This is the thread for my progress on the Backhoe Collaboration.
Ask me questions, give suggestions and post some images that may help my progress.
Thanks
Yeah, I know a few tricks, but they always depend on the circumstances.
If all those cables are curves (and not geo), it will be easier to rig the curves with hooks to some bones.
If it's a cable or something that an animator won't need to animate, you just need to figure out a way to make it behave w/o the animator needing to touch it. So the solution could be really simple,...or super complicated haha.
Drilled some holes and added the Zerk fittings, (grease fittings, to us earthlings).
And I think we are done with the swing frame assembly.
Looks really beautifull! I enjoy seeing all these details like the grease fittings 👍!
A person who has a mental illness and is out on the street "holding hands" with an imaginary Jennifer Lopez, she isn't really there and yet he feels her, says she is his girlfriend, he is genuinely happy to have her, he goes with her everywhere, she loves him back, they put him in an MRI machine and all his brain waves have the reading of a fully happy person... is he happy?
jakeblended started! Seriously this is a piece of hardsurface modeling heaven.Thank you @theluthier . This collaboration has been a blessing for me to really focus on my modeling skills, with not having to go to work from March until December, (and possibly another 6 months after that, but I will decide that when the time comes, and if the DOG is done by then). It has also given me the believe that maybe I could do this for real, like as a career. Do you think I am at that stage yet? And where do I start? I thought Blender Market would be good place to start with some extra pennies.
Tremendous work, @adrian2301 !
I'm right there with you. I'm in the middle of a momentary hardware setback right now; but I'm hyped for the future. I've always been kind of hoping to turn what I'm learning into a marketable skill since the beginning, but I was also worried for the longest time that that might be a pipe-dream, that I might get "good" but not really good "enough" that anyone would be willing to pay for something I made. However, the last couple of projects I've worked on with you guys have convinced me that it's a realistic goal. I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but I definitely think it's within reach. And I definitely think it's within your reach too, if you're not there already.
@adrian2301 jakeblended There isn't a magical moment where you know your skills are professional-quality. The primary realization comes when you first land a professional gig, complete it, and get paid for it. That's when you know you know. Secondarily it helps to hear a career 3D artist tell you have what it takes. So hear it from me:
You BOTH have pro-level modeling skills. I know you could succeed in a studio context, a freelance context, or a passive-income context. The piece of the puzzle to make it happen has less to do with your technical skills and more to do with standing out in the crowd; being noticed.
These days 3D modelers are a dime a dozen which means high-caliber skills is just a foot in the door. You can check that one off your list. Next on the list is gaining an audience with the internet and thus a studio's attention and/or clientele.
Take Luis Burdallo for example. According to linkedin he's been doing freelance audio equipment renders professional for more than 10 years. There is absolutely nothing ground-breaking about his modeling. It's just good and accurate. Easily you and other DOG POUNDERS can model same as him. But it's the presentation that catches my eye and makes me hit the follow button. And I guarantee it's the presentation that has fueled his decade-long career.
Similarly Karol Miklas is an established vehicle modeler. You can definitely model vehicles like his. But it's his presentation that stands out and no-doubt has earned him a successful career.
If you really want to pursue a career in computer graphics, it's valuable to decide on a specific avenue. I'll mention 3 main avenues:
1. Passive income through 3D modeling is super intriguing to me and involves the least risk. Blender Market, Gumroad, Second Life, etc. This video from JL Mussi turned me on to the potential of this:
2. The freelance avenue is arguably the most dependent on standing out in the crowd that is the internet. For someone with no professional connections and only their portfolio to showcase their skills, you can imagine how important standing out is.
I've often daydreamed about a full-time freelance career but personally am intimidated by the uncertainty of work drying up. However I dabble fairly regularly in part-time freelancing as supplemental income. 90% of all my freelance work has come from professional connections.
3. The studio avenue is the most traditional context imo: Working at a building with a team of co-workers, consistent paychecks, insurance, etc. In many ways this offers the most job security (though cg studios aren't that secure compared to other industries but that's another discussion). Landing a job at a studio is a little weird in that it's usually a mixture of standing out and/or benefiting from a recommendation. I didn't have any connections upon graduating from college and leaned 100% on my portfolio standing out and landing a studio gig. But a lot of my co-workers didn't have stunner portfolios and earned positions through networking or resume.
I fear I'm rambling a bit at this point...hopefully there's something in this wall of text to chew on. I really should distill these thoughts into an organized livestream and/or article.
