Demo Reel Updates

ok, so I finished a whole bunch of stuff for my outdoor level and I'm going to share here with you guys some tidbits of what i've finished:

One of my destroyed buildings mostly completed... just need to polish more:


A capture of my in game waterfall that is mostly complete:


I'll post the full details of everything i've completed around wednesday (way too much to do to be talking about what i've finished XD)

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Student iPhone Commercial

Hey everyone,
This week was a pretty eventful one, me and a classmate Janel Jolly (that Is her real name) created an iPhone commercial as part of a greenscreen project. We spent most of yesterday making it and put a lot of hard work into this, so I hope you guys enjoy it. The song is Grace Kelly by Mika:

if the sound still doesn't work by tomorrow, I guess I have to re-upload it.
(edit) ok... reuploaded, maybe the sound will work this time XD

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Redesign - Reader Stickyness

Moving Away from the 'Blogger' Look

I will be doing a massive redesign of the blog in the next few weeks and was wondering if I could get some opinions on how it looks so far. Just click on the Image for the full size. It should be 1024 X 768, representing the average viewer resolution.

Only about 30-40% of the actual graphics are complete and the rest is just the 'colour scheme' of the website. I'll be moving on to the actual coding of the website shortly as I now have enough graphics to create a working website before doing the rest.


The main focus of this new design is to catch the eye of the new commer so they might actually read my articles which may help them. The concept is that the farther you go from the look of a template, the more eye catching it is, because users who surf blogs see the same template 2000 times.

Here are some resources for redesigning your blog or website which helped me emensely when figuring out my design and theory:

How I Redesigned My Blog by Ben Yoskovitz
Talking about Blog Design: Podcast [41 minutes long]
Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Blog’s Usability by Skellie
The Last Word on Minimalist Blogging by Blog Bloke
Anatomy of a Successful Blog by Blog Bloke
Who Says your Blog Design has to be Boring? by Blog Bloke
Blog Design Tips
How to design a sexy header for your site using CSS by Woork
Code Readibility 01 by Woork
Code Readibility 02 by Woork

I encourage anyone, not just designers, to critique it!

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Put the Spotlight on Your Questions!

Getting Answers

Heres a chance to get all your burning questions answered by some real industry proffesionals. If theres a question that has been bugging you about the Gaming or CG/3D industries then now is the time to ask!

Next Saturday(March 15th) a few industry proffesionals will be attending an Industry Spotlight Event and the students of the Centre for Arts and Technology will have the oppertunity to ask them any question.

Presenting:
- Peter Hogan: Senior FX Artist (simulation and particle guru) Peter was also a modeller on a few other projects. His advice will be invaluable to all modelling students with an interest in simulation FX!

- Peter Ricq: Art director. Peter will breakdown his process of designing an animated series, developing its atmosphere and characters. He will also show clips from his films.

A breakdown of the animation pipeline, from the original concept to the finished product that is ready to go gold will also be one of the main focuses of the discussion.

So post your questions in the comments. A list of the Ten best will be posted a few days before the Spotlight!

I impore everyone who wants to be in these Industries to post any and all questions they have about the industry. This is a rare chance that they are giving us and I personally can't wait to meet these guys. *two thumbs up*

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Tips for 3D Students: Networking - Work

Networking – Work Exposure

Getting Noticed by Thinking Small

Yes, that’s right, I just told you not to ‘THINK BIG’ but what I’m really trying to tell you is how ‘Thinking Small’ will help you more, down the road, than you know. I’m going to explain how to use your talents to get noticed through the internet, not through your Big portfolio pieces but by the much smaller unrelated pieces you can make.

When I say ‘Think Small’ I don’t mean by any stretch of the imagination that this will be the easier way, compared to making one big portfolio piece, so all the slackers giving a big sigh right now, I’m sorry. This path will boost your networking capabilities while giving you the practice to maximize that Big portfolio project that you will Have to do to get a job. This tool isn’t designed to get you a job in any direct way, though there is a chance that you might get a job offer through this, so that isn’t a guarantee. This is a Networking tool and will help you snag a lot more industry contacts than not doing it... so read on!

The principle of this idea is that instead of spending 30 hours and up on one big 3D or CG portfolio piece to put on your demo reel, you instead create three 10 hour projects that are smaller and more achievable than the behemoth that you might not even finish. This simple concept will vastly improve the speed of your work, which is a huge thing in the Gaming Industry especially, and expand the fold of people which know you and recognize your work. That is the most important part, that more people will know you and be able to recognize your art at a glance.

This works because while you’re working on that big 3D piece you get virtually no exposure till the very end, but if you work on multiple smaller projects that are still the same high quality (just scaled down) then you’ll get a boost to your exposure after every release. You will see that after 4-5 of these smaller projects that people will start visiting your blog/website (if you have one) more often; people will comment on your work more often; people will instantly recognize your work.

