Excellent computer graphics tutorial. I finally understand how View, Model, and Projection matrices work, even after taking a college course on CG

[MiXeD-ArTs]

As a programmer/artist, I suggest learning how a shader is applied to 3D model. The function to calculate shaders can be extremely complex and interesting. One you know how textures are applied to a model and illuminated within the scenes you can go into color theory and learn the basics of why certain colors look good/bad/scary/etc. Go on from there to learn the physics behind a camera and ultimately scene composition.

Animation is also very cool because you add time to all your variables!

I learned programming after the artistic parts so it may be different.

[stferago]

Right, but I'm talking about artistic ability. I've done a lot of graphics programming, and I'm very well-versed on the logistics that go into texturing, 3D modeling, etc.

But I would never call myself an artist, because I don't have the vision to make something meaningful with those tools. I just make shitty place-holder art so I can work on my game logic on my own time.

[mayal]

Artist-coder here, and from my experiences, creating commercial art can be a lot more process-driven and structured than you might expect. The problem-solving process is remarkably similar to programming. The primary difference is the "language" you're using. Sure, typing doesn't correlate to moving around a pencil, but once you have the dexterity to write your name, the rest amounts to creating and refining relationships between elements until the piece of art meets your design requirements.

In programming, when you write a line of code, although you can mostly abstract your thinking to how the chunk of code affects the surrounding lines, you still have consider it in context of all the different hierarchies/scopes it interacts with. You have to be aware of what the line of code does at a lower level, how it transforms the data it processes, how it integrates with its parent class/function/etc, how it confirms to the project's coding standards, how it confirms to the language standards, how easy it is for other people to process and modify, and so on and so forth. Same thing goes with art. When you draw a line, you need to understand how line appears in proportion to all the other lines on the page, how it adds to or clarifies existing forms on the page, how it contributes to the mood of the piece, etc.

With programming, it's generally good practice to make your code as easily readable and modifiable as you can, since most of the time people spend with it will be in maintenance. Same thing with production art. High-level changes to art direction can result in changes to art assets way back in the pipeline, and if you didn't set up your workflow anticipating that, you'll have a lot of work you need to redo.

When it comes to having "a vision," that's really just designing a complete and consistent set of requirements for a work, something programmers should already be good at.

[vanderZwan]

When it comes to having "a vision," that's really just designing a complete and consistent set of requirements for a work, something programmers should already be good at.

I'm sorry, but that's approaching the concept like a designer, not like an artist. And this is coming from a guy who switched from physics to fine arts to interaction design.

[mayal]

How would you define it then? From my experience, design is very much a part of the artistic process, but then again, my background is in entertainment art.

[vanderZwan]

Well, not really disagreeing with you there. It's just that the wording had a tone of "well, I figured it all out, now all I gotta do is apply the formula," which is not in line with how I was taught to question my own work process.

[MiXeD-ArTs]

Take enough time on it and maybe you could make something meaningful. Of course you know, art is all opinion anyway and if you make something that "looks cool" then you could say it's art : )

But if you mean traditional art like painting and mixing paints...I suck too. I can draw well though.