Following My Dreams
Welcome to the timeline of how I decided to follow my dreams and pursue a career in 3D!
Following My Dreams
Introduction
In September 2020 I realized that the path down programming I was taking was not what I wanted and that I had to change something to feel motivated about what I was doing again.
That is when I started to research what my options were and I learned about 3D College in Grenaa. Prior to finding the school I had no idea what arch viz even was, but upon learning about it I knew it was the right path for me.
Let me take you back in time to when I was still a confused computer science student longing to be able to do something creative, doubting that 3D was even a viable career option.
Mr. Robot, Elliot's Room
May 2021
This is a personal project that I have been working on periodically since the beginning of April. I am a big fan of the series Mr. Robot and after watching the season finale I got inspired to make an arch viz scene of Elliot, the main character's bedroom.
With this project I really wanted to challenge myself and decided that I would make all the assets for the scene myself. I felt I was in need of more modelling experience, so I thought this would be a great way to do it. I have never learnt as much from a single project as this. For example this is the first time I ever touched Marvelous Designer.
I look forward to my next scene where I can bring everything I learnt and take it to the next level.
Day and Night
May 2021
This is a two week school project focusing on lighting and how drastically it can change the mood of a scene. I also wanted to challenge myself by attempting to make something that is dirty and rundown. This was my first big project made in 3Ds Max and I am quite happy with how it turned out!
I focused on customizing textures to my need in Photoshop and I feel like I finally got a hang on UV mapping and how powerful it is. I learned a lot while working on this project and had a tonne of fun doing it!
I got the models of the human, tree and car from Vray Cosmos and the trash bags from Quixel Bridge, all other models are by me.
Canoe Diorama
March 2021
Another school project with only one restriction, it had to contain water.
Every year I go on a Canoeing trip to Sweden with my dad, but because of Covid we haven't been able to go since 2019. I miss these trips a lot and wanted to create something that captured the feel of them. I think the diorama format was good for this, as it has this isolated feel that you also get when you are out in the middle of nowhere.
This is also the project where I first started using blockouts efficiently to really get an idea of what I want to make, before I start modelling and texturing.
Foliage is from the Scatter add-on for Blender and the fireplace is from Quixel Bridge, all other assets are made by me.
Grøndjordskollegiet / Dorm Room Diorama
March 2021
After helping my good friend move into his new dormroom I kept thinking of how it was the perfect shape and size for a diorama. I then modelled the room to perfectly match the dimensions of its real life counterpart. After that I started furnishing the room, but everyone kept telling me it was looking bland so I got to work making the room look more cluttered and personal.
I learned a lot working on this project, but now that I look back there is a lot I would have done differently.
All assets, except the chair and the plants, are made by me.
Lava Lamp Product Visualization
January 2021
This is the beginning of my 3Ds Max journey. I decided that I wanted to follow my dreams and dropped out of my previous school focused on programming and computer science and attend 3D College Grenaa to continue doing what I actually find interesting.
In the beginning it seemed almost impossible to learn 3Ds Max. I kept wanting to go back to Blender and after a couple of months learning 3Ds Max I switched back for a short period.
The lighting is inspired by Absolut Vodka ads.
Blender Kitchen Archviz
January 2021
This project is where I really started pushing what I could do in a short time frame. I made this render in two and a half days right after New Years Eve, I was determined to see what I could do if I focused 100% on one project and made the best thing that I could.
At the time I was very satisfied with the outcome, even tho there is still a lot of room for improvement. This is also the project where I first started actually organizing all my files and had a folder system for my texture files and downloaded assets. This really helped my workflow and made me way more productive overall.
I was still not very good at modelling at the time so I was still dependent on downloading premade assets from Quixel Bridge and Turbosquid.
Different Flavours of Windowsills
October 2020
These two windowsills are were I first started heading more towards archviz renders. I still didn't really have an idea of what I was doing, but I liked the idea of making interior renders. At this stage I had a weird obsession with objects in windowsills and made a lot of different versions, even though most of them where never finished.
Still Life
August 2020
In this project I started experimenting with cloth sims and making procedural textures with the node editor in Blender. Now looking back the texture was way too over complicated and didn't turn out exactly as I wanted, but I learnt a lot by trying out different things.
Mechanical Keyboards
August 2020
So here we are, my first renders I made without following a tutorial or just using premade assets! I was, and still am, interested in mechanical keyboards, so I wanted to make my dream keyboards in some fun color schemes.
Before making these renders I had been following a lot of different tutorials, like the famous doughnut tutorial, and also made some scenes using megascans objects. Even earlier than that I had tried Cinema 4D out but never really managed to make finished renders.
Conclusion
Choosing to follow my dreams and continue doing 3D is one of the best decisions of my life. I was stuck in a school system doing things I didn't actually enjoy and feeling like it wasn't worth it. It still feels almost surreal that I get to do this as my focus and every day I am thankful for it.
I am very lucky that I have a family that supports me and great friends that are there for me. I would not have made it without them.
I look forward to see what the future has in store for me and I am excited to continue developing my skills to take my creativity further.
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