is there a grand syllabus of things self taught 3d artists should go through?
polycounter lvl 7
this may sound vague or 'how long is a piece of string'
just wondering if there is a website somewhere which lists in all the things you should learn.
rather than focusing on software preferences, Im interested in actual universal techniques we should know about.
for example, I have spent the last year focusing on hard surface modelling. Yesterday someone suggested I look at UV straightening, which was a concept completely new to me. I was aware of some of the aspects of it but I didnt realise that it was a thing, someone else mentioned hard edges, which is something I use when making high poly models but again I learnt it from watching livestreams and I didnt know it was called that.
other example of something I just found out about is greeble,
so rather than randomly discovering things to learn about i think a list of things in order, would be ideal.
I don't think the polycount wiki covers this.
any suggestions?
Replies
I'm pretty sure if you follow some beginner friendly tutorials (from modelling to texturing) then those concepts should naturally be explained.
This is a great example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9wgKy-F1Rw
To discover the answers to almost any question, you only need two tools. Hopefully you learned them in grade school. First is the scientific method. This shows you how to ask questions the right way and how to factor in ignorance so you don't think you've found an answer when you haven't. Second is basic algebra. You don't need to memorize the equations or the multiplication table. You just need to understand the basic logic. If I know x, how do I isolate it to figure out it's real value? This is the basic logic that will guide your google searching and your troubleshooting. Very simple but powerful stuff. It's all you need. Two tools to do every job. Beyond that, you only need patience.
if you make a thread and share you process for making your art, people will chime in and help guide you if it looks like you are doing anything really crazy. You are not totally alone.
90% of the knowledge you'll need is indeed there on the wiki. the rest is just scattered around, but google makes it pretty easy to find. If you hard surfaced modeled for a year without learning the common practices of the craft, shame on you. You need to spend more time studying. Learn everything you can from others first before you go into the woods on your own. You remember that kid who went into the alaska wilderness, starved, and then died of poisoning from a bad plant? Yeah, somebody wrote in a book about that plant. Don't eat this plant. It's poisonous. He just failed to read it.
Fine art basics of design (this will involve composition, value theory, etc.)
Still life drawing
Observational drawing
Figure Drawing
Color theory
Painting
this is the entire problem in a nutshell right there. You've got to stop saying "I know," and start with "I don't know."
You can skim through the parts of a tutorial that are redundant. But there is always something useful to learn. Maybe in an entire 5 hours long tutorial its all stuff you already know, but in one key part the instructor mentions something about UV's you didnt know. So you go and you google that. And all of a sudden you realize you were missing a major chunk of knowledge.
This is how you self learn. You just fucking eat everything. Like a whale. And thhen you let your work filter out the bad from the good. And you come here and other kind and generous people help you filter more.
Uhh, you said you spend 1 year focusing on hard surface modelling, but you didnt know basic stuff like uv straighening and hard edges, meanwhile 1 beginner tutorial explaines most of the stuff you need for hardsurface modelling and you still think "I know how to all of those things".
Everyone knows how to model a knife and I'm pretty sure most of the poeple know what is the process of low,high modelling, unwrapping, but thats not the reason I linked the video.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_Baking
It tends to turn into a big undertaking, but I suggest you do the same. By writing things down, you quickly realize where your gaps are. Which focuses the search.
For games?...here at PC, of course!
...and if the technicalities of the thing are hanging you up, try spending some time prowling around the Technical Forums because you'll find a vertible encyclopedic knowledge base just ripe for picking, covering most if not all aspects relevant to games dev.
EDIT:
Do you actually care about what people think?!
Just concentrate on what matters too you and execute that rather than expend uneccessary energies pondering your popularity status.
As you work on projects or new terms comes up, run it through the wiki and see what connects and relates.
Don't do it for others. Do it for yourself. Later, if it's good enough, THEN you could share it.
A thought process you should consider as well is creating your own wiki and/or writing things down to further solidify technical concepts in your mind. This can range from simple free hand, to flow charts (like I created in that graph), or to other methods such as a kanban style board to see how various functions line up simultaneously.