Need 3D Game Engine Advice!

[Zanzibar]

A friend is an architect and the jobs are drying up, he's interested in using his 3d skills for applying for game art jobs. I know one of the best pieces of advice is to have him get a 3D Game Engine and start building level architecture, but what's the 'best' program?

He's got a lot of 3dsMax skills and a little Maya, are any of the freeware engines using importation of mesh from those programs? The Unreal Engine is freeware but it looks as though their geometry creation is proprietary - does anyone know offhand if you can import/export to those programs?

[DangerousDaze]

I don't think engine experience is what's important to an artist looking for a job in the games industry. I guess the first piece of advice would be to look elsewhere because this industry is really struggling right now.

Having said that, 3DSMax and Maya are a good start. Maybe some exposure to ZBrush and XSI would go down well, too.

/edit - I guess coming from that background he'd be more interested in environment art as opposed to character? Some good advice would be to Google Envionment Artist job opportunities.

[Spectre-7]

In my experience, level creation for engines is almost always proprietary. You can frequently use Max or Maya to create assets for levels (static props and the like), but I'm not aware of a single engine that allows you to create and export levels themselves in any sort of standardized format.

The good news is that studios are generally more interested in your talent and skills than they are in any particular software expertise; if you have the skills they need, they're usually more than happy to train you in whatever software they're using. This is really key since even the most popular engines and middleware solutions only have so much market penetration... most studios are still using their own in-house solutions that you simply can't get a hold of outside their offices.

I'd strongly recommend your friend learn either the Unreal editor or Valve's Hammer editor, simply because they're the most common in mod development, and have the greatest abundance of tutorials and documentation. Their popularity also makes it easier to get playtesters, the importance of which can not be understated.

I'll also add that (from what I recall hearing), architects are in some demand as level designers currently. Graphics engines are becoming just amazingly capable, and several studios have tuned into the fact that architects are already trained to build realistic and visually compelling environments.

Cheers, and best of luck to your friend! :)

[Zanzibar]

/edit - I guess coming from that background he'd be more interested in environment art as opposed to character? Some good advice would be to Google Envionment Artist job opportunities.

Yeah, environmental art. Thanks guys, I'll do some more research based on this info.