Learning Blender and Learning Music work similarly

I would just be fascinated by the retro 90s landscape of 3D software and productions.

Typically the general gist of it, would be something this:
• We have this innovative project never done before.
• We have this brand new piece of software never seen before.
• We a 3D person without prior experience.
• We have only a few months to complete the project.

And you get something like this:
hq720
[ More or less the gist out of the “how it was made” video. ]

However it goes without saying that everything else was set in place:
• The theme, the lore, the world building, the concept.
• The character designs were curated and perfected.
• Everything got overviewed and reviewed multiple times until perfected.

With this mindset, is very easy to consider that the fundamentals of 3D, are entirely irrelevant to 3D. As for example creating a torus and painting it beige/brown is only a demonstration of technical skill. If you get stuck into creating 20 donuts, or even use geometry nodes, or if you go even further to use gaussian splatting of scanned donuts, you would just not going to make an impact. :doughnut:

Somewhat everybody can fall (or many of us in the past) into this logical fallacy. That learning 3D is the real deal that solves all the problems, but this is only in technical terms.

So in this in this way, I consider that even a beginner can definitely create professional-grade work, only with proper guidance and accurate feedback, after multiple of iterations. So is easy to understand, that is not a matter of “skill” but rather that is a matter of “curating” and “eyeballing”. :eyes::dart:

I consider that at this time and age (the last 20 years or so), that people have become too technical in their mindset, and this caused huge “monolithic” approach to learning as well as to working. Even if for example some would say that AI fixes the creativity problem, you would still have a problem with “curation” and “nuanced approach”, AI is just speeding up things. :man_running:

As for example with this type of thinking, if you get a game like Concord that it was autogenerated. I doubt that getting 100^2 additional iterations of it would fix anything. You would just go in circles and wasting time. :thinking:

In the case of Donkey Kong Country, the technical requirements for the visuals were greatly eased by the fact that it was still a 2D sprite-based game, just with the sprites created in a way that has not been done before. Pre-rendered sprites would show up in later titles for the Genesis and even the Nintendo 64.

Early 3D software users also had to deal with hardware limitations as well, so it would not have taken quite as long to create assets due to them being far simpler from a technical and detail standpoint. They at least made a solid effort to keep things optimized (unlike modern day Unreal 5 users who talk about their game projects surpassing 200 gigabytes in size despite not even being close to being done and treating memory like it grows on trees).

I am not kidding about game sizes, a lot of developers for that engine think nanite magically allows for unlimited detail that turns optimization work into a relic of a more primitive era.

Yeah more or less you have a correct point, that since the early era of 3D was primitive the artistic+fidelity bar would be low enough compared to what is today or even 10 years ago.

This means that the standard quality bar would be very approachable (very low compared to what is today). Most of the times a low poly model would work just fine (eg: Quake1, TombRaider '97, CrashBandicoot, Mario64).

In that regard it makes sense that the general gist of that era for someone to work in the industry would be: “Do you know 3D? Yes. OK you’re hired”.

But even with such limitations in rendering and vision, still there would be great ideas that stand the test of time even 20+ years later.

I just watched a trailer about a month ago with the latest Unreal5 games and I don’t remember any of them. More or less the rendering looks the same, the character controls feel the same, the general theme and vision is identical. Not so much originality…

Advances in the technology to produce templates (both in terms of code and UI) has also been a major contributor to a lot of games having the same look and feel as well, the easier advanced game development gets as tooling improves the harder it becomes to find unique titles.

As a consequence, Steam is now seeing the addition of around 1500 titles a month, the gold rush in game development is over and to have a major success now is the same as in the mobile space, you either catch lightning in a bottle or your ability to have a gamedev career without a secondary job will not last long.

This has to do with the end of the age of “innovation” and the concept turns everything created from novelty to commodity. Though I would prefer not to think of this (I just lie to myself) because if this is true then game development is cooked.

I am not thinking exactly that there would be something new created that would be able to break all rules and revamp the space from scratch.

At least having polished productions based on good and satisfying ideas, would be enough for me. Just keep the spirit of the 90’s-00’s-10’s with modern technology and AAA quality would be a good plan.

I use the lessons I’ve learnt in music almost everyday in my world of design either in graphics or in architecture., or whatever else for that matter.

Here’s just a few of the ones I lean on in, some form or another, all the time, everyday …

Accent, Anacruis, Arpeggio, Articulation, Baroque, Beethoven Germ Motif, Cadence, Call and Response, Cell, Chord Progression, Chromatic Mediant, Coda, Common Practise Period, Composition, Concerto, Conclusion, Conterpoint, Contrapuntal Motion, Consonace, Degree, Develpoment (incl. Double-Development), Diminution, Dominant, Duration, Dynamics, Envelope, Exposition, Fate Motif, Figure, Form, Fragmentation, Free Time, Fugue, Harmonic Rhythm, Hemiola, Homophony, Introduction, Isorhythm, Leitmotif, Mediant, Melodic Motion, Melodic Pattern, Melody, Modulation, Motif, Movement, Narrative, Obbligato, Ostinato, Overture, Perfect Fifth, Period, Phrase, Pitch, Resolution, Rest, Rhythm, Rhythmic Node, Ripieno, Rondo, Root, Scale, Section, Sequence, Sonata Form, Sonatina, Steps and Skips, Subdonmiant, Subject, Symphony, Syncopation, Tempo, Ternary Form, Texture, Thematic Transformation, Theme, Toccata, Tonic, and Variation.

And for what it’s worth … it took me awhile before I truly understood what a Movement is in Classical Music … I finally understood that they are called Movements for good reason … because they have Movement with in the Movements!!

Stop and think about that for a moment … how could that one single simple truth help you in Composing a Narrative in Blender? A simple scene or an entire animation?? Or, anywhere else for that matter??

Movement! Lead the viewer!!
And, how to establish Movement!!

Perhaps using Contrapuntal Motion or some other compositional technique!! Such as something simple like a change in Texture or Pitch or Rhythm, etc., etc…

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Color as a starting scale and then modulating to a darker tone or varying the pace until it starts to seem too fast and then coming to a rest before introducing a lighter palette.

I feel there are many ways to see visual and audial arts as informing the other.

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I’ve found that using the Circle of 5ths is an aid for visual design, not only for its Key Signatures, etc., but also for a relationship between the Circle of 5ths and the Color Wheel, such as with the tradish RYB color wheel, super interesting comparison of the two with many similarities. For example the Tonal color of C major and its Tritone note/color, or in other words … the tension of its complementary color/note. And, its Modal Brightness too!!

Key (ahem) to both audio and visual disciplines is the composer’s or designer’s ability to create Phrasing. No better place to learn or experience a Phrase than by studying Beethoven’s 5th Symphony!! Try to understand how that seemingly simple 4 note motif (known as the Fate Motif) and its Fragmentations and Modulations are Phrased throughout all the Movements.

The Motif is telling a story … about itself !!!

So lets say a designer/artist is creating a landscape with trees being the main Motifs … instead of just being a clump of green stuff often seen with many blender artworks, understanding the importance of Phrasing can and make all the difference in the world!!