What's the easy option: art or dev?

Although a lot of people think that programming is really difficult, as a job (hence why you can get paid a lot), is it the easy option? Let me explain:

With programming, you may have a list of bugs, you fix those bugs and the ones you don't know how to fix you look up online how to fix them and then you're done.

With art, everything you do is constantly on display and being judged. There is far more competition to get art jobs. If being creative is so easy, why are there only 2-3 good movies out every year? Why is there so much rubbish on TV?

They say programming is challenging, but if a programmer really wanted a challenge, maybe they should try and retrain as an artist? I bet that's far harder to get into.

Having had jobs in programming, I'm thinking, what an achievement it would be if I could get a job as an artist!

Yeah, OK, there are other even more challenging things a programmer could do for example, something that I expect would be more out of their comfort zone such as becoming a tour guide, or professional athlete. (I'm generalising here obviously, with the assumption that most programmers are more introvert than extrovert.).

 

If you're a professional programmer, and you learn art as well, you can combine both to do some seriously awesome stuff!

 

All I can really say is that art and programming are two totally different mindsets. Even in programming though, architecture can be an art form in and of itself. As to which is easier? It totally depends on the person. I find art more difficult because of the way I think and I've also been programming for a lot of years. However, I've seen what happens when some artists try to be programmers and don't really have the mindset for it... the code can be quite horrific.

So I don't think you can say either is more difficult than the other as it totally depends on the person sitting behind the keyboard / tablet.

 

That's...not what programming is.

--Eric

 

With programming you have accomplished your goal if it works(and is reasonably performant). With art its more subjective, there is no way to measure the "correctness" of a piece of any art work.

......yeah about that, not all programmers are weirdo's and fat(I hope or my future looks grim).

 

Ah the good old artist vs coder debate

 

I'll be blunt; There is no debate. Do what you like doing.

If you're good at selling yourself, do what pays more and has more job opportunities.

If you're good at both, you'll have better success in some specialty jobs because you'll be more useful.

If you seriously think you can be good in everything in either, as an artist or programmer, you're doing it wrong.


Work that is fun and well paid... will always be more fulfilling and make you happier. If you select your career by thinking "which one is easiest" then you're doing it wrong OR you'll have to fulfill your need for accomplishment elsewhere than your career. Both ways, you need to ask yourself some more serious questions in how you want to balance your life in the long-run.

 

I'd say nowadays great 3D artists is where it's at, sure we always need coders but not many of the equivalent of yesteryear with all the engines being more artist focused.

AAA 3D art is a major pain and even though I'm a coder, I wish I'd of paid more attention to the art side.

 

What many artist don't see is that coding can be a very creative job.

It's like an architect designing a house, except that you have no rules limiting you in any way. As architect the lower floor must be built first and you are bound by the laws of nature. A coder has no limits how he designs anything, he is much more free (and free to do many more errors in the design too).

 

If only it were just "list of bugs to fix" lol.

Not going to feed the troll.

 

And most successful indie-games I know are coder-driven. So one coder doing everything (looks ugly but who cares if the game is fun) or outsourcing some of the art, or just procedurally generating all art.

 

Whilst I'd like to agree with you that we are not ALL fat weirdo's, I think normal people view us in that light, for example:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/techno...dren-how-to-code-heres-why-its-a-stupid-idea/

Harsh I know, but fair? (I am kinda fat and weird).

 

"Coders just fix bugs, look up the ones they can't, and then they are done"

is equivalent to saying

"Artists just draw lines, trace parts of the picture they are having trouble with, and then they are done."

There is a reason developers are paid the high salary - it is not as trivial as you present it.

I do both coding and art - the art is harder for me because my whole background is in math and programming, and i'm still learning. i'd imagine artists who attempt to learn coding would find it very difficult to do well. The difference is that a bad artist knows he is bad, while a bad coder might still think he is decent simply because he got something to work.

 

I think people put wayyy too much emphasis on what's good and bad code, if it works and doesn't crash or cause headaches performance wise and your fellow team mates can make heads or tales of it. Win Win!.. You're home free, some try to make it overly complex for no reason whatsoever and others find giving people a helping hand with some comments too much work.

