Sloth ≤ Potato

This week has been a slow one and I am starting to get concerned with the time I have to finish everything; last week I spoke about having an extension on the Off the Map hand in and how I should still be able to work on it over Easter, it has now come to my attention that I might not have enough time to get everything else that needs to be done before that finished. Therefore Alice might not get worked on until we get back to Uni which is a bit worrying.

I also have to think about starting my written task (essay); which I am currently gathering reference for but have not begun typing. I also need to finish redoing my character project and my presentation; which are both in the progress of getting done. Over this holiday I also wanted to get my CV, cover letter and portfolio done so that I could apply to internships over summer; unfortunately that looks unlikely to get done now as its not my priority. This week has been an intense start to tennis and jogging up hills (as Leicester is just flat). I am exhausted and finding it hard to motivate myself to work after this; I will sort out my routine soon and should be able to not fall asleep after just 2 hours of jogging and tennis.

Death by tennis

Lets get onto the character project; I have been working on getting the new shapes into my model and I have now moved onto putting the alphas on the model. The alphas have been playing up but I have finally fixed the problem by adding extra padding on the texture and resetting the normals in 3DS Max; heres what it looks like so far:

If I am honest I'm not very happy with they way it looks at the moment; obviously it still needs the modelling to be finished and the texture to be fixed. In plain terms I think he looks like a retarded potato...

Hopefully I can fix this soon and move onto the texturing.
I still have a lot on my to do list so he is far from finished but that's it for now update you soon;
Cheerio for now.


References:
Weird Alice .gif: http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/articles/artist-creates-incredibly-derpy-disney-gifs

Reviews: The last hurdel

Last week we had our reviews to tell us how we are doing this year and I'm not failing! However at the moment I am currently looking at getting a 2:2 for this year, which isn't bad but I want to do better. Therefore I have decided to resubmit my character project; If I improve this project and do well in my critical studies work for this year than I should get a 2:1 for the year. This would be a 10% increase in skill from first year; and if I continue that 10% into third year than I could be looking at getting a 1st overall in my degree which would be pretty great (but lets think about getting through this year first).

In the review I was told that I got a 60 for my container city project which is a B; I am extremely happy with this and I am glad that the tutors saw how much work went into it even if they weren't a massive fan of the outcome. Next time I'm going to try and stick to the brief as much as possible to get an A.

Screenshot from our container city project.

In the dichotomous duo character project I got C's in everything but time management in which I got a D; after some questions I found out that I got a D because of how much I did in the project, they felt like I could have done more. This is a fair judgement but I know myself that I did the best I could and that it wasn't the best thing ever because characters aren't my strong point. On the other hand I am happy to work on this project again to get it looking how I want; It also means I can practice rigging as it is something I am awful at. It might also mean that I will feel happy putting it in my portfolio. 

Character project final.

I am currently reworking my design slightly to make the shapes stronger and to basically make the character look more appealing.

Character project paint over.

I feel that this paint over is the way forward; I re-looked at sloths and how to portray them in my character. I have added red eyes with pupils, a D shaped head instead of a O shaped one, longer arms, spaced claws, pointy/messy hair (on alphas), fur poking through clothing, fluffy pom poms (on alphas) and a wobblier body. I feel like all of these thing make my character feel more scary and sloth like. The next stage is to re work my model implementing this new design and optimising the buttons, eyes and nose because they could be lower poly. I will then have to re unwrap and texture and finally I am going to have to rig and pose my character. Hopefully I will have enough time over Easter to get this done.

Over Easter I also have to write my long essay task which is a reflective piece of writing about our year; I have been struggling to know what to write and how to find references. All I know is that I am going to write about stress and how I have dealt with it this year and how other people deal with it. Hopefully everything will just click into place when I get into it.

I also have to write my presentation which we have to do the first week back; this can be on anything we want but must be 3 minutes long and have 10 slides. I was thinking of doing mine on "Sin City: A dame to kill for" as a sort of lead on from my presentation in first year which was about how they use different colours in the film to connote feelings towards characters or objects. I was thinking of doing a comparison and seeing if the colours correlate or if they contradict each other. 

