It's hard to maintain excitement for 1 project

Larry

Hey guys, how do you deal with sticking to one project?

 I am trying to find inspiration in pinterest and google,with environments that i like and feel comfortable doing, but i end up doing mistakes, going back again and again for hours to try and find the solution to my problem and experimenting. All of these details required to import an asset into a game engine, they seem so many especially when you dont have a mentor. I always find a solution, or worst case scenario i ask in these forums, but in the end and after hours and hours of trying to fix some of those mistakes, i kind of lose interest and start a new project.

Does anyone have any ideas or tried things to keep you continuing in a project? It is totally different when you work with a client because you want to get paid, but when you do it for yourself, the voice that tells you to leave this project and start a new one with excitement, is a rather loud voice.

oglu

i have hundred of unfinished stuff here on several harddrives... all from the last 17 years... nothing finished...
thats no problem for me i like to test new workflows and start things from scratch...

if i like to finish something it does only work if i do it for a challenge or for a private project with other people... 
i have enough to finish in my day job..

Larry

@oglu
I was a bit worried that if i have no motivation to finish something, i won't make it as good as i would otherwise. So, getting paid for it gives you the motivation to finish, right?

It's just that i never think i made something worth putting in a portfolio, that's where i stop the project.

ZacD

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

Larry

ZacD said:

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

On one hand going fast means finishing, but do you really want to finish something and look bad? Do you have the motivation after you finish it, to go back and fix the errors? I guess i will try this, since the way i've been doing this didn't give me any finished projects anyway

ZacD

If you got a finished scene and something needs more attention, it's easy enough to go back. It's better than giving background props 10x more work than they need. 

oglu

getting paint and a goal... like a challenge or a portfoio piece...
for all my unfinished projects it was mostly for research... no need to finish it...

Larry

ZacD said:

If you got a finished scene and something needs more attention, it's easy enough to go back. It's better than giving background props 10x more work than they need. 

Indeed. Thanks! As for the mentor, i meant someone who can tell you about the techniques so that you don't have to figure out by yourself and skip some basic fundamentals only to return back to them after 6 months of trying to figure out how everything works

DInusty

ZacD said:

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

I disagree, excitement in anything is important. You have to enjoy what your working on.

Yes commit. And by that try what you are thinking and see how it turns out. If it's bad or rough you will learn from it much more then if u were to never try it at all.

I would suggest scaling back the scale of what your trying to achieve. If your trying to build something huge it will slowly kill you hehe. Go back to a prop or a small diorama.

Also don't worry about the bad art. We all make bad art haha. What's important is as you get better you replace or rehaul your portfolio with your new hotter stuff. It will only get better.

Hope that helps.

Larry

DInusty said:

ZacD said:

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

I disagree 

It would be more educational for us all if you actually made any points with that answer

chrisradsby

ZacD said:

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

I would say this isn't necessarily true. I love experimentation and it doesn't really kill your project. It's a learning exercise, you're learning a new process. What you need to limit is the scope, you need to think about what you want to achieve. You don't have to model everything in a scene super detailed. Only the things that actually matter and are important, the scene doesn't have to be 360 either. It could easily be a nice-looking panorama.

And getting advice to go fast and steamroll isn't great either because what the point in making something quick and dirty if it ends up not being very well thought out or very good? Spending your time investigating good compositions, colors and subject is worth way more than anything and it's okay that it goes slow.

A polished turd is still a turd. So don't start with a turd. If you don't realize you don't have a good base , then just quit the project mid-way and start something new, that has the potential to become good instead. If that means you a million unfinished works then yeah that's fine, because most of them were turds anyways.

Mathew O

ZacD said:

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

I have the total opposite thought process and I'd like to think I finish a relatively high amount of personal projects. 

Adding too much detail to background assets is actually what motivates me, because I enjoy making art and getting into the details; if it ends up looking good then it ends up with close up screenshots. 

Experimenting is also very important to me, especially in a realtime scene my motivation is normally to nail down something I suck at and the scene grows around that. Foliage, shader work, composition etc

Rushing and not problem solving sounds like a recipe for mediocre work, finding a way to accelerate your process is obviously very important but let speed come from experience and not from skipping steps that'll probably create better results.

In my opinion Excitement is what motivates you to finish projects.

I have plenty of pieces I've thrown away but it's because I fell out of love with them, they didn't excite me; not because I lacked determination.

