Design Cinema - Episode 111 - What is Entertainment Design
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- In this episode, Feng discusses what is Entertainment Design.
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I think the first time I saw one of your videos was like 10 years ago. Someone linked it in the youtube comments on a Scyra video. I was too immature to take art seriously back then, but I never forgot about your video or channel. I'm glad I'm now at a place where I can appreciate and resonate with what you teach. Thank you sir.
"It's almost like these portfolios are for...their own industries...It's like I'm entertaining other concept designers but I don't care about the audience"
You just explained all of modern entertainment & why it sucks. especially writing.
Just explained all of Art station and most of the industry. Same concepts regurgitated same orc same mech suit, same pots and pants apocalyptic character design
We love you Feng thank you for doing a immediate follow up to your last video, keep the FZD content coming!
"There is no soul, no spirit in the portfolios." This resonates with me massively. Those are the words I use with most media now when I can't quite put my finger on the problems. I am closer to 40 than 30 and am in my first semester of art school. I notice a shift in my whole body when I find a way to bend assignments into something I care about vs just doing the thing. It makes all the difference.
the message of this video hits me to my core. as an artist looking for work today, it has been an uphill battle to improve and whilst i am so proud of my work, this soul of design is something i desperately want to rekindle.
I have learned how to render and art in 5 years but the real design was missing. You have just returned when I and most of the juniors needed you the most. Thanks master.
The legend returns
this episode was the realest. total legitness, i agree with everything. not all heroes wear capes. thanks for shedding light on the industry
Honestly I think the regurgitation you see in the industry is just as much as fault of the industry itself. The industry wants to sell the idea of Concept Art and design as being flashy art to the average consumer/artist just as much as the average artist and consumer thinks that concept art is just flashy images. Couple that with the increasing homogenization of most media to being a generic amalgamation of bland stereotypical rubbish, with games its obssession with graphics and flashy images and same with movies at the expense of good writing and interesting ideas and you end up with a feedback loop of rubbish that perpetuates itself.
The increasingly capitalist nature of the industry and the obsession with a return on investment also is a problem. Let's be honest, media was better when the standard for it was more about interesting ideas than technical perfection be it rendering, perspective ect.
Nah that's artist not the industry the artist made a story about what they thought concept art was nothing to do with the capitalism agenda bro
@@luxuriousmindset1906 Genuinely can't understanding what you're saying. Please learn to construct a coherent sentence.
Capitalism does tend to turn all art into bland profitable blobs. If the goal is profit, risk is a liability for everyone who isnt on the bottom. Thus indie games rule.
I agree. I love feng’s videos but I can’t help but think that some of them have added to this exact issue. Originality seems to have little value because a lot of the movies and games that are coming out aren’t exactly ‘new’ they are already based on IP’s that already exist. The fallout show feng mentioned for example is based on an existing IP. Investors don’t want to take any risks that’s why students feel like they can’t draw anything that’s too ‘out there’, not knowing that the investors don’t hire them, other artists do.
This
This has actually inspired me to start drawing again. I always felt bad that my technical skills weren’t great, but I love designing things. This makes me feel like I have a set of goals to go after that aren’t just “illustrate it prettier” but actually relate to what I enjoy doing.
great video! I almost feel lucky I grew up when internet access was still hard to come by, we had no choice but to read books, and go out of our way to figure things out
THANK YOU! i truly appreciate every single video, i have been watching this channel since 8 years ago and it helped me get my first gig!! And thank you for making videos in a longer format, i dont think there is much value to videos that are like 15 minutes long rushing to discuss a topic, the in-depth discussion in these 2-3 hour long videos is how you drive home a concept, i like to listen to them while im drawing :)
its crazy, Feng I started watching your videos in 2016, back then I wanted to be a concept artist, I eventually went to uni for animation in 2018, now I'm working professionally as a VFX artist for games. Keep on inspiring artists
One of the best, if not the best video regarding AI and Design i have seen so far.. I am a long-time fan of you and your attitude Feng. Thanks for making these videos! I would love to see an episode again where you actually sketch and design more, paired with these teachings of entertainment design. Keep up the grreat work!
good god this has helped tremendously push my concept art towards the direction it actually NEEDS to go, such an eye opening resource Mr.Zhu. thanks so much!!
It's crazy thinking I was in college like 10 yrs ago watching this channel thinking what he did was magic. Then during the pandemic I picked up a drawing tablet and start to unravel the fundamentals and now I can see how useful this info is.
