Roller: Week 3

I’ve been torn between learning new skills, completing this project, and doing work to a high standard during this week.

This is the finale week of this project, I could use this week to learn how to create high quality normals and then bake out as much of the model as is necessary. I will then start creating textures, and might get onto learning substance painter. But the model would remain untextured, failing the brief.

I could use this week to create a few low quality normals, leaving a mostly unbaked down model, and no development in baking skill. I could then quickly create some textures, and then learn substance painter and texture the model. I would then complete the brief by finishing the project in 3 weeks. But the output would not be competitive.

This year I really need to develop my technical skill. There is no point in creating subpar assets that won’t strengthen my portfolio. At this early stage I believe that it’s more important to learn new skills that then can be implemented throughout the rest of the year.

This week I have thus far developed my baking skills, and baked down allot of the model. I have learnt about many of the settings in X normal, and also a bunch of tricks though out the process that help normals to bake correctly.

E.g When baking protruding features on to a surface, often the baked normal map will make these appear to protrude at an angle. The way to eliminate this issue is to add more geometry to the low poly. This can be done vie simply adding some connections and or turbo smoothing the mesh if smoothing groups will allow this without distorting the mesh. 

I’m now going to begin creating some textures, at this current point it is extremely unlikely that I will finish texturing by Friday.

During this project I felt extremely rushed right from the start as a result I created some pore quality geometry which then had to be altered, wasting time and still resulting in a questionable mesh in places as I couldn’t completely remodel the mesh within the time. Also I rushed the second half of my unwrap, resulting in a poor unwrap. This means that even when this project is finished I won’t be able to put the texture sheets in my portfolio

At this point I feel like the last thing I need to do is rush another aspect of this project. I think it’s more important to try and create assets to the highest standard. Eventually this may not take up that much additional time, due to not having to go back and re do processes multiple times. But having already wasted time in this project re doing processes. At this point slowing down and creating high quality work and learning new processes will probably push the project past the three week point.