Assignment 1 and 2
This blog will have everything that I did and went through for the past few months including both assignments. Then I will have a section separate for the 3 animations, just so I would have space to talk through what ever I did working on them as well.
Week 1
This is the week where we came back to our studies. We started by chatting with each other’s for a little bit and then we also got introduced to a couple new students. Then Henry introduced us to our first module and the task that we will be doing for the first couple of weeks.
Then Alec gave us an introduction to the second assignment. Its assignment about animating the rig we used last year for our jump and walk animation. He recommends that we would pose out our character first and just enjoy it a little bit. Just get used to the body mechanics a little bit. There are many approaches you can take, and you can do as many as you would like. If you need a license for anything, we were told to contact Aiden.
We were told that it’s still a singular project, but you should still talk to people and ask for feedback if you can. Grab as many references as possible from anywhere you would like for your animations. It could be from your own references or just simply from YouTube.
We were told about certain exercises we will be able to do in class to learn and just practise a little bit. While we are still learning we need to take time and enjoy it a bit! Try not to think too much and try to block out stuff first. Sometimes you don’t have to think about much and sometimes it’s just simple so don’t over think it. We will be accessed on our approach on each of the pieces we will do.
He told us we can also do a video blog if we wanted this time because we are fully online this time.
He showed us a couple of examples of different animations from last years. I am excited to do these because animating is still not a strong side of mine, so I really want to nail it this time!
Henry reminded us about blogging as well. Keep everything structured and clear. We will have some strategic exercises so be careful with the plagiarism. Make sure to reference everything as well, that was one of the suggestions we got. Make original content and if you use some one else’s is content, don’t forget to reference.
They will be looking for individual assets, they might be in Maya or Unreal Engine.
We then watched some really good tutorials on some of the things we will be doing later on in the line that will be very helpful to us. I looked at one of the castle tutorials just to get a feel and the idea of a castle being modelled.
We got put into group and I got put into the group 5 which I am very happy about! This is because I really want to work on the castle, and I can get to know other people a little more. I will also get to do individual animations in my other assignment so I am also excited for that too, at the same time i am a little scared because we will be using actual 3D rigs to animate.
We have also talked about different websites that each of our groups can use to share our work for our project. The website Miro seems like a useful one because it seems to be very simple to use and easy to understand.
We were told to just have an idea and our main thing for the next week that we want to keep working on. Just have the main idea that we want to do as a team. Have sketches and designs etc.
Then we did a couple of exercises where we had to answer a couple of questions for Henry that helps us with developing the words and ideas for our project. I wrote man examples of the games and the castles that I could remember.
We kept talking between our team and then we shared different ideas and references from all the sources, and we kept discussing different parts that we could possibly work on. We as a team started agreeing on different types of castles that would evolve around an icy place or a mountain.
We then watched some of the buildings and design animations that the last year did. They were pretty cool, and it seemed like they were able to put in a lot of things into the space that they were given.
Then we answered a couple of questions to the questions we were provided and then that was the end of our group work for the day. I am very happy that we got to do so many exercises that allowed us to decide on our environments and how we would describe your environment. A lot of people engaged into this exercise and it was pretty useful to see what everyone was saying.
Week 1 Friday Group Meet Up After Class
We all gathered in a discord call and started talking about more concepts and ideas that we could possibly do. We had a missing member and she joined us on this call, and she was able to give her perspective and ideas to us which was awesome because I said that we all need to make sure that everyone is happy with the direction that we are taking. I said this because I want to make sure that everyone is happy to work on something and that they will enjoy working on it.
We settled for idea for a castle, which would mainly be medieval with some elements on it or surrounding it. This is because we might want to make sure that the castle looks like it’s been attacked etc. So that’s the idea we left off at for the main castle as a concept. For the visual concepts itself we are all still working on it and hoping to have it done for the upcoming Monday class. Everyone also seems to be leaning onto the side where the castle would have like an icy feel. Some of the references came from Iceland or the movie Frozen. Something like that, which I am fine with as long as I get to work on the medieval part of the castle.
