so I have decided to make my passion into a career. I want to get into development. More specifically an environment artist. However, my knowledge is only in forge. My question is where should I begin? What skills do you think I should develop? And finally, does anyone have any inside people that work in the industry that's will to contact me to help push me in the right direction?
Environment artist is toughhhh. You need to wear a lot of hats and there's a huge pool of talent to choose from, but seriously don't let that stop you. 1: get really good at 3d modeling. 3ds max, maya, blender (free), just grab a program and start learning. I promise it's not as hard as it looks when you first boot up the program, a lot of your forge smarts will transfer over. 2. Learn to texture the objects well. This is important. 3. Show you can create an awesome scene. Google "gaming environment artist portfolio" and look at a lot of examples of how people sell themselves. You can make a really cool looking website for free really easily using wix. 4. Download glassdoors, linkedin and use it to check for job openings at AAA studios everywhere, there's plenty of other ways to find job listings. But constantly apply everywhere.
Thanks man. I will do all of these. I've never went for it because I was worried I wouldn't make it but I feel I can learn and it's my passion. I love creating things.
If you can master zbrush you are pretty much set. It is a very good tool and takes quite a bit to master, which will make learning other tools easier for you.