What has been your hardest Art Test?

General Discussion
#1

Just wondering what different kinds are Art Tests you guys have bumped into that have had you working on it a ton, or challenged you the most.

Also, is it weird for a company to ask for source files from an Art Test?

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#2

imo its always with the art style… in most digital art test there is no word which kind of style the effects should follow.
Of course you can follow the art style of the released games of the studio but this is like shooting into the dark. Overall it was always fun to do an art test from my side :slight_smile:

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#3

I don’t think it would surprise me if they ask me for my source files. They are probably looking to see how you created your effect; whether you are using flipbooks or materials, how your materials are built, etc.

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#4

yep its pretty common that you record a video for presentation ( for HR & interview) with overdraw & activating layer per layer and sending the source files so their fx team can actually check what you have created ( texture size, particle prefabs, texture compression etc.)

One time I have even send my maya files and kept my naming convention clean af.

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#5

I didn’t get the job, but early on in my career I did a car explosion in UDK for a studio’s art test that required all the source files. It’s important to be able to show your work and that’s just what the source files do for an art test, in part so you can show how you layer textures/materials and to show your workflow. VFX art tests have always taken me a long time to do because I want to generate meshes/materials/textures custom for that art test to show my abilities best, as well as show process work (gathering reference, etc). It always takes a lot of time due to the volume of content you need to create.

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#6

Generally I find I am asked to do art tests for two primary reasons:

  1. To show proficiency with a tool (such as Unreal if you primarily used Unity in your portfolio)
  2. To show competency with style, in my case I do a lot of stylized stuff and a lot of studios want much more realistic FX.

If I was looking at someone else’s art test I think I would pay particular attention to their naming convention and project management, as rarely do we work in isolation.

Bit off topic but I hope it helps :slight_smile:

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#7

I applied to this one game studio a few years ago, they kept asking for me to submit art examples to demonstrate my abilities. There was no art direction, guidance or art style, just a constant stream of emails asking for more examples. On the 10th example, i finally got the “sorry we have decided that your not what we are looking for” email

With all those examples I did, I packaged them up, and sent used them off to another game studio, which ended up getting me the job. It wasn’t the hardest test i have done, but more of the most amount of art test content I have produced for a single application.

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#8

thanks for all your responses guys! it’s interesting to hear the different things people have gone through :slight_smile:

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