Do tuts or not?

CougarJo

Hey fellow polycounter!

It's maybe a dumb question but I have a hard time answering it myself

I'm going to dive into environment art for my next personal work ; but I have concerns and doubts.


-Since UE4 is out I was wondering if it's a good idea to try it, but my computer would probably collapse if I try to lauch it (I'm far from the required specs -__- I'll have a new one this year but not now ) Too bad! But I'll learn PBR with props and Marmoset Toolbag 2 during this time.

So I think this problem is resolved by itself.


-So, I will go with UDK . I worked a little with it , but nothing fancy and depth at all.


Now my main concern : I was thinking of taking this tuto by Tor Frick .

-Since I have no idea on how to do shaders, lightmaps etc, I think it can be really usefull to learn everything in the same package.


My plan if I do it : changing the layout of the room , not sticking to the concepts of the walls etc. Doing a bunch of assets to populate the scene ( and learning more Zbrush for soft things ) and try to give ''life'' to the final piece.


To summarize, learn what I don't know and do what I can to appropriate myself the scene.


I'll obviously not have 100% credit from the final product, because I would learn a lot from the tuto, but I think it would be way faster than gathering all I want to do in more than one tuts around the web.


So : Is it clever to do the tuto from Tor if I have almost 0 notions in UDK? And can the skills I'll learn in UDK be transcribed for UE4?

Thanks

billymcguffin

Always do tutorials if you can, at least as long as the tutor knows what they're doing (which Tor Frick quite obviously does). Don't post tutorial work in your portfolio.

Much of what you learn in UDK can be translated to UE4 so long as you have a bit of common sense and the documentation (and most of the time not even that).

SaboR1996

I would have taken this tutorial if it wasn't for the fact of modo to be honest, I was recommended it by other people and the work he produces for the final product is amazing!

CougarJo

'Don't post tutorial work in your portfolio.'

Annnd that's a concern I totally understand why though.

Just an example of what can be done if one drift from the concept : Helder Pinto work .

If a lot of work are done by myself (props , layout, structure etc) , is it that bad to used it until I do another one by myself? (Quoting Tor ofc, I'll not take all the credit from it)

SaboR1996 : What I don't know is really inside UDK, so for me it's not a big problem I guess.

ExcessiveZero

Tuts are great learning tools, go off the track if you like though, you tend to learn more and worry less about making a exact replica.

CougarJo

Yep that's what I was planning to do.

But If I can't show it in my folio (even If I go way off the track) , I don't know if it's worth the time of doing assets etc for it.

aajohnny

Just watch and learn from tutorials and use what you learn for your own personal project.

LMP

billymcguffin wrote: »

Always do tutorials if you can, at least as long as the tutor knows what they're doing (which Tor Frick quite obviously does). Don't post tutorial work in your portfolio.

Much of what you learn in UDK can be translated to UE4 so long as you have a bit of common sense and the documentation (and most of the time not even that).

I second this. I found it quite easy to jump into UE4 from UDK, the only things I needed to do some learning on were the PBR mats, and the power of Blueprints, Blueprints are very awesome.

sargentcrunch

n/a

NegevPro

The important thing to learn from tutorials is the techniques being used. Ideally you'd want to apply what you learn from the tutorials onto a unique project otherwise you won't actually gain a good understanding of all the material. As others have said, UDK knowledge translates pretty well for the most part when moving to UE4 so I wouldn't worry about that too much.

The BEST way to learn from a tutorial is to follow everything done in the video step by step as it is being done, then once you finish viewing the tutorial, re-do the exact same project without looking back at the tutorial once, then from there, attempt to apply all of the techniques you learned onto a new project. This is the most time consuming method of learning, and it can get pretty boring too since you end up doing the same thing twice, but chances are you'll retain the most information.

If you don't want to re-do the same project, then you can skip the second step. Just follow the tutorial step by step then try to attempt a project with the same techniques.

Torch

If you're a beginner just follow the tutorial piece by piece and mimic what the tutor is doing. If you're a little more advanced and confident, you can use the tutorial to support your own project so you get something unique out of it, rather than uploading tutorial stuff to your folio.

Zack Maxwell

billymcguffin wrote: »

at least as long as the tutor knows what they're doing (which Tor Frick quite obviously does).

That's a big one.
Despite the cost and production quality, I've been pretty disappointed lately with the quality level of Digital Tutors courses. A disturbing number of tutors there don't really know what they're doing... I went through their one and only Substance Designer course recently, and it was a train wreck.
If you don't have the level of critical thinking and general knowledge to spot most of the mistakes, that kind of thing can do more harm than good.

Absolutely use tutorials though. Just make sure you go through more than just the ones made by a single person, to reduce the risk of picking up bad habits and workflows.

silvershrimp

Grimwolf wrote: »

That's a big one.
I've been pretty disappointed lately with the quality level of Digital Tutors courses.

I think they have really improved in the last 3 years, prior to that I thought they were tutorials that produced ugly functional artwork.

To answer the question, if you are a beginner, yes do tutorials fully, if you are any better then take the concepts and apply them to your own projects. Try and make sure you understand why you are doing something rather than following steps.

CougarJo

Thanks for all the answers and good advices guys

"The important thing to learn from tutorials is the techniques being used."
"Try and make sure you understand why you are doing something rather than following steps."

Yep, I don't want to do it because he said to do it this way, I want to understand what I do and why.

I think I'll take the tuto, watch it and learn what I need to learn from it, and then do it a more personal concept using these skills.