We also talked about doing the outside of the castle being the ice theme where it would have snow and just icy elements in general. This was an idea from a couple people so its definitely something we will be looking into and seeing if we can put that into action for our sketches and different ideas.
There was another idea that I proposed would be an icy bridge leading up to the castle on this hill, which could be a nice aesthetic, but I don’t think my group really liked that idea, so we won’t be developing it further. I gave another idea where the ice around the castle would represent corruption where it would take over the medieval castle with ice eventually. I thought that was a pretty good idea, but it seemed like my group didn’t really like the idea of corruption concept. They did like the way I said we could add little elements on the castle that give the feel of ice and chill.
Week 2
Use Gant Charts because it tends to be very useful. It will let you see how much time you have left and what you need to do to reach your deadlines. Make sure that you are naming everything.
Make things clear on Maya by naming your objects and then also naming the material name for the objects that you are creating. We were also told to meet up with our team and have a chat about where we want to keep our files and stuff, so we have everything in one place. They said they just want the recording of the video in unreal engine at the end.
You don’t have to start everything from scratch. You can use things like base meshes. Online there is multiple things to can use to utilize. Building can be very useful so make sure that you are using everything that you possibly can. Quixel is another useful resource. Never model from memory because it’s very hard and not a good decision to make. Also talk to your teams and decide the measurement systems.
We then were given an imagine trying to go and block out while using different size techniques and see what might work for you.
These are some of the things we did throughout the day to just try to recreate and block out and environment to get a better idea of what it might look like when it comes to modelling it. This exercise also helped us a lot when it came with sizing and getting the right size for your scene. We learned that this will be important for us later on when we are placing our assets inside a scene. This is because you want to make sure that it doesn’t look weird and that the sizes are properly checked.
We talked to Henry about blocking out and using the sizing to see what things we can come up with. We told him that we don’t have a final idea or a design that everyone wants to go for, so we were told to just practise blocking anything we want out while we are working out the final stuff in the next week.
If you are using measuring reference and you want to kind of important it to unreal one thing you want to do is. If you go to your edit pivot and snap that into your points. It can be very useful for placing everything next to each other so there is no gaps or mistakes there is no little gaps.
We were also told to make sure to register for the modelling refresher. Anyone that wants to go over parts of modelling that you still want to work on so just make sure that you sign up first of all. Then Henry will set one of the times in a middle of the week where we all can have a tutorial time to follow his guides.
As a group we have gathered to talks about different concepts again and see what people like from everyone’s concepts and drawings.
We have done a pole and each of us picked our favourite ideas so we could decide on the main idea of the castle. It is going to be something that we will be working on for a long time so we had to decide that it is going to be something we will enjoy doing.
We decided on the snowy medieval castle and everyone was good with the decision. We also talked about having walls around the castle. That might come to be a possibility because it would be looking way better as a whole project. We then had a talk with Henry and Daryl, and they advised us to focus on what one building can have or what it might be. He recommended us a reference, which is the Stronghold game and its very useful for the actual layout of the design. We then talked about dividing up the castle and everything that you decide to do. Making sure that everyone has something to do most of the time. Do not leave anyone out.
He then talked to us about different ruins and how we can use them to insert different objects and stuff into them. We got feedback from Henry telling us to just work on where are we going with everything and I thought that was a very useful advice and we definitely will take that into consideration.
We then talked about that we should keep designing now because we nailed down on our final idea and it’s just designing now and getting the right feel and the actual idea of what we want to do. Then we talked about the time when we will meet on Friday so we can pick out what we want continue on.
These were some of the ruins we have looked at for our idea and just getting a feel of what kind of environment and layout we could possibly use. This was given to us by Henry to just take a look and see if we like it or not.
It is pretty useful because we can clearly see the outlines and how certain buildings could be placed as well. This could be used for referencing later on when we are creating and placing our assets.
Week 3
This is the 3rd week we are working on our group work and still we are deciding on the final idea of the design so we could start working on our assets like buildings etc. This would be very useful for us because blocking out the layout of our castle and the outside of it would be very beneficial for picking our castle. We will be covering some texturing exercises as well in the working as it was said by Henry. He said we can check out some videos that were made last Friday about refreshing modelling and things texturing.