Your end users don't care how pretty your code looks in the eyes of the greater virtual authority of coders united.

 

That very much depends on what the code is for. For gameplay code yes. But for middleware or libaries or game engine cores not so much. That must be designed very well. Bad code cannot be maintained easily, so bad code is very expensive in the long run. Look at OpenSSL, it's code is one pile of S***. It is very hard to understand or maintain because of that. The OpenBSD people do a lot of work to fix this right now. Check this out: http://opensslrampage.org/, many errors have already been found that are hidden by the bad code...

 

Neither are the easy option.

 

There are way more jobs for programmers than there are for artists. Sometimes programming is like stated above - get a list of bugs, track down the problem, fix it, go on. this is called "Maintenance programming". It's usually the first step on the ladder when going the corporate programming route.

 

Whats the easy option, Fireman or Policeman??

Programming a level generator is harder than drawing a stick figure.
Painting the Mona Lisa is harder than programming a fizz buzz checker.

If you're just looking for the easy route, then you will probably never be truly great no matter which side you go.

 

I think that a lot of times you are right. People can try to make things overly complicated - but that means that they aren't writing good code. Sometimes the mantra of 'it runs fine, ship it' works out great, especially in smaller projects, where code maintenance, regression testing, and added features aren't a big deal.

But trust me, I have worked on very large projects before , and I have had to go back into the tens of thousands of lines of code written by previous developers and rewrite them entirely, because while it "worked, didn't crash, had no huge performance issues, and I understood generally what it was supposed to do".... It encountered performance issues when we wanted to expand (not scalable), everything was dependent on each other (testing small changes requires full regression over all system functions), code readability was poor, so other devs spent too much time looking through it, and adding new features was a pain because of how much integration was needed.

I'm just trying to make the point that 'good coding' is about more than googling and fixing bugs, and while you might not see a huge difference between good and bad developers in smaller projects, you WILL see a difference in larger one.

 

Starting from the beginning without experience but talent in both then you can learn to be a professional artist in 2 years while programming takes 4 years (if you want to get beyond the copy-paste stage).

Sometimes you don't have talent for one, the other, or both, but then talent's a matter of minimal proficiency that is and you can keep going to get there or move on to something else.

I'll say one thing, art today is often abandoning technical proficiency to create a 'movement' or 'style' even if it looks bad or talentless, think Jackson Pollock. Warhol, Picasso or many others. You'll find on further inspection of other works they could be somewhat proficient but then you'd be hard pressed to know that the work was done by the artist at all lacking the signature artist style. Or the opposite, such as Warhol allowing his friends to create art in his signature style and credit it to Warhol so that the art had higher resale value. You can't get away with that in programming at all, if you copy PD code and most sensible programmers do when it's available and not forbidden by the professor, it must do what was intended to do by the code author. So I'd say art is definitely easier (it you know the right people especially).

 

This is game development. There is no easy option. It's just a matter of where your talents lie. If you are a better artist than coder, you will probably find the art side of things easier to deal with. If you are a better coder, you will find the programming side easier to deal with.

It's about personal alignment, both disciplines are more challenging than most other industries.

 

This is exactly what I've been experiencing lately on a university team project. While I'm teamed up with a colleague who I know is good at coding from previous smaller projects, it seems that he can't see (or maybe he's too lazy to see) the benefits of following some basic programming principles, like high cohesion and grouping code in reusable functions, which are not that important in small projects, but help a lot with larger projects, like the one we're working on. He prefers writing code wherever and whenever he needs it, probably having in mind that it's faster that way. Well, I can assure him it won't be faster when debugging.

Regarding the OP's question, I'd say that the easiest option is the one you have more fun doing and already have some skills in it. I'm on the programming path for some years now and I find it much easier to code than to create art. When watching how game engines make it easier to make games with less code, I wish I had been an artist instead. But then I would probably find coding harder, due to the lack of coding practice. Oh well, you can't have everything. Too bad both skills require a lot of time and practice to become good at using them.

