Rossco

Hey guys, Not been on here in a while or done any 3D work for a whole come to think of it! But I have a placement for 3 months as a CGI Artist designing photorealistic interior environments. Gotta use Blender though which I've never used before so just after some tips or advice on which books or tutorials are best to help me learn?

Wow, nice work Anaardvark! My crit would be that some of the chrome items are maybe too shiny? It's difficult to put my finger on it but honestly it's great. I too thought the first shot was a real photo for a second. 3 years is a long time Mr Retroid! Take your time and enjoy it. Don't rush into having to have something done for a few days time. Even just go wild with polys to begin with to help you get into it. Next generation consoles can handle the polys!!

Nice work! Let us know how you get on with it then.

Yeah, I've looked at a few tutorials and people seem to clear the history alot. Why is that? Is that just clearing the undo slots or something? I used Maya for some UVing at Dare actually for a few days and got on fairly well with it so we'll see how that goes when I finish the model in the next few days. Obviously it's taking me a while to model this thing because I'm learning as I go but I'm enjoying it. Should definitely be a help to have portfolio pieces in both Max and Maya. What dev you moved to now, are you allowed to say? Is it a good thing you've got a new job or a bad thing? To be honest, I dont think this is possible. Every time I look at the QA roles they ask for specific qualifications relating to software engineering/comp sci, etc and require you to know all these weird testing, bugfinding problems I've never even heard of. It seems like it's a lot more specialised position than it was in years gone by. Anyone got some cool renders of recent work or anything to show?

Started teaching myself Maya this afternoon. Not too bad so far. Some things just seem weird and backwards compared to Max but so far so good. Working on an asset which I'll take into Mudbox next to get up to scratch on that too. Really interested in all the new 3D painting features in the 2012 edition. I haven't done it at all before but it looks like a complete change to how you go about texturing for the better.

Yeh I totally know what you mean but I just had a quick scan at QA jobs and they seem to want software engineers/programmers who know a variety of coding skills. It's something I will look at if in several months say I'm still sitting here without any luck but I'm determined to get in somewhere as an artist as difficult as I know it is. Waiting to hear about a few temp things right now so fingers crossed.

Cheers guys. I've been applying constantly for the last few weeks with no luck now. Started working my way through the gamedevmap website for companies in the UK at least. I really don't wanna go down another route by doing QA, etc but even that is pretty hard to get into now is it not? I'm sure I've seen of loads of developers asking for specifics related to QA including programming degrees which obviously I don't possess! It's soul destroying this, 1 month unemployed and I'm already going crazy!

*tumbleweed* Hey all. 5 months here without a post. Used to be so busy! Took part in Dare to be Digital over the summer. Didn't win the main award but did get the Intel Visual Adrenaline award for most visually appealing game which was nice. Here's the trailer for our game, The Lost Memories. http://youtu.be/nNOPKgKLHxU It was a 3D adventure game with a side scrolling and underwater level as well. I was lead 3D artist so everything in 3D was modelled/textured by myself apart from character models. And some screenshots: Overall the experience was amazing. Would do it again 100 times if I could. It was quite difficult as I joined one of the foreign teams rather than entering with my friends but you met so many cool people there and everyone got on together so it was a great summer. But HARD work. The last week or two, I was doing constant 18-20 hour shifts to get everything finished on time. I know there are a few people who frequent this thread who are still at uni so I would say look out for this next year when the applications open around February/March and get yourself a team. You meet so many people from the industry as well who give you so much advice and the general experience just improves your skills dramatically too. Still struggling to get a job though, I've been applying like crazy since we finished about a month ago and you either don't hear back at all or get told you have no experience so can't offer you anything. Really disheartening. Just working on a new piece now though to beef my portfolio up. Since I learned a good bit of UDK during Dare I'm going to make a scene in that. All modelled in Max of course. Going for a small Wild West town. Just drawing up plans the last few days and doing research and it's already going to be a big task! How's everyone else getting on?

Cheers Asura, I'll have a look for that. In other news though... I got into Dare to be Digital as the Scottish Ambassador for the Indian team!! I even visit the team in India for a week before too. So excited. Can't wait. Hopefully this is the stepping stone to a job finally.

Excellent thanks very much bud. I had a quick browse through one of the PDFs there which was like 50 pages long and seemed quite imformative. I was going to look into VRay too but no point, I don't want to be amazing at rendering, I just want to be able to show off my environment work well enough and no more. It's not a skill that would come in useful working in a games environment anyway I imagine. Been tinkering with UDK again this week. Imported a model into it with a WIP 2048x2048 texture I'm working on and it was a blurry mess when I jumped in to run around it. It's as if the texture resolution was being capped at 512x512 or something? Anyone know what would cause that? I want to learn it sufficiently to be able to set up a scene with lighting, skybox etc to take screenshots of my work for portfolio. Think it might be better learning something like that for renders rather than doing it in Max. Would be an extra skill to boast.

Got an interview for Dare to be Digital again! This time to be one of the Scottish Ambassadors joining a foreign team. Sooooo wanna get in this time.

Cool thanks. I'm not into character modelling so that won't be a problem for me. Never heard of the relax tool before though so I'll need to check that out cheers. Gonna fire off my application for this year's Dare to be Digital competition tonight. I wanted to finish this piece this week to include it with my application but I've just not had the time to unfortunately so hopefully that won't harm my chances too much.