He showed us a couple of useful tools in Maya that could help us later on if we didn’t want to make mistakes. Then we were told to go onto the link on blackboard and do some of the exercises for now.
I had a really hard time with the exercise this morning because I had a lot of difficulty with the quad tool and managing different lines. I had literally no idea how to complete any of the exercises, so this was a really annoying day. I will have to go back and learn a lot of basics. I couldn’t even get passed the first exercise where you had to manipulate the lines to make certain shapes and designs. I had difficulty getting passed the first tile. I will be asking for help from Henry later on because I have no idea on what I am doing. He said he will record some of the tutorials for us later on all the exercises so we could go over each of them and see what we are supposed to do. He also told us to focus on figuring everything out and trying out different methods and tools we haven’t used before. Just explore new ways of dealing with certain problems.
This exercise is just for some of the feedback because some of us still need to exercise a bit. For the next week we need to record a presentation on our work and stuff. Next week we can get a lot of feedback from all the teachers about anything that we want. Anything that we have done we can also get a bit of feedback. It was a good refresher for all the tools and techniques we could use later on as well.
We were told the things that we will need to have in our presentation next week. Any concepts or designs that we have done we will have in there. Colour palettes or just colours that you might choose to use. Has anything changed since your original ideas or designs? They said they would also like to see allocating the tasks for each of the members.
After lunch we looked at henry playing a little an application called wrap and he showed us a skull and told us about all the things that you are able to do with specific models to help yourself to start. He showed us tools to work with topology and more information explaining what it actually is. It is different and very unique, and he said that we should look into it because we might end up using it one day.
Then we talked a little about the application Mixer. It’s mostly for texturing and we can go to quivel bridge for more texture and assets that we can bring into Unreal Engine. They have a lot of stuff that you can pick from, but just be careful when downloading because some of the information on the asset might not be needed, so you need to make sure you’re not downloading information you don’t need.
He showed us how to use certain tools like water and sand and how you could make them mix together. Then he also showed us how to manipulate some of the sides of the textures. He talked about us creating our own textures if we wanted. We can do that by drawing the textures on photoshop and then export them into different applications where you can fix them up and then later on you can export it to applications like substance painter and then applying to your objects.
We then went into our groups and talked about what we might want to be using for our project, in term of colours and applications and how we might want to apply different things.
We kept talking about our designs and the directions we might want to take incase anything that might be too difficult. We talked about keeping the castle normal and not looking to weird and also focus on about around the castle and how we might want to go about doing certain parts. We also talked about that we might want to settle down on a final idea for our project and then we can start working on something. We have mainly narrowed it down to the two ideas and we just chatted about each of them deciding whatever we might want to do.
We talked about experimenting with different models and blocking out stuff. Also trying out different textures and colour palettes. Have some individual assets to show for our PowerPoint presentation tab. We decided to come up with any designs if we want for tomorrow before we start blocking everything out.
We gave each other to block something out and try different things out. I choose to block out a pillar and see what I can come up with a design. I will try to make it looks like the pillar is medieval, but also make it look more on the fancy side. Also, for tomorrow we come up with more designs and block out our own interpretation of the whole design. We also talked about artists that we like and picking out from their styles.
We did a couple group meetings throughout the week, but I wasn’t able to participate much because of personal family issue, and I didn’t want it to interfere with my group work. I helped as much as possible when I was needed for the group.
We met with our group official on discord and just talked a little bit to get to know each other as well because not all of was knew each other either. This was a really fun week because we got to learn a lot of nice way of doing things that we can practise and test out.
This week we are also going to be making a presentation to put some of our ideas in and our block outs just to see what everyone is thinking and how we might want to continue working on everything.
This is some of the blocking out that I did for the presentation and just to show some of the ideas that we are thinking about when it comes to our designs and thinking and how we might want to continue with our project. I wasn’t able to make it to the presentation recording, but my team still included some of the concepts that I did, which was amazing. We needed to show what direction we are pretty much looking at.