 

Hello,

Didn't mean to suggest programming is just fixing bugs. Just meant that if you're a programmer you might be given a task to do such as create a game engine. And if you can tick off everything on the list that it was supposed to do you've done your job. (And if it does more than what's on your list you can get in trouble for being too creative! I've been told off for being creative as a programmer!) Whereas as an artist you might be told to design the look and feel of a game and there's no check-list to tick off so it's all subjective.

Hence, my question being which type of job is more challenging: one that is hard work mentally but the outcome is either wrong or right, or one that is creative where the outcome is subjective.

I'm personally not looking for an easy job, because I like a challenge!

 

There is no scenario in which coding the Recast algorithm is easier than creating a subjectively good looking crate (Let's start with step one: https://engineering.purdue.edu/purpl/level2/papers/consvox.pdf). Seems like the programmer in question is just not being given difficult enough programming challenges.

 

Well we all know art is easier but you're also much more likely to be unemployed or at least not employed in your 'art'. After all, are there any waiters or waitresses in Los Angeles or Manhattan that aren't aspiring actors?

It's not like when you want to be an actor you can really say you were the most talented, it's usually because you hung around long enough to have the opportunity that 'fit' them. The number of child actors that suddenly become talentless is proof that it's not talent that makes you successful in those fields. That's true of a lot of fields though...business dumping middle aged and old folk for cheaper younger workers under the pretext that they understand technology better then the generation that invented it, lol. Duh! There are about 20 years when business wants you and they'll obfuscate why, the rest of the time not so much.

So the easy option is to save during the 20 years you're wanted and considered marginally affordable by business and productive. Even at low salaries after 20 years business operates as if you are a health problem waiting to happen. Things might change, or they might not but that 20 years will be gone regardless.

 

It comes down to one simple thing:

- you can plug bad art in and it will work.
- you can't plug broken code in. It won't work.

 

Almost - I have some broken 3D art - but that comes done to the code that broke it.

 

Haha, it sure made my day though!

For what it's worth, I don't think that either is easier when it comes to commercial projects. At the end of the day there's a competitive quality bar based on available talent, and my hunch is that in terms of effort and practice required the difficulty would be in the same ballpark to make the cut for either.

 

The easy option is to just go to sleep. Everything else is gonna be pretty hard, one way or the other.

 

That's still not true though. Your job as a programmer can involve something like "program a hand-to-hand combat system". You can create such a system that technically works but is boring or annoying or just generally not fun, but "fun" is also subjective, so maybe some people like it and some people don't. Game programming particularly is not like checking off boxes where it either "works" or "doesn't work". How do you objectively define "fun" or "not fun"? Not all of that is down to programming--design is a big part, and art contributes--but clearly the programming is a cornerstone. As another example, your approach to AI programming can make or break a game, and AI is not really something that can be defined as "works" or "doesn't work", aside from obvious bugs. There is of course a certain level of "it crashes or it doesn't crash", but that's true of art too, where you can have an animation rig that works or doesn't work, or create a model where the geometry is objectively bad and needs to be fixed. I would call those "art bugs", and they do sometimes show up in games.

--Eric

 

Plus, while the new post doesn't touch on this, the original post suggests that you know solutions or you find solutions someone else already knows. But in actual fact the majority of your time will be spent adapting solutions or finding new ones. Problem solving, rather than just implementing.

With that in mind, a good programmer is inherently doing some amount of creative work. And coding the solution may be an "it works or it doesn't" thing at some level, but what about finding and designing the solution?

If there were no new problems* to solve we wouldn't actually need programmers, because the computers could just handle it themselves.

* Of course computers are great at solving some types of problems. But they suck at solving others.

 

That covers one aspect of programming, mainly in regards to maintenance or porting games to another platform.

But you're missing out on the creative and performance/gameplay aspects of programming. You've also missed out the mention of AI, oh and about 100- other things.

I don't think either one is easier than the other. Both can be quite technical. But programming definately has more depth and diversity involved.

 

Art is not a job. Usually you don't "decide" to be an artist. You are, or you are not. Now, if you feel that you are an artist then you could "choose" try to gain money with your work, but that's another thing entirely.

