Never Stop Learning
As with nearly anything you do, be it in life, your job, a hobby, never stop learning. This is the essence of who each of us are. Maybe 25 years ago as a teen in high school I didn’t want to learn because there were so many extracurricular activities to partake in, such as sports and girls.
Now that I am older, a member of the daily workforce I have adopted the adage of “never stop learning.” Maybe 13 months of training at BART got this ingrained in my head because it will still be 3-5 years before there is a “comfort level” in my position.
While not a stated resolution for 2008, I have begun looking into some actual development work. I have stated from day one on Urban Terror, I am on the development team and may use the term, “developer” but outside one, digital photo of a blue rail car, I have not lent any development to Urban Terror. To be honest, I am completely fine with that, as are many of the members with whom I have worked over the years.
Recently, I started looking for online college course, which would help me better myself as a “developer.” Maybe not for Urban Terror, but for future projects that FrozenSand might create. After talking to CrazyButcher and Flash, both of whom worked on Urban Terror I decided to skip paying the money at a junior college and teach myself modeling and animation.
While books will teach you the basics of anything you do, experience and practice are what make you excel. Thanks to a few recommendations from Flash, I picked up a book titled, ‘Modeling a Character in 3DS Max‘ by Paul Steed, former modeler/animator for id Software.
Along with that book (which I have not started, but skimmed through) I bought ‘Introducing 3ds MAX 2008‘ from Autodesk, which will help introduce the basics to 3D Studio Max. I also obtained a copy of “Max” and have begun learning.
To date, since Friday, I have modeled a baby’s mobile (you know that toy that hangs over a baby crib) and animated it. While the scene uses simple primatives (shapes) and no fancy animation it was a nice, simple introduction of what is to come.
Depending on what happens with the current iteration of Urban Terror, I might have a chance to model/animate a weapon or a character. Nonetheless I am excited with the prospects of learning these skills, as well as talking to people like BladeKiller, TwentySeven, Flash, CrazyButcher and others I respect based on their work and work ethics.