Our whole team was just doing research and drawing some of the castle parts and how we might want to have something set up. This is one of my finals designs that i did. I decided that I wanted to do simple walls. This was decided in our group presentation and before we made the actual presentation. I wanted to do the pillars and our team pointed out instantly that it will have to be very simple because we will be stylised look and we cant overcomplicate, making sure that everyones model match a little. This is just the ideas we had the minute and nothing is final.
These are a couple of screenshots of the blocking out we did in the last week because we wanted to make sure that we are steadily working on our idea and keep improving it because we can’t really focus on a single idea so we had to explore more.
We all sat down one day and went on a call and did these block outs together because we wanted to start putting our ideas and designs to the test and see what we can come up with for our project. As you can see we were leaning towards a single castle space somewhere on a hill. That was our current idea for our project. It was definitely fun and interesting doing this with my team because it felt professional and its not something I have tried doing before. We communicated and pointing things out to teach other, which felt really nice and professional. We also continued preparing for our presentation next week, which is really exciting for us since we will be getting a lot of feedback.
And this is the design we set our eyes on as for the last design or idea, but we are keeping it open and nothing is final. We were told by Henry that this looked really good and not too complicated, but he did mention that we should be careful when it comes to the houses inside the castle because some of them might not even seen, so we need to make sure our strategies and planning is on point when it comes later on in the project.
This week really went very productive because a lot of feedback was given to us so we were able to just keep working towards the final thing and making it better.
Week 4
This week we are looking at all of the presentations for all the progress of the projects that we are doing. We looked at everyone’s creations and ideas. We had a few issues in the morning managing different sound for the presentations, but we got it sorted pretty quickly.
It was interesting to see what feedback the people were getting because we can look at it ourselves and see if we can interpret any of the advice ourselves.
The second one that we did was our groups project so I will be writing down all the feedback that they say because it’s very important to me. It was said that we will be using mainly discord for our communication application. We then talked about the asset lists and everything everyone got assigned to make.
Then we showed them the sketches or the ideas that we were having because we wanted to show what we were thinking along the way. We mentioned the different colour pallets that we might want to use as well. We then told them that we came down to the 2 ideas that we were left with and we had to decide between both of them. Artist references were another thing we talked about because we wanted to tell everyone our direction and what we are leaning forward at the minute.
Then we talked about our models and what direction we want to be taking while modelling. We showed them all the designs we did on Maya while modelling our and blocking out different ideas.
The feedback that we got that the blocked environment was really good, and it gives really good impressions of the size and the blocked environment. The one thing they don’t like mixer and bridge might have a lot to offer with doors and windows. Look into, things like making glow effect out of the windows if we are going to have close up shots of the areas. Do tests with multiple applications with ambience and lighting. Scatters textures of coins on the ground and think about other ones like ice and things on the ground.
Alecs feedback was looking at the different size harts and making sure that you have everything sized properly. Smooth out different edges and corners if you would like because it would make it look more smoother and such.
Daryl talked about how we might want to show our animation at the end and how we might want our cameras to move. Some of the things might not need to be added because you might not even see them so there is no point of wasting time on something people will not see.
And this is the design we set our eyes on as for the last design or idea, but we are keeping it open and nothing is final. We were told by Henry that this looked really good and not too complicated, but he did mention that we should be careful when it comes to the houses inside the castle because some of them might not even seen, so we need to make sure our strategies and planning is on point when it comes later on in the project.
This week really went very productive because a lot of feedback was given to us so we were able to just keep working towards the final thing and making it better.
We then talked about unreal engine and how we can watch a lot of tutorials that helps us learn a lot of skills and stuff. This was very interesting because we never got to work with unreal engine before so I am definitely looking forward to trying it out and testing what it is all about. Since it’s one of the main engines in the world for building games, I am really looking forward to trying it out.
Week 5
So today we started talking about unreal engine because Henry will be introducing us to everything to do with Unreal Engine. Go for film section if you are going for rendering or just virtual production. Blank should always be more than enough to start with.
He said that there is a lot to learn about Unreal Engine, and we won’t be able to cover all of it together so we should do some research and practise on our own time because there is a lot of awesome things to learn.
