Using unity to create art?

Anyone using Unity as a tool to create art.... and I don’t mean like, a game, or some screenshots of a game that you sell as merchandise etc, I mean... specifically you compose scenes in order to create beautiful images and then sell the images in some way?

I’m also not asking about film or animation or interactive art, just still images.

 

I mean, isn't this essentially what the films using Unity are doing?

 

That's the part that I don't know if I've seen. There are definitely people who have used Unity for their final renders, but what they do with them is a different story.

 

I don’t mean film or anything animated. I’m talking about creating pieces of artwork, still images, which then you sell or turn into canvas art or posters or something like that. Using unit purely to generate artistic images or “final renders” as you say.

 

Not sure how high a resolution you can go for print, but you should be able to get it several times the normal monitor size.

 

Changing the camera ‘zoom’ and creating a patchwork of grabs you can output pretty much any resolution.

 

I haven’t heard of anyone doing it. It’s certainly possible, though I’m not sure what would be the point (other than just to prove it could be done). You can get better and quicker results using a 3D package, not to mention that if your image is compromised of 3D models, you will have to do those in a 3D tool anyway. I’m not sure what benefits could be derived by injecting unity into the process if you are not animating it or making it interactive in some way. There are tons of examples of using unity for animated / interactive art installations (some pretty freaking cool).

 

Unity does offer the ability to compose a scene and place elements, apply shaders an post-processing, implement lighting, and so on. I know a full-on 3d raytracing type of thing would be higher quality. Unity also offers scripting and procedural generation. Plus the opportunity to create custom tools and user interfaces to help with designing the artwork or trying out different iterations etc. I can see various things I could do in unity for example which would be next to impossible in something like photoshop.

 

It wouldn't make any sense.

All of your 3d programs which you need to actually make the art are better at rendering, lighting, etc.

If your only goal is to make something beautiful, why bother with a game engine and all its limitations at all?

 

I find the 3d packages/raytracers to be way too complicated and difficult to learn. Not planning on doing any 3d modelling. Maybe using some off-the-shelf models, but also procedurally generating some stuff.

 

Well, if you have purchased models, and just want to compile them in a scene in a pleasing way with lighting and whatnot, and Unity is free and that's what you've got -- sure why not?

But if I was going to be getting serious about making custom artwork that didn't need to perform in a real time engine, a game engine would be like, the opposite of what I wanted.

But if you do have the models or whatever assets you need and you want to put them into a scene and make it look as good as possible, I'd still check out some kind of 3d modeling or rendering package. Shouldn't take but a day or two to learn the in's-and-out's of setting up lighting and rendering, and you'll probably get higher quality results.

 

All of which is available in any 3D tool. And much much more. (Including modeling/ sculpting / painting/ etc)

 

I guess you're familiar with Unity and don't really want to learn something else and you want to create some art.

And you're trying to convince yourself that Unity is the right tool for the job.

It's not.

But then again, whatever. If you can create art with Unity and you like working in it, go for it. At the very least, it's a much more appropriate tool than excel to create art.

 

Well, yea, in that case, if you are really just messing around, then sure, go for it.

 

It's not forbidden for sure, in art there is no rules, as long as you get what you want nobody gonna stop you. There is an artist that makes image with freaking excell and sells them, so really ...

EDIT:
NINJA'D BY @AcidArrow

edit2:

BTW I'm losing my S*** on this image, it might seem much to most people but that composition is ... wow ... everything is place perfectly, that's one of the best composition I have ever seen and it's so unassuming at first glance to a profane, just bird on a lack, but element's placement feel so deliberate in some uncanny way!...


Done with excel, sorry of the bad quality, there is no hi rez

 

Implementation-wise one of my least favourite aspects of Unity.

For displaying realtime 3D assets many artists use Marmoset Toolbag, it looks very similar to Unity but is likely better suited to be used in this fashion.

The PCG stuff you mention you could also do with Blender and its Python api. In one of the next releases Blender is supposed to get a capable realtime rendering engine as well, so that you're not limited to the path tracer approach with its long rendering times.

