Personal Development in Specialist Pathway 
27th/28th February 2013    

27th

The first lesson we created a Powerpoint Presentation to consider options for the end of year project. The Powerpoint had to include seven slides -

-  Slide 1 included What I hoped to gain from the end of year Project and why.

- Slide 2 identified five existing skills I would like to develop and five skills I hoped to gain as part of the project.

- Slide 3 showed areas of research I would have to investigate to meet skill expectations, like looking into industries.

- Slide 4 was Academic research, this research included three different types of sources books, magazines and internet. At least five texts, four magazines and three internet sources.  

- Slide 5 showed five specific sources.

- Slide 6 was about resources i would need to complete the module.

- Slide 7 was my ideas.  

The first slide I explained that I wanted to bulk up my portfolio, with interviews coming and currently putting together my portfolio I wished I had more work. This project is a good opportunity to get more high standard pieces of work in there.

The second slide I explained five skills I wanted to develop which was modeling, texturing, Photoshop skills, Rendering and lighting. The reason why I picked these areas because they all could do with improvement. My modeling has improved significantly since I started this course but my models need to be polygon clean, my last character I created was actually quite clean I just need to be more consistent. My texturing is terrible, definatly needs improvement above all else. Photoshop goes hand in had with texturing, my skills do need improving but I do know how to use it. I need more experience in rendering and lighting, so far I have been lucky with my renders and lighting.

The skills I hoped to gain was Sculpting, Normal/Displacement mapping. I've recently started using Mudbox which I have mentioned before and I do really enjoy using it. I have already made a few models in Mudbox and I want to use with this project. I tried creating normal and displacement maps during my last project and I could not get them to work. I created them in Mudbox and transferred it over to Maya but they failed. I may try and do it again during this project.  

The third slide was identifying areas of research I will be looking into. I included games industry, the reason being I may be linking this project to games, I also decided to include films, I like the high poly models and the detail which is another possible idea for this project. Architectural visualization is another area I could look into, i've done it before and I quite enjoyed it, this would give me the best opportunity to improve my rendering and lighting skills.  

The fourth slide I included texts, magazines and internet sources.

Books -

•Photoshop for 3D Artists: Volume 1

•Digital Modeling -William Vaughan, 2012. Digital Modeling. 1 Edition. New Riders. -0321700899

•Game Character Development: Digital Sculpting for the Realtime Artist

•The Game Artists Guide to Maya  

•Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques for Artists Mike de la Flor, 2010. Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques for Artists. 1 Edition. Focal Press. – 978-0-240-81203-8  

•Character Modeling - , 2005. Character Modeling: Digital Artists Master Class. Edition. Ballistic Publishing. - 1921002115

•Character Modeling 2 - , 2010. d'artiste Character Modeling 2: Digital Artists Master Class. Edition. Ballistic Publishing. – 1921002352 

•Character Design - Gonzalo Ordonez Arias, 2011. D'artiste Character Design: Digital Artists Master Class. 1 Edition. Ballistic Publishing. 1921002913      

The first book is about Photoshop for 3D artists, I picked this book to basically help me with improving

my Photoshop skills. I chose Digital Modeling because to help improve my modeling the same reason a

applies to The Game Artists Guide to Maya and Character Modeling 1 and 2. Game Character

Development and Character Design are to help me with developing ideas for creating characters, 

character design is also an area I am looking at the do on this project. And finally Digital Sculpting with 

Mudbox, I have only looked at one book about Mudbox and it gave me great help in understanding on 

how to use Mudbox. Reading another book on the program will hopefully advance my skills.     

One point that was picked up on was that I had no theory, all the books are tutorials but I do have a 

book on New Media which has a chapter on photorealism and explains the theory behind it. 

Magazines -   

3D World 

Edge 

3D Artist 

All three magazines are similar especially 3D World and 3D Artist, Edge is more games focused but 

will still be helpful as they look into the industry in depth. 3D Artist and 3D World are great for 3D 

techniques and tutorials in 3D, they cover a variety of 3D programs like Autodesk Maya.   

Internet Sources -  

—Its Art - IT'S ART - Your CG source of inspiration and learning. 2013. IT'S ART - Your CG source of inspiration and learning. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.itsartmag.com/. [Accessed 27 February 2013].

—Concept Art World - Concept Art World . 2013. Concept Art World . [ONLINE] Available at:http://conceptartworld.com/. [Accessed 27 February 2013].

—3D world - 3D World - The Magazine for 3D Artists. 2013. 3D World - The Magazine for 3D Artists. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.3dworldmag.com/. [Accessed 27 February 2013].

Its Art is a great website for inspiration, they show a large amount of artists showreels and tutorials 

which would help me with anything I wanted to do in 3D and character design. It would also give me a 

standard to aim at. Concept Art World is a gallery full of concept art all relating to games. films and 

adverts. It has some really inspiring work on there, and a great website to gain inspiration.