Great material Feng, I so appreciate your honesty and candor. Keep demystifying this process, I can’t underscore enough, how valuable your contribution and commitment to design education and training is. Thank you Sir.
Wonderful video Feng. Design and composition open an entirely new world, especially if you love Fine Art like me. What, when, who, and why are always present in the Master's work. No wonder why they still inspire us today.
1st of all, good to know that my concept art portfolio is NOT like your demo lol. I worked on it based on the vid you did years ago about getting your first job with the real world, sc-fi/fantasy, and remake projects. 2nd, to anyone starting out trying to look for expireince or trying to get that first concept art gig (at least in video games), join a game jam! There's a lot of programmers that need artists! You won't get paid, but it really good for EXP and networking!
Cant wait for even longer videos, this is fr the most important information ive got so far. Cannot thank you enough❤
I'm really excited to get to the Blender class coming because I recently started learning Blender and im so lost! Best teacher ever!
Glad you are getting some well deserved time off and thanks for continuing to offer your knowledge to the general public here on youtube.
27:55 exactly my classmates🤣🤣
I use this saying.... "All fur coat and no knickers" when discussing this topic. In this case the "fur coat" is the flashy render... and "Knickers" are the DESIGN :)
It will be interesting to see if things change in portfolios on your next trip to Paris! Very good episode.
Always great content Feng - been following your work since the DVD-days.
But I would like to just tell any aspiring concept artists that those paintings of “basic shapes in epic lighting” isn’t just all bad. Like you said - they are good for mindless drawing but they can also be good as stepping stones for the bigger idea. If you’re suffering from “blue sky paralysis” (not sure if that is an actual term) those kind of paintings serve as good inspiration for your self. They don’t have to be all that nicely rendered as they will be just the first step in the process where things are fleshed out. Put yourself in that world and start fleshing out all the what, when, where and who then move on to the next phase which is what Feng went through here. Eventually your idea will be so much more fleshed out that the first image won’t be that good anymore and you’ll wanna redo it but with all the backstory baked into it. You could also let ai do that first image but it is much more satisfying to know that you’ve done everything from the ground up yourself.
as a 3d artist I understand the value of concept art and I'm trying to level up my own ideas for scenes too
I am only glad to have these coming back again! Thank you for the episode, mate!
10:08 Feng already imagined Breath of the Wild at 12 years old !!
33:52 It's been so long since I heard that "Who cares?"
Oh my god its so refreshing to hear you talk about how same-y art is all over the internet right now. It's frustrating see 'little man foreground, big thing background' again and again and again. There are so many accounts where that's all they do. Leaving aside design, even just compositionally it's boring - there are so many other more interesting ways to tell a story visually.
so funny that Feng and I had almost exactly the same childhood in terms of toys and cartoons :P
My biggest fascination has always been biology and anatomy, I had tons of books of anatomy and creatures. My dad was into a ton of sci fi and fantasy, also he had a ton of action figures soo it all fueled my creative endevours.
yess! so happy that you are back i've been following your videos since 7 years ago. Thank you for your lessons !!
Thank you for the really reconforting videos on topics almost any other even talk about or shares. You are always an inspiration! Btw I love your Ultraman cap!
We are blessed yet again. Thanks.
He is back, baby!
thank you for sharing - this helped get my brain in place to try my portfolio again
yo man welcome back missed spending time on ur channel hope u donig well .its good to see u still kicking
where is the new ep feng!!
It's been a long time coming 😄 love this series
Haha! Add small figure for "story" - chefs kiss
Thank you, this was very eye opening
Great advice and much appreciated
O my God He came back !!!!!
Oh yeah , your back ! Welcome 😁
I think a lot of young artist blurred the line between concept artist and illustrator hense why you see said portfolios. Misguided. That being said, I'm so glad you're doing these and inject these knowlege into the students now. Hopefully we'll see less pretty stuff and more design works
Instagram also added to the noise a lot.
loved the video!! could you talk more about the animation industry?
I had that book "All about Trains" too 👍
Thank you very much. That so interesting! I love Entertainment design but I'm more into characters than environment. Is Character Design dead cos of AI? That could be a good topic.
Feng, make an action to select the layer to draw on and assign it to a hotkey. I see this problem over and over in your videos.
Thank you!
this mans a legend
Do you have a pdf of yours presentation if that possible? And can you share it?
