James Williams

Acknowledgment of Traditional Owners

In the spirit of reconciliation, I James Williams acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. I pay my respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

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Sustainability Statement

Sustainability is important, I want to promote and encourage a culture around sustainability in the Game Development Industry as a whole, to keep everything digital and educate early, reduce, reuse and recycle.

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Goals:

Goals are an important part of anyone's life, they help to trigger new behaviors and provide direction and focus in your life as well as promoting a sense of self-mastery. I have goals and plenty of them, throughout my life I wish to accomplish great things. To do this I set myself goals, sometimes these are broken down to daily, weekly or monthly goals and are in all areas of my life, professional, skill/knowledge, and personal.

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Academic Goals:

While I'm studying here at the University of Canberra, I have an ongoing goal to do the absolute best I can do and to push myself to do better for higher marks and complete all the Units required, to do this I have set a few things in place, time management and a place in my home where I can be left alone to do my work without any distractions. 

I had also looked into the study abroad program the University is running but due to the COVID pandemic I don't see this being an avenue I can explore. I would have liked to see what Canada and Europe had to offer and to experience their culture, teaching practices, and to meet some talented individuals.

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Professional/Career Goals:

I would love to have a job and be a part of a Game Development company to help spread the love and enjoyment I have for video games to people all over the world. I want to find a company I can work with for the next 5-10 years (less or more if need be) to learn the ins and outs, from top to bottom, how a dev company works and is run on a day to day basis, this will either be fulltime or part-time. I can use the time here to further develop my skills and learn new ones, maybe even find a specialist field I could work in, and to be part of a community and network with others. All of this will be used down the track to invest and help build up an indie studio company. I want people to feel the way I do when I play games, I want them to get invested in a character, a place, a series, I want them to feel passionate about what they are playing and doing.

The world is ever-changing and with it, technology as well and I want to be at the forefront when new things in the game industry are released or being developed, I want to be a part of it and contribute whatever I can.

As well as this I have had a side hustle going on for quite a while that I do on the side because everyone knows that you should always have a backup if all else fails, as you can probably tell I am all about travel, adventure, seeing new things, meeting new people, exploring new cultures and documenting it all via film and photo and I would like to continue down this track, as I currently generate no money from this I will touch on it more in my personal goals.

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Skills/Knowledge Goals:

Skills and knowledge are everything in today's life, the more you know and the higher-skilled you are, the better it will be for you to secure and stay in employment.

I love to upskill and gain more knowledge in any and all areas of life as it will lead to bigger and better things for me in my career but there are definitely some areas that interest me more than others such as film and photography and anything to do with game development.

I wish to further the skills I have and learn new ones, the current skills I have in these fields are using the software programs Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop for anything film and photography wise, with game development, 3DS Max, Maya, C# using Visual Studios and the Unity Game Engine, all of these programs I am still a beginner but intend to be an advanced user by the end of 2023. I still feel like there is a ton of features and skills to learn as well as just becoming a lot more familiar and proficient with the programs.

As well as getting better with those programs I wish to learn some new ones as I really enjoy 3D modeling, both hard surface and organic models and I would like to learn how to texture a lot better than I already do, using Substance Painter and Mari which are two different texturing software applications.

I would also like to dive more into sculpting, so ZBrush is very high on my list of new things to learn in combination with learning how to draw anatomy and get a better understanding of the human form and how it moves, to do this I intend to do a few different online courses as a starting point and I will move on from there to more advanced skilled courses till I am proficient in using the software. I mentioned drawing above which is an area I lack skill in so I'd like to improve my traditional and digital drawing techniques but just practicing every day even it's only for 30 minutes.

Another program I would like to learn is Houdini, a 3D animation software that pays exclusive attention to procedural generation, it's something that I've looked at a number of times but haven't got around to giving it a try, mostly because I couldn't find a trial version but now have so I would like to give it a go and see if its something I'd like to continue to use and develop skills in.

Unreal Engine and learning C++ is another application that is very high on my list, especially with Meta Human just dropping. I know that in the Degree I am currently doing, we do start to learn as using it so I am really looking forward to giving it a go, I will most likely do a sort course beforehand so I have a good understating of the basic interface and how to use some of the tools available. 

 

Personal Goals:

Throughout my life, I always set the bar high in whatever it is I'm doing, and setting goals is no different. As kids growing up we always envision what our lives will look like 5 years down the track, 10 years, and even 20 years on, as I got older I found my self crossing off more and more goals that I had achieved, some took a lot longer than was planned but they got crossed off the list.

In my Professional/Career life I want the best because I do my best, I want to be a part of something big, community, and family-based, I don't really see that in the industry at the moment so, I along with other talented individuals will build that.

I want to change the way people look at game studios and how the studios treat their employees/developers, we will build a Game Development company like no other, I want to set a new standard and want people to feel they are welcomed and belong somewhere.

Travel and adventure are something I do a lot of outside of game development and I believe gaining life skills and life experience should be on the to-do list for everyone.

Experiencing new things, meeting new people, and exploring their cultures is beneficial to everyone, It makes you have a better understanding of the world we live in, the people and creatures that inhabit it, and just how lucky some of us really are.

As I touched on before, I would like to continue my work in film and photography as it brings me just as much joy as playing and developing games, plus it keeps me fit and active. I would like to open an online store with my wife to sell prints as well as attend weekend markets to sell them along with other hand-made crafts we create.

I would eventually like to offer my services in filmography and photography for certain events such as concerts, weddings, and birthdays.