Week 22, Year 2 I’m losing ideas for title names now

So this week was reading week, so there were no lessons but there was still a lot of work to get on with. I and my group final got an assets list together and unreal 4.7 came out. All I really had in to model were just little thing that can be done very quickly, what is what I like to do most because they are just little things that can be modeled very quickly. I also help move are level from 4.6 to 4.7

As for unreal update and I’m so happy with it, they have cleaned up the UI in a really nice way and just to me it feels more professional now than it did before and the new big thing that I and my group are really looking forward to is the new animation editing system. This new system allows you to edit animation within unreal and you can now create an animation from physics. I’ll have to look in to that more because that could really help with the rabbit hole falling and landing parts.

I’m pretty happy with how things are looking right now and that are level is coming along very nicely. Also this week I've been watching Fullmetal alchemist and I think I’m already very close to the end of it. I just can’t stop watching it, it’s just too amazing.

Week 21, Year 2 Finally my time to shine

This week I was tasked with doing more concepts but for riddle room this time. I also made a quick storyboard for the rabbit hole cut scene but what I’m most happy about was finally got some time to do some engine work.

So this time I try to go a little bit bigger and try and work faster. Again I’m happy with what I have done but again feel like I’m taking too long and I think it’s because I’m trying to hard when I need to be a little more relax. 

After that last one I tried to work a lot fast with the story boards but I think with something like this I should have done it with pen and paper first. Feel I bit like I rush into digital drawing to fast when I need more parties.

What I’m really happy about was getting to do some engine work. What I was looking into was how to make a player be in a fix spot and only could move there head a bit and not all the way around. I spent a long time just try to work it out and looking at all the unreal documents but not finding anything helpful. The only part I had working was just the player in one spot and can look around but had no limit to it. I did get lucky after some time looking on the internet. The way to do it was to just set up your own game mode, you can then edit the max and min of the Yaw.

Week 20, Year 2 Not much to do and painting slow

So a lot of last week was just getting ideas down but now we had to try and narrow it down to a more solid idea. We have some sort of an idea with how we want to start the level and how we wanted it to play out but we needed more of a layout of the level and start working on a block out as well.

We were still in the early stages of the project and because of that there was not much modelling or engine work to do. So I was asked to do some concepts for Lewis Carroll study. concepting is one of my very weak points but it needed to be done and I could use with the practice.

I’m happy with how it came out but not too happy with how long it took me to do this. What I think I need to do is really look more into painting fast and also look up some different brushes to use. I also made a moodboard looking at doors and some furniture, for when you are in the rabbit hole area.

Week 19, Year 2 Let the games begin

So Monday was the hand in for container city and I know that I and my team are all happy that it is over but now the really fun begins.

The next day we started the off the map project (OTM) which is a computation ran by the British library. this is the 3^rd year it has ran and the first time DMU won and the second time DMU came in the top 3 but now it’s my years’ time to have a go.

My year was split up into 9 different teams of 6 people in each. Each person had put down their own strengths this was to make sure all teams could have someone doing what they wanted to do. I put down modelling and engine because from past projects I found I could model fast and I love doing engine work.  

The theme for this project is based around Alice in wonderland by Lewis Carroll. We have to make a level with interactive elements in it. There are 3 themes and we have to pick one oxford, underground, gardens.

For this week I and my team made sure we read the book and just started coming up with some ideas and finding images that could give us ideas.

I’m really looking forward to working with my team mates on this project and I would really like to try and go for the first place in this computation.

Also 1 of my team mates showed us this guy who makes suits of armor for cats. It’s so cool and amazing how detail they are.

http://imgur.com/gallery/GaqLo

Container city project post mortem

What went well?

Floor Plan

I like the way we came up for the floor plan of the level. We had many different ideas that could of work and it was done very quickly.

Modelling and texturing

Even with the time we lost. All the assets and texturing that we had planned was still done in the time that we had left.

What didn’t go well?

Over thinking the idea

So I and my group spent a lot of time coming up with a theme. We had too many ideas that we wanted in the level. That we went too far away from the brief and wasted a lot of time because of it.

What did I learn?

Pay more action to the brief

If we had read the brief a bit more at the start of the project. We may have not gone so far away from it.

Photo bashing

I did a lot of photo bashing in this project as of a way to come up with quick concept ideas for the level and for some of the assets

What would I do different next time?

Keep looking back at the brief to make sure we are flowing it right.

Try and do less concept work and look at doing more of the modular building parts. Just to learn more about it and how to do it.