I find it weird that the speed art you made looks really similar to my phone background
Try to get AI to generate a skate park that doesn’t have parking blocks right in the middle of the vert ramps! Stairs the lead downwards into a solid wall! Mysterious pits right in the path of the skater
Yeeeah that's dope
Another one!
❤
Bettie Underpass
Feng brings something to the community that nobody else can. I truly appreciate every video.
Feng Zhu gave me work ethic and that’s the best thing I could have EVER asked for 🙏🏾
Feng is single handedly redefining not just the concept art / entertainment design industry but also creative jobs in general! In a time of clickbait content where everyone is just trying to be popular, focusing on the who and the why is soo valuable to so many creators out there. I miss thoughtful content that tells a story and builds a world. AI is flat and boring and these videos are getting people excited to create again. Thank you so much for these Feng, you've truly been missed and you're giving us true value with Design Cinema, cheers to you!
Best,
Derek
You talking about the "no design" concept art, where everything is regurgitated, made me think of some of the advice and points I've received from game artists myself quite recently: 1, the skill floor to get in has risen, multiple people have said to me that with the level of work they got in a few years ago, they couldn't get hired anymore. I would imagine this would drive people to do pieces focused on technical skills just to show that they have them.
2, many artists say you need to do work in the visual style of the studios out there. More and more we see uninspired big productions and especially in the mobile world everything looks the same. In general people also prefer familiar things. When studios play it too safe with their products, it also means they want to see "safe" works that are similar to things that are already selling.
3, mobile games are a big market, and there isn't that much dedicated concept art being done there, and if there is, you are making it for the polished pieces you also need yourself to execute. Mobile industry is also especially vulnerable to the above problem of just trying to copy successful things.
How do you feel about these points?
I'm very curious about this too @FZDSCHOOL I feel like people are left behind constantly by the technology and there's a desperate air of playing catch up all the time with everything. I'm glad to see that the core of design is finally mentioned again after all these years because everything you say is true but these 3 are all concerning facts that need addressing.
There is no middle ground job, only a contest of absolute champions competing for the titan AAA company motherships.
Design requires immense confidence a world where everywhere else some marketing team decides instead of creative directors, artists, and other individuals with an artistic vision.
how do I bump this comment? lol
yeah i heared the same thing, and when i tried to push diferent things people cut me down in studios. but i think we need to keep trying, moebius didnt started working in movies, directors started to notice him and hired him becouse of what he did. we kinda need to be our own IP in a way. but if our own IP is mediocre, dosent matter, studios will prefer playing safe than trying our stuff out with their money.
@@henrique2799 I don't know, if you just go online you'll find a lot of people doing their own thing with great skill and grace, and it's not like studios are flocking into their DMs asking them to work for them.
@@th_blck_knght those people are usually not begginers. also you have to diferentiate personal projects from works to earn a living in a studio. i draw what i wan when i draw just for me, but those drawings usually will not atract many jobs, when you play safe like the most stuff Feng jus showed in the video its easier to get jobs. this field is not art for expression but art for problem solving, Feng aways said it.
It feels like everyone is just chasing a “cool status job” more than for the love of story telling and art. Perhaps the entertainment industry has blame in this? Not only do they continually regurgitate the same iP/content but they also overlook almost all fantastical content. It’s it’s not a biography or true story. Ty my go for disturbing and weird before something truly fun and imaginative.
Feng, I just have to tell you that you were a great inspiration for me when I was a teenager. Your videos and your work were my life back then and I almost went for the path of becoming a designer. It's still what I love and seeing Design Cinema coming back is like a nostalgic portal back in time that revives my passions! Thanks for that!
i'm still a teenager and i share the same vibes as younger you. XD
too many failed artists in the comments, I'm losing hope 😓
I no longer do concept art but still love listening to FZD episodes while doing house chores and stuff
So true man. Concept art has a big place in my heart because of him.
Just keep watching Schoolism so that you will become a starving artist.
Regular uploads from Feng. What a blessing and privilege.
These videos remind me why i started drawing
Same man. My focus is on sports rn, but I want to get back into it again soon. If only I had infinite time.
