Week 4: And Relax.

The film room project has, at last, come to an end. In my last blog post I mentioned stress doesn't effect me much but I can say that last weeks work almost had me reaching high stress levels due to me trying to finish the work on time.

The week started off with me texturing the objects for the film room, it was very clear at this stage that the room was not going to be finished so the group prioritized the most prominent objects. I did the couch, chair and foot stall and to be time efficient I used one texture sheet for them all, unwrapping the objects became the slowest part of the process. The lack of time also meant my UV's couldn't be packed as tightly as I wanted.

I really wanted to get the room finished, putting in so much effort for the final thing to be uncomplete felt terrible. The final presentation was also looming in the back of my head because the room wasn't complete, yet thankfully the teachers understood fully the situation our group had got it self into and was overall impressed by the end result, other people in the course were also very supportive of the final room, despite it not being finished.

The final room

The final, spliced with the original shot

The final presentation gave our group plenty of time to review what went wrong, and it's clear that we had spent way too much time concepting, especially for objects that were in plain sight. This then had large repercussions for everything else, to the point that we were messing around in the engine the night before, trying to match the lighting as best we could. Our overall time plan was also far too restricting, with little room for error and not enough time for engine work. Picking a simpler room might have helped too, for 3 people the living room might have been a little too object heavy.

The next project starts on Monday and I will hopefully be able to get into Z-Brush this time around, as I think that would be a great way to push my models further. To help recover from the last week I also picked up Forza Horizon 2, which so far has been amazing, even if I haven't played it as much as I would've liked. Overall though the Film Room project has been quite the learning adventure, just not in the ways I thought it would be.

Week 3: Stress? What stress?!

I am now half way through the film room project and all this week my group have been playing catch-up due to various reasons so thankfully the weekend couldn't have come soon enough, despite this it has been an interesting week.

The average size of the groups for this project is around 4 people, while my group only has 3 members so it would have been logical to have picked a smaller room yet we didn't, the room also is fairly object intensive which doesn't help. 

Our initial plan also had us spend a lot more time concepting than we really needed which was a complete oversight and a waste time. Link this with people in my group being ill and stressed and it meant we we're heavily behind which became clear when we had to do a presentation on our progress. I did really enjoy the presentations though, it was great seeing everyone's work and their ideas and this is something I'd love to see more of, plus I really need more practice in speaking in front of groups!

The concepting stage was great practice, even if it wasn't the best use of time. Below are a few of the concepts I did, with the couch being my personal favourite.

When I realized that time was short I began knocking out models as quickly as I could. I really want to begin exploring Z-Brush, especially after seeing some of the work during our presentations, but this project is already tight on time. It was also while matching everything I had modeled to the picture that I began to notice how much of a wide-angle shot Tarantino had used, as there is some serious perspective distortion on the objects as they get closer to the edge.

Overall this week has looked quite for stressful for some people, and it has been more noticeable in other groups as friendships began to fray, but luckily for me I don't seem to be affected by stress too much. Maybe a lesson on stress management would be useful for some people? Either way this time next week this project should be completed and I will try my hardest to get it done on time.

Week 2: The Film Room Project

This week the Film group project finally got under way after looking through many film stills to find a good scene to replicate. I probably could have looked through a lot less films if I understood the brief correctly, but I also think the explanation of the brief could have been better.

At first I thought we had to recreate a film scene as a small playable area, trying to capture the lighting and mood of the room along with the accuracy of the props, which lead me at the start to choose some bad room choices. It was only towards the end of the week that I found out that we were only recreating the shot, not the entire room, anything behind the camera could basically be ignored.

Our room choices had to be presented in front of a class along with the course tutors and near enough everyone's first choices were shot down for being too brown and green which I agree with. Luckily we we're given a second chance and the results were much stronger from everyone, below are the room choices from my group and while some of them are slightly too brown there is a good choice there.

Our film moodboard

After the presentation we came to the decision (with the help of other people!) to try and recreate this scene from Pulp Fiction and the work could be started!

[1] Butch's Childhood Home

We sat down as group  to discuss our goals for this weekend and one thing became clear, that the Visual Design side of the project was still confusing people. I think showing work examples would solve a lot of the confusion that has popped up with this project as it very clearly shows an end goal, if I was shown a completed 3D scene I probably would have caught on much quicker that we only had to recreate what was being shown and the same goes for showing some Visual Design thumb examples.

To help with the overall management of the project I set up a part of my Google Drive to allow the group to use it, this way important files can be accessed easily without any waiting around. I also set up an Google Excel sheet to help with the asset planning. I am finding this sort of forward planning really enjoyable and I don't know why...

An exciting screenshot of the Excel doc

I think the group will need more planning to help it run smoothly but for now I'd say this is a good start and I can begin the Visual Design side of the project properly over this weekend.

Notes & References
[1] Pulp Fiction (1994) Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Week 1: First Week Back!

Our first week back had us get back into the whole Game Art world and the courses new structure, which now combines the 3D and 2D sides much more effectively. The critical studies section of the courses has also been updated, one part of it is to write up small weekly updates and this is exactly what this post is!

The biggest change we all had to face was the loss of both Diffuse and Spectral maps with the new PBR (Physically Based Rendering) system. The Diffuse map has been replaced with an Albedo map and the Spectral map has been replaced with a Roughness map, and honestly the new maps are not much different from the old ones. The thing I need to get use is the sensitivity of the Roughness map, as if it's pushed too far objects can look insanely shiny.

[1] Example of a Roughness map usage

The new map to come with PBR is a Metalness map, which is a simple black and white map. Black is non metal, white is metal but I personally think adding some grit into the metal could help portray a more realistic result, unless it is like a brand new car for example.

Our "Welcome back!" project was a group project where we were thrown into random groups. In these groups we had to work through a pipeline creating a small Viking dinning table scene, where we’d all eventually work on each others work. The Tri and texture budget was quite low making this a great first project. Working with random people was at first unnerving but by the end of the week things felt like they were fitting together within the group.

I modeled a hog's head, with a 600 Tri limit 

In the group, I had to texture this barrel, while someone else would texture the hog's head I created

At the end of the week we were also set our first full project, again a group task, but this time groups could be chosen by us which I think is a mistake, because within the first few hours all most everyone had grouped up back into their friendship groups. I personally think having random groups is a much better way to prepare us for the industry, as it’ll be very rare if we ever get to chose who we work with during our Junior years.

I’ll go into more detail about the project next week when we've actually started it and hopefully I will have updated the design of the blog too, I think it's time for a change!

Notes & References
[1]http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice