After learning Maya and working as an animator in that software for a while, I felt the
need to do a portfolio piece to land my next job. Unfortunately (or luckily) I had
no Maya license anymore since I was no longer a student. So I downloaded Blender again.
I had a lot of experience with Blender from before University. It was the software with
which I started learning 3D. I even used it in University, just not for animation.
Well it was quite the ride. I missed a lot of things from Maya and struggled to get anything done.
Then came Covid. All of a sudden I had plenty of time at hand and I decided to start fixing
one of the UX issues I had with Blender. Since Blender is open source I could just do it.
Granted, the start was tough. Getting it to compile was a major struggle.
But I got it done in the end. I received a very warm welcome by the community and the patch
landed. My first ever
contribution to Blender.
After that initial work was done, I found another job so my spare time was more limited and I eventually stopped active development. However at some point the Animation 2025 project was announced and I got excited about working on it. I just ended up asking Dr. Sybren if Blender needed help with and if it would be a paid position and he quickly confirmed. So I started working for Blender part-time on a Development Grant. Work is still ongoing. A lot of things to do. Blender Dev account