Is 3D the playground of young people?

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
#1

I enjoy 3D and really love Blender so I’m merely trying to find a reason why there are so few old 3D artists. In the process I think I’m making quite a few assumptions here,… nothing concrete, just my thoughts :wink:

I have noted something strange about the age group for this line of work. It is like every 3D artist from 35 and older just fades away. Not everyone but a lot. Some start to teach and stop producing. Some might actually change career or interest. Dunno. The fact is that the industry has been dominated by young and very young people over the last 15 years and will so for quite some time , if not forever…

A survey on a CG site a few years ago (sorry, can’t remember where) showed that the 3D users in their community older than 30 made up less than 15 percent. Older than 40 was (if I remember correctly) 6%. The majority was between 20 and 25 (45%) and 25-30 the rest.

I bet the majority of 3D users here at BlenderArtists are about 20 to 25.

The competition in the industry is incredibly. You don’t start early you might not get a shot, and if you do you might have to work with people far younger than you.

I have a personal reason why I think they leave the inustry or just dissapear. Actually I have two. First, if you start late you will have to work with kids that are younger and better than you. You’ll have to stomach that and grind away at those poly’s for the only meagre satisfaction that you are working at Dreamworks or Pixar, or maybe the end result. Let’s say you are 40 years old. The people you work with are between 20 and 28. Some poeple do not find that age difference a big deal… but many do.

Second reason. 3D art (and in a way 2D as well) is not like painting, sculpture or architecture that you can develop, and nourish through the familiarity of the physical medium well into old age. After 15 years you might get tired of sitting on your arse in front of a screen.

When I paint I usually stand - same with sculpturing. The smell of oils and natural terpentine are almost physical cues for my mind to relax and focus (or used to) . I just loved that. The computer does not have that. It is a harsh, competitive and extremely disciplinary environment that does not let you ‘play’ . It’s not messy, it’s not natural. Every weekend I flee into the mountains here where I live in George. I work in 3D through the week and then I have personal projects I try to finnish in my spare time. It’s too much. Think about doing that for 25 years?

I can imagine myself working in clay and throwing tubes of colour on canvas for years ahead without getting psychologically burdened by my pixel environment. But in 3D and 2D digital art everything is high-tech and technical.

Steven Stahlberg is a good example. He is almost 50 (and one of the best 3D artists today) and still working,… but when did he start? He got into 3D when he was only 34 or 35. Quite late. He still does some workshops and lectures but I haven’t seen him doing anything spectacular lately - maybe he is also burned out?

I think we should remember that there is no joy in using our tools (3D) except as a methods to a means. It’s all about the end result. Their is NOTHING relaxing and calming or stimulating about moving vertices and unwrapping uv’s. It’s hard work.

But when I press my fingers into the clay, when I softly brush the colours across the canvass I feel I can relax, I’m not trying to impress anyone… I’m doing it because I enjoy it. I enjoy the process. With 3D you have to impress someone, else why are you doing it? Don’t tell me you just LOVE fixing those tri’s into quads or weight paint those joint deformations. Maybe the texturing is fun, but still - it’s not real painting. What drives you is the end result.

Am I right,…? Or am I talking absolute rubbish?

(Comments will be appreciated)

Thanks for reading!

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#2

If you’re 37 years old, like me, 3D was, at best, in it’s infancy when you were growing up and learning. In High School the computers I had did “nothing” in terms of 3D graphics unless you had something majorly expensive. When I hit college we had Unix workstations that did 3D, but to make a simple 3D box with a hole cut in it took “minutes” of calculations and we didn’t even make use of those until I was in the last couple years of my education. Simply put, the access to 3D during the important learning years “limited” the number of people who would a) get involved in the first place, and b) continue to work in 3D if they started in the first place. Pretty much anyone older than about 45 had “no” access to 3D during their schooling years, unless they were a very special case, and thus anyone over that age would have picked it up during their career as a traditional artist or creative person of some sort (ID, architect, engineer, etc.).
Then there is also burnout. In any creative discipline, as your career progresses, it becomes quite a strain to continue working for someone else, basically giving your ideas away for a comparatively meager salary, working the long hours it takes to meet deadlines, and thus many professionals (in any discipline, but particularly the creative ones) have three typical paths:
a) Go out on their own as a consultant which has a high risk of failure but also a chance at much greater rewards and a more flexible schedule.
b) Retreat to a more secure or well compensated position such as teaching or working for a business in another field.
c) Continue on at a “youth” pace working for someone and probably taking a managerial type position eventually.

