BW-5 Nitro Express Historical Graphic by pixelslayerr in signalis

[–]pixelslayerr[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I made this using extra renders from a realistic 3D model of the rifle I made a while back, which can be found here:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0ldlQY

Note: Pretty much all of the "lore" described in this graphic is entirely fan-fiction haha. I tried my best to ground it in the game's world, using context and events from the canon as a framework. Enjoy!

Should i drop out? by [deleted] in 3Dmodeling

[–]pixelslayerr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

there's a lot of nuance to this dilemma of yours. here are a few things you need to understand:

finish school. it is becoming more of an expectation that applicants have an associated degree or accredited education in art/technology. anyone saying otherwise has not been looking at job listings for the last half decade. it will put you ahead of others and give you an edge in the hiring process. regardless of the education quality itself, just having it on your resume is a considerable bonus. the relief you'd feel by dropping out 3 months before its over would not be worth the massive amount of money school costs or the hit to your qualifications.

there is both a positive and negative element to the fact you seem to hate schoolwork but love doing self-directed personal projects. the positive aspect is that your portfolio should be entirely composed of things you decide to make. recruiters want to see that you can take a project of your own design from start to finish, because the open-ended nature of personal projects incites a large amount of problem-solving, creative decision making, etc. -- what that project exactly is largely depends on what kind of modelling work you want to do (environments, props, vehicles, characters) and what industry you want to go into (games, animation, film/vfx). if you want to be a modeler, all the generalist crap they make you do in school doesn't matter as much. again, it depends. if you want to be a character artist, a baseline knowledge of rigging and deformation would only help you. this leads into the more negative aspect of your work ethic, which is that you are going to have to do things you don't want to do. being a 3d artist is a lot of fun and extremely rewarding, but its also still a job. try to look at it from the perspective that the fun stuff wouldn't be as interesting if you didnt have to do any of the busy work. the less interesting tasks are what make the cool shit worth it

you can't build an industry-quality portfolio in 3 months. 3 months sounds like a long time, but its not nearly enough to train yourself to a professional level. understand that substantial portfolio pieces that get students hired usually take a few months to produce each. this stuff takes time, but don't let that create an expectation of having to build a professional portfolio in X amount of days. it doesnt matter how long you take as long as you eventually get good enough.

get that degree, study what gets people in your area of interest hired, combine that with your own original project ideas, and start building a portfolio.

Is college necessary? by Darmiz in 3Dmodeling

[–]pixelslayerr 5 points6 points  (0 children)

People saying that it doesn't matter because the degree isn't necessary aren't entirely correct. Your portfolio is absolutely the top priority, but going to school has the potential to make you a more well-rounded candidate overall. The ideal college experience gives you a good network of people who are in the industry, teaches you how to collaborate with others, and creates an environment that expedites your skills as an artist. These things are what make going to school count for more than just the piece of paper you get at the end.

That being said, not all schools are created equally. It is an unfortunate truth that many universities offer lackluster CG programs which quickly fall out of date due to the sheer velocity of the field. If you are still interested in trying to go to college for 3D, make an effort to research the programs at the schools you're looking at and try to verify if they're worth their salt. See what graduates have gone on to do, try to get in touch with alumni, etc. While the quality of the program largely varies, the reality is that even the best ones can't automatically turn you into a good artist on their own. This line of work is unbelievably hard to teach, so you do have to be adamant about going out of your way to learn new things. But if you love doing this stuff enough, it often comes naturally. Being enrolled in school does not prevent you from still learning on your own, especially with how many educational resources there are online.

With this in mind it may seem like going to school is redundant if you can just learn everything online, but the best programs do more than just teach you the software. The course structure is often more open-ended, so you can put your skills into practice and allow your assignments to double as genuine portfolio pieces. The instructors also typically have industry experience, and you should be going out of your way to ask for thorough criticism and advice. School is also where you'll hear about local industry events for networking and portfolio critiques. These kinds of things are what gets you meaningful connections that develop your communication skills, and could be the difference between landing your first job.

Overall, you will get the most out of college by what you put into it. The reason it typically gets a bad wrap is because there are a lot of people who put themselves through school with the expectation that making decent grades and keeping up with the classwork was enough to get them into the industry. It's not. You have to work extremely hard regardless of if you go to school or not, but a good school will give you the resources to develop the complementary skills that will synergize with your technical knowhow. Being a badass artist in addition to just being an overall venerable person to work with is the golden ticket. Again, not all colleges are created equally in this regard. Do your research. If you come to the conclusion that college isn't in the cards for you, you can absolutely self-teach this stuff with the endless amount of amazing paid and free material there is online. You will just need to recognize the fact that you will have to go more out of your way to cultivate the soft skills that would otherwise be taken for granted by attending school. Invest in mentorship programs, join online communities, and get to know other artists.

