Do you need to learn the code for VFX?
Do you need to learn the code for VFX?
Short answer - nope.
I would guess about 5 to 10 percent of VFX artists can code.
Some are barely technical enough to turn on their own computers (I’m looking at you animators!). Some do nothing but code (people working in pipeline, RnD, and tool development).
So it’s a broad church. You don’t need to code…but should you? Yeah, probably. A bit.
As I see it, programming is the only way that you can speak to the computer directly to guarantee that the work split between you and it is fair and logical.
The computer does the tasks that computers are best at and you do the tasks that humans are best at. If it’s fun and creative, it’s human. If it’s boring and repetitive, it’s a computer.
So regardless of your coding skill, or lack thereof, you need to think like a programmer. If you’re bored, doing a repetitive task, you’re probably doing work that the computer should do. If the computer is doing the fun and creative stuff, what’s the point of you?
When you train yourself to reject the boring repetitive tasks, that normally results in one or more of the following
- You learn to code, at least a bit. (You can learn how to code a “loop” very quickly, which will allow you to repeat actions as many times as you want.)
- You find solutions that have the spirit of coding, without needing you to actually write any code yourself (for example, Photoshop “actions” allow you to record yourself doing an activity, that then gets applied on as many files as you want.)
- You find someone else who has already solved the problem for you. (It’s amazing how many people will manually rename large batches of files for example, whereas 10 seconds on google will result in Bulk Rename Utility, which I use all the time)
- You get someone else to solve the problem for you. If you’re a solo artist this might be asking a friend, or hiring help on somewhere like Fiverr. Sometimes 10 minutes of code can save days of work, so it’s worth it.
In the future, maybe chatGPT will be the go-to for help. I asked it to help me with a sign off to this newsletter, and gave it a task that would be a perfect option for a bit of code - to write “See you next week”, but make it out of spheres.
It gave me this…