Wow!! Thank you!! , Thank you for the positive feed back, it means so much coming from a real modelling legend such as you @theluthier . And thank you for taking the time to respond with such an in depth reply, It's extremely useful information and food for thought on the next step. By no means are you rambling, you could go on for another 30 minutes and you would still have my attention. When you finish your live streams short, ha ha ha, at 2 1/2 to 3 hours , as you have a couple of times recently, I could watch and listen another 3 hours, because everything you teach us is relevant, informative and valuable, with a spot of humour thrown in for free. Thank you again...... for everything.
I could watch and listen another 3 hours, because everything you teach us is relevant, informative and valuable, with a spot of humour thrown in for free.
You may not know how much this means for me to read! One of my biggest fears is speaking to a group of people about something that doesn't interest them. Much more to do it for an extended period of time! This feedback helps a lot. Thanks :)
I think feedback is important for everyone. But I can only imagine what it's like, on a live stream, when everyone can see you but you can't see them, you have no idea if anyone is even interested, especially when the chat is off topic.
Yeah I don't know how Kent manages the livestreams, as if tutorials aren't hard enough. I would just freeze and words wouldn't come out of my mouth if I had a camera pointed at me and there is supposed to be people there that I don't see.
You know what I think is also important in work that is for real... when we are doing the DOG or working on our own stuff, we do it because we feel like it and we do it at our own rhythm and pace. But when is client work, there is this frustrating lack of authority or control, it's not your timing or pacing, you develop this insecurity because they always say "oh is a ten second animation" or "oh is just one simple model" only to have that initial request turn on its head and the job suddenly becomes a 3 minutes animation and there's dozens of models and "oh you remember we said it was due in one month? yeah need it finished in 3 days now."
So a capacity to adapt is super important and also handling frustrations, and a lot of times your modeling ability takes the passenger seat and the job depends not on how good, but on how fast can you model good enough (Like Kent always says). In other words you can model something amazing, but if you can only do it at your own pacing and it takes you 2 months, then maybe that isn't enough for the real world, crazy under stress, much faster circumstances and lack of control, money driven client work. I really hate that by the way, every time freelance work comes by me I always have to sigh, take a deep breath and try not to listen to the excuses my brain comes up with, because I never want to take it. But I always do and after an intense period of hating what I'm going through, in the end most of the time it's worth it.
Disclaimer though, that is probably my perception on the whole thing, perhaps lots of people don't have that experience and they love it. I wouldn't know because I don't know anyone in real life that does 3D or freelance.
dostovel I've definitely had my share of lame / draining freelance gigs. Everything you've said from sudden shifts in job parameters, rapidly shortened deadlines, and even slow payments (from a previously reliable client at that). I would never say it's an easy thing to get into and be successful. BUT now that I'm years into it generating some extra spending cash, I end up grateful that my skills make it an option for me.
I think navigating freelance positively is a matter of weathering the initial storm of questionable / bad clients. After the first year an artist knows how to go about freelance (pricing themselves, negotiating, standing their ground, communicating with clients, delivering results) and SHOULD have found few *good* clients along the way. That handful of good clients I keep working with year after year and occasionally pick up a new client if the job (pay) is good enough. In fact it's common that my good clients refer me to other good clients. The power of networking is real.
It's not for everyone though. My brother did a couple freelance jobs earlier in his career and he hated it; never tried again.
@theluthier Yes to networking, it's the only thing that has ever worked for me and I didn't even seek it out. When I was learning Blender on CG Cookie lots of years ago, a friend convinced me to do some work since see had seen my progress and he was sure I could do that job. I freaked out, I told him no, that's a bad idea, I don't know if I could do it for real, I'm just having fun playing around with the software, but he pressed on and convinced me to do the job. It was some archviz of a hospital that was being constructed. After that was done, that job led directly to another, those people referred to me to other people, then some other friend saw the freelance work I had done and offered me other freelance work and those people referred to me to other people and so on and so forth.
It was just a snow ball effect, and each and every one of those jobs were a nervous freakout, but saying yes to all of that when my brain kept saying no, allowed me to fully pay my house loan with the bank, debt free, and freelance gigs was at least 55% of the reason I was able to do that. Also at the beginning I almost didn't learn Blender, because there wasn't any good tutorials out there, explanations were so bad in sites like Lynda and in the beginning when the learning curve is the hardest it's easy to just loose motivation, so I was like meh. But then I found CG Cookie and my interest was rekindled when I saw Jonathan Williamson and Kent's tutorials, so I was like uhumm, here it is, now I'm beginning to learn something.
