2020 WoLD Year in Review - Opportunity in Chaos

In December of every year I reflect on the last 11 months and begin to make plan of attack for the next 12 months.

This is a good habit to get into as you close out the year and begin a new one.

When doing a yearly review, focus on the following 3 key things:

• What you did well
• What you wish you've done better
• What do you plan to do and focus on in the new year

Here is WoLD Year in Review 2020!

It's been a wild and strange year for everyone but there is always opportunity in chaos. I hope you've found some things about yourself, your work and your art in the last 12 months.

For me and WoLD, 2020 was a year of immersion into UE4 landscapes.

I created and released 2 new premium tutorial courses with extra bonuses, over 20+ tutorials on the blog and variety of created environments.

Let's break it all down below.

2 Premium Tutorial Courses

Two premium tutorial courses are:

• Tutorial Course - "UE4 Fundamentals Vol.2: Landscape Essentials"
• Tutorial Course - "UE4: Complete Guide to Auto-Landscape Materials"

"UE4: Complete Guide to Auto-Landscape Materials": will teach you how to texture huge open-world landscapes in minutes with the use of procedural Auto-Landscape Materials.

"UE4 Fundamentals Vol.2: Landscape Essentials": will teach you how to sculpt landscapes and paint landscape materials entirely in UE4 without any external software as a complete beginner.

Tutorials on the Blog

I've released over 20 new tutorials on the blog. Here is a full list of them and links to each:

• I Sucked at Creating Landscapes in UE4 and What I Finally Did About It
• Easy 5-Step Process for Hand Sculpting Perfect Landscapes in UE4
• Fix Landscape Texture Tiling with This UE4 Macro/Micro Variation Technique
• UE4: Step-by-Step to Your First Landscape for Complete Beginners
• UE4: Step-by-Step to Your First Landscape Material (2 Texture Paint Layers)
• UE4: Step-by-Step to Your First Landscape Material Instance (Make Instant Material Changes)
• UE4: Complete Guide to Using Non-Destructive Landscape Layers - Sculpting
• UE4: Complete Guide to Using Non-Destructive Landscape Layers - Painting Textures
• UE4: Complete Guide to Using Non-Destructive Landscape Layers - Splines
• UE4 Heightmap Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Landscape Heightmaps for UE4
• UE4: Create Procedural Landscape Heightmaps Entirely in Photoshop for UE4
• UE4: Secrets to Generating Real-World Heightmaps from Terrain.Party for UE4
• UE4: Automatically Texture HUGE Landscapes with Auto-Landscape Materials
• UE4: How to Create Your First Auto-Landscape Material
• UE4: 9 Things Every Auto-Landscape Material Must Have
• Beginner's Guide to Using Quixel Bridge for UE4
• UE4: 3 Ways to Organize Your Material Editor (Descriptions, Comments and Reroute Nodes)
• UE4: Quick Tip Tutorials Part 2 (Tips #11-20) - Landscape Edition

Most Watched Videos

Most watched tutorial video was:

• UE4: Fix Landscape Texture Tiling with This UE4 Macro/Micro Variation Technique - Tutorial

Runner up:

• UE4: Step-by-Step to Your First Landscape Material for Beginners (Day 2/3: 3-Day Tutorial Series)

What I Wished I Focused More On

Never criticize yourself harshly unless you add a solution of what you'll do instead next time.

So here is what I wish I did more of and focused on:

• Less focus on making things perfect and just get it done
• Stop trying to find the "right" way to complete an environment; there are many ways to get to the end result, many aren't documented; just focus on the final result not on how to get there
• Spend more time on Social Media (Twitter and Instagram) and give back more to WoLD followers
• Take care of my premium course customers - give more extra bonuses and content
• Do more modeling, more props, more custom environment assets
• Do more environment "breakdowns" and "the making of"
• Do more level design and gameplay tutorials, experiments and breakdowns from known games; something I haven't done in a while, at least since early 2019 Mirror's Edge articles
• Finish video games I start or don't start playing them at all. I started Resident Evil 7 and stopped about half-way. I will finish it.

Planning Upcoming Year - 2021

Looking back and reflecting is great. But you should also start planning the upcoming year. So when Jan. 1st hits you are ready.

Here are some plans I have so far to start with:

• I will continue with UE4 tutorials and maybe even another course; this will be the last phase of UE4 engine as UE5 begins to be rolled out
• I want to focus more on level design and gameplay tutorials
• I want to start Source 2 level editing tools for Half-Life: Alyx
• I will release a complete new update to "Maya LT/Maya Foundation" tutorial course
• Beginning of UE5 if it comes out before the end of 2021 (not the Beta version but full public release)

None of it is set in stone and things may change. I will probably add and update the list as the year goes on, but it's good to have something to start with and to focus on. Goals written down have higher success rate of completion than those that aren't written down.

I'm looking forward to 2021 and I hope you do too.

I wish this upcoming year to be your best year yet.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and I will see you in 2021!

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