The people falling in the c) category being further and far between simply because of availability of positions and a limited number that have the interest and ability to continue handling the stress.

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#3

Well not exactly rubbish, but i do have some comments :slight_smile:

I dont think that these people simply leave the industry, i think that the main reason
is that that group of people did not grow up with computers in the same way the children of today (e.g. me) do - and thus may never have gotten into the industry in the first place. I have been using computers since before i can remember, literally. A mouse is as natural as a pencil to me. I really doubt that these people are simply “get tired” of sitting in front of a screen all day (lots of “the older people” do this in all sorts of jobs), i think that the group of people you mention, do not really find working with computers natural (as you said yourself). And my guess would be that this is because they are not as used to it as us, the people who have not known a life without computers, or have at least known computers for a large part of their lives.

You say that you cannot “play” with computers, that you do not find them natural.
I certainly play with my computer, and i find it quite natural too, and i’d say thats the
main reason why there are more “young people” in the industry. They enjoy it :slight_smile:

But in the end, i will have to acknowledge that i know nothing about why there are not
as many +40 year old people in the industry, as i am not forty+, but more than twenty
years younger than that, and i am not even in the industry :o

#4

I think it’s about the money. Young people are often naive about money and time. They take each job offer for a low price, while being asked to provide high quality content. Oh yeah, and they have to do the work before next friday morning. And the client wants you to put in this small change, too!

Yeah, it’s definitely the money.

#5

i think one major factor is the fact that young peoples today have PC
that are powerfull enough - memory in GB hard disk in GB and fast processors

that it’s so easy to access and get some results with 3D in a short time
now 3D is heavy in terms of calculations inside and requires fast processor

now if you look back a little in history it’s only since the beginning 2000 that we are beginning to get powerfull enough PC to do a good job at 3D

but again nothing to compare what 's coming in the next few years or so
PC are getting more powerfull year after year and less power ungry too

so to have 3D on personnel computer is only breginning to be fun cause of their processors power and it will become more so in the next few years i guess

Money is always an issue for job contract and it’s true that young peoples usually accept lower wage to work so it’s part of the business i guess and has been in every other field of work name it it’s always the same story!

but if i remember well there are also in this forum lot’s of older peoples of all ages learning 3D just for the fun of it - but don’t know what % it is

so i don’t think it’s true that only young people are learning blender
i’v seen people from many countries on the planet on blender’s forums

all that i guess because moslty of PC power getting easier to do 3D on home PC

Happy blendering

#6

Well, I am not working in the CG business, but I am well over 40 and working in the IT busness, more precisely in software development.

You could make the same points about the ratio of young to older for the technical it business.

I think some valid points were already made about for the 40+ ones not having the means to get their hands dirty when they were young and full of energy. SW development is also very demanding and time frame driven and takes its toll on the engineers triggering burn outs.

Take this combined and you see older ones drifting to management or educational, just as you observed in your op.

In my case, I actually returned from a management position back to hardcore technical sw development, but to stay sane I use blender to explore my other creative possibilities :D.

So I can only assume the same underlying principles. Only a certain percentage of a given set of people are good enough to be noticed. The larger the set the larger the absolute number of noticable individuals.

#7

I’m way over 40 too. I work in the 3D software industry as a 3D rendering developer specialist. I consider myself as both a software engineer and an artist. There was a time when I was doing 3D much more extensively than today. Lately, I’ve been using Blender on and off mainly for a personal project. But I also enjoy drawing, painting, cycling, camping, dancing, and a few other activities so 3D is not my only activity.

I don’t think there are one single explanation for why there are not that many olders in the 3D business. The reason that were mentioned here are all valid IMO. But from my own experience and observation, I would add two more theories:

  1. A lot of youngers were raised with a computer in their hands as you pointed out. And I observed that a lot of those don’t have a lot of other interests but playing with the computer or the game console and now the cell phones. Not only they love those tools but it’s almost the only tools they enjoy. And because of their indepth 3D gaming culture, working in the 3D field seems like a natural extension of their experience. Older people have been raised more in the real world while younger people were raised in a sort of fantasy world that they could live through the games.