Anyways, since every single freelance work I've ever taken I have endured it more than enjoy it, I've often wonder if maybe is it that I don't like this work, I mean I do it, the whole 3D pipeline is so much fun when I'm doing stuff for myself, but when it comes to actual work, I've never seen people describe the work as something to do because it's work and you get payed and you need to make a living, you know the normal stuff....but people talk about the work as god sent, oh my god I love this! my dream job! you have to work work work 24/7, I give my soul to the studio, here studio! take my life!, I'm sooo passionate, I'm not being exploited because I love it. So I'm always left wondering if people do that only on social media because that's what social media does, you sell you life as amazing but no one ever sees your behind the scenes.
So is it me? Does everyone genuinely enjoys it or are people really just pompous on social media? I've worked on a couple of movies and TV shows here and they were the worst experiences ever. Production people are scumbags, jesus christ, every single time everyone's ego was extremely bloated and the pressure is enormous one everyone, they exploit you to unnecessary lengths, and yet you put on YouTube and I see everyone that works on "The Industry" telling similar tales but they justify it, they say is the way it is and they love it and they wouldn't have it any other way, that you are just lazy if you don't tolerate how the job is. I don't get it, how are they not protesting? Most people must be wearing themselves out to such unhealthy lengths. Yet I'm going to try it out, I'll look for a job and see what happens. I hope the experience will be ok because it would be really bad to find out late in life that what you do for a living isn't what you actually like. But I guess that happens to like 90% of the world population.
but people talk about the work as god sent, oh my god I love this! my dream job! you have to work work work 24/7, I give my soul to the studio, here studio! take my life!, I'm sooo passionate, I'm not being exploited because I love it.
This is a major misconception within CG imo. For so long it's been seen as a "how lucky am I to do CG for a living" - by the artists themselves as well as studios / clients imo - which has led to an imbalanced industry, underpaid artists for amazing work that's in extremely high demand. That just doesn't makes sense.
There's many facets to the discussion but specifically about being lucky to do CG is true but can be, and is, dangerously misunderstood. I certainly feel lucky to have made this my profession. But that gratitude is not compensation and thus NOT a reason to accept low rates or accept long hours, unpaid overtime, or ridiculous deadlines. But we see those things happen all the time in the industry. Personally I think the artists are to blame as much as clients / studios. We're the ones who started accepting the bad deals our of misguided gratitude for doing what we love professionally. As far as I can tell artists in the industry need to unify (unionize probably), stnad their ground and set things right or the industry will always have these problems.
Apart from that is the personal attitude each artists feel toward professional CG work. I've always said that my main motivation to join CGC and teach Blender full time was that it allows me to create what I want. This remains 90% true but I've also had to teach topics I wasn't interested in. And despite it being CG-related, it might as well have been bagging groceries or busing tables at a restaurant. "Not that there's anything wrong with that!" -Seinfeld
Meaning that the tedious monotony of every job every performed by human being is very possible to CG jobs. In fact you can count on it as an absolute. If people on social media make it sound like it's 100% euphoric to turn their passion into their career, understand that's just how they feel in the moment. Every pro has those moments where a model turned out just right or their project earned top row on artstation or the TV show they worked on won an emmy. So many jobs don't have the potential for such moments of deep personal reward - THAT's what makes me grateful CG is my career despite tons of unsatisfying just-a-job moments. Even when I think "in another life I would have pursued [insert hobby] as a career" I inevitably step back and remember the rewarding moments.
That said I don't doubt that people try CG and don't feel the same reward. Of course it's not for everyone. But dostovel for as long as I've watched your CG journey couple with the quality of your skills...I can't imagine you being one of those people. You have what it takes to be a pro and have rewarding moments that outweigh the monotonous ones. So personally I'm not convinced of this:
I've often wonder if maybe is it that I don't like this work,
Honestly I sense that you're believing a myth: It's possible to 100% love your job day after day. This cannot be true and thus comes down to "which job can I have more rewarding moments than disappointing moments?" CG is that for me and I truly think it could - will - be that for you.
All work has it's pro's and con's in my experience, but I haven't worked in CG yet!!. I read comments like this and I am more inclined to go towards the passive income route, at least to begin with, and then maybe get requests for specific models and freelance once I'm out there.
Does everyone genuinely enjoys it or are people really just pompous on social media?
Probably a mix of both. Social media is about getting noticed and potential work, so some people will post anything relating to CG just for that reason, but a positive post will attract the right response, we hope. I think some people can handle the difficult clients better than others, probably through experience and take the rough with the smooth. You you will always find those people, in any job, that will try and take advantage of others.
So the morale of this story would be:
"Try and keep the roughness less than 0.5, and bump up the glossy". ©2020 @adrian2301
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts, the positive and the negative, It all helps with the awareness of potential issues.
For the record, I agree with @theluthier , Iv'e seen your demo reel dostovel , and other work you have posted on CGC, and you never fail to impress.
