Growth over Comfort

We all find comfort in things we have learned long ago and used since then. Whether it's an old cookie recipe or an operating system. We are happy with it, and that's all that matters, right? Well, in today's post, I want to talk about just that!

Near the end of my third year in university, I started to grow some interest in Blender. I had tried to look into Blender before, but that was before university, and it was a very mixed experience as well. So, I instead put my efforts into Unreal Engine. That was until one night close to the end of the year when I had trouble sleeping; I had the thought of trying Blender again. I decided why not and downloaded Blender and spent the entire night until dawn using Blender. That night alone, I figured out how to do all the basics; I made my own doughnut watching Blender Guru's latest series, some animations, and even some procedurally generated structures. All of this in just one single night. But how did I manage to do all of this in a single night, when I struggled to do a single doughnut prior to university? Experience.

Throughout my university life, I have learned all the aspects of 3D in general, from texturing, UV maps, topology, rendering, rigging, and many more. Each of these concepts was refined through many different assignments across many different programs. Autodesk Maya, ZBrush, Houdini, Unreal, etc. Using all of these programs gave me a great understanding of 3D as a whole and, as a result, made Blender a walk in the park. But with Blender, I learned its geometry nodes, which was a new concept for me, and after learning this, I felt right at home when our teacher showed us "PCG" nodes for Unreal Engine. This was essentially geometry nodes but for Unreal Engine, and while I struggled with the proper names of nodes at first, I already had the concept nailed down thanks to learning Blender. So, where am I going with this?

We can always learn just one thing and stick to it. I have used Windows my whole life, and it has served me well enough. However, it's when I took the first step beyond my comfort zone that I started to truly expand my knowledge. Thanks to my curiosity about using Linux, I now know far more about computers in general. We need to explore our options and seek other things to truly grow our skills as individuals. Don't limit yourself to the tool; try out all your options to learn more about what you using them on.