  2. 3D allows people to recreate by themsleve their fantasy world. At least there is a sort of latent promise for that somehow with 3D applications. Not only does it seem possible to play with the idea of recreating some fantasy world but there is also a somehow like possibility to live into it once it is created. Younger people can easily believe that creating such a virtual world is possible while older people, who have accululated the experience of doing several projects (3D or other) can already sense the huge amount of work that this would require. So younger people will happily churn through the huge mountain of work, trying to accomplish such a monumental goal while older people will just look somewhere else.

#8

I’m so young that I don’t have to worry about money yet at all, so I have time to use blender.

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#9

im still young (and my last name is actaully young), i love the feeling when i put all the hard work into something and the end product is great, although the only reason i took up 3d in the first place is because you dont have to keep on using resources up, you can create whatever you want whenever you want.

#10

Hey

You and I have a lot in common. Yes computers were kind of slow and not that flash in my days, but I did have an interest in them. And when I was 15, I was quite spread in my interests, to the extent of programming and so on. Things like shrek (my favourite) was unheard of. And I first learnt that computers able to do cool stuff in movies was in Terminator 2.

But I come from a traditional family where science or business was notm, and not being rebellious enough, I did expand my studies into art, something right now I am quite grateful for, as the “artists” at school are now flipping burgers, or have upteen kids, while I am in a secure (touch wood) job and doing just what I love . . . which is learning.

Why are more adults not here ? I think at some stage most adults learn that we grow up sometime . . . and art is not grown-up. I feel that at times, and my inner child is kind of suppressed. But yes, I do have dreams, which 3d helps.

#11

I’m 43 and use Blender. I have given it to my kids too. It’s great to have such a powerful tool that is free. It helps me encourage them not to use pirate software.

~Glenn

#12

I’m not yet 40, does that make me young? Anyway I have always found 3D work to be time consuming (but in a less creative way). Traditional arts are visceral and intuitive (in that you have been doing it in some way since you were a baby), but CG always has the UI to get past. Once you overcome that then away you go. But new techniques and different goals require new learning. maybe thats the thing that drives people off? Or maybe it gently discourages people over time.

I just played with 2.5 for the first time and it is a revelation! It is sooooo much easier to use, it made me actually giggle (like a little girl infact). I felt the creative possibilities opening up again, I have been experiencing BAD software at work and it is such a relief to use well considered and productive software. It beckons me now (I can hear it, I really can. A siren call…), maybe age dulls the auditory acuity (in some they hear the ringing of earlier Blender versions), but I just want to play there in glorious 2.5 land.

That and the fact that i simply don’t have time to indulge myself, as I have kids to indulge these days :wink:

#13

This is an interesting thread with a lot of good points.

I’m 31 and have been using Blender and getting more into coding over the last few years as an interest/hobby. I would have loved to get into technology related areas sooner in life, but I remember as a young teenager the barriers to creating images using a home computer.

By writing code to draw lines and circles, I attempted to create a scene with a simple figure. This scene had maybe 30 circles and 20 lines and took somewhere in the region of a minute to ‘render’ the image to the screen. This was so incredibly off-putting that I quickly lost interest and hardly used a computer for anything but games for over a decade.

I can even remember having a conversation with a good childhood friend of mine where we discussed the possible importance of this new and interesting thing that he’d heard of called ‘the net’ where there were hundreds of thousands of people spending a lot of their lives in a virtual world.

I guess that what I’m trying to say is that simple lack of accessible computer power and lack of a mature environment in which to explore that computer power has resulted in very few people over a certain age getting any meaningful experience of computer use through the encouragement of others.

Those that have developed an interest on cg art, coding, etc. have done so through their own efforts or as an expansion of limited computer use through a profession, or perhaps as an extension of other activities such as art or design.

