A new beginning.

Everything in life is a stepping stone, highschool, college, your first career and university. Although, I'd imagine the majority of people do those last two the other way around.

At the time of this post, I am due officially graduate from my bachelors of science degree in computing, however, my studies have long since ended......about 3 months ago....

I had hoped to have had a job by this point but despite applying for some part time jobs, I find myself in the purgatory of, too qualified for part time work, not qualified enough for an actual career. And it's not that my application shouldn't stand out. I didn't get full marks, but I got the classification that I wanted.

I wanted to find something to do part time whilst studying a PhD, but nearly all post grad computing careers are asking too much, whilst not offering a decent package. Too many employers are advertising jobs as "remote" work, but require you to go in to office at least 4 days a week. Well, I'm sorry, that's not remote, and £20,000 a year will not begin to cover my travel expenses.

And, if anyone is reading this, I'm sure you're rolling your eyes thinking, "who does this entitled youngster think they are?" or "well you have to start somewhere". Well, my problem is that I'm no spring chicken anymore, being about 10 years older than some of my classmates.

So if any software dev teams out there want a post grad with 10 years of experience in a (manufacturing) work environment, who also has a 1st in computer sciences, drop me a line?

With that rant over, this blog is to document my studies post graduation.

Those who know me would agree that I have perhaps too many hobbies. Thankfully, most are digital, so they can all be done from the same workstation. 

One such hobby is making 3D digital assets. This all started with VRChat, where I would make or convert character models for use in a 3D social game.

This then progressed to making models for 3D printing, and continued through to my dissertation where, despite not being a game dev student, I made a game to test the use of language of level design (I will expand on this in future posts).

Having had a taste of game design, I had the urge to do more. But finding a niche that hasn't been filled in todays very saturated gaming market was difficult.

That's when I had the thought of combining my newly acquired programming skills with my previous experience in manufacturing, specifically welding.

A quick search online showed that there are a few examples of welding sims out there, however most seem to be either an industry standard package for actual worksite training, complete with proprietary harware, or a dlc as part of another apprenticeship training simulator.

These, whilst brilliant at training for work, leave a small unchecked zone which I hope to stake my claim, and this blog will document my development process.