AGAIN!

I have also been recommended to work with James (My FMP buddy) over the summer to get our skills to the best they can be so that when we come back we can get a 1st in our final year! That's it for now I will update you with how everything is going over Easter; all I need to do is make sure I don't fall at the last hurdle. 

References:
Jumping cat ,gif: http://newscatgif.tumblr.com/page/27

Off The Map: Easter surprise

It's was the final week before the Easter break and the pressure started to set in; We had a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. So towards the end of the week I made a timetable depicting exactly everything everyone needed to get finished over Easter. Luckily for us after me making this we got given an extension for the DMU hand in by an extra 2 weeks; this was a big relief but at the same time we need to make sure we get a substantial amount done over Easter and not take advantage of the extension. I have now fully updated the project timeline; this shows a day by day timetable of what every individual person should be working on. 

This week Freddy and I have been mainly working on getting the level looking better, Freddy made rock textures and masks using a new technique that Braden showed us. 

3 opacity masks on one texture.

This is done by using the R,G and B channels in Photoshop and sectioning up 3 different maps into one. This is something I am going to be using on all of my project from now on. It can also be used for roughness, metallic and emissive maps. It's a great way of optimising a level and after the DMU hand in I am definitely going to go over some of our textures.

With these masks I created 3 main materials and then using parameters made material instances of these; doing this means that the engine only has to load the parent material and the children will load too. 

All of our rock materials, the majority being instances.

How the parameters are set up in the parent material.

Masked planes in Engine.

This week I have also finally gotten round to modelling the environment; by this I mean the side pieces of the rabbit hole drop. It looks very simple to model but It was very hard to get that paper crafted look with out it looking blocky and boring; hopefully you will think I have pulled it off; here's what the level is looking like so far:

In the video you might spot that the houses are now textured, this is what Braden has been working on. It took a while to get the same feel of the rest of the level but I feel that he has matched it perfectly so it was definitely worth the extra time.

Luke has continued working on his particle effects and hopefully I will be able to get them into the level soon. Here's a link to a video he posted of his work so far; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vScJU7jUYY&feature=youtu.be

Denzil has continued working on the cat model unfortunetly I don't have any screenshots to show but he's looking cute and is now getting his fur after being moved into the right position. We totally didn't use cats laying on radiators for reference. 

Dan gathered a lot of feedback from tutors and staff at Natural motion and has been working on getting his Alice perfect.

She looks cuter now with a better shape to her dress and chest, her arms are now longer and thicker and her face is now more plump and child like. She is going to look amazing in our level!

Now it's just time to get everything finished!

Cherrio for now, I will hopefully have some more to show on our off the map stuff soon.

References:

Cat on a radiator picture: http://funny-pictures.picphotos.net/radiator-cat/roflzoo.com*pics*052010*radiator-cat-big.jpg/
Let's get this over with cat .gif: http://wifflegif.com/tags/4407-grumpy-cat-gifs

Off The Map: Getting it together

This week has been a long one, nothing seemed to get done until Friday; even though everyone was on track and working.

Monday for me was a day of Admin; I started timetabling what everyone should be doing and sorted out how things will be textured. This was then postponed due to an injured Freddy. Luckily on the Tuesday I was back on track and finished all of my admin. Hopefully having these timetables in place will free me up some more time; so that I am not checking up on everyone to make sure they are working on the right thing. After getting this finished I rewarded myself with a bit of modelling and texturing to get myself out of engine and text documents.

Sign made by me.

This week Denzil had been working on perfecting his water material and has also worked out how to make the waterfall in UE4; unfortunately I do not have and screen shot of these but they should be in the level soon, so keep your eyes out for that. Denzil has now moved on to working on our Cheshire Cat, that hides on a vine above the mushroom lair; our cat is heavily inspired by forest Maine coons because they are the most adorable cats ever! Denzil is now modelling and should hopefully finish this over the holiday.

