 Hey, hey everyone So well, thank you. Well, it's intimidating as I thought so many people here today But at the same time I'm excited to share a bit of my story So yeah, so my call is titled adding more hot into the blend the blend file And I guess it's what I'm trying to do every time I'm using blender both professionally or personally And I will explain why and how So introducing myself quickly briefly so you can call me Kenji ito Well, that's how you can find me on a station, but actually my real name is Jonas and other both of my Frenchmen Maybe you figure that one out already So friends, but my life is basically this is a graphical representation of my life from France to a small island called Bora Bora to Japan. It's just a bigger island, you know and well Really all this time I've been doing different kind of jobs just taking opportunities and things and well It was just to make money and I was not really doing something I really like and well things have changed since I got into blender And I became a freelancer and now yeah the fun begins and I have my chance to do Yeah, it's getting exciting. So in the past I used to play with a bunch of software in 2001 that went through my archives I don't know if you guys remember this bright 3d. This is very old Yeah, beautiful. And this is Boolean workflow But that was taking hours to render Yeah, anyway That's it for the archives got into blender version 2.7.9. So I think this is before EV And the first thing I noticed is how the software was good I mean so it's light and responsive fast and stable and of course I like I love the GUI I love the UI how you can customize it and things like this. So the first thing I did almost Was to make a 3d teapot Because I used to play with other packages 3d packages and they are teapots and so when I make a teapot This one is kind of overkill like millions of polygons sculpted by and I did all of dots by hands Yeah, yeah So when I started you know and yeah, so it's a great software It's a free software and you can learn it for free I mean at least all my beginner intermediate steps were covered like by the community and well Just to name a few there are more people contribute to it every day And I want to thank everyone For the community work behind blender a special note about CG boosts Basically, I got into CG boost by joining one of their challenges So that's that's old work. So when I look at that it kind of hurts my eyes now But it's nice you can look at your own work in a way that you know You can analyze it and how what what got better what changed since then So did this one and then another one bit different character And I got the first place for this one So I was like, yeah, it's great I wanted and I got some goodies and prices and things but more importantly I could ask some questions to CG boost team and I basically sent an email asking, you know, do you think I could find a job and work as a freelancer and I was not confident that I could find one and I had some great coaching time with Ellen Plain Directly Skype with me. So the guy I never met before helped me really and started to send a few emails And I got my first contracts at ego soft. So it's a German game studio that works on the xx series Used to play the game like 15 years ago or something x2 So you take care of the big big big assets like space station like this one. So this one's goes in as inside an asteroid Literally through yesterday. It's made of many many parts and that's what's one thing I've learned from Ego soft and the ad director there, you know, Thomas is here today So I learned many things and among those things. Yeah, the reusability of the assets So, you know, a and a to it's the same objects just different modifiers just like B and B to so you work smart You work a bit lazy, but this is the way, you know to trick the eye So it looks like it's a used space station, but it's actually made of just a few parts And when you work on a big asset like this one, it's like three commit along spaceship Yeah, you have this level of details when you get close or at the back of the ship Yeah, you have to be smart and it's like keep bashing but a bit more than just making small parts You have different size of parts and you have to assemble them all together But let's go back to to to when I got my job because those those things I just really this is not the first assignment I got but anyway, so at the beginning Well, actually I did learn like it took 10 months is for me from downloading Blender to get a contract So it was kind of pumped up and happy about that But I was like, okay chill man You just started so you're still a beginner and you have much things to learn and I wanted to keep the job as well because you know You have to improve somehow Also, I wanted to explore more about sieges and things because it's not just I mean there's so many fields in sieges It's like it's a huge things and I think it's great So I wanted to you know get into personal project I think so it's the best thing you can do even if you have work and even if it keeps you busy to Practice and get better exploring new things And the first thing I thought is like I wanted to you know, I was looking at this kind of picture You'll not have to read everything is just for illustration But basically complex pipeline from the industry, you know So you have a lot of software important exporting and everything and I thought I should make personal projects that kind of reflect That's so there will be some kind of small pipeline what I was doing and nothing great came up from them So for example here, I did modeling with my 3d. It's another way smaller like fusion 360 I use substance pair and cycles were rendering in bender cycles and some photoshopping and things and this this is not good I mean, I don't think it's good and design wise it still looks like a box and When you look at even the texturing it's kind of obvious too white So, you know, I took all this damage and this worrying of the textures and things But yeah The lightning is off probably as well and the camera the camera is like too low So these things look bigger as it should be like a small as that Doesn't make much sense at that time again trying the other things that was taking a lot of time and Which is just look like a cylinder it lacks of you know, the profile shape is not great. The silhouette is not interesting I was just go spending a lot of time in tiny details like this Thinking this is gonna make a difference, but this doesn't make a difference I think I was not seeing you know the main the main thing about design and things So what I concluded like after a while actually because I could not figure out what was wrong what I