Keeping up to date

Gallamanji

hey everyone

so last year I began building an environments and props portfolio for games, I took some amazing courses online from uartsy and futurepoly. This helped me build the foundation of my portfolio. 

About 5 months ago I got a job working in military sim. But I still really want to get into games and am working on my portfolio in all my spare time, polishing off all the work I started.

One thing that freaks me out a bit is how industry techniques are always changing. I'm worried that by the time I get my portfolio to a decent standard, the techniques I used will be outdated. 

Does anyone have any advice on how to keep up to date with the industry techniques? And what techniques I should be using?

For example, I have modelled my props in 3dsmax, using turbosmooth for the highpoly. I was going to texture them in Photoshop but maybe I should use substance painter? And for my environments I am using ue4.

thanks for any help !

kanga

Keep an eye on the tech forum here. Members are putting up new techniques constantly and its my goto place for the latest info. Take part in challenges and use those new techniques which will slow you down but ultimately force you to try new stuff. This last challenge I have tested Marvelous designer, boolean modelling and going to use Substance designer for texturing. All three I have never used before and its taking ages but I feel it is really worth the trouble. And its about the most fun you can have with yer pants on!

Cheerio

ZacD

There's always new tools, but it takes time for studios to adopt them. Even looking back 5 years, there some awesome new tech, but it's still basically the same workflow and ideas. Might be wise to spend sometime every 6 months to a year seeing if there's any new tech you should look at, if there's a bottleneck in your workflow, if there's an application you need to try out, etc.