Maine coon for reference.

Luke has continued working in engine and after Emma's feedback added text to our light beams (sun rays) and they look fab! Here is an older shot of what the fog for the mushroom lair looks like:

Luke's fog effect.

Dan has continued working on Alice and did some more research on what type of dress she should have; here's what she looks like so far:

Dan's Alice model.

I can't wait till it's fully rigged and in engine! She's going to look adorable.

This week Braden has moved onto texturing the houses but first he finished the start menu's design;

This will look amazing when it's fully animated and on the master UE4 file; but for now Braden has more important things to work on so I will have to wait until he has finished it over the holiday.

After a couple days of rest Freddy was back in and ready to work; she managed to get a weeks worth of texturing done in a day. This means that all of the books are now up to date and looking lovely after I finished doing the roughness and normal maps for them. Here's what our level looks like so far.

On Thursday and Friday I pushed myself to get the level in a playable way. As you can tell there is still a lot to finish and fix. The lighting is my next priority as well as modelling the rest of the environment. To finish here is a play through of it so far:

Now I just need to make sure I don't let everything pile up and have to rush things for the DMU hand in after Easter.

A cat reminder not to let things pile up!

Cheerio for now.


References:
Maine coon cat wiggle .gif: https://www.tumblr.com/search/wiggle-gif
Cat covered in packing foam .gif: http://www.pawnation.com/2013/10/07/good-morning-gifs-october-7th-2013/

Off The Map: Death by engine

This week has been a stressful one, lets just say a lot of work happened but it doesn't necessarily show. Me, Denzil and Braden have spent the entire week trying to work on engine things; lets just say this was all of our faces at one point this week...

Denzil continued working on his water for the rest of this week and it has not been easy; after many issues, errors and a crash he has finally got it working. It still needs a few tweaks but it is almost perfect and he is ready to move on the waterfall; that Freddy has already done the texture sheets for.

On Friday Denzil also went down to London for another Library visit, and he has brought back a lot more reference and texture photos which will be brilliant for some of the new books Freddy and myself have been working on. Whilst he was there he talked to the judges and showed them what we have been working on; they seemed enthusiastic and excited about to see our outcome, hopefully they will like the end result.

New book texture reference (Taken by Denzil)

New book texture reference (Taken by Denzil)

Braden has also been continuing with his UI; however the majority of the week has been spent trying to get the HUD to only be visible in certain areas; this week has been a real strain on mine and Braden's blueprinting knowledge and capability. At least it looks pretty and the start screen and pause pages work. Hopefully next week Braden can start working on some finished designs to polish up the UI. 

HUD preview

This week for me has been helping other people, for example making sure Freddy is on track with her texturing, helping Braden with blueprinting and helping fix Luke's scaling issues. I have also been messing around in Engine making sure everything fits and making material instances for the books so that the turn from sepia tones to colour throughout the level. I have also helped Freddy by doing the normal, roughness and emissive maps for all of the books. Next week hopefully I will be able to model the rest of the environment; so that the level won't look as sparse.

Freddy has been working on texturing books, a titleable waterfall for Denzil, a sunflower, sun, clouds, tree and grass for the background planes. If all goes well me and Freddy will be working on a modular titleable texture for the rocky areas next week. By this I mean a texture the tiles side ways or up and down, it also has a corner piece so that everything fits together seamlessly. This should hopefully help us with the large areas we have to cover with planes; for depth and detail. I will also set up the material in engine so that the hue and saturation can be edited so that it can be used throughout the entire level.

End of the level; show casing Freddy's texturing.

Luke has be working on making lots of assets and has now moved on to working on particle effects for the level. He wants to create a light beam/sun rays effect and a smoke/fog for the mushroom area at the end.

Dan has been busy sculpting our Alice; and I have to say she looks amazing. I am really impressed with the detail Dan has managed to get on the model and I can't wait till she's finished.

Dan's sculpts.

