I am trying to hire a few artists using Indeed, and 100’s of applicants, but 0 with 3DS MAX. Is 3DS MAX that dead?
Hehe, of course Max isn’t anywhere near dead, as we all know.
Indeed is effectively an advertising revenue based site imo, and to be avoided.
They don’t care about your needs - they just push anyone who they think can make them their cut I reckon. Algorithms and all.
Example, I signed up with freelancer and something else - can’t remember. They just kep sending useless emails offering incompatible projects based on the data I supplied.
Even when it was actual reps doing this stuff for agencies years ago it was the same. I have little faith in the approach. A bit like estate agents…*shudder
Best idea is probably asking here, or maybe others know of a better hiring portal.
I did ask here, in the jobs section. We have a paid Indeed account, and it is expensive.
I’ve been using 3DS Max since the release 1 and currently work with 3DS Max 2022 because that’s the last perpetual license version. Before Max I of course used 3D-Studio for MS Dos and before that Autodesk AutoShade.
Nowadays I know only one guy (from Twitter), who’s using 3DS Max here. Kids are talking about some never heard Blender.
I guess you could trawl Artstation, Behance and the like, to identify people whose content you like and see what their status is for work.
Everyone wants to freelance or work remote. This is an in-office position.
Yeah I guess many do. Hopefully someone will appear to help out 
I hired one who starts Monday, and I am interviewing two more next week. Nobody has experience, so it’ll be on the job training.
About 20 years ago I was asked, if I was interested in teaching 3DS Max at nearby Applied University. I didn’t want to go there, because I wasn’t sure if I had enough time to do that. Anyway it seems nowadays Max has made room there for Blender, but there’s some courses for Max too. I blame Autodesk for this situation. In the 90’s Max was phenomenon; there was lot’s of happenings where Autodesk had great presentations, but not anymore for decades.
When I was student there it was mostly pen and paper. Everyone had to buy own drawing board. We had a little 2D-Cad studies and tiny bit of 3D theory. I learned 3D with AutoCAD10 on my own.
No experience…of Max specifically or 3d in general?
That could be a long road 
I think most important thing is to understand the product, client wants to visualize/animate. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and my clients are engineers. They have told face to face, that I might not be the best VFX guy around, but I’m the one who who speaks same language - engineer talk.
Yes, we are hiring entry-level folks with no experience and training them in-house. Back in the day, MAX was what everyone learned on, but that has changed. When I say entry level, I mean in 3D. Most of my folks have their degrees in architecture. The company handles design and engineering (over 150 engineers on staff), and my department handles the visuals for the largest builder in the US. Each “artist” is expected to produce 6 renderings per day. We get the Revit from the in-house architect (more than 150 on staff), place it in a pre-built scene, and texture it. My job is to grow the department, do better work for our existing clients, and build new clients, with better work. I will share the work they were producing, as of two months ago, and what they are doing now - you’ll probably see my signature style :).
They were basically robots, taught how to click buttons. The department manager keeps saying, “monkey see, monkey do”, and I cringe every time. I am trying to make them better artists by teaching them composition, color, art theory, and all the other stuff to make them better at what they do. I got them the software to speed up the workflow, so they can slow down and be more creative.
Anyway… three more interviews next week.
Hmm, sounds interesting.
Back in 1998/9 I randomly landed a job at the largest housebuilder at the time in the UK, Taylor Woodrow (now Taylor Wimpey) and ended up heading their nascent 3d thing. So as your situation, with 100s of architects and engineeers etc..
It was obviously a different time and the work was far harder to do back then. Quality was ok, but just 5 of us in total, me with probably the most experience all around, but it was fun having everyone eager to learn new stuff and transferring/sharing skills where possible.
LOL, I just looked at their current site and their cg stuff is pretty shitty…looks like what I was doing 15 years ago or so The Ashenford ‧ Taylor Wimpey
Anyway, these days quality is great out-of-the-box for rendering, so hopefully your hires are quick to learn the modeling/shading etc. side of things quick enough to be of use.
It’ll be interesting to compare images pre/post your input
Yeah, not good, but better than what these guys were doing. We charge $300 a pop, and each render takes them an hour - we get the Revit model from the architect. I increased the quality of everything, which would take them longer, and implemented software to compensate. Now, better work, in the same amount of time, and raised the price to $350 a pop. Our guys bill out at $70 an hour, so there is profit, considering each person does 6 houses a day. My goal is to create artists out of them rather than being button-clicking monkeys, and to graduate the ones who work hard on larger projects. Right now, about 90% of our work comes from one builder, and I think the owner realizes now that putting all the eggs in one basket is a bad idea. I pointed this out during my interview with her, and I assume she already knew it. Now I have to start getting new work, from maybe the hospitality market. We have one place near us that does work for the hospitality industry, and their work is mediocre. They actually reached out to me a couple of months before the current people did, we interviewed twice, and then they asked about money - I never heard back from them. My personal goal is to make them regret that move (not really).
Any tips on breaking into the hospitality world?
I did quite a few of rendering for architects back in 90’s. Light visualizations for public buildings was very common assignment for me back then. I remember when 3D-Studio R3 for MS-Dos came out. There was lot’s of improvements for spot light set-up.
Anyway building projects are/were not my favorites: architect says builder pays, builder says architect pays, architect say builder pays… until I don’t care anymore. Architect gets assignment, builder gets project - Juha gets nothing.
And it still lives on your wall - awesome!