There have been a number of government initiatives to teach people how to use computers, but these seem to focus on simple, boring stuff like using email (not really needed if you don’t know anyone else in your peer group who is online), surfing the net (the large amount of porn and spam and popups etc. are likely less tolerable to those who are older), using word processors (boring unless you are already a creative writer, in which case you most likely have experience using a word processor). I think that introducing new users straight into the possibilities of open source software could encourage far more people who are older to make productive use of their computers. There are so many opportunities in so many areas of interest that there really is something for everyone. I guess that a large barrier to entry is the misconception that all useful software is expensive and hard to use with expensive support telephone numbers. This is imho one of the biggest myths that needs to be squashed in most software users.

My parents couldn’t believe it when I told them that Blender was free. They were overwhelmed with disbelief and suspicion that people would devote so much time and skill to developing such a marvel of modern software. (Where’s the catch?) They simply could not understand that people write code for fun, for the challenge, for kudos in a community of skilled people, to solve their own problems then share the solutions with others. They would do the shopping for an elderly neighbour, swap gardening hints over the fence, but could not understand that generosity and respect was available in an online community of like-minded individuals.

The playground of young people? Yes, I think so. But it could be the social club of older people if only more could get over the initial hurdle of realising that you, yes, you! can do this too. It is not just for the elite or the talented. As with any art, imagination and the will to realise the mental images is needed, but it is not for a select group of people who have a large amount of money to spend. You don’t need to know the inner workings of the computer to get results. But you might just learn something about the inner workings as you progress.

#14

Some VERY interesting perspectives posted here and everyone seem to have a legitimate point. The basic conclusions seem to be that:

  • Older people did not have the tools or means to get into 3D so they are only getting into it now. But…

  • Due to the amount of learning and time involved many feel alienated and intimidated by the scope of this next generation tool… so they don’t even try.

  • In other words, there is a hurdle with older non technological savvy people to pick up something like blender.

  • Younger people feel that a mouse and digital pen is a natural extension of themselves and so they feel about it the same way I feel about a using a brush and digging my fingers into clay.

  • I also have to mention achrystie’s comment about burnout. As we get older we start buckling under the pressure of workign for someone else, so we leave and either do something else or teach.

Just a few comments:

achrystie & kbot.
Oh yes, I agree. I’m 33 and when I was still in College there was nothing 3D around me except the perspective stuff we learned. My first 3D introduction was Bryce!

3pointEdit
Lol! Forty does not mean you are old and 30 does not mean you are young. And I kind of agree about your comment. Ah yes, family. Another important consideration.

Ypoissant
You said:

“Older people have been raised more in the real world while younger people were raised in a sort of fantasy world…”

That is (for me) a simple but incredible observation. To give credit to a 3D work you need to base your 3D creation on something tangible and real. The problem with todays younger generation is that the reality of mud, dirt and pure outdoor adrenaline (I’m not talking about the sport field) is being replaced by pixel worlds. I’ve noted time and time again how people are subjectively inspired by another man’s work and looking for inspiration their. It’s great to replicate someone’s work as a way to teach yourself something, but what we get today is a lot of 3rd and 4th hand inspired work.

Great art has been inspired and motivated by tragedy and a firm dose of REALITY. And why? Because the anguish and pain experienced through those moments give us clarity of thought - well, it does so for some artists. But that pain was tangible. It could be poverty, sickness, death. It sounds terrible but I think the absence of physical and social reality from the mind of todays people cause a viscious circle of inspiration that where every artists subjectively gets inspired from every other artist. Every kid wants to draw manga or pixar eyes. For heavens’ sake, you need to move on. Go outside and dig into the treasure chest of inspiration that we call life! It’s all there! As hard and cruel as it sometimes can be,… use it damnit!

I’ve grown so tired of another magical sword, another scantly clad elf with big breasts and some evil power that somehow infests the land and what not. Thats why I’ve turned to sci-fi. With good sci-fi comes a good dose of possible reality. Not that their is anything wrong with fantasy but fantasy has grown rediculous.

I just want to make a note expecially concerning Funkywurm’s last statement. Anyone can do it. I agree and but there is also a barrier to overcome. Some firends I’ve tried to learn Blender has stopped because they told me, “I should have started years ago then today I would have been able to…”

Now that statement is a problem. It’s the same attitude some older people have about technology. And I don’t really know how to encourage them. I sometimes think they feel they need to compete.

