Dichotomy Character project post mortem

What went well?

Idea generation

I think that coming up with characters went well. Using the bashing kiting technique from the sentry gun project, to make fast Silhouette

Rigging

I think I got the weighting right for all parts of my character. So when moving parts of the body, there was no random verts moving in other places.

What didn’t go well?

 Modelling

 I rushed the modelling and did not think about the topology right. That is why the shoulders did not 

look or work right.

Final Concept

The shading and lighting were very poorly done plus there was not much detail.

Presentations

I did not plan at all what to talk about and that is why I struggled to do the presentation.

What did I learn?

Envelop weighting  

What would I do different next time?

I would take more time when modelling a character and make sure I get the topology right.

I would do a more realistic character then a stylized one.

Not collapse the skin modifiers

Learn how to unwrap a character the right way.

Be more ready for a presentation

Week 11, Year 2 Ops should not have done that

So it’s the last week of term before the Christmas holydays and I still need to model, texture and rig my character. I really rushed the modelling and texturing. I try to go with a low poly just to make things quicker, so I could spend more time on rigging. Unwrapping did not take too long as well. I mostly struggled with the head because of the shape of it.

Rigging my character took a lot of time and a lot of fine tuning to try and get it right. As I was rigging I found that I had that I had model the shoulder of my character really badly and it was made worse with the shoulder pads. The arms could not move right and look very weird if I tried to stick the arms out in front of the character but the big mistake I made was the when I was rigging I collapse the skin modifier and then carried on working. By the time I realized what I did it was too late and I could not undo and I had not made a backup before I started rigging. There was not enough time to try and fix it, so I just left it and carried on and imported it into engine.

I’m happy that’s its over now but a little mad at myself because I know I could have done so much better, if I had just been thinking about it more and just not trying to rush it. It would have also been much easier if I had not done stylized, I think because there is more reference marital for realistic modelling.

Over the holydays I need to really think about what I need to think about what I need to improve to help with my work.       

Week 10, Year 2 Stylized was maybe a bad idea

So carrying on from last week I needed to finish my final concept for my character. I found this to be very hard and took a lot of time out of my modelling. I finally got it to a part where I was happy with it but I knew it was not a great peace of work but still help me see what my character could look like at the end. Modelling my character I found to be very hard as well because I was trying to rush it as much as I could because the deadline was meant to be at the end of this week, luckily it got pushed to next week, what I’m very happy about because I was really starting to get worried if I would finish my character or not.

Looking back at it now I think that trying to do a stylized character was maybe a bad idea because to do stylize right you need to understand how it would look if it was realistic and then exaggerate parts to give it that more stylized look. I’m not that good at realistic in the first place so I don’t know why I tried to do a stylized character.

What was I thinking

Week 9, Year 2 Character redesign

So after last week presentation. I went back to my first moodboard, I was also told that if I wanted to do a stylized I should look at some stylized characters. I made 2 moodboards just full of different characters. When I look at them I saw that they all had very strong silhouettes and I knew the best way for me to do that was to make a bash kit.

I pick out heads, body's, arms, and legs, that I think that would work best.

These are the 14 silhouettes I made from the bash kit.

I then pick out the best 6 and add some detail to them to see what they could look like.

I pick out the fish cop and then I tried out some different color types.

I'm happy that i did start again from the start. I feel like that i have develop a much stronger idea then what I was going with before. next week i'm going to try and move onto modeling and texturing. I would like to try and rig but I don't know if I will have time.

Week 8, Year 2 Square circle and triangle

So this Monday was the hand in for the sentry gun and over the weekend I got some nice renders of the gun and also made the light bubbles to work on the barrel and the top of the pitch

But the very next day we were into the next project dynamic characters project. I have to design 2 characters that are different from each other but they would still work together. There is a lot of freedom to this project. We can go with any theme and can do realistic or stylized. I like the idea for so much freedom it means I go with something I want to do.

I had to get an idea ready by the end of the week and do a presentation. I’ve not really done a solo presentation in a long time and the last time I did one it did not go bad but not great. The first think I decided was to do something stylized. After last year and so far this year I have done too much realistic and I could use with a bit of a change. I also really like the idea of cyber punk. So that’s where I start looking up stuff.