 

"You can ship with bad art" - a cg supervisor I worked with years ago.

But, almost all of the long-term value in games comes from the art. If I offered you:
a) the code
b) the sound files
c) the music
d) the design
e) the artwork
from any classic or high quality game, which would you want to own?

I'd rather own the rights to the artwork of Pac-man, Mario, World of Warcraft, etc. than the code. The code is worthless after a certain time period. Owning the artwork has value for at least 75 years. And I can make dozens of different games with the same character, ex. Mario.

Code and design - short term value
Artwork - long term value

 

It's a really a difficult debate. I actually do both, I'm by far the expert in art, but I love coding and find it very creative.

In art, take for example skill at an instrument. There are tons of amazingly skilled musicians, but then the Sex Pistols or Nirvana comes along. Not a ton of skill or difficulty involved in their music, but it's waaaayyy better than a highly skilled musician like Kenny G. Why is that? No idea, it's just art.

Programming is so different. It either works or it doesn't. There's no such thing as grunge or outsider coding. It needs to actually function. Great programmers do amazing things, but it's not out of mindless passion or energy, it actually has to work.

So, in some ways art is easier, in other ways programming is easier. In art, there are no rules as to what makes something work, although there are general trends. In programming, there are at least measurable metrics as to what is better or or not, so I guess programming is easier.

 

I addressed that in my previous post, and gave examples as to why that's objectively not true.

--Eric

 

I know of exactly zero people who aren't far better at art OR programming. It's extremely extremely extremely rare to actually be good (let alone great) at both, let alone actually enjoy doing both. Although I know a LOT of programmers who are musicians for some reason. Pick the one you're drawn to and is easier and more natural for you. I think programming is usually pretty dang easy. But then I've been doing it since I was 10, for fun!

And no, HTML is not programming although some people mistakenly think that it is. Copy / pasting Javascript for web pages also doesn't count.

 

Well, Kenny G is pretty cheesy and too "pop". So not the best example. We could say Yngwie Malmsteen (ultra technical), and then compare that with a less skilled band like ACDC. Personally I'm not too into Yngwie, but I do prefer the more skilled stuff generally, as long as there is taste involved and good songwriting. But then musically I actually write super-technical stuff too, without losing sight of melody or songwriting. But that's a completely different discussion

Bands with a super skilled and melodic performer will always win for me, whether we're talking about Steve Perry singing or Neil Peart playing drums. But yeah 99.99% of the super skilled musicians out there are not tasteful and just wank. But if you LOVE Nirvana I'm willing to bet that you think that number is more like 100% haha. Not a problem, just an observation.

 

It's not that rare.

--Eric

 

Ok I strike one extremely and leave 2. It's pretty rare. I've worked with about 500 coders in my 15 "pro" years and met exactly 1 person who could code "ok" and could do art that was good. And we all know what "programmer art" means - eye sore.

 

It's less rare than that (although I wouldn't say super-common either). There are a fair number of people on this forum who do both. I expect most of the coders you met weren't in a position where they could demonstrate anything other than code.

--Eric

 

Undoubtably. I didn't ask all 500 to show me their art lol. But still, people if they're going to do it for a career (besides making their game here), pick one or the other because their mind thinks more like one or the other. I would doubt that there are many who are killer artists and killer programmers at the same time. Or they just don't live in Seattle maybe. You can surely dabble in one or the other. That's not what I'm talking about.

 

By that same logic, landing a man on the Moon was an unchallenging snooze fest. You either land the dude or you don't. Job done.

And I don't even agree with your premise that all programming jobs have such clean and objectively measurable success criteria. "Make the character's movement feel more natural" is hardly a mathematical problem with a single, objective solution.

I think the problem in your case isn't your career choice; it's your job.

