Week 7 - sentry gun final

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

Week 6: Finally Making Progress

The week started out a little rough, I got a little stressed as i had still not really finalized my idea by the start of the week, I even tried adding parts in to the bash-kit. I actually, more or less, created a secondary kit and combined it with the first, this broadened my ideas and created some variation. This unfortunately took the first half of the week to put together, which meant i was running out of time. I had a week and a half to finalize the idea, white-box, model, texture and put it in to engine. By all means i think its achievable but ill have to cut back on some sections; as soon as I finalize the idea  wont have the time to alter it too much. I do however want to allocate a fair chunk of my time to texturing as i feel that the texturing will be key to selling the overall feel of my project.

 From here i put together a quick plan, I had found a few ideas i liked, but i wasn't 100% sure on them. I decided to iterate on these a little by adding and subtracting different elements and re-incorporating bits of the bash kit, i feel that this really improved my ideas and i really like a different element in three of the 4 i chose to iterate upon. So i quickly put all of these together and decided to go with this as my final design. I used this idea to create a very quick whitebox of the model, which i used to do a paintover to finalize the details of my design.

I feel the design as a whole was working quite well, it fit to the theme that has slowly developed over the project. Things that maybe need changing are the legs, I love the way it is wearing traditional Japanese footwear but I feel the base of the legs are too small. I. Think my favourite part is the gas tank on the back of the gun, however I have no idea how I could pull that off in texturing, I will have to try experimenting a little next week. I'm quite looking forward to the texturing phase, I just hope I'll have enough time to make it look good and model and unwrap it to a high enough standard too. The next week will be very stressful, I hope to have the model unwrapped by Monday , the mesh is mostly finished, just needs a few finishing touches. 

Week 5: First Solo 2nd Year Project

This week we started our third project of the year, it is the first solo project of the year and is the first design focused one too. We were tasked with designing a sentry gun and placing it in to an Unreal Engine blueprint. I feel a little unsure about this project at the moment, its been a while since I've had to design something like this. 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. So to start with i did a little research in to generating ideas, i decided to create a bashkit using images from a moodboard i put together. I put the moodboard together using pinterest taking influence from a variety of shapes and images.

To create the bashkit, i took parts of my moodboard and also looked for extra parts on pinterest just to mix it up a little. I started by painting over the images, i found this to be a very dull lengthy process that didn't give great results. I then tried putting a threshold layer over the image making it just black and white, the result was a little grainy  but i quite like the detail it captured from the image; with a little tinkering i could make it work. I started to throw some stuff together from a large sheet of different parts, i tried to make each bash as varied as possible but i struggled a little with this. I think towards the start of the next week i will try and add some parts to the kit in the hope to create more variation.

So for next week i will continue to play around with the bash kit and then probably take a few of the best ones and experiment with a few different parts and variations etc. I really want to start modelling early next week too, so i will probably create a whitebox from the final bash idea once its chosen. I will then paint over this white-box with any details to help finalize my design.

I feel this week hasn't quite gone to plan, I spent a large portion of the week figuring out how to tackle this project. I struggled quite a bit with this project and i feel i could of done a lot more in terms of planning and gathering inspiration. There were too many ways to go with this and i should of specified where i was going with the project a lot earlier on in the process. Next time we do a project with a similar nature i will really try and work on this.

Week 4 - group project post mortem

This was the final week for the film room project, we had to have everything done and ready to present by the Thursday. I plan to offer a brief breakdown of the project and also discuss how well I think it went, how we worked together as a team and how we could potentially improve the project if we were to attempt it a second time.

Overall I feel that the project was quite the success, our final outcome was good and relatively accurate but I do however feel that the project could definitely be improved on. Firstly I'd say that planning was essential for this project, we had a very small window of time to get this done and we really needed to maximise that time. I unfortunately left the planning phase until a little after we had started which meant we were a little behind to begin with, I started planning after the concept stage  which was a little foolish. Even once I had put the plan in to motion I soon realised that making sure the whole team followed it was a difficult task. Another thing I would have done differently was start putting everything in to engine a lot sooner as setting up the camera, positioning everything and lighting the scene were very time consuming and meant I slightly ran out of time when trying to improve textures. The main problem I had with texturing was the very back wall of the tent, much like the tent the material allowed a lot of light to pass through the material. However the material was very different, it was much thinner than the tent and the light pierced through it differently which was difficult to replicate in Unreal Engine 4. If i had followed the planning we put together then we would of had enough time to really work on this back wall material as we had allotted the last 3 days for problem fixing but instead this time was spent putting everything in to engine. Also i think our team work flow could of been a little better, maybe identified each of the team members strengths and weaknesses and plan accordingly and alter who does what.