This is actually an age old trick that has been used mainly in marketing and has worked since the idea of marketing started. It’s breadth versus depth or as they like to call it, “Diversifying, but not too much”. The idea is that you want to balance the two; too much depth (too deep into one thing) and your company crashes the instant the market for that item decreases; too much breadth (too many things) and you make no profit because you appeal to no specific group. Think about it for a second. Isn’t trying to get a job in the Gaming industry pretty much like marketing to a customer? Although the roles are reversed, you have to market yourself as someone with something of value to give to their company in return for their hard earned cash. In that light, using marketing tactics to gain a meaningful job just makes sense.

As a final note, just to make sure, I’m not suggesting you sacrifice quality. Do Not Sacrifice Quality! Merely scale down the project so it’s more manageable.

Last Networking Article: Linked In
Next Networking Article: Elance
List of 3D Student: Networking advice topics so far

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Tips for 3D Students: Networking - Linked In

Linked In - The Network Multiplier

Linked In is an awesome resource website I dscovered from one of my instructors at the Center for Arts and Technology. It basicly ats as an advanced interactive address book that lets you see up to 3 levels of contacts and promotes you on the internet at the same time. This is one website that I highly advize anyone interested in the Gaming industry or Computer Graphic industry to take a look at and create an account.

When you create an account on Linked In, one of the first things you can do is take all your email/address book contacts and either find their related Linked In account or invite them to create one. This is especially powerful when you've finished the Email Interviews from the last article, because you'll have all those industry proffesionals' contact information; most of the ones I emailed had a corresponding Linked In account.

As you add contacts, you will also get "2nd level" and "3rd level" contacts. This boils down to your contacts' friends and then their contacts, sort of a friend of a friend idea. This system is especially cool because you can use your existing contacts to have yourself "introduced" to their contacts and grow your network through the website (without annonymously emailing the person).

The benefit of this system becomes apparant once you have 8 or more contacts, as you'll find that you have thousands of people in the industry just a simple click and introduction away.

Apart from the network expanding capabilities of Linked In, it also has some really nice features that comes with it and if you're serious about building your network effectively, join me and many others at Linked In:
Here's my profile on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/zandererasmus

Last Networking Article: Email Interviews
Next Networking Article: Completed Work
List of 3D Student: Networking advice topics so far

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Tips for 3D Students: Networking - Interviews

Interviews - Email
This was something of a trick I learned early in my studies and its a great device to get relationships in the industry while still in college or building your portfolio.

First, write down a few questions related to the industry or its hiring process; I find that 4-5 questions suffice. Try to make the questions as litirate as possible and sound proffessional. They should be about topics that you are genuinely wondering about, but it also helps to choose questions that can't be answered with one or two words because otherwise the conversation will be stale and dismissive. When writing out your questions, you should avoid philisophical questions though, because if it requires 3 paragraphs to answer, chances are, that the person you are emailing won't spend the effort (they are busy after all)

Next, search for some emails of people working in your industry (be it game, animation, etc.) and try to find as many as possible. I found that surfing the company's website(s) is the easiest way of finding the emails of their employees and with an hour's worth of work, you should have 20-30 emails.

One thing you can do is to Categorize the email recipients into their job descriptions and have a set of questions for each "job-type". The is handy for a few reasons, for example: Would you want a recruiter to get a bunch of questions about how to render a 3D model a certain way, or Management to get questions about dealing with Management? The fact is, that the person reading your email will just delete it as spam without a second thought. You should always try to make your questions as relative as possible to avoid awkward situations like this.

Another good idea is to have some response questions, although it's better to read through each email sent back and make new questions that are more customized, it can become extremely tedious when you recieve 20 replies and you'd like to ask similar response questions. If you respond with custom questions or cookie cutter ones, the important part is to ALLWAYS respond. Even if your response is a simple thank you, you must allways let that person know that you have paid attention to them; this should be common sense!

This tool works wonders for spreading your network because people in the industry, at least to the best of my knowledge, enjoy helping students and answering questions students may have. Don't be afraid to make the first move and do so repeatedly! Take this knowledge and bring it out every month or two, it works more than once!
Next Networking Article: Linked In - Social Networking
List of 3D Student: Networking advice topics so far

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Help for 3D Students / Enthusiasts

In the next week or so, I'm planning on posting a "Tips for the 3D Student" article and I'm going to be concentrating on Networking specifically first, and if that does well, I'm planning on moving on to other topics as well.

Here is what I will be talking about in a nutshell, if youguys have anything more to add to the list, let me know. I plan on elaborating heavily on every point, as well as giving my experiences on it with the experiences of some people I know in the industry.
Tips for the 3D Student: Networking

• Interviews
• LinkedIn
• CompletedWork
• ELance
  See My Elance Profile and Join
• Forums
• Game Artisans
• CG Talk
• 3D Total
• Polycount
• XSI Base
• etc
• Competitions
• Mini vs. Main
• Expos / Conferences
• Blog / Website
• Close Contacts

Let me know what you all think, if i should add or remove any.

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