I know a few people who have started 3D well before I, or even some of my collegues got into the game. And with years more experience than we have, they are not much better equipped than some other CG artists who have only used the application 2 or 3 years. What I am saying is, it does not matter what age you are or when you start. It’s all about that little thing called motivation and to a certain degree, your ability.
But you will never know until you pick it up and try… :wink:

Personally I wish that there were more older people, like 40 and up that could bring in something fresh, something real into the business. Sorry if I step on someone’s toes but I’m getting older, not younger and I’m not swayed anymore by big breasted elves and magical swords. I need something more, something I can believe in. And I sincerely believe that the fourty fifty year old man who picks up 3D might bring something into this art form that no amount of tutorials or books will ever be able to give, and that is life experience. If he or she can channel those deep and memoriable moments into a .blend file, we might have something to publish in Gardner’s Art through the Ages. :wink:

I just remember something. In Lord of the Rings there was a fight between Gandalf and Saruman. No flashy blue lights, no wizzy sound effects, just two wizards beating the crap out of each other and really getting hurt. I loved that scene. So real…

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#15

I started using blender about 2 years ago, when I was thirteen. Since then I have found that learning Blender is truly exponential. It took me about a year to be able to model a martini glass and put colors on surfaces, along with the reflections and refractions of glass. A year from then I can now do so much more, and yet there is so much to learn.

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#16

sorry, no time to read full thread tho read quite of it and fully did with your post. yet so I thought I’d give shortly (Edit: ehm…not what I could describe as shortly, finally) my POV, as am the exact case and age. Am achrystie’s age, btw.

You talk bout CG, sort of a lot of people work in games as well, or swap in between (more than is already mixed with high end million pollies of displacement models and intor movies for games) industries. I’m from games world. There’s a sentence I keep hearing by old colleages there: after 10 years, loads of game ppl get wasted of it all. Main reason there is bazillion extra hours, some lost the health in the way, some the girlfriend, some the passion of it all (one o fthe main reasons is repetitive work, amazingly huge pressure that makes any sort of task non enjoyable, and I see more pressure, way more than in other jobs, that were traditionally thought as very stressed: IE, after years of being game artists, in 4 companies, am now art director, sort of designer for all in a company. Well, hugely less stressed and more stablished in a way, than I ever was in games. And still, I can tell you corporate design and being this jack of all trades, is quite a thing with pressure, so you can imagine how was the other world. )

In my case there was a moment I wanted to stop moving from towns, earning crappy bucks, no upgrade possible, loads of young bosses (no: not because knowing more stuff than me, I love to work with a clever boss. Is just a rare case. ) , the activity itself has more pressure than any other profession I’ve worked in. At the age am I , see no symptoms of what you mean, my brain seem to learn way faster than before, indeedy, coming from other backgrounds, and tools, in 2002 blender was not a prob to learn. And is easier each day.

I agree with the money concept as well. Even if you don’t have children, a lot of friends of your age have 'em, are married, etc. Even if you don’t have plans on that, it’s a bit tiring thing to make every month incredible things with incredible milestones and see not even propper reward. Let alone the one that’d really compensate it all, if that exists. Not talking about CG world, as I only have a lot of mates working in it, but have no experience, just games. Still, the thing may be similar. In jobs like design where I am now, illustration, drawing, etc, one can expect to grow in income and fame. In games, is way harder. You get lost among an army, lost in that lot. I was lucky to work in some occassions with small teams or companies: there one gets noticed in credits at least.

The whole matter, was not personally worthing at all. In this situation, many of my mates lost all passion about it. Or family and children forced a permanent swap to another industry. Lots of people don’t like moving from country to country (i don’t like it) . Some friends did like it, but not anymore, but they don’t see themselves so late moving to other industry. I moved before I would see me with no courage to learn a almost totally new profile. Been working as a teacher as well (i see you mention) with very good pay, but was not of my liking.

Right now, connecting with that of the age/learning dificulties, dunno I learn now faster than ever before…

about younger ppl…all the opposite…while in too many I see a culture of not giving enough value to actual effort, with most I carry on better than older dudes of my age: most of those were more worried on getting to be bosses (for just a minimal more earnings: is a matter of ego) than actually learning real stuff… Indeed, have a great relation with 22 year old ppl in companies… Rarely, i yet to remember some, any of those would know more than we. basicly the ones getting into in my area, we were all crazy bout 3d. been crazily learning all this years. And I was not born with computers, but started at 15 doing graphics. So, nope, I don’t see the gap. I do with some friend painters (am fine arts painter, also studied that career) which actually had the gap with all we interested in 3D, already in its moment.

