Visualization & Animation

Visual Artists

As they have done since the days of the cave painters, visual artists create art to communicate ideas, thoughts, or feelings. They use a variety of methods, including painting, sculpting, and illustration, and an assortment of materials, including oils, watercolors, and acrylics. Visual artists' works may be realistic, stylized, or abstract and may depict objects, people, nature, or abstract ideas. To visual artists, the computer is simply another in a long line of creative tools.

Visual artists generally fall into one of three categories. Fine artists, such as painters and sculptors, create art to satisfy their own need for self-expression. Illustrators and graphic designers, on the other hand, work for commercial clients, such as major corporations, publishers, retail stores, and advertisers. Graphic designers use a variety of print, electronic, and film media to create designs that meet client needs. Familiarity with computers and knowledge of a wide range of software are becoming essential for many careers in visual art.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career includes:

3D Animation: Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk MotionBuilder

Find out more about visual artists, including job descriptions, salaries, and training requirements.

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Computer Animators

We usually think of animation in association with entertainment-crazy cartoon characters or incredible sequences in films that were done on large computers. But there are other uses as well—sports, medicine, industrial design, scientific research, military training and strategizing, and more.

Regardless of the purpose of the animation, the four major steps that are usually followed are storyboarding, which is a visual script for the animation sequence; modeling, which is used to convert real objects to animated objects and control how animated objects behave; scripting and movement control, methods to make motions work for their dramatic purpose; and rendering, which is the process of making objects appear lifelike by manipulating such things as light, shadow, and transparency.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career includes:

3D Animation: Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk MotionBuilder

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Graphic Designers

Turn on the computer, tap into your imagination, and let yourself go free. Like fine artists, graphic designers use visual media to convey a message. But the difference is that as a graphic designer you design, sketch, paint, and mold using the mouse or stylus. And you're not stuck in the two-dimensional world. Now you're working in 3D for television, the web, film, and more. You may create an entire environment on your computer monitor—a museum gallery, the surface of the moon, the center of a bustling city.

Computer-aided design (CAD) has opened the door to a new, exciting world of design. And with graphic software options getting more powerful and more diverse, we can only imagine what's in store for the future.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career is Autodesk 3ds Max.

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Webmasters

When it comes to the website, you're in charge. The realm of your domain depends entirely on the organization you're working with. Many webmasters are a company of one. They create and maintain their own company websites. As webmaster, you can be creating content, adapting existing content (from print, for example) to a web-friendly format, creating and maintaining site architecture, running the server software, performing system administration, and more.

Probably the most important skill for a webmaster is adaptability, although it's a given that you must know HTML (hypertext markup language)—the language that is used to put content, be it image or text, on the web. You've got to stay on top of the technology, which is changing at rapid-fire speed and can be extremely complex.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career include:

3D Animation: Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk MotionBuilder

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Multimedia Developers

A multimedia developer, like a film director, draws on the skills of the computer programmer and the visual artist to combine graphics, text, and digital audio and video interactively. The multimedia content that results can be delivered on CD or over the Internet, or even turned into video.

This exciting field is still relatively new. Writers, artists, actors, and many other creative people are eager to be part of this new enterprise. Today multimedia is changing on an almost daily basis. New advances in hardware and software make the tools available to the developer more and more powerful. There is no telling today how far you will go.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career includes:

3D Animation: Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk MotionBuilder

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Film Production and Distribution

Excitement, fame, and the possibility of enormous creative and financial rewards—all of this may await you in the film industry, if you want to work hard and take the chance. Movies have never been limited to Hollywood and the major studios: Medium-sized and small, independent companies produce films all over the world, not only for commercial theaters, but also for television, music videos, and advertisements.

The range of occupations in this industry is enormous. Directors, actors, screenwriters, editors, camera operators, producers, gaffers (lighting technicians), sound engineers—these are only some of the many professionals involved in the making of a movie. And some of the names you don't see on the credits include the marketing people. They develop the strategy for making sure the movie achieves the bottom line in the business sense—money.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career includes:

3D Animation: Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk MotionBuilder

Find out more about film production and distribution, including job descriptions, training requirements, and links to other resources.

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Dancers and Choreographers

Since ancient times, people have used their bodies to give life to ideas, stories, and feelings. Many dancers combine stage work with teaching or choreography. Dancers perform in a variety of settings, including musical productions, films, and music videos. They most often perform as part of a group, although some artists perform solo. Choreographers create original dances and develop new interpretations of traditional ones. Typically they are older dancers with years of experience in the theater, advancing to a new stage in their careers.

As with so many other artistic professions, computers bring new possibilities to the old forms. Historic dance notations as well as new productions can be preserved and studied on the computer, and CAD software is commonly used to design and specify the theatrical settings in which a dance production is staged.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career includes AutoCAD® and Autodesk 3ds Max.

Find out more about dancers and choreographers, including job descriptions, training requirements, and links to other resources.

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Fashion Designers

As long as people wear clothes, they'll be interested in seeing and  wearing the latest styles. So who will determine tomorrow's fashions? Maybe you.  Fashion designers design clothing and accessories. Some  are self-employed and design for individual clients, specialty boutiques, or high-fashion department stores. These designers create original garments, as well as follow established fashion trends. However, most fashion designers work for apparel manufacturers, adapting designs of men's, women's, and children's fashions for the mass market.

Many designers use computer-aided design (CAD) tools to create and better visualize the final product. Computer models allow greater ease and flexibility in making changes to a design, and many clothes patterns can be used to directly control fabric cutters and other factory equipment. These practices can reduce design costs and cut the time it takes to deliver a product to market.

Autodesk software you're likely to use in this career is AutoCAD.

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Writers and Editors, Including Technical Writers

If you love to communicate well—share your ideas and observations or convey information—writing is a field of choice for you. Writers and editors communicate through the written word. Writers develop original fiction and nonfiction for a variety of mediums, including books, magazines, online distribution, radio and television broadcasts, and advertisements. Editors select and prepare material for publication or broadcast and review and edit a writer's work.

Many writers and editors have training or experience in a design-related profession—and the deeper their knowledge; the better they are at communicating. Many people who follow or prepare for one of the careers discussed here discover that writing about their field is as rewarding as practicing it.

Find out more about writers and editors, including job descriptions, training requirements, and links to other resources.

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Portions of this page are adapted from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook and Career Guide to Industries.