A few weeks ago we had to make a cover letter and resume for an assignment to teach us how to properly create those documents. We obviously did not actually submit these to the jobs we made them for, but they were still an effective way of familiarizing us with these documents. This is especially useful because in only a few years we will be applying for jobs, and knowing how to make a resume that stands out may get us the job. I was also very appreciative of this experience because school usually doesn't teach us how to do things that we will actually use in life outside of school. This allows me to be prepared for the future when I will need to write cover letters and resumes for job applications. As for my preparations outside of class for the future, I am currently trying to get experience working jobs so that my resume will be more appealing when I make one. I currently only have a part time job, but work is work and I still get paid even if the experience does not appeal on my resume. I'm sure that by the time I actually do make a resume I'll have worked more jobs and probably even jobs relevant to the resume I would be making. I also hope that this portfolio will prove useful in the future, but even if it doesn't I will know how to make a portfolio showing off the work the job I apply to would like to see.
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It's hard to believe that just one year ago I was a freshman with no experience with digital art whatsoever. I am proud of the progress I have made working with Photoshop, Premiere, and 3DS Max just in the last year. This progress and the retained knowledge of how to do so has helped me with my current assignments this year and inspired me to work with digital media outside of class as well. For the past few assignments it has been required that we remember how to model from last year, and of course I had no problem doing that. I was almost able to finish the first assignment we were given this week, but the computer took too long to render the final video so I never turned it in. Luckily it was just a refresher so it was not graded, but it effectively reinforced my comfort with 3D modeling because it showed me I was capable of doing all of the work we did with 3D modeling last year, given only three or so days to make it. Retaining this knowledge of how to 3D model will be useful in my future years at DSA and probably even at my future job, but I am still unsure if it will be a 3D modeling based job. Even if 3D modeling doesn't help me at my future job, knowing how to build an effective resume will help me get that job. That and this portfolio are why I enjoy this class so much more than every other class, it actually teaches me skills that may help me down the road in life. Having this experience with digital art and knowing how to make proper job applications are things that actually help me progress in life, and I would much rather progress than work for nothing.
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We are now well into our 3D modeling unit and we're even animating our models now. So far the process has been fun and easy, but somewhat time consuming. I learned most of the features of 3DS Max pretty quickly, so that has made the modeling process a lot easier so far. I am really enjoying animation so far mainly because it auto-generates the animations between keyframes you can set. This makes animating a lot faster than moving objects frame by frame, and let me explore other options I could do with my assignments. However, I don't like the curve editor because I don't understand it and whenever I use it my animation breaks. Besides that though I have enjoyed 3D modeling so far and i hope it continues to be fun. After doing some additional research, I found out that 3D designers can make $55,000 a year using the 3D modeling skills we learned in class. Taken into perspective though, other websites state that teachers make about $55,000 a year as well, so maybe 3D designing is not the best career to pick if you want to be rich. That doesn't mean its a bad career though, many people enjoy having this career because 3D modeling is what they love to do, regardless of the pay for it. Even better, the longer you have a job as a 3D designer the more experience you have with that career, opening up higher positions or even raises that can bring the yearly salary up to $83,000. So all in all, 3D modeling has been going smoothly so far and 3D design could be a future career choice for me if I really get into this 3D modeling.
