The First Steps

Now my usual routine before heading into a new thing (whether it a job, education or a holiday) is to thoroughly research it first, and in the case of this course, even start learning a few things before I get started.

Firstly came Maya. I've never used it, the interface and tools looked clunky to me. I was too used to the minimal interface found on Lightwave software so I just never tried it until I had to...of course now I have to. So I looked around for tutorials across the internet, references and tips, and found two rather fabulous books on the subject of modelling for game environments. I am currently reading through them both and theyre helping me immensely, starting from the basics and leading up to more advanced structures.

You can find them both on Amazon here:

http://amzn.to/oBH7WV

http://amzn.to/oYPiNF

Next up came learning the game engine I'd be using through the course, which happened to be Unity 3D ( http://unity3d.com/ ). Now as far as I know, there are no amazing books for this software, which meant I had to resort to online tutorials and quite a bit of messing around to figure everything out. I even had to go about learning some of its very own type of Javascript (which was just fine, I dont know the regular Javascript anyway).

So to put a long story short, I have learnt some of the basic parts of the game engine and modelling in Maya, at least enough to produce a simple game. Behold the screencaps of my efforts!

Welcome!

Welcome to the very beginning of my blog. Here you can follow my journey through Game Design and Visual Effects at Anglia Ruskin university over the next 3 years. Not only this, but my own personal game projects, such as test builds, previews, concepts and sketches will make their way here as well as personal tutorials, references and even my own learnings to impart upon you internet folk.

A brief background of my current skills upon entering this course: I see myself as moderately skilled in 3D modelling and javascript, and a pretty decent artist. But I wouldn't say I'm the best in the world, or even close (although I make a habit of trying to always be better than my classmates at these things). For a sample of my current skill level you can visit my DA page ( http://www.electronic-fox.deviantart.com ).

My hope is that through this blog, I can teach others what I have learnt over the following years, and see a difference in my own workflow and skills, perhaps to act as inspiration for others to learn their own skills. A big goal, I know. But I'll never know how this goes of I dont try!

Tata for now folks, till the next update!