Where do I start with this (that I’ll eventually edit this 20+ times when I eventually think of a better way to write it)?
Let me take you back in time, to last week. It’s when I was still trying to figure out how to work with that ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon’ model in Unity. I was so frustrated and said “Oh how I wish I could just ask someone to just make me an avatar”(or something of the sort). I got a link to this ‘VRC Traders’ Discord server. Went to it, and was quite confused on where you go to make a request.
The person gave me the correct channel(I can’t remember the name, but it had the word ‘free’ in it), and I went there. I knew what I wanted an avatar of… however, for some very, very strange reason, most of the old forum avatars I had, are all gone from my computer (including the dragon gif I stole grabbed from a website many years ago). All I remember was a folder called ‘AVATARS’ somewhere, but a complete drive search was no help. I even tried to look for phrases that I think I used back then… and again, nothing.
Shockingly, the website that I grabbed the gif, still exists to this day (thought I was going to have to use the Wayback Machine website to locate it). And I was able to grab the gif once again, and threw it as a request.
A few days passed after that, and I got no responses. I tried posting it again, thinking my request got buried behind everyone else’s.
The next day(just a few days ago), I got a response. Thought “awesome! Someone’s actually going to do it!”… what I got both made me understand (and infuriated me) at the same time. I was told that what I had requested, would be upwards of “hundreds of dollars for something you want done free”.
Understanding Side(common sense): Yeah, I get 3D modeling isn’t cheap. I guessed I asked too much.
Furious side: …Hundreds of DOLLARS, FOR AN AVATAR?! WTF!! That’s higher than my fucking PC budget! And why in the FUCK is the channel even have the word ‘free’ in it, if you’re not willing to DO it for free?!
But the more I think about it, I think I was asking too much. I was hoping that they could rig it and even add custom animations. And.. come ON, who in the hell would even bother doing all of that work for nothing!? I sure wouldn’t if I was one of them!
Though.. hundreds of dollars for an avatar? DAMN! I’m not asking for voice actors here! It’s just an avatar to a video game! It’s not like I’m building my own video game through Unity and I need the asset!
I also came -this- close to asking “well, could you guys possibly teach me how to do it? That way I could do it myself.” But my unwillingness to learn, stopped me. All I would be doing, is wasting their time. If I’m ever going to be “good” at 3D modeling, I HAVE to be willing to learn… or I’m never going to get anywhere (outside of wishing I was good).
I can wish until I was blue in the face. But wishing isn’t the same as putting in actual effort to learn a new thing.
There is no Fairy Godmother when you’re 41-years-old. You either put in the effort, or you don’t. Simple as that. And my childish brain refuses to listen sometimes.
So the moral of this story is: don’t expect hard work to be done for free.