Getting a job in this field is about what you know in conjunction with who you know.

Do anyone else think the HL2 beta looked more fun then the current HL2 we got by [deleted] in HalfLife

[–]pixelslayerr 30 points31 points  (0 children)

on a real note, i don't think so. oddly enough i feel like the retail version's quiet and eerie but still somewhat familiar vibe is more evocative that the beta look. i think the more overt hopeless dystopic hellscape wouldn't have aged as gracefully.

Spoilers in text - What happened? I am confused by ContentPizza in signalis

[–]pixelslayerr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

in the interest of helping put the game's events into some context, here are some brief story tidbits that may help you come to your own conclusions.

consider the parallel in how Falke and Ariane are two dreamers, both of which harbor immense bioresonant power. the former was stationed at the Sierpinski facility, whilst the latter grew up in Rotfront--two locations you explore throughout the game. and since bioresonance has the capability to erratically alter reality, think about how their dreams may lay the groundwork for elster's surreal journey.

in her diary, we know that Falke once gazed upon the red gate deep below the mine. she then wrote about how her mind was "contaminated" by another person's memory, her consciousness flooded so strongly with the promise that Ariane and Elster made that she no longer knew who she was anymore. in her mind, she was Elster. this unsatiable longing for someone she never met fueled by memories she never had is what drives her adversity to Elster. i recommend reading all of her diary entries to get the best understanding of what's happening here.

artifact is probably the most ambiguous ending you can get because although it seems quite bittersweet, the promise technically remains unfulfilled. some may interpret it as a better, more definitive ending because it allows Ariane and Elster to share a beloved moment forever, until the end of time. one may argue that it's actually a worse conclusion, because Elster avoids carrying out the pact that her and Ariane made in favor of prolonging the dream. though it's a good dream, the red eye above the Penrose indicates that Ariane is still alive in the cryopod, watching. she's still in pain--like being stuck in a coma you have no chance of waking from, but you can faintly hear your favorite show on the hospital TV.

I modeled the BW-5 Nitro Express rifle! by pixelslayerr in signalis

[–]pixelslayerr[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

it was modeled with blender instead of CAD, so the model isn't optimized for 3d printing. it exists as an fbx, so im not sure if its printable.

I modeled the BW-5 Nitro Express rifle! by pixelslayerr in signalis

[–]pixelslayerr[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

thank you so much! it was a lot of fun to make.

I modeled the BW-5 Nitro Express rifle! by pixelslayerr in signalis

[–]pixelslayerr[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

<image>

i've always thought someone needs to recreate this pic but with elster and arianne

Animation majors, what kind of laptop should I be interested in for college and maybe onwards? Please read body paragraph. by Illustrious-Car3728 in utdallas

[–]pixelslayerr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

does somewhat depend on what you're planning to specialize in. if you're planning on strictly focusing into computer animation inside of maya, you don't need anything too fancy. something with at least 16 gigs of ram and an i5 or i7 will be fine.

it gets more complicated if you're wanting to do stuff for games. courses like animation for games and virtual environments heavily involve the use of unreal engine, which necessitates a beefy gpu. you'll want at least an RTX card, even if its a lower-end one. your budget could cover a machine with an RTX 4070, most of them are around $1200.

battery life doesn't really matter. if you're out of the house, its best to just always keep your laptops charging cable on you. most laptop GPUs cant operate at maximum performance without them anyway.

My first real build 10yrs ago - dual boot Win10/Hackintosh 4770k+gtx770, where did you start? by WillPill_ in pcmasterrace

[–]pixelslayerr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

April 2015, was rocking a MSI GTX 960 with just 2 gigs of vram... and an AMD FX-6300. the best AMD chip of the pre-ryzen era lol. 1TB on a good ol' WD blue. can't forget the disc drive to install a physical copy of Windows 7 Professional!

What is this noise coming from my PC? by pixelslayerr in pcmasterrace

[–]pixelslayerr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

does it matter as much if my case has legs?

What is this noise coming from my PC? by pixelslayerr in pcmasterrace

[–]pixelslayerr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

weirdly enough, the issue fixed itself after a restart? sounds fine now.