Self Evaluation

SELF EVALUATION

Throughout this assignment I have learnt many things, in this project I had been introduced to a game engine, I was shown the basics and how things work which has improved the look of my final piece drastically, I have also learnt new techniques with the 3D modelling software I have been using to create my final piece and experiments, I learnt how to UV and model with different techniques by watching through the clips Chris our tutor had provided of 30 hours worth of modelling, UVing and texturing tutorials which has helped me out loads in this assignment and will do in the future of my modelling work.

This assignment is important to the course and my career as I have found out the importance of initial designs and developing them to get a better idea on how to find the best way for me to start the concept art or being modelling, I feel the way I have designed and stuck to my plan has helped me figure out ways to work more efficiently and at a faster pace which will allow me to complete work in a shorter time scale in the future.

I feel that I have given this assignment equal effort between the written side as well as the designing and modelling work, whereas I feel I should give the designing and modelling work a little more effort as that is the piece that sells the show.

Looking through my design process and all written work uploaded onto my blog, I feel the part that was done really well in my opinion was my modelling work as that is the part of the assignment I most enjoy and interested in when mid work. Although the research side is interesting and learn new information each session of research is taken out, I still feel the modelling is part done well.

The mistakes I had made throughout this assignment were not extensive and did not stop me from completing my work, the mistakes I made was in the planning and in the 3D modelling software, in the planning I had given myself too much work to complete without enough time to finish everything to a high standard that I’d like. 

The other mistake I come across was during the render of an experiment that I had created with a textured I had put together myself, but I had overcome this by closely looking through rendering settings and experiment until I had fixed the problem and got the outcome I wanted in the first place.

The classroom activities that helped me learn the most effectively are the group critiques and the times where we are gathered at the front of the classroom to discuss work or work related subject such as the time we were discussing as a class about recently released triple A titles and the evolution of games and the way they are designed, these activities helped me learn new information whilst getting to know classmates more.

The techniques I had used that I haven't before was creating a texture, but creating the different maps to go with the normal colour map, creating normal and specular maps so that depth is visible on the object and the lighting effects work perfectly, I was given advise on how to create these effectively by a tutor who has experience in texture making, which I had created in Photoshop to add to a flat floor tile in 3D modelling software. Not having experience in making them before it was all new information and learning for me which has stuck and will become useful in the future.

The texture making techniques is definitely something that can be used again in other work that is being created in 3D modelling software and I want to further the design by bringing it to life with textures, or import into a game engine to make it game art for a future portfolio.

The first example of problems that I had encountered was around halfway to three-quarters the way through the assignment where I had realised that I had given myself too much work to do for  the time scale given, I managed to solve this not so problematic occurrence by heading back and updating my plan to focus on one element of my scene and refine to high detail .

Another problem that I had come across was in modelling software during an experiment of a pile of leaves which I had created from one texture piece, duplicated multiple times to look like they are laying on top of each other, after importing and applying them on a piece in Autodesk Maya, approaching the time to render out the scene to see the finish piece, that’s when the problem started, my render was black and white, which in a way wasn't a problem as it sprouted an idea for me as the black and white render shown how lighting would reflect on parts of the texture and wouldn't on the others, but closely looking through the render settings and adjusting, I got the render I wanted.