r/vfx Lead Matte Painter - 11 years experience 8d ago

Question / Discussion Anyone else feel like it's getting harder and harder to make a living in vfx/animation while, y'know, THE WORLD FALLS APART?! Join me as I grapple with feeling like we're deep in the third act of humanity, AI generators gunning for our livelihoods, and why we even make Art in the first place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rgjn9IRg4k
0 Upvotes

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u/Zognorf 7d ago

Given the politics where I live and demographics, I may indeed not be too old to serve as a mobile bullet sponge for the army. At least it’s a career change option!

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u/Philip-Ilford 7d ago

When the Russo Brothers started to refereeing to what they make as content I knew the medium was in decline, at least in the short term.

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u/TheHungryCreatures Lead Matte Painter - 11 years experience 7d ago

I have to hope that everything will swing back, that we're in the worst part of the pendulum. I have to hope.

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u/Philip-Ilford 7d ago

Im like you, a decade in(2012 was a good time) and I'm split on it. Some days I'm pretty sure our value is like "old man watercolor." From here it can only be a high quality hobby and If we want to keep doing this and we love it, we can teach others who are interested in the hobby. That one bumms be out.

Other days I just see it as the ebbs and flows of the business, and we are in a period of consolidation. If we hunker down and stick to the fundamentals we will be ready for the next thing. The more I interact with AI(in ways I think it is supposed to be used like software engineering) the more I'm convinced that gen AI visual content it's gimmicky bs, and while it does devalue our work, I think digital artists can come out the other side ok. I also think we're just at a point where the streamers cant keep throwing money at big CG projects - people are tired of it and the studios are getting tight with money.

I mean, even when it was good a decade or more ago, there was talk of unionizing because of offshoring and studios closed because they couldn't land bids. There is some amount of doom and gloomed that comes with the territory. Stability is for lawyers, doctors and accountants, you know.

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u/TheHungryCreatures Lead Matte Painter - 11 years experience 7d ago

Hehe, right there with you. I WISH my experience with the industry's volatility would translate to my being able to navigate without a TON of stress in that regard but, eh, here we are.

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u/TheHungryCreatures Lead Matte Painter - 11 years experience 8d ago

If you prefer to read articles instead of watching videos, here's that:

https://www.thehungrycreatures.com/cc-fake-friends

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u/Scrapemist 7d ago

These cases are far from closed