|
|
WooHoo! lol
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
WooHoo! lol // Roundtable
Post by Matski007 // Jul 7, 2008, 1:09pm
|
Matski007
Total Posts: 539
|
heh, almost in celebrations today, I got my second year results for the degree course im doing in Computer Animation.
I PASSED!
although, it is an ordinary pass, I need to undertake some supplementary assesments in August to pass with honors! which I shall! lol
What is good though, is that I didnt fail any of my actual animation module, and only failed in Photography (which is important I guess, but I failed because I submitted my holiday photos instead of my model shoot photos oops!) and failed Arts, Culture and Entertainment (a stupid presentation I had to do about the history and technical achievement of radio :-( ) lol |
Post by nowherebrain // Jul 7, 2008, 1:18pm
|
nowherebrain
Total Posts: 1062
|
Radi..what?...Congrats! |
Post by kena // Jul 7, 2008, 1:35pm
|
kena
Total Posts: 2321
|
Congratulations! As a person who just on the 5th celebrated my ## birthday...
(See I'm not into triple digits yet!)
If it were not for the Bickersons, there would be no Honeymooners. If it were not for the Honeymooners, there would be no popularity for Jackie Gleason. If there were no Jacki Gleason, there would be no Mork and Mindie. If there were no Mork and Mindie, then Robin Williams would not have gotten any popularity. and THEN where would be be?
hehehe. Everything connects to everything else. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 7, 2008, 11:36pm
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
Congrats Matski! :jumpy: |
Post by Breech Block // Jul 8, 2008, 7:14pm
|
Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
|
Many Congrats Matski! So what's your next step going to be? |
Post by Dragneye // Jul 8, 2008, 7:29pm
|
Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
|
Congrats Matski. Now... what you gonna do with all that artistic knowledge? :-)
As for Robin Williams (who I think is great btw), I guess we would have had to stick to lil ole George Carlin. Aw dang... he's gone too :-( |
Post by Matski007 // Jul 9, 2008, 3:54am
|
Matski007
Total Posts: 539
|
thanks guys.
Its a shame that the amount of knowledge I have gotten from this course is next to none. Everythig I now know i have self taught.
Of course the people I should be thanking are all of you on this forum! for helping me since the beginning of my delving into 3D graphics!
Thank you TS Forum Members!
and Thank you Caligari! |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 9, 2008, 4:06am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
Glad we could help you out Matski! :D |
Post by Shike // Jul 9, 2008, 10:29am
|
Shike
Total Posts: 511
|
Congratulations! :D |
Post by butterpaw // Jul 9, 2008, 3:15pm
|
butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
|
Congrats Matski!
:jumpy: |
Post by W!ZARD // Jul 9, 2008, 9:56pm
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
thanks guys.
Its a shame that the amount of knowledge I have gotten from this course is next to none. Everythig I now know i have self taught.
The primary purpose of any education service is to perpetuate the existence of that education service - sadly, in the vast majority of cases, the actual education comes a very sad second to that imperative.
I once very nearly enrolled in a University with the intention of getting a degree in psychology - then I discovered the first year of a human psychology course was spent studying rats!!!
Despite (or perhaps because of) this, surviving and succeeding in passing a course is something to be proud of - congratulations Matski, well done. |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 12:35am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
I did 2 courses, a Higher National Diploma as I didn't have the qualifications to get into the Degree and then onto the degree. I started when I was 16 so I actually graduated the same time as most folks getting straight onto the degree.
Anyway, the point: I was 'learning' stuff in my honours year of the degree that i had learned in the first year of the diploma. One lecturer, a wiz at facial recognition taught us C++ by taking the source from a C++ app and talking us through it.
The courses did teach me some things like who cares what language you use as long as it's not basic (I covered about 20 different languages) but I could code in assembly before I even went to university and knew the basics of C. I only did the degree because I couldn't get a job otherwise in software development.
What i have also come to realise in the last few weeks is that people who are entirely self taught (and I am referring to software development) can be good but often they lack the problem solving abilities and discipline needed and taught within a degree.
