During college, I assumed that my work was done when it wasn’t. I was the weak link in significant group projects that were required for graduation.
Animated Boss Game
For one of my courses, my team built a platform game. I chose to sculpt and animate an alien slug as the enemy boss. I also modeled some environment props, but my main task was to sculpt that slug.
I realized that I didn’t know how to transfer animations to different pieces of software: I could animate in Blender, Maya, and 3ds MAX, but I didn’t know how to transfer them to Unreal Engine.
We almost failed the class because our alpha wasn’t ready on time.
Thankfully, the professor extended our deadline, and I found his tutorial for CAT-rigging in 3ds MAX. I then uploaded the model, rig, and animation so that my teammates could import them into Unreal Engine, and we got that grade back in time.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t be the weak link again.
Museum Website
My junior project was an online exhibit for the British Museum. I knew nothing about web design, but I sketched mockups for the website’s UI. I also edited the HTML color code to change the interface to a blue palette.
The project advisors gave my team templates for the different exhibit pieces’ posts. I hadn’t done museum work before, so I thought that I just needed to upload the piece’s name and image, which was very wrong.
I missed a lot of information and was so ashamed of myself for making us unprepared for the next meeting with our advisors. But I took the criticism, made sure to ask more questions, and wrote a lot in our research paper.
I tried to carry this mindset into my senior project.
Jazz Virtual Reality Game
My senior project was a virtual game about jazz. For pre-production, I took photographs to use as references for a speakeasy. I also did research on the Prohibition and even tried to take inspiration from The Shining.
These project advisors tasked me with making 15 models per week. I remember making these models and reuploading different versions of them. I was wrong to assume that these contributed to the 15 because multiple versions wouldn’t go into the final game.
The art advisor ripped me apart even though I’d spent hours working on these models. I was so angry that after the meeting, I slammed my door so hard that I broke it. After that, I took the criticism and made sure to ask him more questions.
But then I ran into the opposite problem. I became too dependent on my advisor instead of doing the research myself. He wrote a message that everyone could see that I should already know this stuff and if I didn’t learn to do my own research, then I wouldn’t make it in the video game industry.
Everything I did was wrong.
Learning from Mistakes
I wanted to endure the struggle, improve my 3D models, and find my dream job after college like everyone else had. I wanted so badly to prove to the people who doubted me that I had grown and could apply what I’d learned to the real world. Instead, I’d shown that I didn’t have what it took, proving them right.
Unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.
All for Nothing?
I’ve been told by another professor that I trust that I never would have gotten a job with the way that I was taught. It would have been one thing if I just wasn’t good enough, but now I know that I never stood a chance. Even if I’d had no problems with my projects, I still wouldn’t have gotten a job, which meant that all of the struggle and self-loathing that I endured was for nothing.
But maybe it wasn’t.
Silver Lining?
Maybe hitting these lows made me realize how important it is to keep trying. My graduate research professor loved my paper on the video game community so much that she said that it was one of the top three or four. This meant a lot to me since this was my first grad school class.
I’ve also received praise for the models that I’d built since graduating.
Maybe I had to fail then in order to succeed now in grad school. Maybe now is the time to prove everyone wrong.
Or maybe what happened then has nothing to do with what happens now.
This isn’t a movie where the nerd gets his award after two hours of struggle. The world owes me nothing, which means that it’s not going to reward me with a 3D artist job because of my struggles in undergrad. All I can do is keep improving and listening to the professors that I have now.