5 months ago, I had finished all of my college assignments, gained a good portfolio, and left Nescot College for good. I ended on a high note as well by getting a Merit for my Higher National Certificate and Diploma for Creative Media (Games and VFX) at Nescot College.
I started in 2016, I applied for media-related courses, my end goal at Nescot was to get into an HND course for Creative Media there and get great grades and a good portfolio that I'll show and use when applying for the Creative Industries in the near future.
During the past few months, I've been "burned out" from portfolio work as I was studying, and learning at Nescot College for a good 6 years of my life. Lately, however, I've been getting back into productivity and have been learning/studying game development courses online through Udemy academy.
As of writing this, I am currently learning the Unreal Engine 5 Beginners course, and so far it has been great! As someone who used UE4 from the last academic year, I noticed similarities and things I'm familiar with alongside the new elements brought into UE5. Namely the Nanite lighting and Lumen lighting engine.
In the meantime, however, I am going to take a year (and by a stretch maybe... a few MORE months on top of that too) to study and learn new things. Since I don't have access and lack funds to buy and use Autodesk Maya, Substance Painter, NukeX, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Photoshop. I'll have to look at alternative (and free) software to use and learn from. One software I have in mind is Blender.
What is Blender? Blender is a 3D software in which you can produce assets for video games, visual effects (VFX), and animations. Blender has a variety of tools and uses it offers for artists such as 3D Modelling, UV mapping, texturing, drawing, animation, match movements, rendering, etc.
As someone who's used Autodesk Maya for 4 years, Blender as software is something I've always been keen and eager to try out although didn't seize the opportunity to use it. Furthermore, I have a gut feeling that there will be a (steep) learning curve when I do learn and work on Blender. Eventually, I will change this and begin using Blender by producing a simple asset or two. What I have in mind is following online tutorials and starting off with beginner-level things.
I'd like to make a blog series on my journey with Blender. After all, one of the job roles I aspire to be is a 3D modeler or 3D artist.
Whilst I don't have any particular 3D artists or modelers that inspire me. I do, however, have particular art styles or forms of 3D models that I love and inspire me to replicate art styles those being:
Hyperstylised
Low Poly
Simplistic
Realism
Manga/Anime
Every couple of months, I will create a model on Blender with the process of pipelines for creative assets.
Setting Blender aside, I'd love to get back into game development and creating game design documents again (alas I do have a couple of game ideas but haven't gotten the mechanics fleshed out or whatnot). I've considered picking up where I left off on the game project I did on my last academic year from Nescot in Unreal Engine. And lastly, go back into reviewing games. From first impressions to overall reviews.
I have a couple of games in mind that I want to begin writing up and reviewing.
With that said, I am now waiting to do my graduation day which is coming soon. I will blog about this also as a milestone in achivements.