Who models in clay?
 

I was just checking how big studios work and read this at Blue Sky

"Early in the building process clay is a faster medium to work in, so all of our characters and most of our environments are constructed by hand before being scanned into the computer. Together with sketches from the Design Department these 3D scans will become the armature and templates for the 3D model."

Is sculpting in clay a required skill for modelers? Not that I plan to apply for a job but I certainly would not if clay is involved. I remember doing limbs that always sank down to the wrong positions all the time.

I highly doubt it, I think separate people would do that and if a separate person didn't I would have thought it would be the/a concept artist that modeled it in clay

I model with polymer clay but not as part of the design stage for things ( I already know what elephants look like)

from what I gather, if you want to be a modeler for a company that is the position you will be involved in, you wont be asked to draw, sculpt, think of story lines, just model, and when you're done it will go on down the pipe line. They will designate certain people for certain jobs and you will stick to it. I could be wrong but this is what I gather from the big companies anyway.

sounds like the old way of doing things

if i remember right on the news when toy story first came out years ago they mentioned how they had lots of faces made for woody and showed a whole lot of physical models for his head with various expressions

sounded like it was a lot quicker to do it that way back then and since it worked i wouldn't be too sirprised if people still use it.

i've not seen such things in the past recent years though..
but then maybe it doent look as impressive on the special features as showing shots of maya...

While it gives the modelers a nice reference, it is not a standard practice. Usually only very large studios, with even larger budgets do this, as then they can employ a full time sculptor. For example: Pixar has an artist named Jerome Ranft, Joe Ranft's brother, who is the full time sculptor there.

However, doing this also takes a lot of time, as then the sculpture needs to be scanned. A very long, and laborious process.

I've had to scan multiple things at work using our scanner, and I can say it's very difficult to get good results. Lots of clean up, fusing scans, and then having to re-topologize all the data. The captured textures (if there are any) also need to be redone.

So no. It isn't required.

u r right. the studio i had worked and other studios i've studied about, they too follow this process. on the other hand studios like pixar etc might use this 'clay modeling' phase. from what i know, clay modeling phase is to clear the vision of a modeler or a concept artist and since nonusers (of modeling softwares like zbrush) like producers can also add some points/forms in the model, this phase might be introduced in some of the studios.

It's a funny thing. When I worked at Sun Microsystems one of my colleagues account was Pixar and he was given one of the maquets of Woody.

The sales manager swiped if from his office one day and left a ransom message made from letters cut out of a news paper along with a plastic ear painted with red nail polish for blood wrapped in gauze with a picture of Woody with a gauze wrapping on his head soaked in blood precariously sitting on the edge of a bath tub filled with water and a brick tied around his ankle.

We all had to laugh because the note started...

"If you ever want to see your woody again..."

... and ended with elaborate instructions to fulfill his ransom demands which included a donald duck pez dispensor, a yoyo, and something else I cannot remember it was like a tootsie roll or something that was to be placed is a plain brown paper sack and left at a bus stop bench seat near the office at a specific time.