Mastering the fundamentals Unreal and Virtual Production with William Faucher Ep. 16

This week, we are joined by William Faucher. He is a 3D artist who now focuses on bringing high quality tutorials about Unreal Engine on Youtube. Today, he will share with us the importance of learning the fundamentals, why he chose to Unreal Engine, The future landscape of virtual production, and more.

William has been in the entertainment industry for the past 11 years, starting as a 3D Modeler in the games industry, then becoming a Lighter, and DoP. The Canadian-born, Norway-based Unreal Artist is currently helping to create CG Spectrum's Realtime Technical Artist and Virtual Production course.

These days his main focus is creating consistent, high-quality content on Youtube. Make sure to subscribe to him after watching this to learn more about the beauty of Unreal Engine.

Highlights of the Episode:

00:00 - Introduction

00:14 - Introduction of the guest

01:02 - Background of the William Faucher

01:30 - The beauty of being a mentor

02:22 - Being a mentor keeps you on your toes

03:41 - You can’t be complacent with what you know

04:18 - Why you can now confidently render assets in Unreal Engine

06:41 - Where Unreal falls short

07:57 - The importance of learning the fundamentals

10:37 - How William started in the industry

12:30 - Being part of a community to grow

15:20 - William’s start in the real world and returning to work

19:27 - Making the right decision to stick with Unreal

22:16 - Taking up photography to supplement visual production

29:00 - The benefits of jumping around different industries 

31:01 - Will Unity be better than Unreal in the future?

34:19 - How to know which programs to use

37:33 - Why William made his Masterchief video in Unreal

40:20 - Why displacement is handy

43:57 - Virtual production of the future

46:45 - The effect of Unreal Engine 5 on the Game and Film Industry

48:42 - The necessity of being a generalist

50:29 - The real answer on how to get started

52:22 - Why we need to standardize certain processes 

53:30 - Why burning out is part of growing

54:44 -The best time to migrate to a new program

55:36 - How AI is affecting the visual production space 

57:40 - Pro’s and Con’s of working remotely, overseas

1:00:15 - Plans about content creation

1:02:23 - Outro

Quotes:

“It was awesome to have someone critiquing your work on a daily basis, and someone who is actually very skilled and points out all the flaws.”

“Once your foot is in the door, you’re kind of set to go”

“If it makes your work faster, great; otherwise, don’t switch just for the sake of switching to be doing the trendy thing. If you’re capable and fast at working in Maya, stick with Maya.”

Connecting with the Guest:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/williamfaucher
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/will_faucher
Twitter: https://twitter.com/willfauchervfx
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamfaucher.vfx/

Connecting with CG Pro:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/becomecgpro

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/becomecgpro/

Website: https://www.becomecgpro.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/becomecgpro/