Embracing Opportunity and Growth: My Unexpected Adventure with NVIDIA Omniverse
When I first saw the message from Edmar Mendizabal on the NVIDIA Omniverse team, I ignored it for 3 days, thinking it was some mass message sent out to thousands of people inviting them to watch an upcoming stream. On the fourth day, I realised that the message was in fact, asking me to be a guest speaker, demonstrating my Blender/Omniverse workflow, not a ‘guest’ watching a public stream. Edmar had seen the video that I had made about my work at BMW TechOffice Munich and thought I would be a good fit for the upcoming stream about Blender and Omniverse. Despite feeling totally underqualified to be presenting on an NVIDIA stream, the phrase “fake it ‘till you make it” echoed in my mind and I knew I would regret turning down an opportunity like this. I quickly replied to the message, hoping it wasn’t too late, and was excited to find out that the team also wanted to write a blog post about me.
The next couple of weeks were frantic – I had been using Blender and Omniverse throughout my internship, but the workflow that the NVIDIA Omniverse team were most interested in was one I had only used a few times. I didn’t want to present some amateurish workflow and reflect poorly on the SORDI.ai project, so I reached out to the Academy and was grateful to have Tim Lim clarify some parts that I lacked confidence in. The team here at the TechOffice were also very helpful, explaining to me the details of SORDI.ai that I was fuzzy about so that I could pass on the information for the blog post and setting me up with the best webcam and microphone they could find. I worked long hours in the days leading up to the stream to make sure that my presentation would run smoothly as I hopped between 3 different programs and 5 different files.
When the day came, I was pleased to feel more excited than nervous as I waited for the daylight to fade into the evening. Almost my whole office stayed back to support me, which was very sweet, and we ate pizza and played games until it was time for me to join.
My presentation went well, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing from all of the other amazing 3D artists involved in the stream, including fellow Aussie Markom3D, who made the YouTube tutorials that I had watched when first learning how to bring assets from Blender to Omniverse. The other presenters and the people in the comments were all so enthusiastic, which made the discussion wonderful.
I’m so grateful to everyone who allowed me to be a part of this experience, from Edmar and the Omniverse team for reaching out to me in the first place to the BMW TechOffice and the BMW Group + QUT Design Academy for assisting and supporting me in preparation for the stream, and for allowing me to be an intern here in Munich in the first place.
The stream and my internship have really fueled my love for Blender and have encouraged me to keep developing my skills. It really is a fantastic program with such a strong community supporting it, and I would love to keep using it in my career. I feel that I have learned so much over the last few years, yet have only scratched the surface, and I can’t wait to keep learning more.
Emily Boehmer
BMW Group Intern (Tech Office) 2023