You can’t use spaces in unreal engine so most of the time we should either type it all out or use under space. It’s a little similar to maya when it comes to movement and moving the actual camera. He told us about emirsive mode which is f11. If you click on g what will happen is that everything will be disabled, but everything is still in the scene. He showed us a couple of shortcuts that we can use when using unreal, which was really nice because it does have some amazing tools that other applications don’t have.
We learned that we don’t have to texture in Maya and instead we can do it in unreal because I would say it’s much easier to do it in unreal engine, which I am very happy about.
We were then told to go do some navigation and practise a little on the hills on the Unreal engine. We need to play with it ourselves and get used to it because it will be very useful for us later on as well.
Then we learned about exporting the objects from maya by adding lambert to each of the objects then you export them into the unreal engine. The whole day we were just told to play around a little bit and get feel of everything. Even export some of the things into the unreal, stuff like bridges or something.
Then she showed us a little about lighting and setting everything up properly. We heard about a lot of stuff today and the first thing we need to do is getting used to setting it up and using it in the first place. Then we can start thinking about more complicated things.
We were told to watch some tutorials that are posted on blackboard as well that tells us about anything we might want to do with it. We just played a little around building terrains or hills in the unreal, which was pretty fun.
After noon class we talked a little to Henry about thing we still wanted to know about Unreal and he explained anything we wanted to know. After that we have been split up into our team groups so we can go and talk about different things we might want to be doing in unreal when it comes to modelling and texturing because it definitely another alternative. We have talked about the final designs as well because we want to make sure everyone is using the same style of modelling as well since it needs to look the same.
Henry then came in and just gave me some advice on the stuff that we could do for our project. He advised that we use different snow textures because there is a lot of them that you can use.
Henry and Daryl gave us a lot of tips about different stuff that we can use or practise on for our projects. There are many useful options that we can optimize and use. Then we just talked about the elements that we might want to keep adding or taking away from our project. We then talked about a little about modelling and bits and pieces that we can do each week.
Week 6
This week I mainly focused on getting some modelling done and seeing if I can get somewhere with a simple look for a pillar or my wall or even the broken wall. I explored this week a lot of when it comes to simple designs and actually making them work with texturing and everything else, which was pretty time consuming.
I also focused a lot on learning Unreal engine 4 and how it might be able to benefit us later on. I really wanted to just learn the basics so I could start exploring it and seeing what you are able to do with the actual program.
I looked into Katie that workings at Riot Games, and she works with everything when it comes to games. I really like her online so I decided to check her tutorials out and see if I can find something to do with Unreal 4. I really enjoyed watching this tutorials because she explains things so well and doesn’t rush at all.
I also looked into Unreal 4 myself and see if I can play with anything. I wanted to just check the tools out and figure out how everything works. Really enjoyed how simple it was and it wasn’t cluttered at all. She definitely inspired me to work hard and learn as much as I can inside Unreal 4. Her methods are pretty simple, yet so effective.
We had a group meeting today as well and we want over our modelling and what should we start modelling and how we might want to go about it. I showed my team my blocks outs and the pillar samples that i have modelled and the wall that came with it. I wanted to show them something, so they know what direction I am aiming for and see what they thought. Everyone liked it a lot and also gave me a lot of positive feedback that i could possibly improve on. It was really helpful and a nice class because we all shared opinions and thoughts, and nobody was left out. This is the most important part that I liked about our meetings.
This Friday class I had a talk with Alec about our progress so far that we had and the things we could improve on. He said that I should separate difficult models because it will be easier later on when it comes to changing different things like the shape or the feel of the model. It was very useful because it could get hard to changing things when it comes to our models. We might want to change or scratch everything later on because we are still talking and exploring different things that we could do.
Week 7
This week we just had Alec go onto Maya and just work on a certain object and explain how we works on them and why. Just giving us general tips and advice that could help us when we are modelling. He looked at one of my pillar samples and said also that I might want to separate each of the pieces that come with the pillar. This is because it might be difficult to texture everything later on.
I took this into consideration and I wanted to see and try different things out. We looked at the walls as well and we were discussing how we might want to separate some of the things later on. It is not that bad at the minute because we are not entering the stage of texturing just yet.