When I was making my moodboard of cyber punk and old rock puck I came across and image of this rock punk guys sitting next to an old lady. When I was thinking about it more, it just sounded like a cool idea, the mean punk kid that like no one but his grandmother who was the sweetest person ever and love everyone.

you can see the image of the guy and the old lady in the bottom middle

Something we look at over the week was the use of shapes and how they are used in a character. You can see this mostly used in good vs. evil cartoons. The big strong hero mostly made out of squares and the super bad villain all shapes in his body and face you will see are all tringles. So how to use this in my work, seeing how I got a want to be bad boy I will try and use just squares and triangles and for the grandmother just try and use round shapes.

I make the heads a bit like a bash kit but only using Square circle and triangle.
The once with the red rings are once I like most.

I draw over the black Silhouette,
just to see what they could look like and then pick one.

This is incomplete drawing of what my characters could of look like. 

This time I felt it went really bad. I don’t know what happened but started to find it hard to talk and my whole body was shaking. I really was thinking I was about to pass out. I did not think I would be that bad but still I got very good feedback on my work. I was told that they could not really see the dynamic between them and I should go back to my first moodboard and try and start from there again.

 This week it well started off slow but ok until the presentation, after that I know next I need to be more ready and just prates before. I think that will help me a lot better for my next presentation I have to do. 

Sentry gun project post mortem

What went well?

Coming up with a design

I feel really good with the amount of work I put into this part because I’m really happy with my final design

Modelling

The modelling went very well and I’m happy that I got all of the original design in other then 1 or 2 things but the outcome was still what I wanted.

What didn't go well?

Texturing

I feel like my texturing was what let me down most on this project. If I had plan what textures I was going to put in and then got some feedback on them I could of done a much better job.

What did I learn?

Bash kits

Taking different shapes and putting them together to make a new one. I really like this way of working and will try and use it more

Blueprints

Unreal 4 blueprints not learnt much yet but I now know it’s there and I understand what it can be used for, like making a door, having a trigger event happen, and a lot of other thing that can be done. I will look more into blueprints because I know I will need it.

Emissive

Emissive are textures that have a light sources to them and this is what I used to make the lights on my gun work.

What would I do different next time?

I would try and do a lot more value breakdowns then just one and try more colour types and ask people what they like most, instead of me picking what I like.

Look up better ways to get detail and texture into my material or maybe not put in any at all.

Week 7, Year 2 Lock and loaded, with flaming Christmas puddings

This is the 3^rd and final week for the sentry gun project and last week I finished my design and planning. It was now time to make this bad boy. So for this to work it needs to be made into 4 different parts for it to work in unreal. You need the barrel, pitch, yaw, and base. Looking at my sentry gun I decide to work from the bottom up, thinking the base would be the hardest part to model, it would be best to get that out the way first.

So once I finished modelling I also had to make a projectile and shell to go along with it. I came up with this idea really from the start but forgot to mention it, that the sentry gun would be shooting caned Christmas pudding and what do you do with Christmas pudding, YOU SET IT ON FIRE. That is why there is a zippo on the end of the barrel. So the idea is the can is the shell and the pudding is what’s getting fired out. I just love this idea so much, it just made this project a little easier knowing how silly my idea was.

Now comes the part that I don’t find to hard it’s just the part where I start to loss a little interest in my work and that’s UV unwrapping. I don’t know what it is but about UV unwrapping but I just gets so boring and can take a lot longer than I plan. I was able to put my texture onto 4 different sheets that were all 1024x1024.

Barrel and yaw UV

Pitch UV

So now comes the texturing. I went back to the value breakdown and took the colours off there and used them as a base colour on my UV’s I then went back to my colour image and matched were the colours where placed, then made the colour layer overlay the value lay so the colours would be the right value. I then need to try add some more detail to it this I found to be a little hard to do because I did not plan for it.

Well hand in is next Monday so I have a little time to do touch up over the weekend and again this week I have not done anything in unreal.

Week 6, Year 2 Christmas is coming and I’m making a new toy

Week 2 into the sentry gun project and last week I upload an image full of different sentry gun silhouettes and left it over the weekend for people to comment on it. So now was the time to find out who the top 5 wins were. In first place was number 17, tide both for second was 9 and 10, in third was 13, and just getting in number 7. With the top 5, I will use them to make more silhouettes but using them as a base because now I had to add a bit more and try and make them look more Christmassy to fit the theme. Right now I really like the look of 7, 10. And 13 but I’ll see how I fill after round 2.