To me it’s too little money, social pressure, stress in the company: you don’t get old and weak , is just you think it twice if it’s really clever to keep so, it’s also the need to move from places,(in my case, simply the thing got dry in my area, and helped in the decission of changing of industry) the silly bosses, way to crazy on crazy dreams of power and domination, and yep, age, but as you see how all your friends go other routes.

I have noted something strange about the age group for this line of work. It is like every 3D artist from 35 and older just fades away. Not
well, it depends. I may have moved to design, yet I do some 3D at work when is ok to do so, and do a lot at home for personal projects: Indeed, recovered the passion for it thanks to that. that’s not to be faded.

Another reason that certainly is related to different generations :Mine was not born with twitter and nor even forums. Am a rare case, most of my mates graphic artists don’t browse forums. And…a common matter is…they rarely do artwork if money is not involved. They could often not be able to explain the wife, not even to themselves. Am a bit of that kind.

everyone but a lot. Some start to teach and stop producing. Some
what i can tell you that fades is not the skills -all the opposite- , neither deep passion, what fades is the will to make a lot of art for free. At least, those are the stats of my environments. And my self feeling/situation.

might actually change career or interest. Dunno. The fact is that the industry has been dominated by young and very young people over the last 15 years and will so for quite some time , if not forever…
Dunno. In games, a company is lost without solid artists with loads of experience and crunch times ove rtheir shoulders…and as I say, many of the new coming people seem to prefer the no-effort way. While others are incredibly tallented, in some cases, a tallent unseen for me in older times. But are not -that-massive, ppl of that level…in any age. Indeedy, I learnt not to separate by ages. Is so much variety of cases, that I cannot really stablish a stats/rule about it…

About traditional media…yup, I miss it a ot. Am an oil painter and for some time, terracota modeller. Not missing the actual less inmediate result, but miss some stuff. And yep, uv mapping is way less of a passion than drawing a comic…

And there comes another reason, a conclussion I reached recently. Is not a matter anymore , since many years, if one can model, or skin, or rig, or animate. Is a matter that the story you have in your brain, no matter how good you are, if used many years and passion in painting and drawing, will come to life in the form of a comic or painting, in a really small fraction of time. And after all, you want to dump your imagination, in whatever the way. So yep, in that point I agree.

After 15 years you might get tired of sitting on your arse in front of a screen.
Exactly my case… actually more years…and yep, you get bored of it. (but very rarely would loose passion for 3D… be it convenient or not…)

I think we should remember that there is no joy in using our tools (3D) except as a methods to a means.
Well, still I really enjoy modeling, and even more, animating, a thing that I can’t have that easy and fast in traditional ways…

But when I press my fingers into the clay, when I softly brush the colours across the canvass I feel I can relax,
yep, it definitely is relaxing.

With 3D you have to impress someone, else why are you doing it?
I really enjoy to see a character I invented to see it come to life, once model is done, and once I see it moving in some anim test… Is a pleasure by itself alone.

oops, i wanted to keep this short…

Edit: And last reason, but actually very important: In a games company, dunno how is in CG films, one get rarely artistic control over all thing, sometimes not even in your area/task. Close to nothing is worst for an artist than that, imo…so much that i prefer to keep my passion as a hobby, even if quite dedicated to call it a hobby.

#17

My observation is slightly different…

I’m OVER 40 and have been teaching classes in 3D for several years, and
my impression is that older people grasp the concept of 3D better than a lot
of the young people I’ve met.

Started out in 3d a bit late myself, with 3d-studio max 2.5 back in the days,
at version 4.0 I sold my license to continue with Blender and Open Source, and
ditched windows for good, never looked back.

You can’t really point fingers and say - older people are like this, while younger
people are like that - it’s highly individual.