I actually did consider doing a 3D rendering job in a realtime renderer like Marmoset Toolbag, because the rendering times with Cycles are so long. But I'm not sure the loss in flexibility and lighting quality is worth it.

 

i mean, you could do it
you could also drill a hole through concrete with a spoon

but there are better and faster tools for both tasks, which will yield better results
any major 3d package will have a better renderer, even if you don't want to learn them, there's tools like marmoset toolbag

 

Art is being able to express in a medium. That's how I describe it.

Now I think it's perfectly valid to compose a scene with models, various post effects and trail renderers to get something artistic using the built in features of a game engine. Or even with imported stuff. The art part I suppose, would come from the arrangement and expression of the artist.

If it's good or not, well it's in the eye of the beholder.

 

I'm not even sure if it's okay to use assets from Asset Store to create this kind of art, or actually anything but games and interactive media. If i get it right, one can't even do a music video, short movie, animation to youtube for example as it's not a game nor interactive. I hope i'm wrong.

(bolded by me)

Asset Store eula: https://unity3d.com/legal/as_terms

 

Not a lawyer, obviously:

The design of the EULA is you cannot resell assets or monetise the actual assets, it does not intend to prevent works of art or movies (which aren't electronic games), because that is already too late as people have technically been doing that, including Unity, since asset store began.

• monetised youtube videos
• any sold materials with screenshots
• any art books
• any movies

All of this already does a giant poop on the EULA, and Unity hasn't enforced it knowingly. Unity probably does need to give the EULA a pass over if only for the movie side of things though, but that's hardly our concern.

In any case you can get a separate license from any asset author if it's a concern to you.

 

They really should update that. If these terms were clearer I'd use the assetstore a lot more, because I actually do have the occasional art job where I can use stuff from turbosquid or similar sites to save time on some background props or stuff like that. The assetstore would be serious competition for those sites if the EULA would clearly allow such use.

 

Octane for Unity

Also, the Neon environment was made entirely out of Asset Store assets with no custom 3d models.
Disregard the naysaysers.

 

Thanks, yes Octane looks good, although not quite supporting macs at the moment since most macs have AMD video cards.

It's funny that over time unity is sort of turning into another 3d modeller like blender etc, while blender etc are trying to turn into a 3d game engine.

 

Yes, I use Unity. But I use many other software at the same time ), each one has its own functions

 

Blender has had a game engine for many years. It's just not a great one. I'm not sure that Unity is turning into 3d modeling too, they haven't added any features in that arena. Blender is a way, way better game engine than unity is a 3d modeling tool.

 

To the OP question... is is possible to create, sure, absolutely. Is it realistic that you will be able to sell work done this way? Probably not. If your goal is purely to make money, I would suggest just about just about anything else. Visual art is a competitive market, both as commercial (fine/concept/production), and as individual (commision/etc). Cobbling images together using others work (models/textures/etc) are a dime a thousand. There are sites full of them, there are tools like daz that lets anyone do exactly that. You would basically be competing in a non-existent market. People who make money at selling art are doing commercially/concept or commissions. Commissions being the easiest and quickest way, but most of that is very custom in nature, and these days, pretty high quality.

Not trying to be discouraging, but you are talking a field that people spend years, put tons of effort and time into and generally have a real passion for, that struggle to make revenue let alone a living at. Your saying that you want to try to do the same without putting any effort to learn the tools, and relying on others people's models/art, in other words, least amount of effort possible. Others out there are putting out the most amount of effort possible. Serious dedicated artists struggle to make money at it, it is unlikely that a low effort passing fancy is going to yield results. If your doing it for fun, embrace that and have fun, forget monetizing. Pretty images you see like mentioned above, aren't sources of revenue.

