Beau's CG Progress Thread

After watching @jlampel 's lighting video I've been meaning to make this thread. This is long overdue so this is going to be a loonnnnnnng post.

Starting Out

I actually started on CGCookie back in 2016 with absolutely no background in 3D software at all. The very first thing I ever made was from watching Josh Maul's stuffed elephant tutorial. 

I ended up making a rabbit, the UVs were a mess, the lighting was abysmal, and trying to learn blender on 2.7 initially gave me splitting headaches. 

Around this time I also did the pancake hobo tutorial which went over materials in 2.7.  @theluthier said the word Fresnel maybe 100 times. It was a really enjoyable video, and I'd really like to try this again in 2.92.  (Man, look at all those fireflies)

Grad School Photogrammetry Days

Shortly after joining CGCookie I started my MA in archaeology. With my new found interest in 3d modeling I decided to fuse it with my MA by delving into how 3D capture could be used in archaeology. This resulted in an absurd amount of work being done with laser scan, RTI (Reflectance Transmission Imaging), and photogrammetry.

I ended up mostly using photogrammetry because it has a wild number of benefits over laser scan., but the geometry is often a bit lackluster.

With cell phone cameras becoming more and more powerful, anyone can capture 3d geometry anywhere they go, For example, these petroglyphs on the island of Montserrat, which are down a rocky ravine that would be extremely hard to get equipment to.

Petroglyph Model: https://skfb.ly/6UoXx 

Toward the end of my MA I started to find time to play with Blender again, and bumbled my way through making a sheep. The geometry is woeful but I still kind of like it.

Sheep: https://skfb.ly/6YnpI

Post-Grad: I have Time Again! 

After finally graduating at the end of 2018, I found myself working a lot , but found time to watch a few more CGcookie videos.

Tried my hand at working with anime style characters but was struggling with materials and got sidetracked. Never finished smoothing out these animations, or making the materials. 

Not being able to figure out my toon materials led me to try out substance painter -- which is super cool and has its place, but I really don't care much for realism.

Did the eye tutorial, and that's when I felt like things were finally starting to click. 

More Contemporarily

So fast forward a bit and it's around now and I've been going through the learning flows starting at the VERY beginning, and it has been SO. REWARDING. Everyone wants to hop right in and make cool stuff immediately, and that's what I tried to do all those years ago, but in doing so I really deprived myself of a good foundation. Just from working through the 2.8 videos, I feel considerably more adequate with 3D modeling.

Did the maple scene, and that was awesome. So awesome I wanted to do it again but going AWOL.

Jammed out with the workflow and skewed it way more toon and had a blast doing it. 

Sculpted a shark

Did the room tutorial using my real life office as source material and was like " man, my office is so empty". 

Then I watched Jonathan's lighting course and was like, "Well shit, I think I understand all of these crazy render settings that used to just be moonspeak to me. Let's relight this empty ass room"!

Then I did the treasure chest, before signing up for the 2021 collab. 

PHEW!

All caught up.

Thank you anyone who took the time to scroll through my slightly abbreviated last 5 years of CG. I promise I'll post more frequently so this doesn't happen again.