Yeah you make very good points thanks. If anything, highest pixel density to larger areas but I think I'll aim to keep a constant pixel density across the whole thing then and see how I manage. You say about rescaling the UVs after but wouldn't you make your maps to cater for your UVs. I guess you might want to change something after you've mapped it though and realise it doesn't look right. Also, it's acceptable to overlap polygons on your maps isn't it? For instance, having the left and right sides of a building flipped on the map and on top of each other to display the same texture? I'm just wanting to try and get things done right from the get go with Max and do some proper objects that I can import into Unreal for realtime screen captures for my portfolio. Cheers (No criticism taken, I understand it's a bog standard building of which there would be dozens in any level of a game and not a fancy centrepiece. Gotta start somewhere. )

Yeah it was dire as expected. The "How to write a CV" section was identical to last year. It was actually the same 3 people answering the questions I believe. I went there kinda hoping for a little bit more but was let down again. It seemed alot busier last year, there were dozens of people surrounding the RTW section so it just seemed empty this time and the whole atmosphere was different. If Outplay hit the ground running soon and reach that 150 mark in the next year or so it'll be fantastic for Scotland and obviously convince more devs to set up here too. In other news, been a bit busy so just started unwrapping my model properly today. Quick question on the WIP. The difference in resolution between the main walls and the windows. Is that acceptable or should you really aim to keep it similar in detail level? I'm unsure on whether the difference will be noticeable or not when textured.

Hehe no worries. Starting unwraping now... Hope it goes well.

The second picture is a screenshot from Band of Brothers of the building for reference. Maybe he thought that was my work? I wish!!

I'm not sure I follow you sorry. You said the texturing on the roof is really strong but I haven't started texturing yet!? :-S

A wee update on what I'm working on. It's a building from an episode of Band of Brothers. It's always stuck in my mind and I've wanted to do a wee piece on it for a while so what better a time than now? Some of it isn't exact copy as it's hard to work out sizes and details from the shots but for the most part it's fairly close with some changes where I had my own ideas. Originally set out with keeping it under 5000 tris as I wanted to have some more detailed sections in it but not over the top. I'm on 4,000 just now and still have a basic gutter to do and some loose cables hanging off the wall. Then aiming to unwrap it all this week with a 2048x2048 texture which will be great fun trying to do in Max for the first time! Any opinions and criticisms are welcome.

To be honest, any of the good ones I find seem to be Vray and not just standard Max which is annoying. I just want the basics to get started and actually light some of my work so I can get some renders out. Seen this today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12803144 22 jobs in Edinburgh to work on APB: Reloaded. Can't find any other news of it, no vacancies being advertised anywhere yet as far as I can see.

I had to tell someone this... It's embarrassing but funny. I was modelling away last night and ended up hiding the layer the camera was on just so I didn't have to see the camera. Modelling away some more, fiddling about with already created shapes, not creating any more. Then this morning I started up and went to add a new shape and it was invisible. The transform gizmo was there and I could see it was creating sizes and letting me select and rotate but I just couldn't see the shape. I thought I'd glitched it or something as I was mucking about installing various plugins, etc beforehand. Spent hours fiddling about trying to find a setting I'd turned off, googling it to see if it was a common problem. Even reinstalled everything Autodesk related. Had pretty much given up then it just dawned on me out of the blue that I had hidden the camera earlier and I was still on the same hidden layer. D'oh! Oh well, only about 3-4 hours wasted!

Eventually getting somewhere with Max now! I'm beginning to enjoy modelling again now which is great as the last few weeks trying to learn has been a right pain. Started work on a small portfolio piece today. Gonna try and get it finished in a week in time for Game in Scotland recruitment fair next Saturday. Although, like last year, I don't reckon it'll be worth the effort as no-one was actually hiring and the big guns weren't there. Except from Realtime Worlds but we shall not be seeing them this year. What I do need help on though is lighting. I have no idea where to start and can't really see any decent simple tutorials to just show me the basics.

Yeah I looked at XSI but seeing as all the jobs I would be looking to go for were split between Max and Maya I went for Max. Not seen one video game company advertising positions that use XSI to be honest.

Nice work on the job! Exciting new chapter for ya. Had a wee look at your blog and even the links you mentioned for normal maps. Thats the kind of thing I need as I'm really struggling to find good resources to teach myself 3ds max. It's so difficult to find time to sit down and learn when your working 9-5 anyway but I've had a holiday this week and got some more done. I'm still finding it hard to get to grips with it. Modelling a fairly low poly truck right now which is taking ages, I know if I was doing it in Lightwave I'd be done in hours, not days! But it's fun learning, and I need to do it to get a job. Just a shame it's taking longer than expected as the pressure is on to get a job soon really. Will be keeping an eye out for your blog anyway pal, hope the new job works out for you. A couple of months to relax and get things sorted for the big move.

Yeh seen that, seems a more social gaming developer though. Not really the same kinda talents that would have been lost from RTW?

Anaardvark, good work on the placement and passing 2nd year. I didn't even start trying uni until 3rd and 4th year as we just done 2D animation and lots of random stuff before that and I still got a First so theres plenty time yet to improve as much as you want to. I would definitely focus on texturing skills to get them up to a proper standard and also try to find an exact thing you want to do when you leave uni and work towards that. I shoehorned all my work into the environment modelling aspect as much as I could rather than just doing the same brief as everyone else as that's what I want to get work in.