Every time I watch a Feng video I’m reminded I’m not doing enough. Brutal, honest and much needed reminder to do better.
it's crazy I realized all the stuff you said in the video recently. Hopefully I'll manage to build a good portfolio this year.
design cinema is gold
I got to know FZD a long time ago and never saw anything that came close to the quality and depth of these videos regarding design. hard to believe they are freely available to anyone. thank you so much, Feng
1:25:16 thanks Feng for using randomly an homework i did when i was doing fzd many years ago, such an amazing and hard year!
Waiting for 112
Thanks for speaking on this Feng. It's great to see you posting again especially after all these years learning from your videos way back in 2014. I tell my students as well, and I'm seeing this in a lot of portfolios being presented to me too as an instructor. The soul is gone from the portfolio, many of them lack storytelling which, sometimes when I ask a student what is the storyline or message of their portfolio or piece, they go blank and don't know why they're creating their piece. It's a serious issue, which I wish more artists asking for help take into account. Many beginner and intermediate artists rush straight to Blender and begin kitbashing pre made assets together from well known artists and skip over tons and tons of fundamentals, and then they ask why they're not getting work. Copying Gumroad tutorials and presenting that work in their portfolios as well. It's time for a reevaluation of why artists create what they create. There has to be meaning to the design and story pulled from personal experience and things not copied on Artstation.
Great talk, we need hope, optimism and focus on our own development and thinking skills and the art environment needs getting further reminders of the distinction between illustration and concept art.
However I tried to push DALL-E to generate concept art, and the first couple of iterations were illustrations but after pushing it for a while with prompt clarification and specifications it did eventually create concept sketches that attempted to solve conceptual ideas/problems. Now it is struggling and far from perfect but saying that AI can only generate illustrations or that this is a guarantee is simply not true. I wish it were, but it's not. The meta is changing and this will become the new normal whether we like it or not and it is terrifying for our generations experiencing this historic change.
this is what i want to fall in love with, the process and design when doing similar projects, drawing with he sense of 3d and what the client/viewer needs in terms of visual information , I always keep seeing the splash art stuff scattered across art station and it doesn't give me a whole lot of info, but your videos (I'm so happy your back btw because I cannot afford the fdz course as much as I really want to be there) help so much in comparison, I wanna re-ignite my passion after going through a bit of a rough time, I graduated 3 years ago during the pandemic and got put into a tough situation that hampered me improving my portfolio, tbh I still feel rough but I want my life to change and through what I love doing which is designing and concepting, making worlds, building the mindset where I live in a creative bubble that explores all facets of visual development, I'm gonna be putting all eggs in the basket cause there is nothing else i love doing more than this. just want to say thank you so much for your content, even if it isn't the full insight and course study, i soak as much information as i can to strive to improve and learn more.
If u want to improve together, give me a shout. Going through a bit of a rough time myself cus of health reasons, and i could do with some art buddies
Ok, AI can't do functional, AI can't do environments, vehicles and props, with storytelling. But AI can sure execute a character design brief that you can modify!
Is character design dead? What's your opinion on character design Feng?
Feng I hope you haven't gone back to your hiatus 😭 waiting for 112
Feng ripping on these generic paintings really cracks me up 😂 partially because I've been guilty of it myself.
Though in my defense, I'm just having fun with personal projects and am not looking for a job. Actual concept design is very draining and time-consuming, and honestly just gives me headaches.
Thanks for doing this! I just found thus change from a suggestion and I'm hooked.
I'm in the indie comics industry and there is a similar problem with portfolios and art in our space. Most professionals will tell you to have portfolios of 5 page treatments to tell a story. However, a lot of newer portfolios are just individual action splash pages or tons of fan art pin-ups of trending anime/manga characters or mainstream pinups of predictable characters like Deadpool, Joker, Harley-Quinn, etc. I think the reason why actual 5 page samples are preferred is because it gives people insight in how the individual comic artist solves a storytelling problem. Social media trains us (something I personally need to unlearn) to work towards one flashy end product, mirror whats out there in the trending tab, binge watch the trending tab, do it on a tight schedule, post it, to hopefully get picked up by the computer gods. So conceptualizing in packages is discouraged by the algorithm. That being said, it means the art has less to say. Its just well done work with surface level conceptualizing, good technicals, great execution, empty. Anyone can do an amazing drawing of Spiderman. An editor is more interested in seeing a comic artist make a story about Spiderman making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich during his lunch break fun.
Great. I think it would be good for beginners to show us an example how to transform the "Generic pipeline" example into one that covers the 5 steps of the FZD Pipeline. But maybe is asking too much. Thanks!
