Environment Project

     This project was an interesting one. I still don't quite know how to feel about it but perhaps looking back over it I'll be able to settle my opinion on the outcome. The brief was simple enough, over a three week period we would need to design and develop a building that would be able to fit between the two below. This project was an adaption of an art test used by the late Blitz studios and I was initially very optimistic about what I'd produce.

 

 

      To begin with I started looking for reference, as reference is king, and began to concept my ideas. Initial I went in the direction of producing the iconic New York apartment but after exploring the idea I realised that it wouldn't fit between the two Blitz buildings so I scrapped it and began again. this time I went along with the idea of a mechanics and after finding a handful of examples from the New York and Brooklyn area I set to work in 3DS Max.

 

     From the off with the brief I was keen on exploring a modular approach to the building so the first thing  had to do coming off the back off concepting was deciding how to carve up the building into repeatable elements. This was easy enough and I ended up having five repeatable wall elements which were accompanied by a selection of secondary assets such as the sign, stairs and lights. I felt I created some nice assets to accompany the main modular mesh however there could have been more. The modular mesh it's self could have used a few more polys to make it more interesting to look at and on top of this I believe it needs to be further divided in areas such as the pillars on the first floor and extensively reworked or redone in others.

 

     Texture wise I felt I made some significant headway with my competence regarding texturing however the materials I produced for the project were in my opinion a hit and miss. For instance I'm pretty pleased with how the CCTV sign turned out as well as the garage doors and mechanics sign but I feel the walls themselves could use a lot more love and need to be further grunged to feel more at home beside the two Blitz buildings. 

 

     However there is one major shadow that hangs over this project which is the appalling time management that went on over the duration of this project. By focusing too much on Visual Design I quickly fell behind on my building and ultimately handed-in something that I felt was almost half finished in a way.

 

     For that reason I wasn't too confident with how this project would perform during my review back in December so I was pleasantly surprised, read over the moon, when Heather said she really liked it. There were a few points raised by Mike about it, the concepting wasn't that strong, that is there needed to be more and that the textures needed more love. Other than that I was technically sound to quote them and it was just getting more artistic with my projects.

  

     Unfortunately I've only got the final renders on me and no work in progress shots which is a bit of a shame but there's not much I can do about that. This week we're starting the group project so I'm buzzing about that, I'm also finishing of my BMW entry so I'll be getting a post about that up in the next couple of weeks, busy busy busy. Back to the topic on hand though I'm still iffy on this project closing the book on it, while I feel I learned a lot, especially in regards to textures I'm still not sure how I feel about the final outcome. I'll leave it at that, I hope you enjoyed reading and I'll see you next time.