This week we just focused on communication and seeing how everyone is doing as well. We talked about how everyone is getting on and what they are at. Everyone was working on their models and still researching how they might want to go about texturing and UV mapping.
This weeks I also looked at different kind of things and methods I could possibly use for my models later on because I wanted to try new things and see how they turn out. I looked at a lot of tricks and tips that Mike Hermes had because I have watched a couple of his guides and they are always so useful and help me with my work. Even if it’s the simple things. I really like this artist and I will definitely use this work to help me in the future.
Week 8
Today we all have sat down and talked about many things that everyone that to talk about. Alec has answered any questions that we might have had in the first place because there is many issues and many concerns that came up recently regarding our studies and the whole year because of COVID 19. He answered any questions that we had regarding the different issues that we have and how we are willing to tackle them because it was bothering a lot of people.
A lot of people are also unsure about many things when it comes to next semester and how we might study as well.
For our project we continued doing what ever everyone was doing, exploring models and textures that we might want to work with when it comes to our models and environment later on. We have started finishing up our models and then starting to texture. It took us a little to UV map everything that we have created. So we had to take some extra time to finish everything up so we could start testing it for anything else we might be doing. I was having a little trouble with my wall textures since they were freaking out a little because i was misplacing some of the pieces. I fixed it my moving them properly and making sure that every piece is where it needs to be before i start texturing it. I wanted to make sure that I had no issues.
This is the week where we had finished up our modelling and we were just retouching and making sure we get them prepared for texturing them in substance painter. The models that I have made did have a lot of issues throughout because I kept messing up the top of the wall and I was having such a hard time making sure that i get the right proportions and sized for our project. I was also going multiple things at the same so I was kind of falling under pressure at this point. This is because I was messing the wall up and I had to keep fixing it every day.
These are some of the models that I have been working on for the purpose of the broken wall and how we might want to make it look. You can see I tried cutting my wall model in half and maybe just leaving it like that for the final piece. Then as a group we have discussed some of these options and decided that they wouldn’t work later on. It would also mess with the UV maps and textures. I did test it and they were right. I was having difficulties setting the UV’s and i am not even mentioning the texturing. So we decided to leave it for now and keep working on texturing our proper models that we had no issues with.
When I started texturing in substance it was once really weird because I had to get used to the options and how everything works in there again. I easily forget all the options, so I always need a refresher for these kind of things. I forgot to use layer masks when I started texturing so I had to watch a recap of Substance to make sure I am on the right track as well. These are some of the options that I did for my towers when I was texturing. It took multiple times because we still haven’t decided what we wanted to do with our feel and the look of the textures.
These are the textures that I made for the towers in substance and it was quite a challenge doing different kind of textures, but as a group we kept checking everything and deciding what we might want to have for our final model and the scene. I really liked the blue top of the tower because it looked like a fantasy old crystal. This couldn’t be used because it wouldn’t fit with the whole style of the textures we would do for the rest of the model, so I had to adapt my textures.
I really wanted to capture the old school simplistic look for all of these textures as well, for my scene I also want to make sure that the towers also look kind of older since the scene will be about a destroyed village. That’s the idea I have for the time being anyways, since I really wanna create something cool and original.
Some models that I also worked on was the brick that could possibly be used for the broken wall, but for now we are not going to have a broken wall for any of our scenes since they wouldn’t work with any of the textures. And we don’t have a lot of time to finish everything to we need to manage our time properly.
The brick itself I tried making a little project for it where I would detail it and just make it look like an actual brick, but it turns out I just had way too much polygons in it and it would just crash anything it touches. I still enjoyed going into little detail for it even if it’s not being used. It was a challenge, but I learned a lot from it. That is also a picture of the texture exported from substance to maya, and it looked a little weird because I didn’t change the format of it so when I was applying the textures I was having a bad time. It was supposed to look like a dark glass, but it kind of looked black.
Week 9/10
For the last couple of weeks we just kept working on our modelling and texturing because we are coming into the final couple of weeks and we need to make sure that we are doing as much as possible to make sure we are progressing and getting stuff done. We wanted to make sure that we are texturing our models as soon as possible because soon we will have to start placing all of them in one place and testing our environments out.
