Now that I have amassed a large body of work, it's FINALLY time I address rendering them. Turns out, rendering in Arnold is really hard and an arduous process. I think if a game company came to me right now and offered me 100k a year to work on rendering I would still probably jump out of a window. Metal is my big issue and what I'm struggling with right now, at the detriment to all my 3D friends who I'm constantly bugging for help and critiques. Sorry guys. . .
But I just can't understand how to render an object that has metal but also relies on a bump map without having to make two different sets of textures. The internet doesn't seem to be having the same problems, so maybe Arnold just hates me. And if I'm struggling with single props, what's going to happen when I try to export and render the metal spaceship that has all details in the height map without the metal looking grainy and crunchy. If you're reading this years later, I probably still haven't figured it out, so please hit me up.
I think at this point it's a waste of time trying to use Arnold. I'm spending days figuring out rendering in Maya while I try to learn lighting at the same time; meanwhile Aura 2 is sitting in my Unity assets with pretty looking trailers that show off how powerful the lighting system is. But I'm torn between abandoning Maya because it's so difficult, or stay with it because Unity is kind of overwhelming and scary to me. Of all the things I've learned in the past four years of making art for games, the most important is that I cannot rely on the other developers to implement my assets and textures and animations. It was probably very presumptuous of me to automatically expect the developers to do it for me, but I only have a rudimentary knowledge of Unity and things like Github and whenever I needed something implemented it was at a time where I didn't have the luxury of slowing down and learning it.
Well.
Guess who has plenty of time now. This is probably the only time in my entire life that I don't have an excuse NOT to learn it, haha! And I know it's super important in the long run, but I'm also aware that I'm stubborn and I'm going to need a lot of discipline to learn something so technical and hard.
Speaking of discipline, quarantine was kind of kicking my butt, but now that I'm finished with my schoolwork I've seen a drastic increase in my motivation and productivity. My emotions are still all over the place when it comes to consuming any 3D art/game art media; I am either completely demoralized or passionately motivated. I've been reading a lot about motivation and how everyone is starting to realized that motivation doesn't equal productivity and thus doesn't equal success. But a big thing that stood out to me is the idea of self-parenting and tough love. I didn't grow up in a situation that really taught me good parenting and thus I feel really lost when it comes to self-parenting. Let's just lump self-parenting into discipline for right now.
My boyfriend Alex, another 3D artist who prescribes more to a generalist role than games specifically, has helped with the tough love part in all the right ways. Combined with the support from my friends and classmates, I'm being held accountable when I can't do it myself, and a lot of that comes from learning to trust them more. I mean, in the moment I hate it. JUST LET ME BE MISERABLE! But I've been seeing a change in my attitude towards failure and, more importantly, my reaction to it. I've made significant growth since I started college four years ago, but relying more on my classmates/friends/boyfriend has helped me make greater progress towards my emotional intelligence. I feel like my circumstances during development put me way behind everyone else's starting line, but I'm finally managing to catch up (and grow up!)
It's impossible to self-parent if there isn't self-love to begin with, but as I slowly claw my way out of the pit that is my mental instability/illnesses, I've been able to acknowledge my achievements more. Berating myself for failures and not prescribing to the idea of "progress, not perfection," held me back from enjoying the great things that are happening right now. Of course there's passing all my classes, and finishing the games I was working on this semester and, OF COURSE the launch of Table Trenches, but I also found it easier to recover from the really bad days and I think it's one of my greatest accomplishments. I'm working really, really hard; it's time I start recognizing that for myself.
Which brings us back to discipline, and I think I'm doing pretty good so far! I bought a bunch of Udemy courses on things like 3ds Max basics and hair physics in Maya, and once I started them I found it really easy to keep going and keep learning. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say I really LOVE 3D, and as much as the world is going to shit right now, I've been given the opportunity to fall back in love with learning about 3D art without the feeling of it being a chore or succumbing to the irrational fear that everyone else understands it on the first try. I was actually telling myself I'm special because I'm the only one that DOESN'T understand it and there's something uniquely wrong with me. But with learning new things and really digging in deep, I've learned to push past my old habits of motivating myself through negative self-talk and a deep-seeded fear of not being perfect.
I really didn't plan for this to become such a long, rambling post! I think it helps to rationalize my thoughts and hopefully someday I will look back at this and remind myself that even though I still have days where I convince myself that I'm horrible and untalented, I've persevered and realigned the reasons why I'm putting myself through this in the first place. It's not easy, but it's worth it now and it will be worth it in 40 years because I know this is where I want to be. I need to hold on to that.
Um, anyway. . .
I wanted to share progress shots comparing my old and new work, because it helped me zoom out and see how much I've improved in a single year; especially right now when I'm feeling very self-conscious and vulnerable about my work and skill level. I hope that the momentum I'm keeping up will show even better progress over a single summer, and maybe I'll be able to light and render and compose these props correctly by September! (No promises though. Arnold might still prove to be unconquerable! Knock on wood. . .)
Just don't point out the haphazard and awkward lighting, okay? I have no idea what's going on either. . . Just kidding, I need all the critiques I can get, but besides lighting and rendering I think it's starting to look really cool! The world won't be able to handle me once I figure out proper rendering, just wait!
But wait, there's more! Pretty cool tattoo machine, right?
BAM! Please hold your applause until the end.
The textures and height map need a lot of work still, but just figuring out how to important maps correctly into an AiStandardSurface so it actually shows up metallic is a feat in and of itself! Also I added cute little ink wells to balance the composition. Look at me being artsy!
This post is a train wreck, I'm so sorry. I'll be more stable and thoughtful in my next post, I promise!
I mean, I'll give it my best shot anyway.
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