When is the right moment to cancel a project.

TirvasFreeze

Im a little bit confussed right now...

Im always unhappy i always work about 2 Weeks for a Project and after i imported everything in UE4 did the Texturing started the lighting and placed everything im so unhappy because it doesnt look great i also get demotivated when i go on Artstation watching other peoples work which look stunning and mine look like shit i also canceled my last project which i worked on for 3 Weeks now i started 2 Weeks ago another project and i want to cancel it again.

Is this the start of a Burn Out?
What should i change about myself?

Thank you for reading my Thread

many greetings

Taylor Brown

Take a deep breath, calm down and use punctuation. 

For real though, I've seen you get directed to post images for feedback a few times and nothing comes of it. Are you actively seeking out community and critiques for your work? Your growth can be stunted as an artist if you aren't having your work challenged or scrutinized for areas of improvement in either art direction or technical aspects. 

Other than that, nothing you're feeling sounds out of the ordinary. Plenty of people have hard drives full of dead projects. Sometimes things just don't work out but if you're gaining skill from the process then it wasn't wasted time. There's also nothing wrong with feeling like you don't want to work. Be real with yourself about your own feelings and trust them.

Biomag

Do you know why you don't like it?

Have you learned how to avoid doing the same mistakes?

Is starting from scratch really faster than fixing the issues?

In short - have you really taken the time to learn everything you can from the current state of your project so that starting a new one will have a significant advantage to finishing this one?


By the way, I don't know what project you are doing, but 2-3 weeks don't sound like a long amount of time to go from high poly to low poly, baking and texturing + presentation... if its a simple prop, yeah ok. If its a hero asset or scene/character then I guess its obvious why it doesn't look as good as the stuff on artstation that can take months to be done. Take your time to analyze your work and learn something from it. Especially if you are a beginner. There is no price for a quickly done project, only for a well done one.

TirvasFreeze

Biomag said:

Do you know why you don't like it?

Have you learned how to avoid doing the same mistakes?

Is starting from scratch really faster than fixing the issues?

In short - have you really taken the time to learn everything you can from the current state of your project so that starting a new one will have a significant advantage to finishing this one?


By the way, I don't know what project you are doing, but 2-3 weeks don't sound like a long amount of time to go from high poly to low poly, baking and texturing + presentation... if its a simple prop, yeah ok. If its a hero asset or scene/character then I guess its obvious why it doesn't look as good as the stuff on artstation that can take months to be done. Take your time to analyze your work and learn something from it. Especially if you are a beginner. There is no price for a quickly done project, only for a well done one.

Thanks that helped me

Obscura

Getting feedback on your work is important, because it will point out the errors, and possibly tell how to fix them. Consider posting your work here on the forum and ask for feedback.

Biomag

A piece of advice for doing projects - whenever you start one, set goals you want to achieve with them and those goals should be based on what you want to learn and improve.

Make sure you reach those goals and finish the project. This way you will have something to check yourself with if its time to move on. It's important to finish them to turn it into a habit and not get used to walking away.

This + doing small projects at the beginning ensures that you are focused on learning and progression. Don't go overboard with your expectations and goals that you set. Also don't set too many goals for individual projects, you want to be able to focus on them and not spread yourself thin. And don't worry about artstation-portfolio pieces, just constant improvement and you will get there when you are ready.

Be realistic, keep the goals achieveable and have fun accomplishing them

Taylor Brown

Great advice from Biomag. Something I wanted to add regarding feeling inadequate when looking at artstation:

While you're clicking through the top Trending and Staff Picks it's easy to forget that what you're seeing as the final images aren't telling the full story. You're not going to see the weeks / months of struggle, years of prior experience, fuck ups, data loss, critiques, advice, stagnancy, time analyzing reference, forum searching etc that goes in to those shiny perfect renders. 

Ruz

I don' t really cancel projects, just put them on the backburner until i learn the skllls needed to make it look nice. takes years sometimes

fdfxd2

Now I might not be like some super cool epyc art guy with like 16 environments that top the front page every hour and responds to every question with "oh i'm actually under NDA i can't disclose that " yet. But this post reads like all the thoughts that run through my head when I get an anxiety attack. And I do get those quite a fair bit.

How I've learned to deal with them is to simply take a break. Do some breathing exercises, read a cutesy manga, watch a youtube video, bake some cookies or go on reddit to find something/someone worse than you to get righteously indignant at . Whatever you need to do to calm down. Could take 30 mins, could take 2 hours, as  long as it needs to be for you to be calm in the end.

Then once you're calm really think about what is it that the scene is actually lacking.

Is the modelling as detailed as it could be? Are all the forms that are present in the reference/concept represented in some way? Is the highpoly as smooth as it could be?

Maybe you're texturing a prop like a gun, and the texturing isn't popping. Look for used versions of that prop(or props similar in any way to that gun) at auction sites or forums (Morpy Auctions )  then try to reference those interesting surfaces next time you texture that prop.

Consider that neither of the two cases might be true, your model and textures could be 100/100 but they could just be under bad lighting. In that case, looking at how photographers/other 3D artists would light the model/scene you're working on, and taking inspiration from that would be useful.

Or when all else fails just go to polycount, some 3d modelling discords or if you're really desperate, /3/. Post what you've got so far and think about the responses.

I also want to add that it's perfectly fine if things don't end up looking great after 3 weeks of work. It's normal
...it is normal, right guys?

YF_Sticks

Honestly, most projects look like shit in the first few weeks (mine at least). The stuff you see on Artstation is mostly after lots of iteration, polish and retexturing. And that's fine, we all go through that.

Take it step by step. For an environment as an example: Block it in, adjust until you are satisfied. Then start refining shapes, going more detailed. Start making your textures for walls, ceiling, floor etc. Slowly build everything up until to the final stages with lighting and post process. And very important - get feedback along the way. I can't stress this enough.

A lot of it will not look great in the beginning. We all kinda go through that. Just try to stick with it. Keep at it step by step. Put in consistent work, it's the best way. Because you have to get used to finishing projects. 

The only way to get better at finishing projects is to actually finish projects!

Alex_J

TirvasFreeze

Taylor Brown said:

Great advice from Biomag. Something I wanted to add regarding feeling inadequate when looking at artstation:

While you're clicking through the top Trending and Staff Picks it's easy to forget that what you're seeing as the final images aren't telling the full story. You're not going to see the weeks / months of struggle, years of prior experience, fuck ups, data loss, critiques, advice, stagnancy, time analyzing reference, forum searching etc that goes in to those shiny perfect renders. 

Wow thats really helpful i have forgotten that most of the Artist struggle too thank you for your comment