Introduction
Working on a 3D image is most often pure fun and something worth to experience. It is the fun and satisfaction one has when working slowly but surely to create a new world of its own, even when it is only a small one. Even when this world is only a virtual one, for many of us it is real, especially when we have printed it out.
Yet very often it can happen during the work the focus can change subtlety. And of course, this “shift of essentials” as I call it is something we all should avoid.
The Shift of Essentials Explained
Imagine you are working on a 3D image of any kind from abstract to realistic. Of course, you have a goal for this image. One very often found example could be to create a good overall picture. Or it could be the mood you are after or the color quality. In any case, these goals are big because they affect the image as a whole. But while working on this 3D image, the “global” main goal over time changes and shifts from this to – let’s say – a good looking texture or a good shader. In this case we have a shift from the big plan to the smaller details, from the creative goals to the technical aspects and technical side of the realization.
If you look carefully you can find many movies that show the same shift of essentials. Action flicks come to mind and therefore can be used as a good example: in many examples of this genre the action itself very often is the placeholder for a missing story. The explosions look great the stunt scenes are way over the top but nevertheless some the movies feel flat or hollow because the bad overall story. There are no true characters or character motivations, no intense plot points and so on.
The same can happen to anyone and I myself am no exception. Many times I lost my sight over the goal I wanted to achieve originally. Yet the longer I worked on it, the more I got hooked up by minor details that looked great (while the rest didn’t).
One good example of my personal shifts of essentials is the 3D image “Stonehenge” which you can find in my gallery. Because while I was working it I slowly but surely changed my focus from the big goal to one detail of the overall image, the grass. I was so fascinated by the possibilities of the hair tool to create grass that I concentrated myself more and more on that single element and started to ignore everything else. And the worst of all was this: because the grass didn’t look exactly the same after my computer crashed and I had to restore the scene I simply abolished the scene and didn’t continue to work on it.
Silly isn’t it? I think this is the worst case scenario one can imagine for this shift of essentials. I was so on the grass that I didn’t care anymore for the remaining 3D image.
How to prevent a Shift of Essentials
So, what could be done to prevent a similar situation in the future? Of course – and this makes the thing not easier – we all have to work on details at some time to create the bigger thing.
Yet what I have learned in the months after this incident is this: when you apply the Pareto Principle (about which I wrote in the last tutorial) to all your workings you immediately regain your focus about the bigger goal and the image as a whole. So in other words it is for one extremely important to limit the amount of detail works (or technical works because it is cool) and for the other to never forget the image itself.
Of course this is way easier said than done because each and every element defines the final image and its quality. But never forget this: The texture on which you worked for months can be awesome but if the underlying model is a big failure it is worth nothing. The same goes for the model. The model as a whole can be wonderful but a bad lightning can ruin everything. The Model and the lightning as whole can be worth nothing if the composition is bad and so on.
You see, it is important and good to think about the details and the technical aspects of your image and the underlying mechanics.
But don’t forget your master plan on your way to the final product.
