Inpsiration

Many people have a wide range of inspirations. I personally have quite a few but one of my favourite things that inspire me is nebulae. A nebula is a cloud of dust and ionized gases. It is also the place where unicorns come from.

Nebula are often come in a large array of colour and come in many different shapes and sizes. It is this that makes them a large interest for me.

Take this nebula, the Omega Nebula. It has such a large array of different colours, textures and shapes. It has the blue which has a different texture to the golden clouds in the front. It also has the stars coming through adding sharpness to the picture. It looks as though it could have been painted rather than photographed through a telescope.I lost inspiration when working on my final major project and spent a few hours looking up nebulae. I then decided to digipaint a set of 3 and then incorporated them at a later date into a set of 3 paintings to go on the wall of the shop. After spending the few hours venting and throwing colour all over the place I felt motivated enough to go back to my Final Major Project.

Rooftop project

Probably one of the hardest projects I’ve had to do to date. Firstly because I couldn’t find motivation, secondly because I found unreal so hard to use.

When I first started work on the project it looked as though it was going to become a factory rooftop. It had been poorly imported into unreal, the texture was poor since I’d used a 1024x1024 map for the rooftop base.

As I came close to finishing the rooftop I was unhappy with it and I found I didn’t like it as much as I should have so I decided to redo it through the Christmas holidays.

As soon as the holidays started I began looking for tutorials on anything unreal based just from creating a simple bsp to adding water volume to a level. This was the clicking point for unreal I needed and then I began working on my new base.

I actually found it easier to work more in unreal then working in 3DS Max and spent most of my time on that making a base, adding extras, editing lighting and so on.

I changed my rooftop because I felt it didn’t work as a level and when I’d finish remaking my base I had created a larger level. The textures were a lot clearer, I’d created a slight surrounding to the level as well. I feel my new rooftop is better than my old rooftop.

Unreal

And so after 2 years of the program I think I can finally say that I enjoy using it.
I spent most of the summer holidays learning a lot of things about it. One day was just me going through a lot of tutorials and finally after watching a few the penny dropped and I can finally understand how to use the program.

When I originally tried making BSP’s in Unreal I was continually using additive blocks to create a base, I found this hard to do and very time consuming. After going through one tutorial I found that rather than looking at as building blocks I was to look at it like a block of rock and I have a hammer and chisel, so I started subtracting from my base instead of adding. This allowed me to create a more “detailed” shape.

I also looked at materials and lighting. I found out that not only did I have to edit lighting by right-clicking the light in the level; I could also edit my environment settings to edit certain effects of the lighting. I was struggling with making convincing sunlight, so I looked at a few settings on previous unreal levels and changed my settings accordingly.
Particle effects were another thing I struggled on. I couldn’t find a tutorial for it on blackboard and so I turned to youtube to try and find a decent tutorial on it. After searching through countless videos I found one explaining how to apply your own texture to a particle effect and found out that they work with emissive textures.

I did plan to do more to my level. Recently I’ve been trying to add sound to it to make it more immersive. After multiple tries at trying to import sound nothing would import. I still can’t work out why it hasn’t worked since they should be the correct file names and types.

I found that redoing part of my rooftop project in the Christmas holidays really helped me learn the unreal editor. I’m more confident with using it and it has made me realise that I really want to use it for making my Final Major Project.

The Vehicle project

And so I thought I should post a little about my vehicle project

I decided to do the Wallace and Gromit Motorbike and Sidecar from A Close Shave.

Here's a few shots of it untextured.
As you can see, parts of it look pretty flat, these were fixed after.

I then started playing around with texturing my bike. Instead of using alot of different texture maps I started playing with the glossiness and shine in the material editor. It wasn't until I set up all these things that it started to look a bit more like a bike.

I also have a reflect map on it.

Heather then told me the bike textures looks very bland and it looked realitively new so i decided to add dirt to the wheel guards and scratches to the front of the sidecar to make it look a little more worn.

Finally after I made it I began to destroy it. I turned the sidecar into the plane, broke the gun so it's leaking porridge into the seat area and took the wheels off. I also added numerous amounts of scratches, dents and broke the light.

By far this is the project I've most enjoyed so far.

Finally an update

I thought it might be best to update this blog since I haven't updated since last year.

Thought I'd post a quick speedpaint I did a while ago when I was still hung up over the church idea for my final major project. I was trying to focus mainly on the highlights and the colours used within the picture.

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.