freelance for almost no money while making very generic stuff that isn't unique or original whatsoever.
I question the use of "most people don't like good music". I would say that some people might not like music, sure, but "good" music is subjective. You might just have a particular taste in music (I certainly do) that isn't very common, so most people wouldn't like the music that you would make.
Happy Birthday! This channel is awesome and I wish it to keep growing
Curious why you say that OpenGL isn't that valuable anymore?
It is great and there are TONS of resources in C++ (mainly) and Java
Its deprecated technology that is no longer developed. Nothing is stopping you from using it however the computer industry has begun to move on and it will become harder to run and use the latest innovations as time goes on
Its deprecated technology that is no longer developed. Nothing is stopping you from using it however the computer industry has begun to move on and it will become harder to run and use the latest innovations as time goes on
I watched the ad because of the genuinely placed cat video, congratulations on that :D
Me playing persona 4 golden while listening to this video with p4g music is a wierd coincidence
Thank you so much for this video! I'm in my last year of university re-thinking what I want to do and I've always been drawn to graphics - this video was exactly what I needed. Happy birthday!
bfdi two at 6:04 lol
watch tpot for context
The first 3 minutes did a great job of answering my question of "why hasnt anyone exposed me to a discipline that combines computers art and math" but Im still excited to get into this
thank goodness you escaped webdev
I am so grateful for people like you who are willing to go in-depth about their experience. Even more so for going beyond and inserting memes onto every phrase.
bro, your nick is literally the name of a fruit in brazil💀
6:04
now then that's taken care of we can finally start the battle for the power of TWOOOOOOO!!!!!!
What a genius, math and art at the same time sounds so complicated that it's easy to say that you and any graphics programmer is a really unique and brain powerful human beings
As someone who just recently graduated with a degree in CompSci and a focus in that on Game Dev... your videos are incredibly inspirational. The burnout of doing projects I wasn't interested in is strong and watching your videos makes me want to get back into making projects (that I am interested in!) on my own and see where it takes me. Thank you for doing all this!
Great video! There's one place around the 23:15 mark that I 100% agree with you with what you're talking about, which is fullscreen shaders. Godot needs a lot of work and it's very goofy trying to get them to work at first. Unity's system is much more straight forward. However, for surface shaders it's the exact opposite. Godot's surface shaders are very straight forward to create, and Unity's are quite goofy and convoluted.
very informative video
also did not expect the appearance of two at 6:04
whenever the content creators I watch include "retention clips" such as the cat during the ad I find it absolutely hilarious, keep up the good work haha
Sebastian Lauge is incredible, stoked to hear he inspired you to start graphics programming! 8:55
i feel like i leave a comment about animation on all of your videos (probably not true, possible that i have not even left one) but man your passion for graphics and the somewhat similar slightly adjacent nature of the subject always makes me so so excited about my own passion for my own niche subject. it's really neat to hear your story and compare and contrast it to my own (currently about to enter applying to internships mode, just gotta clean up my portfolio, put together a demo reel, etc), really makes the end goal seem a lot more tangible than i'm used to. also you mentioning godot tutorials often being kinda blind leading the blind reminded me that i recently discovered that a lot of blender rigging tutorials don't go into how to make controls at all which is absolutely insane to me. lots of pros and cons to being self taught.
really enjoyed this video! have a happy birthday
Happy birthday man, I’ve always loved the style of your videos and they’re really entertaining to watch. Also congrats on 100k!
Honestly love watching all of your videos man, your videos have gotten me to seriously consider having my senior project be something graphics-related. I still have 2 years to figure out what exactly my senior project will relate to, but I can't deny the fact that programming graphics is something that greatly interests me and you videos have been a good insight about what it is like to program for all of this.
I'll continue to watch your videos for the foreseeable future, thank you very much :)
That's the kind of video that gives actual direction.
Never heard about that Jasper Catlike tutorials. Gonna dive into it like I used to dive into MMORPGs
Absolute genius move splitting the sponsored segment with a cutie cat playing to hold my attention through the whole thing (my attention was 100% on the cat).
I've been a graphics programmer in the industry since 2008. For me, I didn't go to school to become one, I enrolled in a diploma program at a technical institute and some of the courses covered it a little bit. How I really got into it was personal projects and being interested in learning when I first got into the industry. I'd say most graphics programmers around know that you don't learn this stuff in school, so when hiring we tend to look at those personal projects to gauge overall interest and drive and how much of a personality fit you'd be for the team. Grades gets you in the door but those other things get you the job, so to speak.
But yeah, most of the stuff in this video is great. I also appreciate highlighting the difference between being a graphics programmer (or rendering engineer) and being a technical artist. What most people consider being a graphics programmer is really being a TA, most of my time is spent adding features to the engine or porting to new hardware platforms. There's some shader work but it's just a small portion of the job.
What's kind of interesting is the rise in engines (like Unity or Unreal) have actually made it harder to find good graphics programmers. Nobody does low level work now, it's all shadergraph portfolios. If you want to be a graphics programmer, I'd almost say don't use an engine. Start from scratch (and use C++), build your own demo "engine" that does some common rendering stuff. That will easily separate you from like 98% of all applicants. Personally, I've worked in several custom tech stacks and am working in Unreal now (building the engine from source). I've built cross-platform graphics engines from the various platform APIs and ported existing ones. It's still rewarding and there's always new stuff to learn. I highly recommend it.
How do you learn all the stuff all by yourself!??
I’m so glad you are so passionate about graphics programming. I recently found what I was passionate about and can not wait. I think it’s beautiful and so rare nowadays
The "all this stuff is free if you know where to look" got me
Happy Birthday Mate
From my experience as a student in computer science trying to get started with computer graphics as a hobby, depending on what you want to do, some of your first CG projects will take weeks or even months to complete. You'll probably have an hard time keeping your motivation intact after a long time. Well, I don't know about you, but I did.
I would advise you to try to find a community to share your progress with. For example, there are a lot of small game dev discord, with peoples trying to build a portfolio, or just having fun. Being part of a community of people posting their progress everyday is what's helping me keep my drive. And as a bonus, you'll often see people ways better than you exchanging about the state of the art or just willing to explain stuff to you.
so humble to share this on the wild internet, i m not interested in graphic programmer since i work as 2d artist, but it's interesting to know the tech behind games and you have a passion to tell the knowledge, thanks for sharing :)
21:52 I really needed to hear this, thank you.
love this!! i'm a college sophomore who is just beginning to play around with graphics and data visualization and it's so cool to have a list of resources like this
Fantastic style as always, thanks for the origin story!
I recently got into writing shaders but not in the traditional sense. I’ve been learning about signed distance fields and ray marching to make a simple 3D world and learn different techniques in Shadertoy. It’s tough and sometimes I bang my head against the wall when something doesn’t work as intended but it’s fun and my friends get surprised when I showed them my work because they’ve never thought of doing it before. My current challenge is remixing the Pixar lamp short as a meme and to use my current skills with the ray marching algorithm. I can’t wait to finish it and place it on a future portfolio. I’ve known your videos for 2 years now and it’s very educational and helpful for me. Great job and I can’t wait for what you do next 😎✨