Since I started working in Blender, several months ago, I tried my best to get better and better at 3D Modelling, and one way I've been trying to do that was by watching tutorials and timelapse videos to see how other people are creating their models.
That helped me quite a lot, and it gave me new ideas about how to better do things in Blender. However, another trick I've been using, to try and raise my standards and to understand how something should look like, is to look at 3D models everywhere.
This applies especially to games. Since I started working in Blender I also started looking at games in a different way. Instead of just going through one focusing on the story, gameplay and all kind of similar elements, I also started paying a lot more attention to how things are made.
Doing that helped me understand a few things about games and how 3D models are made in order to look good without sacrificing a lot of performance.
For example, I never created nature in Blender, and for a long time, I thought that in order to create something like a tree, you need to create several 3D models for each leaf you want to add in the tree. Then, you had to use the particle system to just spread those leafs around and that was it.
However, one day I got into Witcher 3 for a few minutes, to look at a few models, and I realized that most nature elements aren't exactly 3D models. Leafs are just 2D elements, combined with the 3D models of the trunk and the branches of the tree.
Same thing with grass. They didn't really have to use 3D models to create the grass, at least not complicated models. Instead, they created the shape of several patches of grass using probably simple planes, and then they used a 2D image (or at least I think that's what happened) attached to the plane that looked like grass in order to make it seem real.
And it's a smart thing to do. You don't actually need to add a bunch of textures to make grass look amazing, mainly because most people won't really pay attention to it. Sure, there are exceptions, but if you know anything about 3D and how textures work, just ask yourself - is it worth adding a bunch of normal maps to grass just to fake some details that players will probably not even notice?
Not really, especially since you need to keep performance in mind.
Another thing you can easily observe if you look at how models look in games is how important Normal Maps are. You get into a game, you look at a castle, and it just looks awesome, full of details, and full of rocks, and you ask yourself how the hell did they manage to do that.
But if you go near a wall and you look at it from an angle, you'll realize that those 3D stones you were seeing at first, aren't really there. It's just a normal map added to make it seem like the stones are there, but in reality, all that wall is just a square (or a similar shape) with multiple textures on it.
This applies to writing as well. Once you start writing a lot, you'll stop looking at other articles the same way as before. You'll pay a lot more attention to how the article was written, to how the author used certain words to make the reader curious about what's gonna happen next and so on.
While all that will become a reflex, it's worth acknowledging it and trying to actively observing the things you're interested in, in other places. If you're a writer, look at how others write and try to learn from them. If you like 3D, pay attention to how other people make things and try to figure out a way to do the same things yourself. If you're a graphic designer, look at how other people create designs and try to figure out how they did it.
That's gonna help you improve the way you work by a lot, without actually doing anything.
