EVALUATIVE CONCLUSION

The final post of my blog! Apologies for the absurd amount of content accumulated over these past 15 weeks.

Throughout this project I have felt my understanding of the game development pipeline and workflows increase substantially, especially given I had no previous experience with many of the concepts presented.

Successes:

Trim sheets: The very concept of a Trim sheet caused me a headache but the workflow did eventually click. For my first few attempts the overall quality and layout allowed me to use them pretty much everywhere and I cannot wait to create more and use them in future projects.

Foliage: As a lover of plants and firm believer that they improve everything within design; this was an aspect of environment art that really interested me. What initially felt like an insurmountable task, after some guidance and an entertaining morning of photo taking this was probably the aspect I enjoyed most and most proud of accomplishing.

Overall Project Trajectory: As much as I struggled to make a final decision on a single shop at the start of this project I have always had a fairly consistent direction. With continual, iterative changes week by week while sticking true to that initial vision.

Managing Time: Throughout this study block I've not only had to manage this module but 2 others (concept and character), so working hard and finding that balance to produce bodies of work I am mostly happy with for all the disciplines has been a point of pride.

Other Disciplines: I have manged to bring in some of my previous graphic design experience to this project which has been a fun opportunity to apply a beloved workflow I didn't initially assume could be incorporated. In turn this helped improve the overall world building of my scene.

Critical Points:

Glass: The glass in my scene presented me with constant issues and I do feel I never quite got it to a standard I was content with. On my next project I would do more research with other settings and setups involving other programs in the Substance suite.

Overall Polycount: This piece whilst heavily detailed and relatively well optimised with clean topology does reach a level that would be almost inappropriate for most actual playable games/ within levels. Where it is suitable for a portfolio piece when moving onto actual projects smaller touches and additions would likely have to be turned down.

Build in Engine: I built this whole project mostly in MAYA, next time I would use it to create the base assets then put them together in Unreal/ chosen engine. As I had a nightmare with copies, moved objects, importing and changing elements which cost me quite a bit of unnecessary time.

Metal Textures: I'm Not Entirely happy with my metal's in-engines look, it has a variety of unusual surface details (dots) and roughness interactions. This was likely caused by going off the SubstancePainter rendering (not where it will actually be seen). For future projects I will explore how various textures interact in engine and base my future texture creations off that.

Lighting: I do think my overall lighting setup could use some refining, it is too bright in some areas and the over-exposed background is too aggressive on the eyes on some screens. Lighting such a large relatively complex asset to be viewed in a moving cinematic opposed to a single hero asset or complete environment scene (GAR105 Drone, Crate or Corridor) presented me with more of a challenge than I anticipated.

Renders & Cinematic: The lighting issues did translate into the final renders which was the stage that caused me the most technical grief. But for my next project I have a greater understanding of what works and how I can implement elements like a progress shot camera, (to demonstrate development) TargetTracking or Post Production Volume effects.

KEY INFORMATION from the week:

My enormously too wordy blog is finished and you don't need to read/look at it anymore!!