We started learning about importing your scene to unreal for the past few weeks and how that will work when it comes to us importing and exporting things from different applications like Maya and Substance painter. We learned that the whole process can be confusing so we need to make sure that we are testing things out.
We then talked about material instances and how they work with different techniques and textures that you might want to use for your models. This is very important because texturing in unreal isn’t difficult, but it can get very tricky so we need to watch out for anything.
Discussing about the actual unreal pipeline was also really important when it comes to importing models from substance painter to maya and then transferring the models to unreal 4 as well. This was very interesting because all of us ran into this issue while talking about our models. We didn’t really know how to export things from substance and get them working inside unreal 4. I got a little worried at one point because when I did my texturing in substance I ran into a problem where I exported my models wrong and I got the textures that wouldn’t work inside unreal 4. The problem was that when I exported the models I didn’t change the format of the models and kept it the same just when I made the file.
So, the good thing was that I had bunch of copies of my models saved up and I talked to Alec and he told me that I can change the format of the models when I am exporting it, so I did just that. I changed the format to unreal 4 engine when I was exporting the models. Thats when I got the right textures and everything for Maya and Unreal 4.
Throughout the weeks, we have also talked about the bridge and how we can also use some of the models from there for our final scene later on, which could be very useful to make our scene look really good. I have looked at a couple of examples and things that quixel bridge could offer me at some point because for my final scene I am thinking of making my environment an old abandoned place that was recently attacked.
I can definitely see that it has a lot of free models to offer that can make your scene look better for your vibe and how you might want to portray it as well. Then we also started talking and learning about baking lights and how they can usually work in your scene. The way we can manipulate how they might make your scene look and how you might enhance it as well.
Henry gave us a really good lesson about light baking and how to actually set it up. It was really useful finding out how to manipulate different lights and how that might make the scene look. I really loved this part because it showed me how to add lights and manipulate them for my own scene when I am setting everything up. After we our done with lights and rendering the lights as well we learned that we can also override the actual resolution of the scene as well. This is to avoid some weird effects that could just make the shadows look very weird. We then went into a specific discussion, which was about adjusting the actual lighting to make sure it looks as best as possible. There is a lot of possibilities when it comes to the lights, so that the person working with them can have a lot of options to work with. How to change the actual light-mass and adjusting it as well. Then what we could do after we done with manipulating the lights as well.
We were given some projects to download that we could also check out for the purpose of lights and how they make the lights look. I was excited because lighting makes such a huge impact when it comes to any scene that you make. We looked at a couple projects and how the lights can be manipulated inside them as well. We got to work with these projects ourselves just to see how the lights work and how we will manage changing up the directions and the power of the lights. It was really interesting to just being able to manipulate the light to different locations to get a different effect and I am looking forward to doing it inside my scene.
We also had a group meeting to test out some of the models and the lights inside Unreal 4 to see how we could make it work and make it look more interesting. We also didn’t have a lot of practise when it comes to these things so we just played around with Unreal 4 and the lights itself to see how everything presents itself.
Week 11/12
This is the time where we all started to feel a bit of pressure when it came to our work because we only have a couple of weeks left before we have to get everything done. Our time is a little behind and for the past few weeks we have been catching up and meeting as much as possible to make sure we are getting everything sorted.
This week we also did a workshop with Dermott Burns, which was quite fun for me to watch because he did a tutorial on Unreal 4 and showed us some of his work. It was interesting to see how to animate when it comes to Unreal 4 and how to make the scenes looks amazing. It is definitely going to help me in the future with everything that I work on Unreal 4. This was a really good tutorial pretty much because as we are setting up our scenes and checking stuff out these suggestions really helped.
This helped me to influence my actual unreal 4 scene because I didn’t know that these options were viable to use for us at all. So I am thankful for Dermott for giving us this workshop that taught us a lot about Unreal 4.
We are pretty much trying to get everything finished up these last few weeks to make sure we are not running out of time and that we have everything done on time. The models needs to be prepared and finished for modelling and we also have to prepare for the presentation to show our lecturers the progress that we have made.
