This marks the end of our second years first solo project and its been a fun one, I really had fun with this project, despite the design process being a little rocky, It was a nice introduction back to the design process. We were tasked with designing a sentry gun and placing it in to an Unreal Engine blueprint. I felt a little unsure about this project at the time as it had been a while since I've designed something. We only really did a handful of design projects last year and the work I did over the summer didn't really include much design work, i did a few design pieces but i never really took it to 3D, never mind to engine.
A focus for me for this project to really focus in on each key element and try and refine it, As I said I have never really taken something from scratch and carried it all the way through to game engine before so it was quite exciting but also a little scary as i had a lot to learn in a very short space of time. I feel I am really getting to grips with PBR as it seems to be coming natural now when i sit down to do some texturing so I aimed to really try and nail various material definitions. Working with tri budgets again was also a concern of mine as it was something we didn't have as much consideration for during the last project.
I feel the overall design of my sentry gun turned out well, however i am really not sure how as the initial design process really didn't click with me and I actually got to a point where I was completely stuck with my design. I did however find that i was being a little overcritical with the design, i got so fixated on the process that at no point did i ever sit back and look at my design objectively. The design was fine and with the time frame we had it totally ticked all of the boxes required by the brief. I then went on to model the turret, keeping in mind the tri count. The mesh i used in the end actually started out as a whitebox but after a day i soon reassessed my time frame and decided to start adding details etc. The next issue I encountered texel density of the unwrap, i had lots of separate parts but actually found they all needed individual bits of the unwrap as it had lots of unique elements. I tried to prioritise but looking back on it I have found that maybe i should of just left a little more time to iron this out as it was too late by the time i noticed it.
I have heard along the grapevine that the next project is actually a character project so i am incredibly excited for that. After this project i really aim to work on the initial process and look at the designs i come up with a little more objectively. I will also leave a lot more time for the 3D side of things, I was really cutting it short during this project so i will plan my time a little better, i will spend more time on my unwrap and really focus on getting an even texel density on my UVs. Something else i will aim to do for my next project is try and really focus on making it a portfolio piece, portfolios are something i will need to start thinking about this year so the earlier the better i guess.
In conclusion, whilst this project didn't quite fulfil what I aimed for it wasn't a complete mess and turned out looking pretty good in the end. It will probably be a project I put in my portfolio if one of my future projects doesn't quite fit the bill or goes a little wrong. I am actually quite tempted to do this project again at the end of the year as it will be a good test as to what I learnt, I now that's a long way away but I am just thinking it would be an interesting experiment and would probably look considerably better.
I am really looking forward to another character project, i have been itching to get my teeth in to a good character project since the start of the project, its interesting seeing how i progressed over the past year. Originally i hated drawing people now its the only thing i want to draw. Well, lets see how i feel about it after an entire project of it
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