To me this whole question reminds me of when noobs show up here because they heard that "Insert Random Game" made tons of money, they figure they have a computer, unity is free, and there are game templates / yt tutorials... so logically they could be making cash after putting a week or so. Selling "art" has been around just a little bit longer. If you are just assembling others work, and basically doing something that everyone else in the world can do, well... its going to be harder that making games to make a buck. (with notable exceptions, but lets be honest here...) If you are serious about being an artist, put in the time and effort to learn, if you just want to sell stuff, there are many, many, many more ways to make a buck that are easier.

 

Having used Blender's game engine, I can safely say that's debatable.

 

Thanks for the practical advice. You have good points. My main thing isn't really to use other models from other people. I'm more interested in procedural generation/computer-generated images not so much based on modelling. Maybe something more abstract. I know there are definitely better ways to make money. If I wanted to make tons of money right now I could do so setting up a shopify store selling stuff, but my heart's not in it. I'm trying to put the art first. Hopefully it will lead to something.

 

I assume you probably mean stuff like archimatrix and things of that nature. In that case you might be be able to make a few bucks doin prints.

Heh, in college, I made enough from Bryce to pay for beer regularly.

 

Here's a quick article about the Excel Artist that @neoshaman mentioned:

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2017/12/tatsuo-horiuchi-excel-artist/

Really funny story, his work is shockingly good especially for using freaking Excel.


He's also been working at it for 15 years.


He's getting press coverage because his toolset is the least likely imaginable. If he was using something like Paint even, he probably wouldn't get the same amount of attention.

The fact that he did this in excel is almost inspirational. There's like a message embedded in the work, "the possibilities are endless if you are dedicated and clever" that could only really happen because the toolset is so unlikely.

Using Unity would in no way help get good coverage, especially when it can be compared to high quality animated/interactive clips.

Here's the money quote though, from the artist:

"I started with a simple goal, in 10 years I wanted to paint something decent that I could show people"

The furthest thing possible from a quick and easy shortcut.

 

Thinking about it from another angle, if instead you were like,

"I want to make art in Unity, I plan to have some very special still pictures after I hone my skills for 10 years"

Then I'd say that it could definitely work. The lesson being that amazing things are possible, but only if you really invest the time required to become capable of amazing work.

 

The guy with 10 years to dink around with was retired.

 

unity don't matter, composition skills is what matter, that guys use excel, but it's not good because or despite excel, he is good period, he would have any tools and his composition would still be pristine, and I mean he is crazy godly good at that.

 

Would not be my weapon of choice.
But I can't see why that should stop anyone from using Unity for fine art.

To honest truth is, no one cares if you made an image with excel, unity or mspaint.
And if anyone is impressed because you made an image with program X, they are most likely impressed by your determination or stamina but not the image itself.

But again, Unity would not be my pick, I'd rather assemble a scene in Nuke or Fusion and get 10 times the flexibility than of a game editor.

 

I have used Unity to create prints. Basically, I used Unity as a platform to create procedural art, where the AI determined the look and feel. I could have done this in Processing, but I wanted to use a NavMesh to limit where my AI bots could go. So, I created a 3D model for the platform, told my AI drones to pick a random spot and go there, leaving a trail behind. The bots represented the results of a Twitter search for a keyword. When I completed the animated version a collision with another bot revealed the tweet. I couldn't really do any of that in a 3D engine as easily as I could in Unity.


Unity has the supersize option in Screenshot.Capture, which worked great for scaling, as long as the models were polygon object or used high res textures.

For anything photo-realistic or rendered, I don't really see the point. Almost any 3D package (you would need to use to create the assets anyway) would be able to render better quality than a game engine. The only use-case I could see is if you had to use a procedural tool like Archimatix in Unity to get the model. But even then, I think you could grab the generated model out of Unity and render in your 3D package.

 

Keijiro Takahashi.

Check his VFX with Depthkit skills.
I'm also try to doing interactive art things with Unity... not just HDRP or LWRP Post Processing things for better graphic quality or timline for animation making i.e 'Adam'.

Not sure you still looking for art thing with Unity as this is pretty old question.