there's
been an odd calm this week in the run up to Friday's hand-in for the semester
which I'm question whether this is a good sign or a bad one. I'll tentatively
put my money on the former as I've had a very concise set of goals to complete
for submission which I've been able to get through. Unlike the previous nine
weeks however rather then working on a singular project for this final week
it's time set aside for some final polish and preparation for submission for
all three briefs. I've already knocked out the assessment report last weekend
so my time in labs has been solely devoted to improving my projects and getting
in some last minute deliverables. With my last two projects in a position where
I felt I could submit them quite happily with-out any additional work
has resulted with me focusing my attention onto my rooftop which in
all honesty has sorely needed as much time as it can get.
As
you may remember the result of what I was able to achieve in the three weeks I
had to do the rooftop project can be seen above alongside a quick paintover I
produced to illustrate the intended direction for the project. There are a
handful of issues that dragged my rooftop down, getting back into
real-time environment creation, my inexperience with Unreal and PBR but what ultimately the root of all these were
down to was my scope for the project and the lack of planning
that for the scale and budget of the project. Over the duration of the brief I
did what I could to prioritise and manage my way through the levels creation
but throughout the course of production I felt like I was playing
catch up. That feeling has stayed with me through all the spare hours I've sunk
into it creating new assets, improving textures or fixing issues. It's
only really been this week as I've created the backdrop and set up my
cameras for rendering that I'm beginning to feel a little more comfortable with
it. I think I've pulled it back. That's not to say there aren't a 101
issues with it but for final submission after the numerous odd jobs I've
had to do I'm content enough with it.
It would be fair to say I received a bit of a self-inflicted burn for
my mistakes during the rooftop project and as I moved onto the next one, the
Diegetic interface brief, I was conscious to bring those lessons
on-board. First and foremost that meant going for start small and work out
approach rather than throwing a stick in the mud and sprinting to get
there. Going through the brief I picked out what I felt were the core
elements and began working from there. This was definitely a better approach,
and felt nowhere near the rush that the rooftop did but over the duration
of the project there were other challenges unique to it. Not
really having any experience in UI even with of my own research
and past experiments is still very new to me and for the course
I think it's a fair guess to say I was the first to undertake it. In
that way as the project developed there was a growing sense
of isolation on what I was doing. I didn't really know if I was making the
right choices or design decisions and while I received productive feedback from
the tutors the lack of experience was becoming more apparent as I required more
specific direction and feedback. In the end though I don't know how much of
that comes solely from my mind-set whilst working on the project. The
results though turned out well, I was able to churn out a lot of content
although I lacked a final polished concept and being no illustrator this is the
only aspect of the project that daunted me. While I left it out during the
project on talking to Mike Kelly about it he felt it would be better to do it
and so I've churned it out during this week. Aside from that there's
nothing else apart from a little tidying up that I've done for the project
for the final submission.
After
three weeks working in interface design I returned to environments for my last
project of the term although staying true to my aim of pushing my existing
skillset I opted to undertake the stylised Gateway project. This brief was my
first real stylised project in general, never mind on the course, so while I
went into this with a clear concept of what I wanted to create I wasn't quite
sure where the outcome would take me. In that sense it's been perhaps the most
interesting as I've developed it forward. For this project I really wanted to
focus on art direction, the colours, the forms that are repeated in the
environment. That's really brought to the fore a lot of what I've
studied but have only been able to implement in small dosages which I've found
to be quite exciting to work on. In the end I feel I've been able to
successfully translate a lot of my original idea into Unreal
which, I won't lie, is something I'm kinda really proud with and that this was
all done in three weeks, from inception to submission.
The smoothness of developing the Gateway project and its final
outcome helps to reinforce that the lessons from my rooftop are being
taken on board. Looking back over all three projects that's a reassuring
thought for looking ahead. Of course all three aren't perfect, there's a lot I
would do to improve them all across the board but that's how it always is. They
work you know, they fulfil the brief to, what I hope is, a high standard and
one that's representative of my abilities and that's all I need them to do.
It's been nice to feel the returning sense of detachment from these projects
over the past month and move away from the unnecessary emotional over
investment of the start of the year. I feel that's really freed me to take more
risks with the creative decisions I've made and cut whatever corners I've need
to reach the final outcomes I have. By not playing it totally safe with
these projects I believe I've been able to exercise a lot of skills that I
normally wouldn't be those in graphics and interface or art direction for
environments. With the skills I've been able to exercise and by taking on
board has gone well and, maybe more importantly, what hasn't I
feel that leaves me in a pretty good place for after Christmas
and for big bad the FMP.
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