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Citations: www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/3d-designer-salary-SRCH_KO0,11.htm https://www1.salary.com/NC/high-school-teacher-salary.html After working in Premiere long enough to understand it and know how to use it effectively, I enjoy its features. From the start of working with video I knew that Premiere would probably be the best video editing software I ever work with, so I quickly tried to figure out how to best use it. As we got more assignments to do in Premiere my understanding of it grew, and I began to look for software I could use at home for free for video editing. Premiere inspired me to record hours of footage at home so that I could edit it and maybe turn it into something interesting. The only problem is that I don’t have Premiere at home, but I’ll likely find some other video editing software. As for the time I used Premiere at school it has been great, I learned many things about the skills it takes to create a good film such as how to make motion flow and what camera angles work best. Working with Premiere has been interesting, but not as fun as some of the other software we have worked with. The only reason for it not being as fun is because the amount time it takes to create a finished product is unpredictable and it always left me with a sense of unaccomplishment. Given the tools of Premiere I felt like I could have done much more than what was required for the assignments we were given, but for time’s sake I didn’t. That is why I am currently looking for a free video editing software at home, because video editing may become a hobby if I can work with it long enough to feel accomplished. Now that it is the fourth quarter I’m pretty sure we will be moving on to 3D modeling, which will hopefully be fun and similar to the work I did in eighth grade. At least I have some skills I will be coming in with for 3D modeling, unlike the other things we have worked with, but I most likely have forgotten my skills by now. After doing some additional research I found a few free video editing softwares I could use at home to expand my knowledge on the use of video editing. Most of the free video editing softwares are free versions advertising their professional full versions, but still function fully as video editing software. I was planning on using Movie Maker because that’s what some of my friends and brothers had used in the past for video editing, but it was discontinued over a year ago. I might end up using Shotcut, but I haven’t looked into every single option I have yet, hopefully I find a reliable software that can get the job done soon.
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Citations: www.pcworld.com/article/3240982/software/the-best-free-video-editing-software.html https://www.lifewire.com/best-free-video-editing-software-programs-4128924 We had a nice one week winter break from school, of course I didn't do much over the break, yet I wasn't ready for school when break was over. I was glad to have a two hour delay on the first Monday back, as well as an early release on Wednesday and no school Thursday or Friday last week. However even with an extended winter break I still feel that I haven't started off the year right. At school I'm taking tests slower and working less efficiently, which I'm sure will go away quickly next week, but I've also been less efficient at home. Clearly I'm not fully back into my school schedule yet because most times at home I just lie around, even when I have homework to be done. Luckily there haven't been any major projects, but tests are coming up as well as the end of the quarter so I just hope my grade doesn't drop too far before report cards come home. Just today I've finally taken responsibility and gotten back into the schedule, and it made me think about breaks from school. I've always gone to year-round schools, so having a winter break 2 weeks shorter than usual is probably what threw me off. Especially with the snow days filling in the days I usually would have break on I probably just reverted to my middle school schedule, which would mean break this week. However, knowing that is not the case anymore I'll just have to wait six months for my infinitely long Summer break. During that wait for break it is important though that I focus on school because being lazy never got anyone anywhere. Not in school or in the working world, so I'll just have to get back into the swing of things and hopefully not continue to procrastinate either.
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Now that we have learned how to make 2D art for video games we have learned one of the essential components of making games. Even with coding and an innovative idea for a game, it would be incomplete without art for the components of that game. So by learning simple ways to make art, we have finally somewhat started getting into the creation of games. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be able to make more complex art and maybe even become more skilled with animation at home so that I'll at least be able to animate. I'm not quite sure what I want to do for a living, but animation appeals to me as something interesting and worthwhile so maybe now is the time I start practicing for the future. Hopefully this class continues to help me build my digital art skills so that I can continue to use them later in life.
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In Fundamentals of Game Art and Design we recently went over the different developments of the digital arts industry from the 1950s to today, we even chose a career we were interested in to make a timeline for, showing how it has developed through the years. Understanding the history of digital art is important because it shows how far we've come and what we can still achieve, progress can always be made, and by using the mistakes of the past we could be the ones to make new methods for digital arts. This lesson caught my attention because it brought light on how much humans have done to make digital art and media an actual career, like the one I researched for the timeline, a texture artist. Just a century ago texture artists for video games didn't even exist, and now it's a career that actually seems quite interesting to me, so interesting I might even take a shot at being one when I get a chance. I've done some additional research on texture artists, and of course the first thing I looked for was their salary, which goes anywhere from $20,000 to $90,000 a year, with the average being about $50,000. Of course that sounded pretty good to me, seeing as I only make $1,000 a year, however I'll have to do a lot of practice in order to get that job, put I'm sure I can do it if I try hard enough to.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Main Points:
Citations: www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/texture-artist-career-profile www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Texture_Artist/Salary |
AuthorMy name is Andrew Prichard and the this is my first digital arts class, I look forward to a good year with lots of hard work. Archives
May 2021
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Last updated 5/14/21
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