work evaluation

WORK EVALUATION

The overall theme for my assignment is The Land of Modern 3D for this I would be focussing mainly on modern/futuristic buildings in a futuristic layed out land, my main objective was originally to create a floating island that holds a futuristic land full of unusual futuristic buildings, due to time scale I have only focused on one element of that futuristic city and refined.

Throughout this assignment I have developed ideas and gathered ideas for initial drawings from my research into the land of futuristic cities, creating mood boards of futuristic buildings, land layouts from games, and buildings from games, doing this has helped me developed each design more realistic, without this research I wouldn't have any ideas on shapes, sizes or layouts.

The reference material that I had found throughout this project has varied from research of images into moodboards, research of screenshots from gameplay of games containing features that are related to my project, throughout this research I have found techniques that could possibly improve my work, this could be to help develop the ideas for land layouts, and building placements, and the design process of buildings, colour schemes of those buildings. I had also gathered reference material which has been referenced on the blog of where I had found this information, which helps towards the development if my scene would be featured in a game, gathering information from a game series called Anno, there is information on how the game works, different people in game, and levels.

All the information that was gathered was useful in different ways, in some ways it was to help develop ideas, drawings, watching clips of tutorials was very useful for 3D modelling, what to do and what not to do.

The research has only influenced my design for better, each bit of information gathered, from group critiques, to viewing professional blogs and portfolios, it has affected my design process as it is clearly visible how well their designs are and how much it pays off on the final model.

My skill development has mainly all come from research, experiments and design process, carrying out each individual one of these over this assignment and previous ones, it can be seen that from the start to now, my skills have definitely improved and will continue to develop the more that is done.

The artists that have inspired me, are mainly the 3D modelling artist, mostly the artists that have previous experience in games companies working on well known titles, such as Rockstar and Ubisoft modellers, seeing these artists’ portfolios really inspires me as their work is the level of detail and dedication to what I am working towards, without inspiration there is no possible route to success or obtaining life goals.

The tool and techniques that the artists I inspire use, are mainly computer software and having the modelling to a high level skill, with the artists working for large game designing companies each person has a different job, therefore the only techniques they need are modelling and UVing the object/objects ready to pass to the texturing artist.

I have used a range of materials/tools to create my work, started off by using pencil and paper to design initial drawings, and developed drawings, then I would begin to model those drawings in Autodesk Maya, after the model has been created, I used the basic skill I have at UVing the object, then switch back to Photoshop to create the texture for that object, which  would then be imported onto the object back in the 3D modelling software. Then put it into Unreal for game engine prep.

The techniques and materials I used influenced my outcomes as it is all in the process, switching between the software is necessary to making the finished model look realistic and improve the presentation, the UV process helps the texture not stretch and keeps it looking crisp.

My work changed quite a lot throughout the project as I started making models as experiments and if they nicely finished I would add them into my final scene, but getting through the modelling slowly but surely, after completing around 6 models as experiments I had realised that there wasn't enough time to finish a range a buildings to a high standard, have them all UV’ed properly and have all textures created, with all the maps generated for each building so the lighting and shadows were on point. Therefore I went back to my plan and modified it so I would focus on only one element of the city, which has turned out rather nice I reckon.

The only research I wish I had investigated further would be to research which materials the futuristic buildings could possibly be, whether they are a coloured chrome material, brushed metal, shiny metal. Taking out this research would have helped my design process even more than it was already as I wouldn't have had a struggle creating the textures.

I have used formal elements in my final piece as well as the design process, in the final piece the main elements used, are colour, shape and texture. Whereas in the design process I haven't added any colour as my designs are either initial designs or layouts that are blocked out, therefore the main elements used in the design process are line and shape.

Yes I am happy with my final piece, even though there is much more to develop with it,  I am happy with the final piece,  I particularly like the effect that the chrome has, it portrays the futuristic feel, as soon as someone mentions future you think shiny, which leads to chrome. This piece shows how much my skills have developed, and makes me feel like if I put enough effort into the work, I can get what I want out of it.

Sebastian Vomvas is one of the artists that I took most influence from, mostly from the form and texture from his modelling work, with enough experience and experiments on models I can get my work to roughly the same detail that he does.

If I was to do this project again, I would completely change my view overall, and start by thinking smaller, a lot smaller, and work on immense detail instead of thinking big, to a litter lower detail and not being able to finish on time which was one of my problems throughout the assignment