Larry

chrisradsby said:

ZacD said:

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

I would say this isn't necessarily true. I love experimentation and it doesn't really kill your project. It's a learning exercise, you're learning a new process. What you need to limit is the scope, you need to think about what you want to achieve. You don't have to model everything in a scene super detailed. Only the things that actually matter and are important, the scene doesn't have to be 360 either. It could easily be a nice-looking panorama.

And getting advice to go fast and steamroll isn't great either because what the point in making something quick and dirty if it ends up not being very well thought out or very good? Spending your time investigating good compositions, colors and subject is worth way more than anything and it's okay that it goes slow.

A polished turd is still a turd. So don't start with a turd. If you don't realize you don't have a good base , then just quit the project mid-way and start something new, that has the potential to become good instead. If that means you a million unfinished works then yeah that's fine, because most of them were turds anyways.

I think this is a very big issue every artist struggles with. I look at people's portfolios and i'm getting a bit depressed on how am i ever going to make something look THAT good when in reality i discard 99,9% of my projects? I know that if you look at the portfolios, everybody has about 3 projects, but nobody says how many projects they've done. Logic can explain it, but my dissapointment persists

chrisradsby

Larry said:

chrisradsby said:

ZacD said:

Excitement and motivation do no finish projects. Determination does. (Basically) no one in 3d has a mentor. Experimenting and trying to find solutions often kills projects. Instead steamroll towards the finish, ignoring problems that don't matter, and making something. Go fast and commit. But still plan enough that you aren't wasting your time on tiny issues and fluff.  

I would say this isn't necessarily true. I love experimentation and it doesn't really kill your project. It's a learning exercise, you're learning a new process. What you need to limit is the scope, you need to think about what you want to achieve. You don't have to model everything in a scene super detailed. Only the things that actually matter and are important, the scene doesn't have to be 360 either. It could easily be a nice-looking panorama.

And getting advice to go fast and steamroll isn't great either because what the point in making something quick and dirty if it ends up not being very well thought out or very good? Spending your time investigating good compositions, colors and subject is worth way more than anything and it's okay that it goes slow.

A polished turd is still a turd. So don't start with a turd. If you don't realize you don't have a good base , then just quit the project mid-way and start something new, that has the potential to become good instead. If that means you a million unfinished works then yeah that's fine, because most of them were turds anyways.

I think this is a very big issue every artist struggles with. I look at people's portfolios and i'm getting a bit depressed on how am i ever going to make something look THAT good when in reality i discard 99,9% of my projects? I know that if you look at the portfolios, everybody has about 3 projects, but nobody says how many projects they've done. Logic can explain it, but my dissapointment persists

Sometimes you grow more from thinking about what you need to do than actually doing it. Not a lot of people actually recognize that as a valid thing but it's true. That's why examining your process is important. What is the core reason as to why you can't finish your project? Is it because you find the subject boring?  

Most artists that are great at what they do, do what they love. 

If you find yourself overwhelmed , then re-scope and make something smaller.

Ryusaki

My usual problems, too big in scope - ends up being a several GB huge corpse of a project, rotting in some folder.
Or it starts small but perfectionism kicks in and makes it grow into a clusterfuck where i constantly are in doubt: can i still handle it, and can my computer?
I should have been done with my current project like a week ago, but i am still still simulating smoke in Houdini for a barely visible smoketrail, while i am manually modelling raindrops and contemplate the strategic placement of bokeh lightbubbles in the background.

 

Larry

@chrisradsby Most of the things i go back and correct over and over and over again, are my UV's both for trying to texture something, and for lightmaps

Latest example: I want to start making environments so i'd thought i should make a desert, so i started with a cactus tileable material.



But then i go and apply it on the mesh and i get this



And after spending so many hours, watching a thousand videos on youtube for unwraping and i thought i knew how to unwrap, i'm unable to unwrap this simple tampon for a cactus. I tried 1 seam all the way from top to bottom, and also tried 2 seams, one for the cylinder, one for the half-sphere. The only way i was doing this up untill now, was by handpainting my models and not use tileable textures.

DInusty

what do your UVs look like?

Larry

1) simple unwrap with 1 seam and the best result that i showed you in the previous reply
2) same but with relax
3) manually moved the verts in a different direction
4) two seams,  worst of all

What is more frustrating is that it is a simple object........

Larry

DInusty said:

what do your UVs look like?

I also tried to make half of it and unwrap it and then symmetry the other side. Tried flipping half of it but still has artifacts.

DInusty

for that to tile ur going to need to get uvs to meet at the edge of the 0 to 1 space