Benjamin's Blog

Well, I watched it, the video that is- and I agree to a point. What I'd have to stress and preface this with is I had a private, religious education, in a small school- with a very close knit group of people. Sounds like a cult right? It wasn't but I think should preface my thoughts on this with this disclaimer, my education was probably slightly different from the standard UK education.  For a large part I do agree with Sir Robinson, I think that education can feel like it's penalising 'non-conformers', I was very lucky that I had teachers in school who did often reward us asking 'why?' 'What?' they'd often stop what they where doing and go find an awnser....(just don't ask about evolution yeah?). But at the same time we still had the curriculum, the teachers bible- the thing that says 'hey you're smart you know what you're doing!' and to be honest, I don't think, at least when I was at school it did half of enough...

Here's my youtube tutorial for Maya 2018, looking at 3D navigation and movement. It's slightly tongue in cheek so don't take it too seriously... but sometimes you have to make sure that people pay attention. Full script below- with, a couple of edits... Here, we see the cube inside it’s   native environment, Maya 2018. Now because we’re in a 3D environment- we have 3 dimensions to play around in. Let’s press CTRL + SPACEBAR to make the viewport larger and get a better look at this cube. So we have the X, Y ,Z axis. If we click on our majestic  cube, with the move tool- Shortcut (W for whiskey) we can see three arrows to represent those Axis, X- is red, Z is blue and Y is green. So X is side to side, Y is up and down and Z is forwards and back. If you click the blue outlined square   in the middle of the move tool you’ll unleash total chaos and have free movement across any axis because we’re in three  dimensions, however this only moves the cube- not our...

The brief is simple- create a prop and animate it! BUT.  What prop? What do I do?   So lets look at what I want from this model: I want a prop that'll look great on a portfolio  (I get it- it won't be incredibly amazing and I'm sure it'll have it's issues, but it's a start.) I want to be challenged, I want to make something that won't be easy, but will give me lots of learning opportunities along the way.  I want to make  a prop that has character and can tell its own story. Two triggers? Twice the fun!  So naturally I drifted towards a sword first. Well, no that's a lie at first I thought about Deckard’s Gun from  Blade Runner . I'm going through a very cyberpunk/dystopian phase at the moment. A brief look online can tell that this has been done to death. It's a gun too so personally I was reluctant, there are some incredible gun models out there, covering almost any type of firearm available.  ...

What Motivates Me, also known as Why do I Do This? Instagram-ready quotes What do I want? Why do I want it?  These questions are deeply introspective allowing for answers that can be fantastic for self-analysis. They can help drive home what you want and why you want them.  I, personally, can struggle with motivation. It's rough; as a creative person I used to wait for the 'right' moment, the moment of inspiration, before doing something. Don't do that. Those moments will still happen, but they're more likely to happen while you're tinkering away at something. It took me a long time to work out that inspiration isn't enough. You have to work hard and you have to push through moments when you don't want to or have no motivation to work. For example, I might have a great idea for a project but, I get five weeks in and you know what? I work out it's a little bit naff and to fix that I've got to do a whole boat-load of work. I see that work...

Here are some useful links to 'free' programs: From a pre- university UE 4 project- I''ve been playing too much WoW Classic... Here's a non-exhaustive list of some neat little resources/programs I've found over the years. Some might not be useful to you- but take a look, if you think there's anything I've missed let me know!  I'll update this list regularly with anything else I can find so feel free to bookmark or save it.  3D:  Maya (Autodesk): https://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/maya - Sign up required plus valid student details Substance: https://www.substance3d.com/education -Sign up required plus valid student details Blender (Nice and growing alternative to Maya): https://www.blender.org/ 2D: GIMP (As an alternative to Photoshop): https://www.gimp.org/ Inkscape:  https://inkscape.org/ Pixel art tips and tricks (Massive gallery full of really useful 2D Pixel art tips) https://imgur.co...

I'm Ben, Hello.  #nofilter #fourfingerforeheadlife I've been messing around with Unreal Engine 4 for the last couple of years and finally decided to ( hopefully ) make a career in game development! ( it beats the finance sector at any rate... )   I'm looking forward to learning more, sharpening existing skills, building new ones and getting a proper portfolio going on that shows the  worst best of what I have to offer in a wide range of areas, from level design to asset creation.  Take a look at other places to find me: Twitter: @LessthanZer0 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/benjaminhudson/ Artstation:  https://www.artstation.com/phantomrave