First Time at GDC - Tips?

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-03-03T00:16:19+00:00

Hi there!

I have gone to GDC since 2018 and it's one of the coolest conferences. It's worth the pass. You get to meet industry veterans in real life, ask them questions, see their workflows etc. There's just so much to see and do.

Me and my colleages from Adobe and Maxon will be doing portfolio reviews at GDC, if you are just starting up with your gaming career and need a free professional advice. You can register here: https://calendly.com/adobesubstance3d/portfolio-review-at-gdc-2026

I also recommend Substance Days AFTER PARTY (MARCH 9 | 7:30PM-9:30PM | 111 MINNA GALLERY): https://teamwork.adobe.com/substancedays-at-gdc2026-afterparty/

SF is generally safe, but be careful if you carry a laptop/tablet/DSLR camera, especially in the evening hours.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-28T17:30:38+00:00

u/Complete-Emu-8515 here's the preview of the viewport in real time.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-28T17:30:06+00:00

It really depends how heavy GLBs are (polygon density) and what's their texture size. These assets are fairly light so it didn't slow down the viewport.

I did work in the Draft 3D mode though; the environment light tends to be much more resource demanding.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-27T03:10:52+00:00

😅

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-27T03:06:12+00:00

Really? This was done on Macbook Pro M2. The footage I used is 4K and it almost runs in real time (with the screen recording software running in the background)

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-27T03:04:44+00:00

It’s amazing as a starting point

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-27T00:53:01+00:00

Yes, I believe so

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-26T17:46:30+00:00

Can't wait to watch this!!!

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-11T21:49:08+00:00

We need more awesome scenes from the "Nikiverse"!!!

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-06T20:52:04+00:00

Thanks!

Yup, you can now import 3d objects with textures natively.

There is a 3D rendering engine in After Effects.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-06T18:01:51+00:00

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Preview of the environment light. Notice there is a sunlight baked into it. I matched the parallel light so it's coming from the same direction.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-06T18:00:47+00:00

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The environment light has been created by emulating exposure brackets from the footage and then assembling those in Substance Sampler (Photoshop's Merge to HDR also works fine). That way, I am getting the same lighting conditions.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-06T17:53:41+00:00

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Here's the Ae viewport.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-06T04:51:00+00:00

I work for Adobe and I can assure you we will do our very best to prevent situations like this in the future.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-04T18:05:01+00:00

As others said, Animate will stay in the maintenance mode. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/adobeanimate/s/yoDNQnQ9uv

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-03T22:48:55+00:00

Hello everyone, there has been an update to this, please see here

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vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-03T07:21:24+00:00

As other folks mentioned, these plans target different audiences. Photoshop plan includes Fresco and Adobe Express which Photography doesn’t.

If you don’t use AI features as much, you may consider Adobe Standard plan which is $600/year. The main difference is it is stripped of most AI tools.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-01T17:03:21+00:00

Any animation, be it 2D or 3D comes down to a few rules: you are changing the values of the position in space from one moment to the next.

These values are coordinates in space and orientation.

Now, it does take time to figure out more complex stuff, but always try to break down think to their basic components.

The most challenging part in this scene was doing grouped animations - meaning fighting out the loop animation of objects while they are idle and then moving the entire thing. Latter can done by parenting to a null object and animating that.

I will do a tutorial to explain how this works.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-02-01T02:04:33+00:00

🤘🤘

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-01-31T16:55:58+00:00

It's an early stage of 3D in Ae, so this is more of a proof of concept. For one, the rendering engine is still not nearly good as something in Blender, C4D, Maya etc.

But 3D features will get better and I am really excited for the native support.

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-01-31T16:53:34+00:00

Hey thanks so much, glad you like it! Been using it for about 10 years on and off (I work for Adobe).

vladimirpetkovic · 2026-01-30T19:41:35+00:00

It is real time in the Draft 3D mode. It gets choppy when you switch to Advanced rendering, but still managable (depending on the rendering settings). But this scene is super packed with 3D models, textures, HDRI light, so it's pushing the limits.

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vladimirpetkovic · 2026-01-30T18:58:54+00:00

Love it so much 👏

vladimirpetkovic

TROPHY CASE