was doing wrong You know, so this is kind of a metaphor So if you want to get to this kind of results in quality of this result and you basically have different set of tools So you have a player one he has a super high-tech tool like the plasma cutter and another guy He has just a set of chisels and the hammer But this guy the guy with the chisels. He has a very good anatomy skills So he knows the body proportion and you know the position of the muscles and things Of course, we all know that this guy's more chance to get there than the guy with a super high-tech tool I don't mean by that that we have to go back to Stonehenge to make good hearts and use simple tools But at that time I was certainly the guy with a plasma cutter because I was trying to use complex tool I was not using them at their full potential and I was forgetting the things like skill like design how to design something interesting to the eye and things like this and Indeed, yeah, I think tools are a main to an end, you know So the end is a thing you can visualize when you get skills like you imagine the shape of what you're trying to do For at least for me the objective to use tools is to make art something that is pleasing to the eye You know the shape is interesting and people are into it and things like this So I prefer to use tools that I know so I use them like a second nature It's not like like going in it mode edit mode in blender using the knife tool I know there is a C shortcut I can cut through I can snap angles and stuff like that so they are simple but powerful and I think this is the way so Basically, I studied to change my set of mind and say instead of going everywhere and get distracted trying always the best tool And you have a lot of companies that release new tools, you know, you want to get inside and try them I keep focusing on staying in blender We have a lot of tools and I try to focus on doing good art So this is the way I put it be your own art director But this is what I'm telling myself like you know the art director is directing you to do art Basically, sometimes it doesn't tell you, you know, you have to use this workflow on that workflow The most important thing is the result the artistic things, right? So I tried again. So sometime has passed since then because at that time I couldn't understand really what was going wrong And well, I don't have time to go in through all the things, but this is things I've done So mostly cinematic graphic stuff and trying to get into lightning This one. Oh, yeah, you can check on a station for those things. I don't have time to go through them and This one is not on a station yet. It's a work. I did four layers and rocks It's so that space inspired. So it's a bit dark. But yeah, anyway, it's kind of scary It's gonna be a short movie and it's gonna be cool. I think And I want to take this one is a hundred percent personal And I want to to to give you a few tricks about my workflow and the way I work with this one So it's called biomass Raiders So those guys they just use portal technology to get into other words because they realize that you know plans are valuable things So I close up here again So close up on geometry the house of face modeling parts inside the pole So in this project I don't offend doing a natural environments the trees and the stone are personal photo scan So I could enjoy it for the scanning things. I use grass valve for the plant composition and things You know, I lose less and less add-ons as a matter of fact But I like when the add-on right focus on artistic composition. So, you know It's straight to the point. They have great quality assets and I really can compose my things natural things I think it's a great idea This is a data the containers with the plants inside and you have those Robotic arms to place them the containers on the racks. This is behind the racks Just trying to take some shots from different angle One thing I really changed is really thinking before I actually do anything So even when I go for personal project right to visualize as much as I can in my head You know before I used to like starting blender. I had a default cube I put Suzanne in and I was like, I'm gonna make some art from there and and of course nothing came up Just not not great. So I think before it I don't even sit in front of the computer trying to visualize what I'm trying to do like even the camera the perspective as much Things as you can it's a good training by the way, but do it wisely like technically you don't go for things You're not sure you can finish them. So I got this rule 60% stuff I know so hot surface modeling because I do that a lot and 40% of new stuff like character our natural environment stuff But this is the block out of that work. I just do before so well nothing special I use the grease pencil all the time to put notes everywhere and do those trying to remember things because sometimes I don't have time and just put some notes. Oh, I should do this here You know, it's very pretty cool. So I have all the notes. Yeah, and Now that I work like really in blender I realized that starting to have early lightning in the scene is super nice used to be more like this before So, you know, I was using the mad caps and we see that is a lot of geometry You just make a mess. You have no idea of the depths of the scene and things, you know It's hard to really, you know now where it's going. Where's the attention? Where's the focal point as opposed to this right? So you have the lightning and all the stuff the background noise there It's all filtered and you have the focus point on the character there And indeed before yeah, I had this kind of picture of you know the sequential workflow I call it so from modeling to rendering step by step and now that I'm inside blender and I'm really focusing well I'm staying inside blender. I realized that I can be really more free in my workflow So I can start modeling I put a few lights and then the volumes makes a difference, you know The perception of the volume is totally different really this is amazing So you can then texture and come back and forth and at all time you have the rendering happening because you have EV you have cycles so you have visual feedback of what you do and this is really speeding up the creative process I think Got to look cool in a viewport is one of my motto to used to be different I used to hurry to press F12 get a renderer and if which was not good I was just going to Photoshop and trying to make it better now I adjust things as much as I can trying to make put more lights if I need to or change anything I can do that. I mean blender. So, you know, everything's possible. I don't have to export in port again