cause of work I use Technical Drawing Software more and more lately like Inventor / Solidworks / Fusion 360, which means I don’t use Entertainment 3D Modelling Software less than I normally do. That can also mean you are “forgetting” features or tools or handy workflows you have learned over the years. It’s like critical thinking but this time with clicking… for example: Normally I click this and that. scroll 2 times down and click the menu because you are 100% sure the feature or tool-set is in that section of the interface.
Also for example I didn’t use 3ds Max for over a year professionally and was picking up the latest version and noticed my work speed (clicking rate) was slowed down because I was “searching” the features rather than having the Interface visually in my mind and work with that.
So with that in mind I thought… Lets do weekly exercising for the tools you use and or temporarily do not use because the company uses Maya or other Modelling software instead the one you actually use and know.
What I did here was taking a old model I worked on in 2001 and starting to “improve” it to today’s standards… well not really but I increased the Poly-Count with adding more detail but also fixed old faces and vertexes, Re-done the UVW Mapping and did some small Texturing work.
Yes I know it’s a old model so isn’t that perfectionism to re-do the model? Yes and No… Nowadays you see a lot of games getting “REMASTERS” or “HD PATCHES” which means they re-release or update the old game assets for today’s “standards”, high resolution textures, better post-processing / engine rendering but also higher polygonal models. So in my case why not pick a old model you created back in the days, look what you can add / change to that current model so you still keep up your work flow.