For the second stage in the silhouette design. I made it into a table and copied the original down five time. I then add the Christmas and other bits to it. This left me with 25 new designs and I did what I did the first time and uploaded it to Facebook and wend around asking some mates for their opinion again. I’m very happy that I did it this way because it was easier to make something that look like a gun and still had the right theme.

I only left this one over night because I need to get working on it as soon as possible. Got a lot of responses and a winner was decided… 2C!!! I’m a little surprised because that was not one I was really looking at but because it got a lot of votes I’m going to go forward with it anyways. This is good because I’m not picking what I like and that’s taking me out of my convert zone, what I really should do a lot more.

So in my class we look at value breakdown. We look at how Valve team that made Dota 2 used this techniques on their characters. A value breakdown is using 5-6 different colours values from white to black and adding them to and image. This is to help break up the colures so it’s easier for people to see what they are looking at and tell what each part is. The Dota 2 team used it so that darker colours where at the bottom and more lighter colours where at the top. This is because the game is from a top down view and the player will mostly see the top of the character. The same thing can be done with my sentry gun because I need to make sure the player can tell it’s a sentry gun and the best way to do that is have lighter colours on the base and barrel of the gun, then use darker colours closer to the bottom.

After I finished my value breakdown it was now time to add colour to it. I went back to my Christmas moodboard and pick out some colours.

Out of the 4 I went with the red and white because looking back at my moodboard that is what was mostly there.

I’m very happy with the progress I have made over this week. I do wish I had got this done sooner and get to modelling quicker but because I told a little long with the designing of my sentry gun I feel like I have come out with a much stronger idea then I would have if I just rushed throw it all and only picket what I like.

Sadly this week I have not taken any time to learn something new in unreal.

Week 5, Year 2 Time to unleash

So are after finishing the film room project and having a bit of a relaxing back weekend, It was time to move on to the next one. The SENTRY GUN PROJECT, I’m really looking forward to this one because I have a lot more freedom to do what I want to do but I’m not going to go crazy with it and come up with an idea that will take me to long to do. I am going to take it at my speed and just be relaxed with it because I know a lot of the time that if you come up with an idea to quick and work on it too much. I know that I will just get board of it and will just want to start again. That is why I’m going to try and come up with an idea that is just funny and maybe a little stupid.

So last week in one of my classes we were shown a fun way to come up with an idea. All I had to do is make a list of different categories and make sure they had between 2-6 different things in them, then number them and roll a dice. Whatever number it landed on I would take the from the category then go to the next one till I finished and had a final. I started with a mind map just to get things rolling first and from this mind map came up with the categories. I came up with 7 different ideas, some of the ideas did not really sound like they would work that well at all but from the 7 I pick the new, stylised, magic, food, Christmas. I really like the sound of this one because it just sound really fun and something that I can get really into.

So something new we were told about was how to make a bash kitI started with a moodboard just to help get the ideas flowing and so I could make a bash kit. I started looking at sentry guns and after a bit I look at different Christmas stuff. I soon realized that I need to put them into 2 different moodboards, 1 for guns and stuff and one just for different Christmas stuff. This help me get more ideas.

We also had to add an every day object to are sentry gun, so I pick my zippo lighter. I pick it at the time because I had it one me at the time and when I saw it, it just gave me the idea to make a sentry gun that shot out something on fire. 

So now was the time to make the bash kit. In Photoshop I make an outline of anything on the moodboards that I like the look of then just filled them in black and copied it over to a new Photoshop file. I put them in to different groups, just so I could pick 1 from some groups and a few from other groups just to make I got a good mix of different shapes so I cloud make Silhouettes.