[HR][/HR]
Anyways, personal anecdote time:

I spent two years of my life trying to switch careers from programming to 3D and VFX. Here's how things looked to me from the artist's side of the fence:

1. Very few artists get those coveted Artist with a capital "A" jobs like concept and story boards artists.
2. The rest are technical artists trained to use complex tools that very few people understand.
3. Clients assume that since it's done on a computer, then it's easy because the computer does all the work and it's comparable to anything that can be done on a computer. How hard can it be for you to produce 30 seconds of character animation if my nephew's girlfriend's friend can upload videos to the YouTubes?
4. Because of 3, clients always devalue your work. Give a client a price and, nine times out of ten, they will instantly tell you that they can get someone else to do the same job for 10% of your asking price.
5. In the end, it's all about problem solving to get from an idea on paper or in one's brain to results on a computer screen.

Now here's the view from the game programmer's side of the fence:

1. Very few programmers get those coveted, high-level game design jobs.
2. The rest are technical specialists trained to use complex tools that very few people understand.
3. Clients assume that since it's done on a computer, then it's easy because the computer does all the work and it's comparable to anything that can be done on a computer. How hard can it be for you to make Skyrim for the Nokia 3300 if my niece's boyfriend's friend can make pie charts in Excel?
4. Because of 3, clients always devalue your work. Give a client a price and, nine times out of ten, they will instantly tell you that they can get someone else to do the same job for 10% of your asking price.
5. In the end, it's all about problem solving to get from an idea on paper or in one's brain to results on a computer screen.

I find both fields to be more similar than not. They are both challenging, though the nature of the challenge may differ. They are both technical, though one requires a lot more hard science skills than the other. They are both creative, though one is far more demanding of one inner muse than the other.

/me gets off the soapbox.

 

I've been doing Programming, 3d modeling, and 2d art assets. Which is easier? What's better, a hammer or a nail? None of these are easier or superior. They are required. If one sags, the rest are penalized.

 

That made me lols because that happens to me a lot. There is a lot of ignorance outside my immediate work environment 99% will neither know nor care. People see the "computer" as the magic box of wonder that automatically can solve most problems. All hard problems are "done with computers", I'm just the lacky that presses the buttons.

 

Which is easier? Well, that's relative to you. For person A, art may be a lot easier than coding. On the other hand, for person B Coding may come way easier than art.

I fall on the art side. I've been drawing since I was a tiny, pint sized, mini-person. I also enjoy writing, and dabbling with creating music. The point being, is I have to create something.

In the middle of this year sometime, I will have come up on my 3rd year of learning how to code/program. I still suck at it, but I've come a long way since I wrote my first line of code. I cringe when I look at the code I wrote a year ago, and know that a year from now I will cringe at the code I am writing today.

But, that's the cool part about it, you can see your progression.

I really love having the ability to make my art come alive through writing code. It's an awesome feeling.

As mentioned earlier, although I heard other say it before, but never really understood it until I starting writing code myself. Coding in itself is an art form, a complex abstract art form, is what I would say.

It's a beautiful thing.

Really good question. I think that if you can be good, or at least decent at both, and with a little time and patience, and a lot of hard work and study, you will be on your way to creating some creative and perhaps outrageous pieces of art.

I talked about this a little bit on the latest Unity News podcast. You can get it here if you want: http://bit.ly/1fD7oMH

 

The problem with picking up art as a "career choice" is in most cases your competitors in that field have spent DECADES learning their craft. It's not something you can just decide to do and then be competent and competitive within any reasonable time frame. You have to already be on that path.

I could say practically the same thing about programming, except programming has APIs and Reference manuals to help you out a little.

Either way, you better be seriously committed to what you're doing, and not be doing it simply as a career choice. "easy" has absolutely nothing to do with it

 

With art it really is who you know a lot of times...

I was offered several changes to buy art from a man that has been doing his own style for decades in Vienna and Soho that my sister and brother-in-law knew for a long time but I thought $10,000 a painting was too much although I liked a lot of his work. Has his art stylistically or technically seen great improvements over the decades? Not really.

Nevertheless, now the man is really big. He even has a book published about him and he's not even a dead artist like Picasso or Warhol.

Bottom line - you are more likely to get hired as a programmer to balance a household's ledger than you are as an artist to decorate one's home.

 

Art and programming are both "dev". And if you're asking the question "Should I get into art or programming?" then the answer is programming, because people who ask questions like that generally make bad artists.

 

They also generally make bad programmers.