Skip to main content

Featured

What’s It like learning 3D Modelling and Animations in Blender? (Spoiler alert: It’s NOT Hard) - Vivasvat Rastogi | vTech Guild

“ Don’t start your Blender life by watching a modelling tutorial… give a chance to the animation ones. Trust me, you’re gonna be better off. Continue reading to find out why, and to learn some basics of Blender. “ So… my story with Blender is, perhaps, a bit different from that of most other animators. I thought about learning Blender (just for fun) many times, intermittently, s tarting from around 3-4 years ago. I downloaded the 500MB file, opened it, tried out some stuff (unsuccessfully), and at the end, having deduced the fact “Nah… too complicated,” I deleted it each time. Later, after seeing a couple of cool YouTube videos having 3D stuff (not Blender tutorials ;-) ), and after making some futile attempts at finding an easier 3D animation software that had all functionalities, one fine day, I finally made up my mind: “Ya, I gotta learn this thing… no way around it…” So, I downloaded it again, this time cherishing my resolution, and googled ‘Blender Tutorials’… and no, I did not

One Small Step of the Company, One Giant Leap in the Competitive Market


Amidst this era of technological advancements where incessant demand exists, the supply level, in terms of quantity, quality, and novelty, has skyrocketed. Not surprisingly, competition has shot up too, coercing existing businesses and new start-ups to employ newfangled methods of increasing sales and to make their product or service stand out. Such methods now include a variety of techniques ranging from economical ones to psychological ones. For instance, an existing tech giant might go for an acquisition, while a fresh entrepreneurial venture might use persuasion techniques such as pathos and logos. On the contrary, a developing business might want to provide incentives to its users. To cut it short, new ways are being developed to prove one’s brand’s capabilities. It, now, becomes essential, not only to aspiring entrepreneurs but also to the general public, to know which of these tactics is the best.



Several categorisations can be made based on various factors. According to me, such techniques can be divided into two groups: ‘elimination’ and ’innovation’ with reference to the competition in the market. Essentially, elimination means cutting other
s' line short, while innovation means increasing the length of one’s own line. 


Firstly, let’s consider elimination. While ‘innovation’ has several subcategories, ‘elimination’ has comparatively much lesser options, currently. The first option, as mentioned in the introduction, is acquisition, wherein, a bigger established company gobbles up the other smaller competitors by buying up their companies, thereby eliminating competition. While this does seem to be the best option out there, it is mostly not viable for a major proportion of companies. Thus, a second strategy is used, that is, a merger. Under this, two medium, or even small ventures, having relatively similar services and therefore being each other's competitors, decide to join together and eliminate competition. A suitable example of the former would be, the acquisition of the famous video conferencing service called “Skype” by the tech giant “Microsoft” for around 8.5 billion bucks. Evidently, as the competition reduces, sales increase. 


Secondly, let us talk about ‘innovation,' or, basically, improving one’s product/service or sales strategies to prove oneself better, while acknowledging the presence of competitors. This, according to me, can be fragmented into two sub-categories: internal improvement and external improvement. In the former, by investing in research and development, businesses improve the quality of their products or services. For example, recently, Apple, another tech giant, released its new M1 Pro and M1 Max computer bionic chips. These are claimed to be much faster than the current best chips, namely, the Intel i9 (or perhaps Ryzen 9); thus, sales would inherently increase. The ‘external improvement’, essentially, includes changing presentation tactics instead of changing the product itself. Companies may choose to provide incentives to people, such as a free custom vehicle to regular customers, or they might want to increase their sales by the inculcation of ethos(proving their credibility), logos(using logic to prove the better performance of their products), or pathos(appealing to the emotions of the users). The last option, which is widely renowned, is, of course, print and digital advertisements.

If all of the above have been successfully achieved, a company is likely to have created its brand value, which itself becomes a big factor in the increase of sales.


To me, the best option is the “internal improvement” under “innovation”. Even though it might not be possible to come up with something better every year, companies should strive to do so to prove their brand.


Thus, all in all, there are several tactics that companies can make use of, depending on several factors, such as the competition, or the economic size of the venture. I believe that the best of all is creating newer, better, enhanced products and services to grab the customers rather than solely depending upon persuasion.




~ Vivasvat Rastogi