On the other hand, I also managed someone who is gratefully no longer with the company who had a degree in software development and design (design as in 3D modelling, graphic design and stuff like that) and was useless - I am a better 3D modeller and I suck.
What I am really trying to say Matski is that you may think you are not learning much but the stuff they are teaching you is more a way of thinking. You will learn more by yourself that is practical or away from the course but the 10% of the course that is useful is actually critical.
I have always said that when you graduate you start at the beginning again - everything you have previously learned is useless...in reality there's that 10% ish that sinks in and you'll appreciate it only years after you graduate. |
Post by W!ZARD // Jul 10, 2008, 1:27am
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
Brother X is right of course but being something of an individualist I never got on well with schools - they didn't really know how to deal with me:D.
The thing that's always troubled me about Universities is that while they teach a common language and a common method of understanding a particular subject they also produce large numbers of people who are all trained to think the same way.
Clearly there are advantages and disadvantages to this and many of the worlds most successful people have reached great success without the need of higher education - but any qualification, regardless of the value of the information involved - has value in itself. You can't get a higher qualification without demonstrating commitment and ability and intelligence. Often the real advantages are more intangible than the simple surface information you get directly from the course material. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 10, 2008, 2:09am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
It's a shame that technical schools and high school vo-tech programs are looked down upon by those with traditional degrees.
Plumbing, electrical, equipment maintenance, etc., those careers aren't likely to be downsized anytime soon and if you've every hired a contractor, you know the pay isn't so bad either. ;)
Instead of pushing kids towards the glory of a desk job :rolleyes:, we would do them a better service encouraging them to think more directly about a technical skilled career.
As far as the software development goes that depends on the curriculum and the teacher. I learned to program at 8 years old from a wonderful Dos program called MasterC. Reading and writing code has always been easy for me because of that. But I didn't learn about common programming algorithms until college. The disadvantage of being self taught is that you're always re-inventing the wheel. On the otherhand, there's experience to be gained in solving those problems for yourself.
My advice to the self taught programmer is: Even if there's a fancy solution that would be faster and "better". Keep it simple. You never know when you'll have to revisit old code you've written and say to yourself, "Wha? What the hell was I thinking?" :D Of course, now-a-days I'm getting older, lazier (wiser:p), and crabby, so canned solutions are beginning to appeal to me... LOL. :rolleyes:
Now 3D on the otherhand is a bold new world. With the exception of some of the people getting into 3D recently, everyone was self taught. And generally I'd say that most 3D artists are specialized in their particular choice of software as well. Some of that seems to be changing over the last decade and the basic workflows are becoming a bit less app specific:
Concept - modeling - UV layout - texturing - scene layout - animation - rendering - post process.
We're now even starting to see more specialized apps appearing to meet the needs of each of these steps in the process.
But regardless of learning, my opinion is that 3D is a lot like sports. Knowing how to play the game doesn't make you a pro. It takes both talent and the years of hard work to develop the skills. Many people dabble here or there and some make a good go of it, but the few that truly amaze us have both talent AND put in the long hours of practice and skill building day after day after day.
I remember an artist friend who visited me from California one summer. He would carry a sketch pad around with him everywhere he went and was always drawing in it. Doodling, practicing characters, expressions, quick sketches to catch the flow of a pose. Even at a restaurant he would sketch on the paper napkins. But it was all about skill building and continually trying to improve.
Things have always come easy to me, so it always frustrated me that there were some things that even though I knew "everything there was to know about it", I still sucked. What I never realized as a kid was the reason the other kids were better than me, wasn't because "I sucked at ____" it was because they'd been doing it for years and had spent years working on the skills. Now that I'm older, I can think back to that friend who was always drawing, and realize that most things that are worth doing usually require putting in the time and keeping at it even if the result are disappointing.
What's really cool is that many of us are here participating in these forums because we are on that same journey as my friend with the sketch pad, right now - right here at these forums. And it's truely fascinating to look back at earlier works and see how much each of us has improved. Some times it's worth taking a look back to just remind yourself just how far you've already come. :) |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 2:27am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
Brother X is right of course but being something of an individualist I never got on well with schools - they didn't really know how to deal with me:D.
