Reflection of year one , and ambition for year two.

Last year it was all about the fundamentals. For those who had never used 3DS Max to get familiar to the program, for those who hadn't had a background with drawing .. oh wait.. let's not go there. This year however things will go a step further., with trying to enhance what has been learned and trying to reach a decent level of expertise in the area desired. For me it is still unchanged... 3D is my thing and becoming an environment artist is my aim/dream. As I'm currently writing and will continue to write in my blog through the summer I have spent quite some time improving my skills, and even now I'm still working on things. so what has been improved last year and what would I like to improve this year ?

 Last year I learned how to unwrap properly, I already knew how to make normal maps but I've learned how to make them more efficiently and apply them. I also like to think my modelling has improved slightly as in a little bit more efficient and a better idea of distribution.

Then through the summer with help of websites such as: WWW.3dmotive.com , www.eat3d.com and good old www.3dtotal.com I've improved my texturing, learned how to make better specular maps and bake textures.

Baking textures...

I think this year I would like to keep improving on my texturing, get a more efficient/faster pipeline, learn about lighting scenes ( no ! not just the skylight !!!! ) and get a good idea of triangle/texture budgets for assets. I hope this year will give us a little bit of freedom to make stylized and/or different assets/content for the area we would like to work in, in the future, as I can already imagine my future employer sitting behind his desk seeing 400 darleks / transit vans etc, etc.

Darlecs from the tv serie DR Who


To reach all this my first goal would be to finish my second summer project: "The decimator" The Decimator is a project based on the character with the same name of Privateer press Warmachine. I set it up as a project to improve my texture baking and texturing but haven't had the time to finish it yet. The baking has worked out quite well however there is still plenty that needs doing. and through the year I'm planning on working on it every time I improve in key areas. For now it's these small little projects that set me apart from other people and will hopefully get me noticed in the industry.

Sources:

www.eat3d.com

www.3dmotive.com
www.3dtotal.com
Privateer press: http://privateerpress.com/
warmachine: http://privateerpress.com/warmachine
Decimator: http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/khador/warjacks/decimator