Yeah, quickly on that link to copies. It's I like the way blender manage the object scenes So for example for the portal actually I model the part in a and real time I could see how it looks like in B when there is an area and a curve modifier to it So I can reuse those parts. It's like a kid bash But you have a lot of control right because it's the part you made and you have all the modifier still on Yeah, nothing special in this one just you know the texturing with trim sheets and stuff And this is all the assets in the scenes. So I'm not so much asset if you think about it I love to use the collection as well. So I make one collection Let's say for the beam and then it's instance many times. So I changed one collection or the collection that changed Trim sheets. Well, this is the way to go for me now with Because well trim sheeting for our surface modeling is great, especially when I have a good trim sheet like this one Before I could not really tell what was better than all this. This one is nice You have some delectric parts you have some parts with more like metallic materials and soft soft areas for the rest Areas and high high intensity details. This one is so great It counts for like 75% I think of all the textures all the red stuff is this the stream sheet I just show you and you have a blue one and a green one and all the white stuff is Materials without any textures. It's just normal shaders For those shaders without textures. I love to use valet ex control Valet ex color. I mean for example here for the emission strengths It's very cheap. You don't have to load any texture and I'm using of course noise texture and stuff Well, you know for an eight noise and it's all the procedural texture in blender You don't overload your VRAM with grunge map or stuff that will just slow down your viewport and your rendering So trying to use those as much as I can More randomness again with the object info node. You probably know this one You have the random output while you can use it But this is just an example, but I love it and you have location as well You change a little bit location of an object and you can have some randomness as well Some just notes, but that's so useful ideas from AI. Yeah, so I did a few prompts in mid-journey and I thought well It's not bad. So design the character depending on that. I used the closed brush for the first time This is how great is to stay in blender and took me like 30 minutes to check for some tutorials and use the closed brush And the result was good enough for what I was doing. So I say, yeah, let's go for it. So it was done in no time I didn't have to use another software. It was just so fast Same out-of-face soft surface when I go for the padding on the wall panel. It's done inside the same blend farm I don't export and don't re-import anything. It's just done there So it's great So I can all test my settings and if I wanted to I could go to the close brush to put more detail So imagine it's really different from the approach where you will go to Marvelous designer Do it and then add more detail in the brush and then send it over to blender for what I'm doing. It's just working just fine Well quick on that for the Grammy tree trees. Yeah, those are just stuff I took did myself and three important and Yeah, a pipeline for you know for the Grammy tree modern picture mushroom cleaning in blender and then speed tree for all the Generating all the node base, you know the branches the trees and leaves and stuff So prospect what since I started to work like this in blender really I felt like There is way more things I can tackle and I really feel like more freedom what I do I want to explain what more I want to try more things and one thing I really want to go into his animation Because I knew blender does that beautifully And it's another way to you know getting more advanced storytelling really if you can add some music to it and things Well, I guess this is just Great you can reach emotion you can build more emotions around blending style You just mean I want to experiment most ties You know going out of this type that we usually see all those I did I did too much and things trying to mix things together And may eventually this will bring me to a world-building project. I have a lot of idea from in my head I don't have time to go through all that but we can talk today or any day if you want to This is something I always I mean this is like my life sides This is my concern about form and content in art in general. So when you Google form and content Google tell you to give you those so the two circles and interact intersection is out And I did the form bigger because I think that sometimes we do tend to spend a lot of effort And money into form and we tend to neglect that content is also important And that doesn't make out better bigger And I think it's not just me to you just not just me telling you stories You know when I think about the indie games and how they get more popular these days well, this is again me asking being which is actually gtp4 now and Yes, well, so I'm asking are indie games getting more popular and why well basically the answer we don't have to read everything It's just say that indie developers spend I think more time to Make more interesting content and you know the form is usually simple and simple can be good I mean I never said that form is is more is is less important than contents if you have a bad form and The contents you have a good content where people won't connect to it So you need an interesting form still, but I'm just saying that I feel sometimes that Well, the content things is and yeah, and we're living in times You know with AI and things give it five years on something I think all the AI things is generating form You can ask AI to generate literature for you or good-looking images or as soon as 3d models And they will be good, but but what's the points behind what's the message what you want? You know what you want to build with all these things so Yeah, well, that's kind of my first for the form and contents and that's something I want to really insist on Work on things more. Anyway with Blender. We have a free software We we can get free education for it or almost free. Sometimes they are free paid cool Yeah paid courses, but honestly, they're worth every penny's for the school site right and we can get jobs from there Like okay, I did that and there are many others who did this and I think it's amazing So thank you really really for Blender foundation of all things and yeah We are still free to create anything with that anything that we want it goes through our minds No limits. So yeah, I think it's right. So thank you everyone for today and