Week 18, Year 2 Last minute modelling

It is now the final week for the container city project and things are all starting to come together nicely. All the assets have been model and textured. All that was there was left to do was populating the level and add the finishing touches.

There were still times when we found that we need a small asset for something and it was me that my team look to.

I’m very happy with how I and my team have work together. I’m more impressed by how we really lost a week and still managed to bring it back and create something amazing. There are still a lot of stuff we could have done differently and much more stuff we could of added but when does that not happen to anyone.

I’m glad I got to do a project like this and would happily do it again with same people granted do it to our own brief, so we can go with some crazy idea like we wanted to.

Week 17, Year 2 So much modelling

After last week I think me and my team were starting to get a little scared if we were going to meet the dead line or not but we now finally had a final idea down, after the pain of last week. We planned out what assists we need. We split up all the modelling between us. I had a lot of assets to make but most of them were very small and simply to make.

I’m very happy with a lot of my modelling I did and how quick I had done it. I think this help make up for a lot of time that we wasted trying to come up with are theme for are level. My texturing also went very well and fast. Is has surprised me a little knowing that my texturing has sometimes let me down in the past. 

Some of the models I made I passed onto another team mate to texture after I had finished unwrapping them.

All in all I’m happy with the progress that I and the team have made. I think we are all now feeling more confident about getting this project finished.

Week 16, Year 2 Photo bashes all the things

So carrying on from last we were still conecpting for the level but we now had a block out as well. So taking screen shots of the level I then photo bashed over the top of them to make quick concepts.

We were still finding it hard to a solid theme down for the level. There were so many different ideas that we like. The problem that we had because of this was that we start to go too far away from the brief that had been set for us and made it very hard for us to get to the next stage.

After a long team talk we finally started to remove a lot the ideas that we want and got it back to where it matched the brief more. We kept the Aztec underground theme but made it work with containers.

Once we had done this we finally started to plan out what each room should look like and what assets we would need.

Week 15, Year 2 A new year and a new project

So I had a very nice Christmas break. I got my first real job working as a salad chief in a harvester. It was funny but killed my legs and back but I’m very happy to be back now and I’m already looking forward to the next project, the “Container City Project” and I’m looking forward to it because we have to do level design, which is something I have been looking forward to doing.

So this is another group project what I’m happy with because we only have 4 weeks to do this and I feel like when working in a group, the end result comes out a lot better what makes everyone happy. So the first thing we had to think of is if we were going to do a SI-FI level or a dystopian level. As a group we all felt like doing a dystopian level more than a SI-FI level just because we fell like we can get more creative with it. After that we came up with a plan on how the level would play out and what the player had to do because the level need to have some iterative parts.

Once we knew what need to be in the level, we all make 3 floor plans each from a top down view and from there we showed them to each other and then pick the best 1 out of the 3 so there were 4, one for each person and then that person would whitebox of the level in 3DS max. This part went really well because one of my team members had set up a 3DS max file that made it really easy to block out the floor plan. So he sent it to all of us so we could do it all the same way.

Once that was done we had to think about a theme. We already knew we were going to have a dystopian theme but we wanted to add more to it, so we all came up with different themes that could fit in and made a mindmap out of it from there we pick out the once we like best and gave 2 ideas to one person each this way we would come up with 8 different themes.

I had pick mines and caves because I think that they could work well, seeing how we going to have most of the level underground and think there would be good ways to add the containers in there as well and the caves could help with the mines idea as well there would need to be tunnels and broken rocks. We all decide to make one moodboard each for are themes but when I was making the moodboard for the caves I came across something that was really amazing.

In Mexico there are some caves there with crystals in them but not your normal crystals once bigger than humans and this is not some small little cave it’s very big. If you want to find out more I have left a link that you can follow to find out more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Crystals

So looking at these crystal caves just gave me some great ideas with what we could do because we want it so that the power is off and all you have is a flash light but looking at this crystals gave me the idea that maybe the crystals could be glowing and this could be a good way to show the player were to go.

So once all the moodboards were done we all meet up and talk about what we like with each idea. We really like the temple theme. So I started to concept some ideas by photo bash images together.

I’m really happy about this project and can’t wait to get more into it. I think my group have some really good ideas and can’t wait to see with what we come up with.

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