Aspiration

Aspiration has a lot of meanings though the one I’m going for is “what’s my dream”.
I have lots of aspirations, many for the future beyond university but I will focus a lot more on what I want to achieve over the summer.

Over the summer I wish to improve my skills in both the 3D and drawing departments.
When it comes to the 3D work I am still slower then I hope to be and I feel that my work is still not as good as I could make it. I hope that either going back and redoing old projects or doing projects that will be set for us will speed up my work.

One aspect I want to get truly good at is creating a human figure. When it came to creating my character in the Mortal Engines project I was unhappy with it even though I had redone it. First time I created my character I tried to make it from box modelling which did not work so well for me. I chose to model it a different way and I got better results the second time round so I am hoping that I can continue creating characters and hopefully get a better grasp at modelling them.

Another thing I would like to better my skills at is the texturing side of 3D. There are a lot of things I still need to learn about texturing. It’s only recently I’ve been starting to use multiple maps to gain a more pleasing result.

When it comes to the drawing side of the course I wish to again further my skills. I still have a horrible manga like style seeping through my work and I want to get it gone. It affects my character development a lot and I want to keep it away from work related things. I also want to work on trying to integrate a Manet style into my work to show that my recreations are improving my own style.

Another thing would be again to practise perspective, especially with ovals since I tend to be rather bad at them still. I also want to try and broaden my style so I can draw less organic shapes and harsher lines and shapes.
Of course the major aspiration would be to make it into third year so I can continue on this course to the very end and hopefully to a job in the gaming industry after that.

If I was to ever get my dream job it would be working somewhere within Square Enix but judging from their high standards that’s a long way off. Before that though I wouldn’t mind working for any company. I’d love to work on some form of character design but at the moment that is a weak area for me so I plan to practice it in the summer. I am also looking at company sites seeing when internships are going back up so I can try and apply for one to see if I have a chance of getting in.

Reflection

Reflection time

In general I thought the second year went pretty well. I enjoyed it a lot more than first year and I have become more confident in my work. Through the first semester I felt I was working at first year level still, enjoying the visual design side of the work more than the game production but when I got into second semester I found a new love for 3DS Max and asset creation meaning I started to do more 3D work improving my knowledge and skills in the area.

In my visual design I find my style has constantly changed but still has the horrible manga style. I feel I have improved my skills throughout second year and due to me doing more Photoshop and digital painting I have started to improve a lot more in my computer skills. I enjoyed doing work in the holidays a lot as I managed to mix together my interests with the university work to get a result I was pleased with.

In my game production I felt at the beginning of the year I started out really slow and being at year one level still. I felt my first semester projects did not go as well as I’d hoped though I was quite proud of the vehicle I created at the time. When it came to second semester I began to use 3DS Max more and I became quicker at using it. I also started to like what I was starting to create and even though it was making trash I felt it was the best thing I’d created over the year. When it came to the group project I managed to get a lot faster at making things and started to enjoy using 3DS Max even more. If I could have changed anything over the past year it would probably be to redo my whole first semester. I feel I could have worked a lot harder in the first semester especially with the 3D Environment and Vehicle. I would also like to go back on the Visual Design and do more work for the first semester. I really feel I began to work harder in the second semester compared to the first semester. I would probably would go back and do more sketches in my sketchbook and do more work off the computer since I enjoy using traditional media and I have not used it so much over this year.

Over this year I feel I’ve learnt a lot to do with programmes. I have found that I have become a lot quicker with my work and a lot more efficient due to learning more about the programmes I use. I have become faster at creating 3D assets and faster and unwrapping them too. In Photoshop I have began to make my own brushes to give a more realistic effect to my paintings and it also allows me to play with new styles as well.

I also learnt how to use Unreal this year and have enjoyed using it. I created my own room and added physics to some of the items in the room. I wish I had spent more time using the engine, being able to add effects to things.

Group Project

Now it’s time to write a blog entry to do with the group project.

The group project, something I haven’t enjoyed as much as I wish I had.

After deciding on a back room and working out what we needed to do. Originally we wanted to change the building into something more gothic and have some grand cathedral like architecture. We soon decided that this would take a lot longer than we would have to make the project and so decided it would be best to make the room that we were going to use to our best ability and then fill it with items and make it more resident evil styled.

After deciding everything I made a basic white box of the room. This was to work out where lighting would go, where items should be placed and to help with scale. Originally I got the scale wrong so I then edited it so it would have a more correct scale. I spent a lot of time on the railings in particular when making the model since I felt they were a very unusual shape and would cast some rather nice shadows with correctly placed lighting.
When I had created the white box I used it to help with creating a concept for the level. I changed the colour of the lighting to work out what would look better. In the concept I blocked off areas and added rubble to hopefully give it a more run down, broken feel.

After doing that I started working on my 3D work. I began with making piles of rubbish and boxes and then created smaller assets like plug sockets, shutters and signs. I created a few items to add into the group project and I made them either dirty or broken to fit with the style of the level.
I double checked that everything was correctly named and collision meshes were placed where needed on the items. I made sure everything had the needed texture maps, not just diffuse but specular and also normal maps.

Finally I decided to place my items in my own unreal room to prove I could use unreal. I created some fracture meshes for my items and I also added some physics so things could be shot. I scattered my 3D objects around the room so they can be seen and walked around.
After getting everything until unreal that I had made and everything had been placed into the group project I considered that part of my work was complete.

