Coming into school I had a character all worked out. I would 3D model the character and design a small environment like a smithy for this robot to be showcased in.

I spent the next couple years working on school projects and got around to modeling, UVing, texturing and rigging my 'Foundry Man'

By my final quarter I had a rusty foundry man with a hammer as well as a barren looking foundry along with some very pointless looking pipes to populate the space.

I came to the conclusion that what I had ready for grad would not be good enough and so I undertook a full project overhaul with only 3 months left to go. I started with assets to populate my barren foundry and started hand painting textures.

2 weeks in, things were progressing quickly and I was tossing around the idea of making a whole new room for my assets. The old room was nothing special. It became clear that I would have to drop my hand painted textures. They took too long to produce.

About a mouth into my final quarter I'd finished most all of my geometry.

Then came the UVing. The biggest UV job I preformed took place over a 16 hour work block in which I UVed all 13 of the steam engine chandelier sections.

The rest of the UV sheets followed throughout the next few days

I experimented with Quixel and found that the results were quicker and better! I bought the full license and was on my way.

As I learned how to use Quixel I began integrating my own photos into the Quixel workflow.

2 weeks later, my Quixel textures were completely done. I loaded them into Unreal and found that I had produced the wrong texture workflow. I WOULD HAVE TO START FROM SCRATCH.

I solved my problem by manually converting my Specular workflow into a Metalness workflow through Photoshop. The process took 3 days but solved the problem far quicker then starting from scratch.

Finally it was time to import my fixed textures into unreal engine. I lit my scene and rendered out my demo reel. I completed my project with a couple days to spare. I HAD SUCCEEDED!