The team worked well, just like any team we had our hiccups but we overcame them. For the next group project i would really try to plan a lot sooner and also get a lot more input from my team mates on the planning as i found there was a lot of back and fourth over this which wasn't too productive. We seemed to really be able to work under pressure when needed and supported each other when help was needed. All in all i would happily work with my team again, now we have worked together once, we understand each others strengths and weaknesses and feel a lot more confident around each other.

If i was to do this project again i would of done a fair few things differently. (as you probably guessed) I would of planned a lot more and put the plan together a lot sooner and next time ill really make sure everyone is following it and is on the same page. I would put a little more time in to the budgeting of the project, whilst it wasn't so relevant for the this project in particular; we were a little over our budget (which was rectified). I think next time ill try not to learn so many bits of new software at the same time, i used zBrush, xNormal and volunteered to put everything in to engine for the team. Whilst all this was incredibly useful and i learnt a lot it got quite stressful at times.

Here is the finished outcome, I really feel we have captured the scenes atmosphere and mood; whilst it may not be prefect and 100% accurate to the scene, I am proud of our groups effort and have enjoyed working with me team mates. As for the next project, we were briefly told bout it during Mike Kelly's class, we will be designing and modelling a sentry gun to then put in to engine with the intention of animating them. This is our first truly open design brief so I am quite looking forward to it, it is also our first solo project of year 2 so I aim to take everything I have learnt from the group projects and really try to apply it to my own work. I've also made a start on my personal project this week, I've started assembling various mood boards to gather inspiration from etc; I'll go in to a little more detail on this during next weeks post.   

Week 3 - zBrush is not my friend

The second week of the film room project just flew by, i cant really believe how fast the the past couple weeks have gone. Working in a group really does make certain aspects of 3D a lot more enjoyable, don't get me wrong i do enjoy 3D its just great to have support when something goes really wrong or to show you new ways to do something in max a lot faster. I managed to get everything done i wanted to do last week which means we have a detailed plan and i more or less finished the tent base mesh. The goals this week are to unwrap the tent which shouldn't take longer than half a day and then take the mesh into zBrush which i have budgeted a couple days for as i have never really properly used it before. Although the little i did use it before, it was unbelievably frustrating. Here is the plan along with a shot of the base mesh.

After unwraping the tent, which was rather painless (other than the window flap rolls!) i turbosmoothed it in max and then exported and imported in to zBrush. This was the first time i had really properly used zBrush and i was quite looking forward to it having done a lot of clay work during a-Level - i was so wrong. The interface is impossible to navigate and completely different from any other software we use, it crashes if you press undo too much, and is just generally glitchy. Some of it feels logical and it is really at its best when using a Cintiq screen but i eventually got the hang of it. After many rage-quits and table flips i finally got something looking half decent, i tried to mostly focus on how the tent would look from the angle you would see it in engine. So, whilst it didn't look right when looking straight at the walls it looked right from where the camera would sit.

I would of taken a better screen cap but zbrush would not co-operate with me 

Another plan this week was to experiment a little with material properties in unreal 4, as the tent material will be key to later lighting the object; as most of the light is coming from the exterior room.

So i did a little research and threw together a basic Albedo, roughness and Normal map and began experimenting with some of the material nodes in Unreal 4. I started by making the material a subsurface material, meaning light could pass through the object, the material started to better but it still wasn't quite what i had wanted. So i then tried turning the material emmisive which got rid of the horrible black shadows. I then tried combining the two and it was beginning to look quite a lot like the films tent, a little more work when it comes to the final textures and it should look good.

All that remains to be completed in the final week is the texturing of the tent, and also put everything in to engine. I say that like that's a small task, which it most definitely isn't but i'm still confident in my team getting everything finished by Monday next week so its ready to go in to engine. I do however fear that the lighting and angle is going to take some time to get right and i just hope we have budgeted enough time for the engine stuff. We also aim to make a physical model of the scene over the coming weekend which should be interesting as we can experiment a little with the lighting with that.