My brother is also one of these people, not fitting in - he dropped out after 2 years of university and now works in a garage telling people how much money they are going to have to shell out for repairs and is on minimum wage. He's trying to be a writer and has had limited success and will no doubt get a book published. If he did an english degree, would he have been published - probably not. He has the flair and creativity to be an author but doesn't have the staying power.
The thing that's always troubled me about Universities is that while they teach a common language and a common method of understanding a particular subject they also produce large numbers of people who are all trained to think the same way.
I agree with this but only to a certain extent. The people who go to university hoping to learn about something with no background will come out mostly average, clones of each other. Those who have the creativity or natural flair and have had some experience before or during the course will come out still with those natural abilities but with the added bonus of knowing how everyone thinks and put their own spin on it.
I've been writing software since I was about 11 - close to a 1/4 century, not quite. I had been coding for just over 5 years before starting college, wrote a game when I was 13 and was coding using assembler by the time I was 15, and knew about writing software and a little about thinking ahead. I didn't know anything about standard stuff like stacks, lists, trees, recursion etc. Once I learned, my code improved massively but I still was able to add my own style to it.
These days they don't spend too much on how things work simply because modern languages (C#, Java etc) do it all for you - the down-side is they don't understand how these work and how it fits into the the work so tend to need a lot more on-the-job training. An underling of mine is struggling with basic binary maths - an essential tool for a software engineer if you ask me.
When it comes to graphical design though, I would say that you either can do it or not. I was always bad at art and a design degree wouldn't change that. The benefit in a degree would be the other rubbish like communications skills, report writing, perhaps basic maths, video editing tricks and tips and so on.
Anyway, contrats on passing Matski.
The primary purpose of any education service is to perpetuate the existence of that education service
Yup. so true. I spent 4 weeks of tutorials learning how to program a robot arm to stack plastic disks of varying size on top of one another in order of size using video to identify their size and location. What was the point...? it was research one of the lecturers was interested in. |
Post by Matski007 // Jul 10, 2008, 2:28am
|
Matski007
Total Posts: 539
|
wow!, I totally agree with all of you. However you do tend to get cought up in the fact that the university has pieced this course together with a variety of useless modules which I have fealt are not integral to computer animation, infact in the past 2 years of my course, there has been less than an hour a week of taught Maya use, the rest has been media studies and even script writing (film scripts), things of which I have done in High School and College at the same level lol, what tops it off is the debt I must get myself into to be able to afford this course, and so naturally me and a large range of students believe that the university isnt even fit enough to have boasted this course at all.
However, I most continue because having a degree shows that you can stick to something and produce what is needed.
It has also been very important for me in making friends and connections with industries and has helped me so damn much in focusing what I want to do more.
All the things the university has helped me with were indirectly linked to the course however lol.
Either way I just gotta get my head down and get the work done! then think about the FUTURE?!?!?!?! |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 2:55am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
My advice to the self taught programmer is: Even if there's a fancy solution that would be faster and "better". Keep it simple.
I totally agree with this. Knew a guy who was a good programmer but simple wasn't good enough - never delivered projects on time... |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 3:04am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
wow!, I totally agree with all of you. However you do tend to get cought up in the fact that the university has pieced this course together with a variety of useless modules which I have fealt are not integral to computer animation, infact in the past 2 years of my course, there has been less than an hour a week of taught Maya use, the rest has been media studies and even script writing (film scripts), things of which I have done in High School and College at the same level lol, what tops it off is the debt I must get myself into to be able to afford this course, and so naturally me and a large range of students believe that the university isnt even fit enough to have boasted this course at all.
However, I most continue because having a degree shows that you can stick to something and produce what is needed.
It has also been very important for me in making friends and connections with industries and has helped me so damn much in focusing what I want to do more.
All the things the university has helped me with were indirectly linked to the course however lol.
Either way I just gotta get my head down and get the work done! then think about the FUTURE?!?!?!?!
I was the same in that I could have done university courses as school. The difference was in Scotland you choose the courses you do for your degree and if you do those university courses at school you are exempt from them and even credited. Not all the universities work like that but the traditional ones do (aberdeen, edinburgh etc)
Scripting is something i could understand why they would cover and even media studies. Business courses and communications in case you had to do a pitch to a customer, write proposals and reports...and so on.
