How do you make a good pre-production for a 3D environment personal project?

alegaroficial

Hi, everyone!
While I was searching for references for my new spare time 3D environment project, a question arose. As an artist, I value thorough preparation before diving into the creative process. It has been some time since I last worked on a personal 3D project (around a year), and I want to start fresh. So, my question for you is:

How do you specifically approach the pre-production phase for 3D environments?

I'm not talking about what everyone already knows (concept art, real refs, exhaustive textures/materials/lighting refs, tutorials, etc.), but more in terms of organization. For example, creating lists of the tasks to be done, categorizing those tasks, establishing estimated times to understand the project's duration, what methods are going to be used with notes on how to use them, and more. 

The way I vision this is by having:

> A Word document/Notion pages with detailed information about the things I want to do, goals, and links to web pages (videos, tutorials, or research sites) that help me keep all the information in one place.

> A Pureref file with the references I need for the project.

> A calendar to measure the progress and understand its scope of it. In this particular case, I won't be too strict since I don't want to set a deadline. Nevertheless, it's important to have it to know the time I spend on each part.

I would love to know those secrets, tricks, programs, and methods that you usually use to prepare well and avoid getting overwhelmed in the process or "pausing" projects because you lose motivation.

Any help is welcome, and I'm excited to read your responses.
Thank you very much, and have a great day!

Alex_J

i think the single most important thing is to have a deadline and don't move it.

from that you can work backwards. first block in the biggest categories, then break them down and make sure you know what each consist of.

some things you'll know exactly what they entail and how long it takes. Other things you have to experiment to learn. The stuff you have to learn becomes a task with a deadline, like "determine if i'll use workflow X or Y by __date___." Also good to have backup plan in case you haven't got to milestone within time limit, or you can't accomplish something the way you thought.

Ideally you do things the way you want and crush any challenge that pops up, but in real life we do what we can, not what we want. I think important to keep that in mind and remember that time is the only thing we are really managing. Because with computer you can solve any problem given enough time, but that doesn't really count for much.

big thing i watch out for is don't think just because you are working that means progress is made. anytime work is being done, make sure that it goes towards answering some question that has been written down and moves towards the final goal.

it's good to actually block out time for project review, that way you can make decisions with fresh mind, rather than making them on the fly when may be fatigued or don't have all relevant data in front of you.

alegaroficial

@Alex_JThank you for your valuable advice! I truly appreciate your insights and the time you took to share them. Your guidance will certainly help me improve my approach to this project.

Regarding the concept of setting deadlines, it provides a sense of structure and urgency, enabling better planning and task prioritization. With that in mind, I'm curious to learn more about how you handle potential challenges or unexpected obstacles that may arise within the given timeframe. How do you adapt your approach while still aiming to meet the deadline? Any tips or strategies you could share would be greatly appreciated.

Alex_J

well if something unexpected comes up that forces things to be rethought, probably good idea to schedule a dedicated time for it. if it is important, try to do it with fresh mind and get second opinions if possible.

a few questions that i try to make sure i can always answer, given any decision to be made:

1. where am i right now?
2. where am i going?
3. based on everything i know right now, what are all viable routes to get to my goal?

then it's basic pro's/con's to decide the best route to take.

There is not usually a best decision in all cases but if you are systematic in how you approach decision making you can avoid a lot of human errors which could lead to disaster.

So for example maybe you are making an environment and you had a plan in mind. Then you suddenly learn about a new tool which is very exciting. Without any system in place you might just take off and start trying out the new tool. Maybe you have some emotional desire driving you towards it, like "if i don't learn this tool, others will and then I'll be left behind!"

Then, two months later you are exhausted and you finally realized this tool solves a problem that wasn't really something you faced, or there is simpler way to downscope the project to solve same problem without having to learn new tech... etc.

But if you had taken a couple hours to consider how learning new tool / workflow will actually effect the bottom line (finish my project by __date__) then you might have made better decision to just stick with what you know works until this project is finished.

In other words, don't start working on a solution to a problem until you can explain very simply what the problem is. Anybody should be able to understand the problem - if you cannot easily explain so that others understand, that's indicator that you haven't got a clear shot yet. So don't do anything until you have a clear picture of what exactly the problem is.

This is just an example but probably relatable I am sure we all are like chickens with heads cut off at times. There is infinite amount of things to learn and try, so it can become like a trap that seems like productivity on the surface.

alegaroficial

@Alex_J That's great and valuable information. Thanks you again! I'll try to apply all this. Have a great day.

If anyone want to expand this or add more ideas, feel free to do so!

poopipe

trello is the obvious way to manage tasks - if you have a big project you might decide you'd benefit from using hansoft (free for individual use, very not free for commercial use) but it's probably overkill for the home gamer


You seem to be approaching an undefined task with a waterfall approach - this is a recipe for failure (ask IBM ) 


I'll echo some of what Alex says here because he's right. 

pre-prod for an artistic endeavour is very similar to software development - beyond a list of key features you have no idea what you're making or how you're going to make it, you also cannot predict what will change as you progress through the process.  As such it is sensible to apply an Agile-derived paradigm to managing it

The end goal of pre-prod is to answer a bunch of questions about how you're going to execute the final product.
Set a deadline
List the questions you need to answer (eg. how to make a flappy flag thing)
For each question give yourself a deadline to come up with 'an' answer - deliver the answer, even if it's not the best answer.
repeat and iterate on each question until you hit your deadline.

This is good because when you hit your deadline every question is answered (even if its a crap answer) and you can effectively plan your production