Me? I didn’t even consider myself old… I live in a world of computers, electronics,
labs, toys and play games just like I did back in 1977 with the Atari 2600…

Made my first “Pac-Man” game on the Commodore 64 in 1982, demoed on
the demoscene on Amiga back in 1985…Have had every single console
you can imagine since then, just bought the new DSi in April, waiting for the
next PS3-slim to come out (which should be any day now, presumably 18, august
if my intel is correct)

3d’s second nature to me, I can cough up a fully rigged character in less than a day,
high-quality in less than 3 days. etc.

You guys talking OLD about 40…LOL… we grew up on computers, learning
the inside bit-by-bit, instead of just a “ready-computer-with-windows-os-and-sdk-and-all”.

Try constructing a computer from scratch, cpu, ram, ttl-logic, os-in-rom (code it
yourself, dos etc…) screen drivers, LCD-interface…grow some hair on your chest,
then we’ll talk (oh well…thats in the past…he he)

Point is - the 40 year “olds” I know, grew up with the computers, and learned
it all from scratch, sure there are computer illiterates - I teach those all the time,
but they had OTHER interests than computers…interests in areas THEY are good
at now (and that I may suck at) :wink:

I have however seen a lot of 65-90 year olds that just CAN’t and WON’t learn
computers, not even using email, (hereof in my own family, my grandmother, that
I sincerely wished would learn to at least read e-mail, so she could get mail from
the entire family instead of being lonely when the postal services…goes byebye)

But thats progress for you.

Me? I’ll always be on top of these things, you’ll have to bury me for that to change :slight_smile:

#18

im 25 working in a small studio and im the youngest here, the older generation tend to get other interests and not really stay or they teach as they feel they have somthing to give to the younger generation

1 cause for the lack of interest really is that modern art is not really a realm of the older generation why things have become so abstract that its very hard to amke any sense of it

3d’s popularity has really skyrockest from as recent as 2000 and because it wasn’t all that long ago that it really is the younger ones who pick it up

even with these points there is still lots of people still in the industry in their older, like many who commented on this thread many of the coders are older then me and alot in 30’s 40’s

i myself have been using blender for ~6-7 years and been programming since i was 12 (on a c64 mind you) and i really see myself doing 3d and animation until im well into my old age

#19

I’m in my 30’s and been an artist my whole life. Grandma taught oil’s back in the day and so I was born with a brush in both hands… the years go fast. I like 3d cause it seems the older i get the more busy I get and with big dual screens I can get a lot done at the same time. Art for some is about the journey and the companionship while we age. It doesn’t matter how much what you make sucks, every test and piece you finish is a learning experience and in itself in fully satisfying. Getting better at it is a nice side effect 8 )

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#20

Ha hmm… age…being old and all that! I started painting and drawing when I was about thirty five and I turned fifty this year. I first discovered 3d back in the mid nineties when our uni first got the net and I came across Povray. I don’t seem to have the time to paint or draw so much as I did, and Blender is something that I have dabbled with, but not produced anything worthwhile to display on this forum yet! But hopefully that will change? Like anything though, whether it be playing the piano or painting, I am a firm believer you must start young and have natural talent to be absolute top of your trade (there are exceptions though). I’m not putting myself down, and I am being honest to myself, but I never truly had the talent and started late in the art world. I am more of an observer of 3d and 2d computer art and continue to be stunned at some of the images produced by these young genius on this and other forums. I think also, many people over fifty scoff at computer art and have the misconception that all you have to do is think of an image, the computer reads your mind, you then push a button and hey presto it appears before you. I had this misconception also and I quickly discovered that trying to bend the iron will of a raytracer to give the look, feel and mood that is in your head, is as difficult as painting with an oil painters brush. And I believe three times the frustration!! If I were good enough though, I think I would have loved to probably make 2d and 3d freelance illustration as a part time profession. I think full time is a pretty lonely existence I guess and I have done the solo self employment before – it’s tough believe me. But I get the feeling my art tastes would be pretty different to say someone in their teens or twenties. I am not interesting pc games, so I wouldn’t be interested in designing a character for the next blockbuster game or movie. I would prefer to produce stills. Suppose that limits the market and there are so many talented youngsters out there to compete against. So I will keep dreaming whilst doing my daytime job and just maybe…well who knows? Now where is my pipe and slippers? Ah…It must be my age, I forgot. They are neatly placed between my PC and keyboard and I have Blender 2.49a open. Yes…that’s it… I’m trying to model them…