Starting out - Advice welcome!
Hey guys,
My names Matt. I'm relatively new to the 3D art scene, having studied 2d art and accidently stumbled across 3D through a couple of inspired guys in my tafe course - and so far it kicks ass.....just quietly.
Now im studying 3d art part time (working in mostly 3ds and mudbox).
I found polycount through a few dominace war submitions, and it seems like the place to be...inspiring, motivating and full of really constructive commentary.
So yeah, i just thought id introduce myself and ask for a little advice what some of you guys did to get as good as you are now - certain tutorials, sources of inspiration, competitions to enter, stuff like that.
I'll definetly have some of my work up soon ^^
Cya round.
My names Matt. I'm relatively new to the 3D art scene, having studied 2d art and accidently stumbled across 3D through a couple of inspired guys in my tafe course - and so far it kicks ass.....just quietly.
Now im studying 3d art part time (working in mostly 3ds and mudbox).
I found polycount through a few dominace war submitions, and it seems like the place to be...inspiring, motivating and full of really constructive commentary.
So yeah, i just thought id introduce myself and ask for a little advice what some of you guys did to get as good as you are now - certain tutorials, sources of inspiration, competitions to enter, stuff like that.
I'll definetly have some of my work up soon ^^
Cya round.
Replies
Welcome to Polycount.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Polycount's a great place to learn, but you have to put in the effort just as much as everyone else here. Simply lurking, IMO, isn't enough. You need to contribute, ask questions, offer insight yourself, critique others, ask for critisism, etc. Pay it forward, and it'll come right back at you. It's what I did (no schooling) and I've been in the business now for 5 years.
AIE in Canberra.
Also go to Uni of Canberra, but i tend to ward off the 3d courses there with a giant stick...they are all blender.
I think we have a theme for the next mini-comp....
practice practice practice (like everyone one will likely say)
oh and backup your work, backup your work, backup your work! :poly124:
about 2-3 years ago i was making stuff likke this:
http://i30.tinypic.com/sxzzoh.jpg
2 years ago: http://i25.tinypic.com/ibmf6d.jpg
now i making like http://i32.tinypic.com/29zo4yo.jpg
and i've still got a journey ahead
If something isn't working out I tend to scrap it and try it again. Sometimes you make mistakes early on in a mesh that you can't tweak out, and its easier to rebuild it from scratch. It is very important to take pieces all the way to completion, but sometimes a mesh is a piece of shit, either because you fucked something up or the design isn't interesting or some other reason. It is important to develop the ability to know when you need to dump something and rebuild and when you should tweak and fix. You get that by doing a lot of stuff.
Read everything you can, look at everyone else's mesh, when you get stuck find other people who have done the same thing and see how they solved the issues you have with topology, etc.
Post WIPs. Listen to critiques. It is very easy to get defensive when someone tells you something sucks, but provided they give you some idea as to how to fix it you should completely embrace that. Even if they tell you it sucks and don't tell you how to fix it, consider that maybe the asset was not all you thought it was.
I think the most important thing to know though is that right now, you suck. And the next 30 things you do will also suck. You will have to make a lot of shitty models before you make good ones. There is no shortcut, no quick way around this. You will have to make 30 shitty models before you make your first good one. You have to work the bad out, and you work it out by trying your damndest with each one.
So don't get discouraged by "failure." When you build 5 ugly heads that don't even look human or a gun that you get halfway through making before you realize you can't animate the slide or you make a black metal texture that looks like crap - these are all things you need to do before you make a good looking head or gun or cast iron chastity belt. You will most likely fuck up and fuck up again - but you won't fuck up the same thing twice. Each time you learn how to do something wrong you get closer to learning how to do it right - this is the fundamental tenet of self-learning. Along the way you'll usually figure out the reason why it went wrong, and be able to avoid making similar mistakes in the future.
It isn't failure, its learning the pitfalls and fuckups that all of us learned. It is impossible to do it all right the first time.
This is incredibly true. Nearly everyone I've worked with who has had a game job as their first real job has been a total wanker.
Oh really? i'd have thought most people would have been pretty thrilled to get their first job in the industry.
And yeah ive been working so i can pay through tafe and uni.
Can confirm that it sucks.
Welcome to polycount!
Damn I only had one job my entire life... fail perspective.