It's not over yet? I just want to work on projectile cats!

So you thought the film room project was over? So did I...
If you remember my last post was all about the project from start to finish but after another presentation we did on this, I have decided I wanted to go into more depth with some of the key issues and successes with this project; and I feel that best way to do this is with a little Q&A.

Q: What went well?
A: I feel that the whole project went well as a whole; our group worked efficiently to our time schedule and we all got along. We didn't have any communication issues or problems with non hard-working members. We were realistic to begin with and chose a room that worked to all of our strengths, it fitted the brief perfectly and was doable in the 2 weeks we had left to create the room in 3D. Our time keeping as a whole worked perfectly; even if we did schedule in the weekends it was the only realistic way to regain some of the time we initially lost. Personally the texturing went well for me in this project I'm not the best at 2D so I am glad that my textures were not lacking in this project.

Q: What didn't go well?
A: Overall I believe that some of the texturing could be improved for example the walls and floor look pixelated and low resolution compared to the plane. The lighting was a constant issue in our group due to the lack of knowledge and the room being unrealistic because of it being filmed on a green screen. The original block-out didn't go well either because of us not understanding how the perspective in the room worked; we got better towards the end of the block-out but it was still fairly inaccurate which caused problems down the line. For example I personally had a lot of problems with the plane because the original block-out made it seem that the plane was incredibly warped when in actual fact is was only slightly skewed. I therefore had to start over and create the plane from scratch without the block-out to help.

Q: What did you learn?
A: I personally learnt how to work with other people better; I know it sounds simple but its actually quite challenging to work with other people and rely on them to do certain things. I learnt in more depth how to use PBR textures and how to navigate better within UE4; I also learnt how to do basic lighting. I also learnt how to use the perspective tool in 3DS Max and how to organise myself and my team better with the help of timetables and flowcharts. 

Q: How would you approach it next time?
A: If I was to redo this project I would choose a different room not because it was a bad choice but because I personally found it too easy and I would have liked to stretch myself further; therefore pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I would have liked to have done more concepting, texturing and engine work due to them not being my strength. I would have loved to have worked more on the engine for this project and made particle effects such as dust speckles to make the room feel more interesting. I would have also liked to have animated my plane to sway; thus making the room feel less static.

Q: What can you take from this project and apply to others?
A: I am definitely taking my time management skills way with me to apply to all of my other projects. I am also going to keep iterating on everything and not just go with the first semi good idea I have. 

If you want to read up on some of our other struggles within the group mainly around lighting and UE4 check out Denise's blog (http://denisecjj.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/week-4-end-and-its-faq.html) as she encountered and tackled these mainly by herself.

Right now that the boring stuff is over lets talk about Halloween!
I had a nice night out with the rest of the game art crew; We did our make-up all snazzy!

It was a really nice break from the long nights of work at the moment but I'm back on track again. Here's another thing that will get you in the Halloween spirit (it's never too late to slap on some zombie make up) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_9uUQdqOVU. This is a fly though of a couple of the now third years work, make for a competition; they placed in the top three and we couldn't be more proud. I am really inspired by their work and can't wait till my stuff looks that awesome. 

Talking about cool stuff lets get on to the best project ever! Yea you're right its the Catling gun! So our new project is to create a sentry turret it can be anything we wish the only rule is we have to be as creative as possible! And of course me being me, I decided to create the Catling gun because why the hell not? Am I right?

Right so this is my moodboard as you can see its full of all my favourite things! So much colour! And of course SUPER CUTE CATS! I then compiled a couple of the best things into a kit-bash where you use the shapes of different objects to create your silhouettes. Its a really fast and efficient way of working on design projects like this. 

This is my first set of silhouettes I'm currently working on refining a handful of chosen ones to then pick my final design. That's all on the Catling gun at the moment but I will keep you posted!

Finally I just want to quickly talk about internships and what I am doing about them at the moment. Me and my flatmate have filled my wipe board with a massive mind map of what we have to do in order to get an internship.

We have already started looking at a couple potential internships this weekend; I am mainly looking for a short internship within the UK with an indie company working on 3D based art but I'm keeping my options open. I really want to work with an indie company so that I can do a bit of everything and I personally want to work on all of the cute things which you don't really find with AAA games. Right that's all I have to say for now keep you updated and I will hopefully be almost done with my Catling gun by next time. 

Cheerio!