Working in a group project has been a new experience for me and though I did not enjoy it as much as I should of I still wouldn’t dismiss a third year group project. I feel that if the communication in our group was a little clearer and a little more forced then the project would have been made a little faster and more items could have been made.

The group has taught me a few things. It has allowed me to speed up making items. I have definitely sped up using 3DS Max compared to when I was using it for the Mortal Engines project and I feel the pressure of having to get my assets completed for another person on time has helped.

Cultural Walks

For one of our Visual Design briefs we have to create a problem with Leicester and fix it with a form of art.

It took me a while to think of an idea for this project but after creating a couple of mood boards I finally got an idea.

While walking through Leicester it’s quite easy to notice that it’s rather built up, dull and unless you go to certain areas it lacks a lot of greenery. This is when the thought occurred to me “Do people living in Leicester realise how beautiful the parks are around them?”
Right outside Leicester there is Bradgate Park and just walking through it is awe-inspiring. It’s such a different environment compared to the centre of Leicester so how wonderful would it be to put something based off Bradgate Park right in front of the Highcross.

So now I had my problem and part of my answer. I wanted to place something based off Bradgate Park in Leciester but what was that something.

I looked over old photos from my time wandering through the park to try and get an idea of what I could use. One idea could have been Old John but that wouldn’t create the more natural look I wanted. Then I noticed how amazing and downright beautiful some of the trees are in Bradgate. They’re all twisted and warped, hollow in places and weird. So now my mind was settled on creating some form of tree.
I now knew what I wanted to create, a tree of some form to place in the middle of Leicester but I didn’t just want to plant a tree. As a statement planting a tree would work but I wanted to get more creative.
I had an idea about using Willow shoots and weaving them to create a shape of a tree. We used to have a dome house in my primary school made of weaved willow and kids used to play in it all the time. It was very natural and it would also sprout leaves as well. Though I liked this idea I wanted to create something a little different, using man made materials.
I started to look through different sculptures to try and get an idea of what I could create; I wanted to create the essence of the trees, twisted, hollow. I wanted kids to be able to play around it and find it interesting to look at too. My mind drifted to one of the old Bradgate Park briefs where we had to create a wire sculpture. I then began to imagine it in a bigger scale. It would have the essence of a tree, kids would be able to climb through it and play around it. Though only problem then would be that it wouldn’t be very colourful at all.

My attention drew to the leaves and what could be done of the leaves. They couldn’t be real leaves since they’d die off pretty quickly. I then remembered that a lot of Leicester’s new look is based on lighting so perhaps some form of lighting could be used.

Lighting alone wouldn’t create a rather “leafy” look alone, in face the tree would just look like it has Christmas lights draped around it so something would have to be made to be placed around the lighting to make it look like leaves. I want it to be transparent and durable yet have some colour so as the lighting filters through it shine the colour of the material.

I then thought of some form of coloured plastic. Plastic’s quite durable, it comes in a variety of colours, it can be transparent and it can be fused quite well to metal. It could be attached to the top tree branches to either look like leaves or just large sheets bunched together to create a larger body of leaves.

Colour suddenly came in to place. My initial idea was green but then I thought again and thought autumnal colours would be prettier, there would be more variety of colour (gold through to red) and it would be more striking.
So I finally had my idea complete. It would be a tree made of wire with thin durable coloured plastic for leaves, then for a more striking effect at night lighting would be place on the branches.

Progress

I’m dedicating this blog to progress.

Every so often while rummaging through my room I’ll find a sketchbook that’s years old, look through it and be amazed at how much my artwork has changed.
More recently I’ve been looking at university work and how much I’ve progressed from first year and through second year.

When I first started the course I didn’t know how to create things in 3DS Max and I wasn’t that confident at digipainting. The very first digipaint I created was very blotchy, the colours were too bright, the shading wasn’t right and the background was just as strong as the foreground. My life drawing wasn’t proportioned correctly either.

When it came to the 3D work, everything was classed as an improvement from making a small church to texturing but I never noticed how much I’d improved on 3D work until this year. At the beginning of the year I wasn’t confident with my 3D work. Though I managed to complete the tasks I was given I still wasn’t happy with what I did. In the second semester however the first thing I made was a wheelie bin and I was quite happy with it. After that I created some trash then moved onto the group project, to which I made a white box of the room and more rubbish. The items I created in second semester looked much better than first semester, even the white box I created for the group project seemed a lot better then what I was making in the first semester. In the first semester it took weeks to get everything made and textured and in second semester I could make small assets in a few hours.

The picture above is a screenshot of an airship I created for the mortal engines project. It took at least 3 weeks and tweaking over a holiday period. At the time it was one of the best models I’d created.

And this picture is of a more recent piece of 3D work. Again it’s a type of vehicle but it’s a lot more simple and without texturing. It took less time compared to the first one. It also has more detail in compared to the first, since I created indents for doors and handles.

When it comes to the artwork throughout the year I don’t think I’m improved as much as I have in my game production work. I have however improved greatly from the beginning of first year.

This was the first picture I did in my first year. It was a digipaint of the canal. At the time it was very blotchy and the colours were all wrong. It also took me a few days to make.

This is the first picture I created in the second year. The colouring is a lot better, perspective is more correct and I’ve managed to put more detail into it. It’s not as blotchy but the lines are more sketchy and loose.

I have also improved on my life drawing skills, developing a better sense of proportion also developing different styles and colouring. The first of the two pictures below is the first year drawing, the bottom one is the second year