And 1 hour a week lab time seems about right...there were about 500 people on my course - well, first year anyway. |
Post by Nez // Jul 10, 2008, 4:21am
|
Nez
Total Posts: 1102
|
An interesting thread...with undergrad and post-grad degrees, I can certainly appreciate some of the advantages of higher education - and some of the negatives too...
Certainly, with my undergrad degree, I only use maybe 10-20% of what I learned in the course in my job with the rest being largely irrelevant to my job - but civil engineering is a wide field and leaves you able to go into a range of specialities, so there needs to be some basis to allow that to happen. Someone going into a different speciality would be using a different portion of the course in their daily life to me... but the personal development, practice in report writing and presentations etc all did a great deal for my communication abilities and confidence, all of which helped me grow up to the point I could be employable....
The Masters degree I did, I chose for 'fun' - Computer Imaging in Architecture. Not directly related to my job, hoped I'd learn all sorts of cool computing stuff, especially 3d etc. In practice, they didn't teach us much but gave us access to photoshop, lightwave and a few other things I'd not used before. There were a number of 'modules' that really didn't seem to have much to do with the degree title (including one on black & white SLR photography - with film cameras, not digital) but I actually found it really interesting in pushing me out of my comfort zone and thinking about stuff from a different perspective. I didn't get quite what I'd originally expected from the course - but got something else that was still interesting and self-developing... You can almost always get something useful out of courses, it may just not be what you planned...
Anyway, well done, all the best with what comes next... |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 4:33am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
So, you're an engineer Nez? interesting. If you ever fancy a change of scenery, let me know. The company I work for is always looking for engineers... |
Post by Nez // Jul 10, 2008, 6:18am
|
Nez
Total Posts: 1102
|
Ha, thanks brotherx! Much as a change of scene might be nice, I'm married and have 2 kids plus more family locally and a move to the Emerald Isle might not go down too well right now!
Noticed you studied in Scotland - I've got family up that way too - so what made you shift across the sea? Are you originally from Scotland, Ireland or somewhere else?! |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 6:24am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
I'm originally from Aberdeen. My wife always wanted to live in Ireland and I always thought i wanted to live in the states but changed my mind after a visit there a few years back and so we moved to Ireland just over 18 months ago - well, I did. I came over 2 months before and got things settled. My wife organised the move and flat sale...
I tell you something like, never moved here for the weather. I don't think we've had a dry day yet this year...!! |
Post by Nez // Jul 10, 2008, 6:27am
|
Nez
Total Posts: 1102
|
Indeed - there's a reason Ireland is famous for the colour green - it's because everything is so well watered:D Mind you, Aberdeen isn't exactly famous for being dry! That's where my dad was born... I live in the south-east of England, which is rather better, but it's still been a pretty poor week! |
Post by jamesmc // Jul 10, 2008, 6:28am
|
jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
|
High tech for me after college was the ability to make shadow puppets on 35mm slide presentations. :cool: |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 6:29am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
Aberdeen is one of the driest cities in the UK...the average annual rainfall is tiny. It is true everybody things it rains a lot there but I remember one summer where it didn't rain for 3 1/2 months non-stop. nice summer. shame I was working. |
Post by TomG // Jul 10, 2008, 7:08am
|
TomG
Total Posts: 3397
|
Aberdeen is where I went to University, and I grew up in the NE of Scotland so that is home to me :)
Unlike BrotherX there I did choose the US for my move to another country (and Texas is something of a significantly different climate than Aberdeen I can tell you...)
Tom |
Post by brotherx // Jul 10, 2008, 7:36am
|
brotherx
Total Posts: 538
|
I do like the US - they do good roller coasters. I might get to be in houston in September for work - will wait and see. |
Post by W!ZARD // Jul 13, 2008, 4:15am
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
It's a shame that technical schools and high school vo-tech programs are looked down upon by those with traditional degrees. LOL - I suspect that cuts both ways Jack. I left school and got an apprenticeship in a recognised physical trade - every now and then they would send us some students who had elected to go through the University Electrical Engineering degree courses. We would have to baby-sit these guys while they got a couple of weeks "on the job" experience.
