How working as part of a team at Alchemy VFX allowed Seth van der Zweep to improve his craft.

Introduction:

I worked for a small studio based out of Victoria called Alchemy VFX, which specializes in creating visual effects for live service games. I worked as a 3D modeler for an upcoming unannounced educational project they are creating in partnership with another party. I mostly created 3D props to be used in this project but, I occasionally worked on other tasks coding a prototype in unity or researching topics to inform the direction of the project.

How teamwork and collaboration shaped my co-op experience:

During my co-op experience, collaboration took the form of a mentorship dynamic. I would receive briefs on tasks that needed to be completed and would then begin work. Every day I would submit my progress to my collaborators who would review my work and share incites as to how it could be improved. After a few revisions I would land on a final product that was a stronger design than I could have created alone. Being a part of a team felt great because I knew that the rest of the team was not there to judge me, but to sincerely help me improve my craft and create the best designs possible.

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Lessons I learned:

The most important thing I have learned about myself is that I work best with more than one task active at once, so that I can cycle between tasks when one reaches a quagmire. This also allows me time away from tasks to better reflect on how to proceed while still being productive. I have learned more about the many sub-disciplines within my field of 3D including modeling, animating, texturing and UV mapping. Although I had basic introductions to these concepts in classes, I feel like my understanding of the topics has developed greatly. In the future, even if I am on a team where I only do one of those jobs, my understanding of the other disciplines will greatly boost my collaborative capacity with my teammates in those other roles.

I have also learned that there is a lot of preproduction needed before even a smaller project can begin, including research and prototyping. This is different from my experiences with projects in school which are much more time bound and had much more predetermined scopes and objectives. This has been a great experience for learning more about how projects can work in a professional setting as opposed to an academic setting.