This project is another strange one. Throughout this project
we as a group have been constantly teased about how our group is probably
producing one of the best projects.
I personally was constantly uneasy about this as I could see
the manic nature in which we were dealing with tasks, especially towards the
end.
I personally right from the start of the project was quick
to try and separate myself from the rest of the group. I did this by asking for
full responsibility over a whole area. This was going to be the canal area. I
also was always going to be responsible for the Puzzle room.
I did this so that I could work solely right from concepting
to the finished in engine world that I could put straight into a portfolio.
Also working like this puts more pressure on myself to be good at all parts of
the process, and also to always work consistently to a high standard. This area
was always going to be photorealistic. Basically I wanted complete control over
an area within which I would not have to compromise on quality.
This area was going to be first person so that all aspects
of it in all dimensions would have to look good. Very early on I suggested that
I would be willing to make this area a side scroller, as a compromise so that I
could sooner finish and help in other areas.
This at the time was deemed unnecessary at this point. I
also throughout the project expressed that I would be willing to drop this
entire area, I never wanted my decisions to be detrimental to our level. There
would always be plenty of areas, props and general assets for me to get my
teeth into, even without the canal area.
At points during this project I felt like I wasn’t working
fast enough and was stalling. But this was due to learning new things about
complex materials/ shaders. I now have a decent working knowledge of creating
complex materials including Tessellation, complex grass wind, macro variation,
Decals, multiplying normal, using multiples of all the maps tiled and not
tiled, foliage shaders etc.
I also spent a week learning how to create game ready rock
assets. So I learnt How to create the high poly in Z-Brush and how to
artistically approach rock creation, which brushes to use, decimation, Dyna
Mesh, unwrapping in Z-Brush and applying surface detail in Z-Brush.
I also during this project really pushed high to low poly
backing, nearly every part of every asset has been detached and had a high poly
made, which has then been backed down onto the low poly to create an AO map and
a normal. This has been extremely successful especially in simply smoothing out
the edges of relatively low poly assets.
I have
also used many other processes during this project although I didn’t learn them
in this project I have used them. For example a projection mapping pass is
often a part of my asset creating, as is poly painting in Z-Brush and using
spotlight.
As
with our projects as a group I feel like there was three core issues
Skill set differences
Our group of 6 had 4 character artist, we had no concept
artist, and at the start I don’t think anyone actually wanted to really push
engine work. So we had an imbalance. We
gave out the character art roles to these people. But this brings me to the
next point.
We had a major skill level difference across the group. Half
the group were past the learning faze for many processes so could produce work
much faster than others. Where some people felt that they needed to spend only
4 weeks on a character or major asset, for others 13 was more appropriate. This
basically took some people out of the project completely, instead of being part
of the group and producing assets, they would be responsible for one asset.
This would then leave our group 2 or 3 people short for the vast majority of
the project. Obviously we as a group could have made compromises here. We could
have dropped a character, this would free up one person. Or a stronger member
of the group could have been given multiple characters, thus leaving some
budding character artists character less. I understand that doing this would
have been extremely selfish, although this would have resulted in a better
project, this would have stunted the personal development of certain members of
our group. If you want to be a character artist you are going to want to
develop skills in this area regardless on weather this will actually be detrimental
to your grade.
Art style differences
Some members of our group would have felt allot more
comfortable working much more stylised. The majority of our group wanted to
work realistic so this is what we did. This placed some members outside of
their comfort zone, and thus may have stunted there enthusiasm and willingness
to really push the project.
Bottle neck with engine
For the vast majority of the project two members of the
group were working on two separate engine files for different areas. I feel now
that we merged these files much too early. This lead to a bottle neck right at
the end of the project when we were importing the finale assets. The singular
person now responsible for all the world building and re-importing had a near
impossible work load. This lead too many assets being forgotten, having the
wrong textures applied or no texture applied and generally poor quality world
building “propulasion”. The problems here can be fixed extremely easily and I
know that it can be done extremely well given time, but for the DMU deadline
the above was the case.
Personally during this project I did spend allot of time
developing two complex assets that eventually were not used for the DMU hand
in. These were the Bridge and the Boat Shed. This means that these assets were actually
a waste of time. This obviously would have been detrimental to our level. The effects
of this could have been reduced had we dropped the canal area sooner. Sadly we didn’t,
it was dropped just before the last week. This occurred because the canal area potentially
wasn’t our worst looking area up to this point it’s simply that this wasn’t one
of the core game play areas. We had to drop an area in order to finish on time,
so the canal the smallest part of the game had to go.
Basically to summarize this project I am going to use this single screen shot from our level.
This is our menu and start screen, yes this is a good image. But I know that it could be allot better. As this is a singular image the grass here could have been denser to hide the planes. The trees going off into the distance should be denser. I created many many different plants during this project and only a small amount of them are in this image. Their is potential here to actually use the boat shed and or the bridge. Also the Gunneras and the Gunnera flowers I created mid project aren't actually in out finale level anywhere. The models that are being used in the current level are unfinished, but they were never replaced in time for the deadline. My finale Gunneras could have been used here at least as they are only present currently in my personal engine file. Sadly none of the above is present in the above image. Although I say these things this is not a personal gripe at any member of out team, we simply ran out of time, given the circumstances we pt our selves in we did the best we could. But that doesn't make the finale screen shots any less frustrating to look through.
Hope fully all the issues I have listed can be easily
resolved for the Off the Map official hand in.