I like how Feng Zhu give harsh advice, salute. Thanks for this.
May you consider about the part finding reference online, it's kind of frustrating for know when is it enough, and also about what the key words being used..
great talk and nice to see you back tho uh Games were hit with more lay offs in the past year than any in the past 30 years, we hit the record last year, and we are outpacing it this year, I'd say we are in much worse conditions than film at.
I wrote a message on a video (on another UA-cam video but on your channel) which is almost everything you just said. Except that I was talking about art in general.
The problem is that people who make art don't know exactly what they're doing. They draw just for the pleasure of drawing, and when you ask them questions to find out things about the work, like: what gave you the idea to do that? Why such a character? Why this decoration? What is this building doing here? the vast majority of them don't really know what to answer. They also don't know what their works express, what their works are trying to tell us.
For my part, I think this is a significant lack of meaning. The famous Why and the Message behind it all. I find that today's artists don't care enough about why they make drawings. Okay if it's to relax, have fun, learn, do beautiful things, surpass yourself, reflect, question yourself... Art brings a LOT of things. I see it almost as an initiatory path, an exploration of your thoughts, of your unconscious... But why they can't explain what they do is a more complicated question to answer. . Art is also about sharing, sharing experience, its prejudices, its errors and everything that goes with it. All of this, we will say, is transmitted in the work in abstract forms which reflect the life of the artist.
Because art is not just about making pretty drawings to please as many people as possible. It also disrupts people's vision, it also allows them to show "a world" that they would not have seen until then, because these people had a veil that hid from them a vision that they had not seen before not considered.
In any case, I notice that this problem is just as serious in the industry because of A.I., and what A.I. can never do in my opinion is to give a reason. The A.I. is just an amalgamation of everything she stole to create an image for you that is artificially beautiful. But an artist puts his soul and his blood into it, from what he draws inspiration from in the real world, that's all the difference. With the arrival of AI, I think people realized how important the meaning and transmission of something really was.
Thanks for the content, so helpful! Any plans to introduce FZD assignments to help us practice ?
The word Concept Art has 3 syllables, Con-Cept-Art. Notice that 2/3 of the term is the word Concept, the rest is Art. In other words, devote at least 66.6% of your time exploring your Idea; the two last "W's" Feng is speaking about; Who and Why? An awesome AD at Machinegames taught me this neat trick!
The stupid stick salesman on a hill has been floating around for more than 20 years now. For a lot of youngsters in instagram, that is still concept art/design
Design-centric advice ✔
Tough love, no sugar coating ✔
A respectable Final Fantasy 6 mention ✔
Now this is an excellent and much needed video! Thank you, Feng! Keep up the excellent work!
I'm a 3D guy, but I really enjoy your videos, it helps make my models more believable. It is true the fact that you ask people that make your typical scifi cyborg soldier 3d character, you ask them what any of them tubes or plates do and they just cant answer you.
here's the summary:
don't be a mcdonalds
The era of the 80's/some 90's with all those great toys and Ip's were crack to a kid's imagination. Sadly, they just don't do it like that anymore, and that is a big part of the soullessness in the portfolios and in entertainment media as a whole.
As environment 3d artist should I worry about these things also, or just make it look good, since I will basing my work on concept art anyways?
rez
Two hours feels like a quarter of hour. Lovely video once again!
29:09 the one in the brown is probably Peter Han xD
I am very dissapointed that Feng is not using Photoshop CS2 anymore smh
As an industrial designer I love sharing these videos with everyone.
Loving this arc, such valuable information. I’m a grad student in animation in LA, and no one is teaching like this even in top level schools. Love his clarity, thank you for what you’re bringing to our craft.
The rice meal wrapped in a bird-shapped leaf is SO fun! hahaha Yeah, I love the information and views you brought with this video and I 100% agree with you. It makes me rethink about some choices I made in the past in my portfolio. I was in the "I need to draw mechas, otherwise whos hiring me?" mood for such a long time. Turns out I hate drawing mechas but I love designing fun little products and props.
Completely agree with the points you make in these last two videos about focussing on actual design and so on.
But unfortunately the industry crisis that you mention towards the end of the video and easily dismiss, it’s actually affecting tons of people in the game industry right now, even seasoned professionals and most of my collegues who have been focussing on these things for years, it’s not just “slightly less work than usual” as you said.
finally a Feng Zhu rant