Week 2 – Group work

During this week and the last few days of the previous week we started a much longer group project.  In a group we have to replicate a scene from a film in Unreal 4, mostly looking at composition and lighting and capturing the atmosphere. We started by picking a handful of films each, we then compiled them and decided between us on which ones we all liked. Initially we settled on the final scene from Kill Bill, as it had lots of nice colours and lighting; but upon presenting this we were told to have another look for something. At first I was a little annoyed but I soon realised this was teaching us a lesson; not to go with your first idea and really push your ideas to end up with the best possible outcome. We have since decided on another film that we aim to re-present but I’m still keeping an eye out for that other possible scenes and I’ll stay less invested in this new scene until it’s given the get go.

Our first choice of film -  Kill Bill

The film we have (more or less) decided on is the Royal Tennenbaums, primarily focussing on the tent scene featured towards the end.  The scene itself is very vibrant, whilst looking at different film rooms we tried to focus on rooms that still looked bright and colour regardless of whether the characters were in the shot or not. We broke the scene down looking at values, colour and lighting; we looked at the lighting a lot actually as we knew that the main light sources were positioned outside the tent and the light came through the tent material. We also very quickly white boxed the scene using perspective match in 3DS Max, this was then passed around and we made any alterations as a group and eventually distributed the final version containing the correct proportions and scale. Concepting wasn’t too important for this project as we had all the reference we needed from the film shots but we did a little anyway just to make modelling a little faster.  We then started to model the assigned objects one by one.

Before the week is out i have a small list of things id like to get done before we start the main bulk of work next week. We have roughly divided scene up between us but we need to document this and assign budgets etc and a few object are outstanding. Some people have started but i aim to lay down a detailed plan with the team so we dont fall behind/dont leave enough time to really perfect the scene. I would also like to try and experiment a little with shaders inside unreal 4 as i feel the tent material will be important.

the screen shot we decided on from The Royal Tennenbaums

The project seems to be going quite well at the moment the team seem to working well together and are putting in the effort. I look forward to the next few weeks, I feel we have the real potential to produce something that looks really good. I am beginning to understand the group dynamic a lot more and aim to take more of a central role in the coming weeks, i have already offered to be in charge of putting everything in to unreal but i will see how the next week plays out.

Week 1 - New Year – New stuff

After a rather slow summer I have finally returned to university, it’s a welcome return. Whilst I may miss the freedom to do personal work, I’m looking forward to getting back at it and back in to a routine.  Since returning, the course has been completely overhauled; focussing a lot more around group work which obviously is a key skill in the games industry. After a week of working in a group I definitely feel considerably more confident with all the new software and new texturing methods.  For starters, we are all up to date software wise now, we are learning primarily Unreal Engine 4 along with PBR texturing (Which looks amazing); I’m hoping we are taught a little zBrush too this year, whilst I picked up the basics towards the end of summer there is still so much to learn (once you get your head around the navigation tools).

To ease us in to group work and to get us used to the basics of Unreal 4, we were given a simple scene to recreate in engine, it consisted of 7 objects where 1 person concepted, the next modelled and the next unwrapped and so on until the asset was completed and in engine; it was a basic introduction to Unreal 4. The scene was a Viking banquet; it was fairly low poly and wasn’t too demanding technically as we were given an empty room and a list of assets that needed to fill that room. I concepted the barrel, modelled the table, unwrapped the bench and textured the hog; I also gave feedback on the plate and mug and altered the textures on the shield. We all let one member of the team put together the final scene in engine, whilst this was the most simple way of doing it in such a short space of time I do feel that I could of learnt more if we all had contributed.

 As a test to myself and to also benefit the group, I actually decided to create an additional asset towards the very end of the first week, doing the entire process myself as we didn’t get a chance to do so during the group project as we worked on different things at all times. I feel the group work we have done in the first week has been incredibly helpful, along with learning about the new engines features I felt I could really explore the group dynamic.

I also plan to do a lot more personal work during term time this year, I’ll give a week or two before I properly start work on anything as I am unsure on the work load at the moment. I’m thinking of maybe concepting something (a mech for example and then take it all the way through to Unreal 4 mostly for my portfolio. All in all I’m pretty excited for the next project, Its film related so it sounds like my kind of thing and it’s another group project, this time a lot longer so I can really explore working as part of a team. I feel I could really play a much more central role when working as a team, it will be a major boost in terms of confidence and I feel it will benefit the quality of my work too – being that out of the loop team member that just does what is asked of him wasn’t particularly enjoyable during this project.