For me it was that summer day when the news drop about Bethesda modding and the creation club!
I had work intensively for almost a year on many mods for Skyrim dropping my game in the background in the hope i would get a better cut than the initial 25% but we all know how it turn out to be!
I was depress for a month and i had 12 mods and some of them almost rebuilding Whiterun from scratch sleeping on my hard drive with no incentive to finish them for release.
Right after i swear i was never going to wait after another company to make a living and went full speed ahead with my game.
A guy made a pretty funny video about what the creation club was here ;
I will eventually find the time to finish them and release them for free. Here a quick list of them i post on the nexus forum MOAS was the name and it simply meant My Own Art Style ;
Moas real 3D roads(complete new 3d model for all roads and bridges including new snow roads meshes)
Moas trees overhaul (complete new trees models for pine and birch(re texture only with new bones armature for Birch) fully animated with swinging tree tops(finally)
Moas Epic mountains ( did a complete re-sculpt based on the mountain texture just to get good normal map from it and i also re-texture it to 4096 and made custom UV set)
Moas Epic winter overhaul (A complete winter overhaul from someone who live in a winter region, including new meshes and textures + dynamic snow shader enhancement)
Moas Epic Iron set ( new model for iron armor light&heavy, bye bye goofy helmet)
Moas potions overhaul (re-designed all potions my style)
Moas Epic iron weapons (All new iron weapons models)
Moas No horned helmets(re-designed all horned helmet to make them look good without horns)
Moas farms overhaul ( a complete overhaul to make farms look better)
Moas Epic Whiterun (complete new Whiterun re-designed, epic quest starting in new dungeon location under Whiterun, introducing a brand new race , new set of unique armor and weapons to get on a new island from the quest, epic boss battle and complete new Breezehome with open access(no load door).
I also had a few other like a custom oil lantern and an underwater remake with fish and plants.
For me it was the case of when Flash support was dropped by 2008 and it became obsolete. As I was working as a Flash Animator making animated graphics, soon I was out of job. The only way I could continue would be to switch to motion graphics or programming, where I picked programming since it was close to Web Development.
So out of my own experience and by watching the gaming scene for quite a while, this was a life-lesson for me not to get involved with proprietary technology again to the point of becoming dependent on it. This means having transferrable skills is very important and also having no technology deadlock.
This is another reason of why 1 year ago I stopped using Unity+Unreal and those types of “Editor-Based” based engines. And started trying to make things fully code-driven code architecture. Is about building skills on doing the stuff in a hardcore way. Not essentially about the difficulty factor but mostly about the principle of getting deep.
The “greatest” deception is UNIVERSITY DEGREE(s).
I wasted a LOT of TIME, MONEY, OPPORTUNITIES with 10+ years at College (multiple honors degrees).
Not only did MOST of the stuff they “”“teach us”"" is USELESS… a lot of it is also FALSE.
What made it worse, was severe job discrimination & exploitation. It didn’t help that I am extremely honest & hard-working (most people take advantage of folks like me).
That is my advice I give to younger generation. Do learn, but SELF LEARN ----------------> In fact, I am creating a SELF HIGHER LEARNING CURRICULUM … it is text-book & example Interactive format.
polynut, I get the feeling that you felt “betrayed” by Besthesda. And rightfully so, since you were MISLEAD and you WASTED a lot of your precious TIME. Similarly, what I learned (which I agree with both posts above), is that I need to do it the “honest hard way” of actual deep learning. This is my legacy that I am proud of. It is your choice to decide if “CG career” is what you want to pursue ---------------> And if you do it, do it well. Anything less will not born fruits.
On this i have to agree since after so many years in the business i saw mostly the same pattern of big corporations exploiting artists and cashing in billions while they didn’t pay them overtime.
In some sense Universities are best for specific subjects, such as classic subjects like physics, or mathematics, or medical, or military. These types of professions also belong to a more “closed-circle” and the entry-level is high. In a way that no one can become a surgeon in their homes, or turn their backyard cabin into a nuclear reactor. These suggest high regulations and knowledge cost.
The biggest deception for me was in thinking it would be fun all the time.
As for college, I have to disagree on it’s importance. I went in having already taught myself a huge chunk of what I know. At the time, I often felt it was pointless being there. However, in retrospect (and after enough years for the sting of student loans to heal) I appreciate what I gained in anecdotes, little lightbulb moments that have stuck with me, interpersonal skills, confidence, and the connections I’ve made.
I believe these are the core things that are important about school in general, and you get a bit of that in pre-college (k-12 in the states). The difference is you go to college willingly with a goal and an open mind. Pre-college, you went because you had to… Or ditched when you could.