The latest of my burgeoning interests specifically designed so that I’ll never specialize in anything began more recently than my interests in art or game programming. 2023 was the year I started taking online courses in 3D-modelling, and gained an interest in the process. I’d touched it once or twice before, downloading blender and aimlessly trying to understand the interface without any assistance. However, with the help of a starter course by Grant Abbitt I actually started to understand what the buttons did.
My interest was piqued after watching Puss in Boots 2: The Last Wish, the (as of writing) most recent entry in the Shrek universe. The animation techniques the movie utilized intrigued me, so I started looking into rendering styles, how they combined 2D and 3D animation, their active use of framerate as a tool to differentiate between action and story, I could honestly go on and on. It is without a doubt one of the most gorgeous animated movies I’ve seen.
I’ve now spent about a year and a half working on 3D courses and some simple projects in my spare time. I also sat next to someone who I would consider to be one of the best 3D artists in Norway while interning at Qvisten Animation, and worked with him on several projects, over the course of about a year. While I was doing development there, I still picked up a lot of useful tips from him, and we worked together on learning some unreal rendering techniques.
I am by no means an expert still, but I’ve picked up a lot overall in terms of modelling/sculpting, simple rigging and skinning, animation, lighting, camera settings and just general rendering techniques. Starting with a simple low-poly dinosaur, a lighthouse, and a modular dungeon, I’ve now gotten to the point of being able to semi-confidently create environments and characters, UV-editing models, working with material settings and texturing in Unreal and Blender, and overall creating good renders. Most recently, I worked on a 3D model of a product for an online store.
Seeing the powerful tools Unreal has to offer for rendering now, I want to try building some environments and doing some proper animation projects, especially since I’ve worked on games for low-spec devices recently which means I’ve had to actively avoid using the unreasonably good camera, lighting and foliage settings Unreal has even just as its defaults.
Thank you for reading my ramblings yet again!
Folio and Foliage 