This is a bit long, but for anyone who wants to read, I want to express how important I feel it is to not ignore the technical component of your work. Knowing your tools well so that they don't undermine your design, as well as experimenting with them to solve a new problem is what allows you to produce something polished beyond what has been done before in a way that is uniquely yours. This element of technical ability and problem solving is not exclusive from your visual design, it's what makes your visual design. Downplaying its importance what I think leads to so many unrealized visions for student projects.
It's fair to brush aside assumed "steps" of the process. Of course you're going to UV, texture, etcetera, especially if your project is showcasing your work in that area of the pipeline, just like it's assumed that you'd probably put a brush to canvas if you're going to paint, or cut a piece of wood to make a wooden chair. But in a field with so many varieties of tools and processes that can be combined in ways that haven't even been thought of yet, your tools and how you use them to achieve your vision is the design process.
Working with 3D graphics is inherently involved quite a bit with technical problem solving and should be treated as such. If, for example, your lighting is bad in your final project, it isn't solely because your vision for it wasn't good enough. You could have spent time doing concept art with beautiful lighting creating exactly the mood you wanted (which is absolutely a great method of discovering what you want for a project), but if you don't know enough about how lighting works in 3D and what it takes to make this work the way you envision it, your end result is going to fall short of your expectations. In 3D graphics, there's a huge barrier there in terms of our taste and what we are actually able to with our knowledge of the tools.
A lot of 3D graphics, especially in the gaming industry, rely heavily upon being technically sound. There isn't any faking or hiding obvious UV seams, or strategically picking camera angles to cover up a rigging problem. You can't really fake it until you make it. These are fundamentals, the base level to make your ideas come to life in this medium and not be completely undermined by technical pitfalls you didn't know how to overcome. As designers rather than artists, what we produce isn't purely visual, it also is functional and works to serve a purpose, which is why this is so crucial.
This isn't purely about embracing or learning new technology or software. Using the latest software isn't what makes you technically savvy. Your knowledge of a new program makes your work relevant but doesn't make you necessarily skilled, especially when you are learning a program at its face value or using a program that is built around automating a process. In fact, learning tools that take care of that much of the process for you is hurting your design more than helping by making it less original and less yours. Using a toon shader out of the box will give your work a cartoony look, and using Ddo might give your work a grungey worn look-- but it's not what makes it your work. You've let the tool determine your design. Understanding your tools at a deeper level is what will equip you to make them work for your needs. It's how you combine your tools to come up with new solutions that makes you an inventive problem-solver, and it's a valuable, fundamental skill in a creative industry.
Tutorials are a valid starting point to find out what's out there and what's been done, but with every tutorial, it's important to consider what your specific needs are for your project and what you could bring to the table to improve what has been already been done before. The point is, this isn't something you can just learn by a tutorial. Learning software in terms of where buttons are and menus are is easy, but understanding what they're doing, how a software's functionality can be used to meet your goals for a project is an entirely different skill.
I also hope everyone remembers that your senior thesis projects are for yourself, not for anyone else. You're working on this because it's the kind of work you want to be doing; it appeals to you and you're proud of it; it demonstrates something you've put a lot of time and thought into in order to showcase your work; it's hopefully going to take you in a direction that lets you keep making stuff you're passionate about and can make a living by. This isn't just to fulfill a requirement to graduate (I hope), and although it's always worth listening to critiques, take them in stride and be constantly balancing this with your personal aspirations for your project. Don't be misled in a direction that's going to result in you making a project that is an amalgamation of everything everyone else thought was going to be important to make your project successful.
It's fair to brush aside assumed "steps" of the process. Of course you're going to UV, texture, etcetera, especially if your project is showcasing your work in that area of the pipeline, just like it's assumed that you'd probably put a brush to canvas if you're going to paint, or cut a piece of wood to make a wooden chair. But in a field with so many varieties of tools and processes that can be combined in ways that haven't even been thought of yet, your tools and how you use them to achieve your vision is the design process.
Working with 3D graphics is inherently involved quite a bit with technical problem solving and should be treated as such. If, for example, your lighting is bad in your final project, it isn't solely because your vision for it wasn't good enough. You could have spent time doing concept art with beautiful lighting creating exactly the mood you wanted (which is absolutely a great method of discovering what you want for a project), but if you don't know enough about how lighting works in 3D and what it takes to make this work the way you envision it, your end result is going to fall short of your expectations. In 3D graphics, there's a huge barrier there in terms of our taste and what we are actually able to with our knowledge of the tools.
A lot of 3D graphics, especially in the gaming industry, rely heavily upon being technically sound. There isn't any faking or hiding obvious UV seams, or strategically picking camera angles to cover up a rigging problem. You can't really fake it until you make it. These are fundamentals, the base level to make your ideas come to life in this medium and not be completely undermined by technical pitfalls you didn't know how to overcome. As designers rather than artists, what we produce isn't purely visual, it also is functional and works to serve a purpose, which is why this is so crucial.
This isn't purely about embracing or learning new technology or software. Using the latest software isn't what makes you technically savvy. Your knowledge of a new program makes your work relevant but doesn't make you necessarily skilled, especially when you are learning a program at its face value or using a program that is built around automating a process. In fact, learning tools that take care of that much of the process for you is hurting your design more than helping by making it less original and less yours. Using a toon shader out of the box will give your work a cartoony look, and using Ddo might give your work a grungey worn look-- but it's not what makes it your work. You've let the tool determine your design. Understanding your tools at a deeper level is what will equip you to make them work for your needs. It's how you combine your tools to come up with new solutions that makes you an inventive problem-solver, and it's a valuable, fundamental skill in a creative industry.
Tutorials are a valid starting point to find out what's out there and what's been done, but with every tutorial, it's important to consider what your specific needs are for your project and what you could bring to the table to improve what has been already been done before. The point is, this isn't something you can just learn by a tutorial. Learning software in terms of where buttons are and menus are is easy, but understanding what they're doing, how a software's functionality can be used to meet your goals for a project is an entirely different skill.
I also hope everyone remembers that your senior thesis projects are for yourself, not for anyone else. You're working on this because it's the kind of work you want to be doing; it appeals to you and you're proud of it; it demonstrates something you've put a lot of time and thought into in order to showcase your work; it's hopefully going to take you in a direction that lets you keep making stuff you're passionate about and can make a living by. This isn't just to fulfill a requirement to graduate (I hope), and although it's always worth listening to critiques, take them in stride and be constantly balancing this with your personal aspirations for your project. Don't be misled in a direction that's going to result in you making a project that is an amalgamation of everything everyone else thought was going to be important to make your project successful.