At the end of this week I have felt stressed with everything; I have to manage my time and other peoples, therefore I am a little on the angry side. Hopefully next week I can get some timetables made of when exactly I need everything done by; just to keep myself and everyone on track.

How I feel at the end of each week.

Finally here is a quick run though of our level at the moment;

There should be more improvement by the end of next week, just got to keep on pushing forward!
Cheerio for now.

References:
Crying .gif: http://theodysseyonline.com/uga/ugas-midterm-spring-break-survival-guide/92017
Fuck this cat .gif: http://9gag.com/gag/aBKOP72

Off The Map: Behind the scenes

This week has been mostly behind the scenes work; by this I mean working on unwrapping, light mapping, engine work and texturing.

Denzil has been working on getting a waterfall to work by using a panner node, which has been easier than expected, now all we need to do is combine lots of different torn paper textures together to create a layer waterfall effect. He has also been working on getting rippled water for the pond near the end of the level. This is proving quite difficult by Denzil is smart enough to get the job done.

Testing out different types of water effects in engine.

Freddy and I also went to the library and scanned a lot of old books for our textures, hopefully this will help our level look like it has realistic elements. When it came to the unwrapping of the book models we ran it to a few problems; originally I gave each book a 512 x 512 texture sheet but after starting to texture we soon realised that they were too low res for something that is close to the screen. So Freddy juggled the sheets around but ended up getting confused so the two of us spent the day fixing the unwraps but nevertheless the sheets are fixed! We separated the spines, overlapped the covers and gave the loose paper its own texture sheet; now book 1 & 2 are on their own sheet, as are 3&4 and 5&6; all at 1024 x 1024 so we should have no issues with things looking blurry or pixelated.

At the beginning of the week I also decided to research the images that the library gave us for reference. It turns out they are flash photography photos of men working in a Cornish mine. The images are originally for a book called "Mongst Mines and Miners: Underground Scenes by Flash-Light" by "JC Burrows" we will hopefully be using this for one of the books in our level. Thanks to this blog: http://wchildblog.com/2014/05/24/photo-story-rare-early-flash-photography-images-of-cornish-miners/ I have found out a lot more about the mining in the Victorian era and we are now trying to incorporate this into the level more. We also found out that the miners tended to just use candles; stuck to their hats and to the walls; the miners had to buy these themselves therefore many of them didn't have the money to buy lanterns for work. The images are truly inspiring and I hope that we can get some of these elements to show in our game. 

The book that the images given to us came from.

Braden has been busy unwrapping and working on UI; He did a quick concept of what the pause screen will look like:

He has the pause and resume working at the moment but needs to hook up the checkpoint and restart to Denzil's blueprints. The finished screen is coming along nicely and I am very exited to see it when it's finished.

Dan has also been sulpting Alice's body and is perfecting it so that it will look beautiful when finished.
Here's a quick work in progress shot;

WIP shot of Alice.

This week I have mainly been working in Engine; I have fixed alot of blueprinting issues and have fixed a lot of sizing issues, due to me making a mistake with the level block out. One thing we do want to incorporate is dynamic cameras; cameras that will zoom in and pan at certain parts of the level. This was discussed after I put up this image;

We decided as a group that at the rabbits house we need to zoom in so that you can see all of the little details; such as the drink me bottle, therefore I will be working on this mechanic next week.

Here's a quick video showing what I have been working on; (the sounds a temporary until we find or record some better ones)

Finally here are some screenshots from the rest of the level.

Lighting still needs to be worked on and the postprocessing will be put in after a basic texture pass has been made. 

We are well on our way to finishing this project, the only problem is finding the motivation to finish.

We will hopefully have more to show next week.

Cheerio for now.

References:

Scott Pilgrim "But it's haaaaad." .gif: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foodbeast/13-fascinating-facts-that_b_5839074.html

"Mongst Mines and Miners: Underground Scenes by Flash-Light" book cover: http://wchildblog.com/2014/05/24/photo-story-rare-early-flash-photography-images-of-cornish-miners/