Week 2, Year 2: Teamwork.

Last week, I mentioned our course received a bit of a makeover during the summer and the most noticeable change so far, without a doubt, is the amount of teamwork we do.

Over the summer, I had doubts about university and how useful it is to the goal of becoming a successful artist in the entertainment industry. It's a discussion within our community that takes place all over the internet. As so much of our learning is done independently, it's easy to imagine being able to do it from home at a fraction of the cost.

However group work, while challenging, is an incredible learning experience, unique to university and I really feel it adds significant value to my degree. I also believe that no matter how much experience one has, these skills are always worth developing further, as they are both extremely valuable and transferable.

Our first project was a week-long, 'warm-up' style task. We were set to work populating a typical tavern scene with a list of assets: a table, a bench, a barrel, a shield, a hog and some cutlery. Sounds easy except each asset had to be passed along to a different team member, following each stage of the assets creation. So I did concepts for a table, modeled a bench, unwrapped a hog etc, until we had scene that looked like a tavern.

My groups finished tavern scene in Unreal Engine.

I'm pleased with what we achieved in just a week. There are many things I'd like to tweak and a lot I wish we had done differently. So it's probably just as well it was only a week long. As a warm up, this project was successful. It was an opportunity to make mistakes without getting bogged down by them. A way of ironing out the kinks before moving on to something a bit more difficult...

Which leads me to what I'm currently working on, the film room project. We have 3 weeks to pick a film still, featuring an interesting interior scene, and to replicate it in 3D. Both physically, out of card and foam board, and digitally in Unreal Engine.

After some exhaustive searching and a lot of getting shot down by tutors, we chose the Cocoanut Grove bathroom from The Aviator.

So far, our project is going well and seems to be on schedule. We've overcome several tricky obstacles already and everyone's putting in a lot of hard work!

Lighting test I did on a reference mesh built by Anya.

The biggest personal obstacle I'm struggling with, is preventing myself from overworking. An aspect of group work I'd never considered, is the ever-present self-imposed pressure, to work as hard or harder as the hardest working person in the group.

Giving in to this, leads me to a completely unsustainable workflow which I actually find to be counter-productive. I've therefore tried to limit my working hours to that of a normal, full-time job. No late nights and no pushing back meals to ridiculous hours in the day.

Keeping hours in the day for personal projects, as well as eating and sleeping, helps keep things in perspective. I frequently remind myself that personal projects are beneficial to any creative endeavor, even if they are seemingly unrelated and don't seem like a priority under the perpetually looming shadow of deadlines.

Hopefully next week, I'll have some personal work to show, along with an update on our film room project. See you there.