Over the course of unit 11, I broke down and analysed a large range of job titles and responsibilities in those roles, including posted vacancies such as terrain artist, technical artist, and texture artist. In this section, I assessed the essential duties of each job as well as the long list of education and/or experience required to apply. Through this research, I obtained a much better understanding of what each role requires as a profession, and made sure to explore those pathways throughout the year. For example, for unit 12 – ‘cyberpunk’ – I gathered as many resources as I could and did my best to learn how particle systems and visual effects work in-engine. Through this experience, I now know what it’s like to work with visual effects and what it involves to be successful in that field. The research into the subject alone was enough to help me understand the role in more detail and provide me with a better grasp of what the process looks likes. Although this work wasn’t the initial spotlight of my proposal, it slowly turned into the primary focus as I grew more aware of the amount of work the subject required.
As you can imagine, task 2 – UCAS – influenced my final personal statement drastically. Prior to that, task 1.3 – University – had me looking at a handful of universities for the third or fourth time. However, this time around I documented my research and thought processes that revolved around the small range of courses I looked in to. Here I broke down the course overviews and requirements from 3 different universities, and glazed over the entry requirements. Finally I concluded task 1, comparing the show reel from each instance, and discussing the differences and similarities that I felt were of value. However, most importantly, the personal statement help sheet from UCAS official created the building blocks that formed my entire application. I can wholeheartedly admit that I would have struggled horrible with writing that personal statement from scratch.
Although I was encouraged to plan and create my own website to host my portfolio or show reel, I did not end up following this through. This decision was influenced by a number of second-hand experiences, including the very good points made by FlippedNormals (inserted above), as well as past Northbrook students who spoke for industry day. Like FlippedNormals, Max Ramsey emphasised the minimal attention span recruiters have; how the number of clicks required to get to your work is an important factor when applying for jobs. Studios tend to use a closed network with a very strict filter to ensure employees aren’t off-task or looking at other people’s work in fear of copyright infringement. Therefore, if a custom website isn’t recognised by this filter and your portfolio is inaccessible to a recruiter, they are likely to move on instead of asking for a different source – job opportunity out the window! YEET! Furthermore, websites can be difficult to build for someone who has no experience or doesn’t want to use a host such as Wix/Weebly/Wordpress/Google Sites. Sometimes websites can take weeks to build, and in the process, crucial information such as contact details are forgotten about. As a result, I’ve chosen to display my work via Artstation and Arstation Pro’s website builder. It is the industry standard and should be treated as such.
Pre-Marmoset 
Post-Marmoset
Task 4 was my main priority for the second year of level 3 games development because it was simply a list of my portfolio’s biggest weaknesses. With it, I was able to direct my creative units to tick these boxes and strengthen my understanding of several fascinating subjects. I was able to complete 4 out of 5 of the tasks I set myself for the year. These included: making an advanced shader in Unreal Engine 4; learning the fundamentals of ZBrush in preparation for the FMP; practise life drawing in my spare time; and using marmoset to render my work for presentation. Unfortunately, the single topic listed that I didn’t get to cover was character rigging. However, this was the least important item on that list and so I’m not unhappy I didn’t get to complete it. Despite having yet to demonstrate what I’ve learnt about Zbrush in my portfolio, I’ve made sure the rest of what I’ve learnt is displayed on my public portfolio. This work can also be viewed on the ‘New Portfolio Work’ webpage.
In conclusion, I felt this year has gone really well. It’s had it’s fair share of ups and downs but each unit has resulted in a body of work I’ve been proud of sharing for my portfolio, and in the end, that’s the real goal for this course. Throughout 2019, I’ve spent my time learning and experimenting with the list of software and related techniques that I thought would benefit my work most, to varying degrees of success. There has always been and will always be new methods and software to learn in any field of games development, which will require great work ethic and an optimistic mindset to tackle every year. As multiple speakers stated during industry day, now is the time to make and learn from your mistakes.
Level 3 Year 2 