I'd like to ask 2 questions.
Β 1: Why use InstaMAT instead of Quixel MIxer or Substance Painter?
Β 2: Just to make sure. Would it be fine if I used this and other models from other courses in my portfolio? Of course, I will give credit as it is more than deserved
1. I have never touched any of these programs, but because I was interested in them myself, I did a bit of research.
From my research I would say instaMat does a great job and is certainly a small competitor for other programs. Some functions don't seem to be fully developed yet, but the pioneer version is free without any restrictions. It's best to try it out for yourself.
Finally, I would like to say that the price often reflects the performance/quality. (Sometimes not)
You can buy a cordless screwdriver for 100$ or for 400$. The $400 one will hopefully have a more powerful battery or better workmanship. That's how I see it with the software. Substance Painter is the $400 Milwaukee cordless screwdriver that has a lot of features and is at the top of the game
You have to ask yourself whether it's worth it. Just don't let anyone tell you that you have to have the top notch software to get good results.
InstaMat is free up to 100k sales which is incredible but from what I've seen it does a very good job. Have a look at a few videos on YouTube. I already liked it.
There also seem to be very ambitious developers behind instaMAT.
2. It all depends on what you want to do with your portfolio. Here at CGCookie you can of course put anything in, but I always associate portfolio with business.
If you're just starting out, don't worry about it yet. You always want to put your best work out there and in the beginning you will make huge leaps and in a few months you will have work that is pretty damn good.
You'd better show this but if you want to document your journey, then do that
I agree with Leo, to a point, but will add...
1. Only price is not always relevant when it comes to software, a physical product like a cordless screwdriver, mostly yes, but still not always.Β
InstaMat is a new software, only released in January of 2024. It is already a very capable alternative to Substance Painter and is in constant development.
Blender is free, Unreal Engine is free, and just like Unreal, InstaMat is free, you only pay if you make over $100k I believe it is.
Modeling for a game from start to finish is a process and requires an efficient workflow to complete the model to a set standard required and on time.
InstaMat may not be as feature packed as Substance Painter, currently I may add, but if it works, it works.
I have used InstaMat, in pre-release review of the course and in my own project, and yes, it works.
Of course, long time users of Substance Painter will have there doubts, mainly because of the obstacles they set for themselves in learning a new tool.
2. Filling your Instagram or Facebook with models from courses you complete is awesome to share your progress. For a portfolio, this will be where you want your potential clients to see your best and only your best work. Keep your portfolio specific to your skillset and your preferred style, and don't include characters if you want to model scene assets or landscapes and vice-versa.
Often your result from a course is not complete. When adding work to a portfolio it's not only the model you need to think about. You may be seeking modeling work, but how you present your work can make all the difference. From materials to lighting to composition, it all helps present your model at it's best. You don't need to be an expert in everything, however the CORE | Fundamentals of each is a must IMO.
The result you achieve from this course is no doubt awesome, however I would encourage you to take it a step further. With the skills and techniques you have learnt, and referring back to the course if needed, model something along the same lines but original to you. Along with good presentation, this would be a good option to add to a portfolio.
Once you have a few client works, and they are happy for you to add to your portfolio, add these with a short description of the model and game/client it was for. Remove work that is from courses or not as strong. But don't forget, the client work may just be a model and textures, adding to your portfolio requires lighting and composition too.
Hey there, thanks for checking out the course! So glad you've been able to get through it and found it educational! It warms my heart, haha. π
Those are great questions, hopefully I've got some satisfying answers:
1. InstaMAT: There are a couple reasons I've chosen this over others. The positives that I think made this great were that it had the most accessible licensing (free for all users to even use commercially, up to a rather large financial target), as well as its relevance to common texturing workflows in the industry today and its ability to produce results. My goal with this course was to teach core concepts and workflow for game art, the software is merely the tools that get us to where we want to go!
Substance Painter is definitely the most powerful, however is only becoming less and less accessible to the average user. I think requiring users to pay for more software on top of a CGC membership conflicts with the goals of the course and the CGC platform, since other options do exist that are relatively equal in power! I want you all to focus on the concepts and goals of game art, not having to juggle memberships and subscriptions. Let's see if you even like texturing or game art before you've sunken too much investment into the costs!
Quixel Mixer unfortunately didn't really resonate with me. I know it is free to download, however I have a hard time finding any licensing information on it. As well, my experience with it was that it can't really deliver textures that don't already exist within their scans library. I think it's a great tool for mixing materials and textures that already exist, but in trying to achieve something entirely new, I think users would have a difficult time. You're pretty locked in to the textures they provide, or textures that have been created elsewhere to get you started. As of writing this if you are to go and download Mixer, you'll see the file is called Quixel_Mixer_2022.1.1_Beta, which isn't encouraging for its longevity. It appears it's already dead.
For those reasons above, I think InstaMAT hit the mark with most accuracy and was the perfect tool to convey the concepts and workflow of creating art for video games. I don't think learning it as a tool will handicap users in any way, and will give them a great jumping off point if they someday want to learn Substance Painter or Mixer as well! The core principles are the same, just different buttons between the software. This is also just my opinion, but if InstaMAT intends to continue developing the application I think we are going to start to see a divergence of some studios away from the Substance suite, and begin picking up InstaMAT in the years to come. They've got some serious promise from what I can see.
2. Portfolio: Ya absolutely! I cannot speak to every other instructor on the platform, but for any courses of mine you are always free to put up your models on portfolio. As long as you made the assets yourself or have adequately credited anyone that has provided you with resources (i.e. using concept art from someone else to make a 3D model from it / using textures provided by the course to texture the model you've created).
I think it's always a good idea to ask first just to clarify as well, so thank you for checking with me! Please always feel free to share what you've made if you are following my courses, I'd love to see what you have been able to create! β₯
Chunck :)
I agree 100% with all of the above, very good points. My 2 cents to this are:
1. InstaMAT kind of mixes some of the best feature of Substance Painter and Designer, plus it offers so much more with their Material from image creator. I'm in love with InstaMAT for that reason alone. It may be still in development, but it's already ahead in features compared to some other free programs.
2. As far as portfolio goes - I would not recommend it. Results from tutorials show (hopefully) great progress and are good to fill up your social media, because that's not considered a portfolio as far as I know. For a portfolio that might be meant to find a job one day you should only include your own ideas and polish those as much as you can. It's not about the quantity, just quality. Personally I don't even scroll through a portfolio someone promotes and the first things I see are donuts, soborg chairs and that weird arm robot thingy from blender bros. (not saying they're not good tuts, done them myself)
I see it this way: If I want to hire a worker in my company and to weed out the best I task them to design and build a little chest of drawers, I would not even consider those who just copy a certain "thing" from the Swedish abomination in blue and yellow.
So long story short: Social yes with reference to the course ideally, portfolio NO.
This is a great thread. If such a thing does not already exist, might I suggest the consideration of a blog post on creating/starting a portfolio?
Edit: I've just come across this postΒ
https://cgcookie.com/posts/how-to-create-an-art-portfolio-that-gets-you-the-job
Thank you, everyone, for the amazing answers. Sorry for replying so late. Chunck, your answers were very satisfying, which will make me continue to use InstaMat in the future.
Thank you all once again.