The One Written In London

   I find myself punching out this entry for you on a wonderfully sunny day in East London. A much more glamorous site for writing then the cramped corner desk of my flat with perhaps the only downside being the precarious wobble that my Surface exhibits when I type as it rests on my knees. That and I can feel my Hay fever flaring up, an intruding reminder that I should probably nab some eye drops before summer swings in full. On a further positive note, as we segway over from the weather, my environment is continuing to come along nicely, and I realise I haven’t written in like two weeks, consider this a double bill. Asset wise the desks are in, I’ve got a pretty decent glass shader in the works for the doors, which are also now animating and triggering properly and the lighting in the command module has made some strong steps forward towards completion.

   Steadily I’m getting through my list of jobs and now with the desks, doors and the floor modelled and textured, with a minor exception, my focus is beginning to turn away from geometry and material creation. There’s still a couple odd jobs and overdue assets that I’ll address over the next two/three weeks but I don’t think I should see too many issues with those. However, with that said, I’ve begun to mess around with the hologram and I’ve got a model I’m pretty happy with but I started some pretty rough experiments in Unreal with how to create the material and look in engine and it proved problematic to say the least. I crashed Unreal in my initial attempts and I haven’t tried since but I’m already trying to scale back the idea to try and focus on getting it looking good first and building back into it later. Likely though with elements like that it’s gonna be more than likely after submission when I address those.

   In regards to lighting, as I mentioned, the command module is reaching a much more polished state. One of the things that has bugged me since, well probably since production properly started leading into Easter, is the bloom/contrast/blinding effect of the Sun reveal. There’s been a lot of tweaking to get it to its current state which I’m pretty satisfied with. It’s roughly the same set-up I’ve had to begin with, a key light and a fill but the values have been dramatically reduced and the fill has been brought into the module and focused on the window desks rather than hovering outside the room in space. With those changes implemented the window area when opened is now far less contracting and much more readable in terms of the geometry inhabiting the space. And, on an additional note, I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out although I still expect to be tweaking further in the lead up to submission.

   I’ve rather surprised myself though, ending this week with a relative calm about getting everything done for hand-in. It’s not quite a resignation for whatever happens, I feel that’s a little grim sounding, but it’s not far from the mark. I think I’m getting too caught up in the mistakes or elements that I feel are sub-par, though I think that’s probably standard at this point in the project however, not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but the feedback I’m getting is definitely growing more positive as the final elements in play come together and that’s thawed me over how I feel the project is currently heading. And on Friday I punched out the image below, not for much reason aside from feeling the need to have a finished thing at the end of the week but it’s turned out rather well for the hour or so I spent in Photoshop with it. I pushed it a little too far so it’s not quite as realistic as how I want my final renders to look so I’ll slap a “concept-art” tag on it instead but it’s a nice tone setter for what I guess is the final feel of the images and film I wish to create.

   In another positive twist this week I finally got to experience the level in VR and I can’t tell you how cool that was. Never mind the technical details of frame rate and latency, though those are ultimately what made me decide not to pursue it and especially not this late into the project, but man is it cool. I’d love to pursue it. I really would, I think the design of the level lends itself well to a VR experience, a couple adjustments aside, the claustrophobia really hits home. The space feels cramped, it nails what I wanted to achieve atmospherically which was rewarding to experience but artistic points aside, I’m gonna need to do some technical wizardry, or get my hands on one hell of a PC to meet even 60 frames per second never mind the VR standard of 75. So in short VR, for now, is a dead avenue but I don’t know, I’m really keen to get it working for after, or possibly even for, degree show. That’d be super cool, I just think it’d be a shame to at least not try to pursue it at the end of the day.

   With all the VR madness, lighting and asset creation coming along it’s been a pretty good week for me, which I’ve been rather surprised by. I know the last post was all doom and gloom but, once again, I feel I’ve swung 180 to the opposite point of view. Man, thank God the project is coming to its conclusion ‘cos I don’t think I can put up with all this emotional flip-floping around the shop. But we’re getting there and that’s important. Though as I sit in London it does feel a world away and writing this between flat viewings I’ve got other problems to deal with, real life stuff this time, yeah I know you don’t get too much of that on here, trying to find a place to live for moving down in what is now less than a month away. Which, in my project tunnel vision, is something that I didn’t twig on until it was pointed out to me the other day which I think is great indicator of how switched off to the rest of the world I've become on the project. Though for the next two weeks, the final two weeks, real life is going to have to keep out my way for a little longer still.