Now the trade in question was Telecom Technician and in those days involved lots of work up ladders on telephone and power poles. The Varsity trained guys would come out with no idea of how to carry a ladder or work on one without falling off - there was a lot of noses looked down with those poor guys, I always felt sorry for them.
Plumbing, electrical, equipment maintenance, etc., those careers aren't likely to be downsized anytime soon and if you've every hired a contractor, you know the pay isn't so bad either. ;)
Instead of pushing kids towards the glory of a desk job :rolleyes:, we would do them a better service encouraging them to think more directly about a technical skilled career.Speaking for myself I've never regretted obtaining my Advanced Trades Certificate. By learning a practical task-orientated occupation I have been able to learn a wide range of fundamental principles that are of practical usefulness to me everyday. The practical understanding I developed from learning that trade is of huge value to me in my 3d work today, in ways that I could never have dreamed!
<TRIM>.
But regardless of learning, my opinion is that 3D is a lot like sports. Knowing how to play the game doesn't make you a pro. It takes both talent and the years of hard work to develop the skills. Many people dabble here or there and some make a good go of it, but the few that truly amaze us have both talent AND put in the long hours of practice and skill building day after day after day.
I remember an artist friend who visited me from California one summer. He would carry a sketch pad around with him everywhere he went and was always drawing in it. Doodling, practicing characters, expressions, quick sketches to catch the flow of a pose. Even at a restaurant he would sketch on the paper napkins. But it was all about skill building and continually trying to improve.
Things have always come easy to me, so it always frustrated me that there were some things that even though I knew "everything there was to know about it", I still sucked. What I never realized as a kid was the reason the other kids were better than me, wasn't because "I sucked at ____" it was because they'd been doing it for years and had spent years working on the skills. Now that I'm older, I can think back to that friend who was always drawing, and realize that most things that are worth doing usually require putting in the time and keeping at it even if the result are disappointing.
"What I never realized as a kid was the reason the other kids were better than me, wasn't because "I sucked at ____" it was because they'd been doing it for years and had spent years working on the skills"
Absolutely! It's sad that so many folk don't grasp this very important fact.
I'm very fortunate in that my parents taught me how to learn and how to enjoy learning - as opposed to school where I was taught WHAT to learn rather than HOW! The result is that for most of my life I have had folk commenting to me about my 'talent' - whether it be for writing, or painting, or music or even just general handyman-about-the-house stuff.
The net result is that now I am very suspicious about the whole idea of talent. Once upon a time I was unable to do any of the things I have subsequently learned to do - and now I have learned these things (am still learning:D) I'm thinking I have no 'talent' at anything - what I do have is the desire to learn. The worlds best artists, sportspeople, statesmen, computer programmers - well, think of the best is any field, are often described as having talent - I believe that what they really had was a desire to learn.
Where most folk would say Tiger Woods has a superior talent for golf I would say he has a superior drive to learn mastery of golf. If I went to a golf course and did everything exactly as Tiger Woods does then I too would be a top golfer - success is not about having some mysterious 'talent' it's about have the desire to learn mastery of something.
It saddens me to think of the number of folk who could succeed and excel in any given field if they were told that success and mastery depend on having the desire to learn and not on some mysterious preordained talent.
What one person can learn to do so can another, and another. If it was up to me I would ban the use of the word 'talent' simply because so many folk don't strive to do their best because they believe they have no talents.
I'm nearing the end of this OT rambling but seeing as Matski's thread was about learning these thoughts seemed relevant.... sort of!
What's really cool is that many of us are here participating in these forums because we are on that same journey as my friend with the sketch pad, right now - right here at these forums. And it's truely fascinating to look back at earlier works and see how much each of us has improved. Some times it's worth taking a look back to just remind yourself just how far you've already come. :)
Exactly - well said Jack. Doesn't really matter if your friend with the sketch pad had 'talent' or not - what he did have was a powerful desire to learn to be as good as he could be - and that also applies to many if not all of us here!!
Cool thread Matski - generated some interesting remarks. |
|
