Week 29: Back To The Grind

Easter is now over and it's back to the usual routine. This blog post will cover the work I have done over the Easter along with the stuff I've done over the last week, which is mostly work I didn't manage to start during the break.

The start of my Easter break I spent texturing all the models I didn't texture before, which are smaller props and assets for populating the level. As this project has progressed I have definitely seen an improvement in my abilities to hand paint textures and I now actually really enjoy the process, where as before I dreaded doing hand-painted things.

A selection of assests

I also regret not doing a high-poly bake for some my assets, as I think an amazing normal map would have pushed certain models so much further. The reason I didn't bake is because I was worried of the amount of time it could eat up, as my previous bakes have taken up a lot of time due to lack of knowledge. If we get any summer projects I might bake everything just for practice. Below is one of the texture sheets I created over the Easter.

1024 - Various models

Aside from texturing I spent some of the break finishing off the UI elements I created, most of which was just adding animation to the various parts. I did come up with another solution to my HUD problem that I couldn't fix too, now instead of the HUD being constantly showing it just pops up in little tutorial message boxes, which do appear to be working fine.

It's animated, honest!

I am glad that the HUD problem has finally come to an end, while the final result might not be exactly what I wanted, I am happy that I resolved the situation. The aim for the tutorial messages was to get the instructions shown in a clear way, that wouldn't confuse anyone, as I don't know what age range will be potentially playing this game. The tutorial messages are also animated, I promise! I should try and capture some footage of them in action.

The rest of my holiday was spent either doing a required essay, planning for a presentation or just relaxing. I finally managed to get around to playing Bayonetta 2, which I am glad to say is a fantastic sequel and I even grabbed myself a copy of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, which fixes a lot of the problems the original game had.

Next week I'll be finishing off the essay for the 24th of April, once and for all finishing off the UI and then will be preparing for the final weeks of the this project, as May 8th is getting closer!