So when it came to making the sentry guns Silhouette, I wanted to make sure that it still look like a gun but with a Christmas theme to it. I decided to do it in 2 parts. The first one would be made out of stuff from the gun moodboards then I will pick out 5 and then add Christmas stuff to them and pick the best one out of them. So I made 20 different silhouettes and put them onto one image and uploaded it to Facebook to find out which once look the best to other people. I also went around and asking class mates for their opinion. I did this one Fridays, so over the weekend more people can tell me what they think. To help me get a better idea what looks best.

also over the week we were shown how to set up are sentry gun up in unreal 4. There was already a ready-made file with an example in it. This leads to what I learnt in unreal 4 this week was blueprint. Blueprints is a bit like coding but without the pain of having to write lines of code but because of this it does have its limitations. It’s still a very good tool to learn and a lot easier to learn. I don’t have anything to show right now but I’m going to take some time to learn it because I know I will need it for future projects.        

Film room project post mortem

What went well?

·         Modelling

I think all the modelling went very well and all the assets that were made came out very well.

·         Setting up the scene in engine

Getting all the assets into engine and have them in the right place was done very quick and saved a lot of time.

·         Splitting up the work load

I think that that work for modelling the assets was well done. So people who had assets that were hard or would take longer did not have to worry about having to do other jobs and people who only a few small and easy assets would not get bored waiting for other people.

What didn’t go well?

·         Timing

I feel that too much time was spent on some area that should not have taken so long as they and that is why I feel when trying to work in engine, some stuff was a bit rushed when more time could have been put into it.

What did I learn?

·         Colour Correction

Using the Colour correction in unreal, to make the scene match the original image.

·         Perspective Tool

How to use the perspective tool in 3DS max and how it can help make a quick white box.

·         Lighting in unreal 4

I learned how to use lights in unreal 4, how to make them work and how to change the settings to get different effects.  

·         Light maps

I learned how to make a light map in 3DS max and how to make it work in engine.

What would I do different next time?

·         Get into engine sooner

Could have started building the scene soon in engine and not wait for all the assets to be completed. I think if we had done this more problems would have been found soon and saving time.

·         Better time management

Try to plan out timing better next time and try to stick with it.

·         Be more organised

I think I need to be more organised and try to keep better file management, and to make sure files are named well.

Week 4, Year 2 Lights, camera, and now we have another problem

So the deadline for the film room was only a few days away and we need to get everything into engine. All the models had been made and textured we had a full scene in 3DS max, that look great.

So this is how it was now all we had to do was get it into engine. I volunteer for the job because that way I could learn how lights work in unreal 4. Getting it into engine was fine it was when I added the lights and then tried to build them. This is when I found out that a lot of the assets did not have light maps for them. So we had to find out which assets did not have them and make them. Then in engine make sure the light map resolution was put up so lights and shadows would work correctly. After that we found that the assets with metallic map were only showing as black but that was an easy fix just need to add a sphere reflection capture. The only way I knew you had to do that was when I used SDK (source developer kit) you had to add in to some areas mostly room to make sure reflections would work.  

Now that the lights and everything else was working now we had to take the final shot. The first problem was getting the camera in the right. Then playing around with the settings to try and make it match the forced perspective. The next problem was getting a reader from the camera and removing the sprites for the lights but after that we got the final shot and … wow

I cannot believe how well this turned out but that just makes me happier knowing that all the hard work that I and the other guys put in, has paid off with a great result. This was a very hard week making sure that everything work and trying not to pull my hair out at unreal 4.

Week 3, Year 2 Walls, ceiling and forced perspective

So this week still working on the film room Project. I was given the task of creating the walls and ceiling and the other objects was split up between the other group members. I was give the walls and the ceiling because my white box came the best out of the other group.

So my plan was to create one side of the wall then copy it over to the other side but very quickly I found a problem with this idea and so did my other team members. In the film they used forced perspective in the scene. This made the room off set and when I copied the wall over it was not in line at all. So I only had to move some of the vertex.

Texturing the walls was very ease only because it was just white but making the texture on the back walls was a very hard and challenging. I started by making one pattern and copying into a line. Then copying the line moving it over and up a bit and then doing the same all the way across, made sure it would tile and then added it to the wall texture.

     

 So this week I had a go at making landscapes in unreal and found out there are a 2 ways going about it. You can start with a flat landscape and then use the tools to make the hill or make an image but it has to be in grayscale with a 16 bit channel and saved as a png. I used the image way it was fast at getting better results and what you can do is edited in unreal with the same tools as if you were going to start from scratch. What I would like to do is try and add a river to it at one point.

After I made my landscape I had a go with the foliage tool to add bushes and rocks around the area. This gave me the idea that if my own trees, bushes, and grass I could make a simply and quick wood. 

Week 2, Year 2 Out of one and right back into another

So at the start of this week was the hand in date for the asset swap project and on the very same day we found out the next project. The film room project, this is another group one but this time it was only a team of 4. The idea is that we pick a room from a film but we had to look at lighting and mood.

In the first week I and my group just came up with ideas and we all each made our own moodboards. I pick out a room that I found that had an interesting colours used in it. I then pick out some of these rooms and look at their colour palette

This is total recall (1990) I pick this room because of the strong use of red lights in a blue, grey room.

The way I found to fine out the colour palette of an image, is to break down the colour. There is a great way to do this in Photoshop, if you go to Filter > Pixelate > crystallize. I then used the eyedropper tool to pick out colours that were the most present.

After me and my group were all done making moodboards and colour palettes. We showed each other what we have got and made a group diction on witch would be the best room. Our first idea was to go with Balin tomb out of Lord of the rings.

But after having a talk with other people we found that this room would be too hard create because of the amount of assets that would need to be make. It would have taken far too long. So we went back a step and had a relook at what we had and see if we could find a room with more of a simply layout and had less in it but still had few assets in it to still make it interesting.

So after some rethinking we pick this room out of Xmen first class. I think this room was a much better idea to go with because of the shape of the room. It is just not flat walls and the other objects in the room have a very nice looking shape that make them stand out.

In game production we had a look at how to use perspective match tool in 3DS max. With this tool you could put in an image in to 3DS Max and then match the XYZ to the image so that when you start to model it will match the perspective in the image.  

By doing this I was able to create a very quick white box for the room. We all used this white box as a template for when we came to create the assets.

So this week in unreal I had a look on how to make a Static mesh into a physical mesh so that when you load the level the mesh can move around and the player can interact with it. It was very simply to do all you have to do is place an object it to the level and then in bottom right box to go the physics tab and then tick the simulate physics. So now knowing this I came up with the idea to make 10 pin bowling in unreal, sadly you cannot control the bowling ball

Week 1, Year 2 A new year and new things

So I made it past my first year of universal at De Montfort doing Game art design and so I’m starting my 2^nd year. Already we have been set a project but this is a group project and there are new software and technique we have to learn.

This project is called asset swap. I and 5 other people have to create 6 different assets and put them in a scene, all in 1 week but we are not just picking 1 and just working on that. We had to work on 1 stage for all 6 assets and that way all the assets would be completed. This is so we can get a feel of what it’s like working in a team because no one in the game industry works on their own. I found this project very fun and a nice start to the start of the year.

This is the finale Silhouette and concept for the tankard I made. I did this digitally because I want to try and improve my digital painting. I then also had to make this in 3D after that I had to make the texture for the hog. I found the hog very hard to texture because I could not think of a way to get photo that I could use as a texture. So I had a go at trying to back by only using the tools in Photoshop. I found my end result was ok but it did not fit that well in the end scene. I do wish now I had taken more time to think of what I could have done to get the result that was really needed.

Then end scene look great the only thing that did make not look right was the texture for the hog that I made. It did get retextured but did still show a lot of the old texture. If I was to do this again I would look a lot more in to texturing, like maybe trying to digital paint it. I also could have spent a little less time on the concept part of the project.

So this year we are now using unreal 4 and wow it is funny. I have been playing around with it just learning very simply things like how to move and how to import models and textures but there are so many other tools I want to and I think what I may try and do is once a week try and learn a new tool in unreal 4.

So this year there are some software I really want to look into and learn, like Zbrush. I would really like to learn Zbrush because I think it would really help me with my work in the future. So for anything very complex like a high detail statues or character. Zbrush could help me make the high poly model and then bake it down into a normal map.

So in my own time there may be other subjects I would like to write about. So of the idea I have got are Good and bad level design, the history of competitive gaming, what make a level look good, and then maybe some reviews of game that have come out.

Well this first week was very good and I am very happy being back. It was a little hard at first being put into a group project and having to learn a new technique on the very first day but I think it was a good way to get be into the year after all these next few year are not going to be easy at all. So I need to keep pushing myself to be the best that I can be and then not to stop and keep going.

Thank you for reading