This week I was having issues with my wall piece that I have modelled for our group project and the problem was that the top bits of the wall with spaces in them were just weird and not properly likeable for anyone I would say. I was still finishing up texturing the wall, so I was able to edit the wall pretty fast. This needed to be done because I wanted the wall to be simple, but not too simple and have some unique features to it. I wanted to make sure that the embrasures of the wall are giving a really cool and medieval look.
You are able to see here that I played around with these textures in substance first and I applied the same textures that I did for the tower as well because I wanted to see if it could work if we watched the textures. I ended up not liking this so I changed it up when it came to me exporting the textures. I wanted it to have a cool medieval wall vibe with some chill on it. This is because my scene will be set in a cold environment where there is snow and stone and i think I made it look perfect for that.
We had issues with some of our models being inside Unreal 4 as well, we had problems with the lights for some of the models. It was making some of the models look really dark. This problem was with some of the house models made by Philip. They were showing up really dark and we needed to fix that in order to use those models. We contacted Henry for help on this one since we were overwhelmed with everything. We were able to fix the issue by having a whole day session with Henry and he taught us multiple things that enhanced the look of our scene.
I also researched a bit and watched bunch of guides so then I could follow some of the tutorials and see if they are any good for us. I wanted to learn more so it would influence some of our work and make it look even better than it does now.
Presentation was also done by us and for preparation, we all created slides and had a group meeting to make sure everything is done right. We assigned each other the slides and the content that we have to put inside them. We have made slides for each of our models as well so we could all talk about our development and how it went too. The presentation went as well as it could go and we didn’t mess it up while recording multiple times at-least. I have talked about our scheduled work and how we were doing it through out and how everyone was managing their work too. I also talked about my models and what went right and wrong. I said that I had the most difficulties with the wall since I just couldn’t make the wall crack work and we had multiple meetings with the team discussing it as well and in the end I ended up not doing the cracked wall to save myself and my team time. The feedback from the presentation was great and I really took that into consideration. I was told to just look at quixel bridge and just look at certain models in general for the broken piece of the wall. I did use the broken stone from the files that Henry gave to us, which enhanced my scene by a lot.
In these past few weeks we have also tried out best to get everyones work finished and finalised. We did the last few group meetings to just chat with everyone to see how everyone is doing. Making sure that we are at the end and about to split up and do our own scenes for our render video. We helped each other with finishing texturing and getting everything inside Unreal 4 so we could see if it works or if we need to change anything as well. Everything went really good for all of us and we finished everything up so we could all upload all the files on a single one drive and share them with our whole team. This is because we decided to just zip our own models inside Unreal 4 and then send it to each other. From that point on it was up to us to set up a scene and video it how ever we want it. We had some issues with sharing the files and migrating them as well at one point. We helped each other out and talked it out on discord with everyone. We even recorded guides for each other. We ended this like a team. Just like it should be done.
For my final scene on Unreal 4, I wanted to do an old school village surrounded by walls that has been attacked and abandoned. I also really wanted to make sure that it has an icy feel to it so there would be the viking feel to it as well. I wanted to make sure I have a town setting and include some of the models from my group and also include my models too. I also wanted to include models that Henry has given to us because they made the scene look much better. I didn’t use the broken wall, instead i ended up using some of the broken stones that we got from Henry and made it look like its been broken into. The assets that we got from Henry are so useful and just really handy in general because they give a feel for the scene. I also had to make sure that I am rendering my video properly and recording a walkthrough.
For my video I wanted to do a walkthrough with.no transitions, I wanted to capture a birds view and how they would look at a scene. So I did a walkthrough from the side through the village and then made it fly to the danger as well. These are some of the images from my final scene and the place where everything was set up. I wanted the scene to be in a middle of a day, but also have the chill feeling to it. Going towards the evening. I wanted to make sure that the light is making it looks like its getting close to the evening. I am proud of myself for trying my best to make sure the video looks really good.
Peer Assessment
Oisin – 16.6%
Amazing to work with and very hardworking. Any advice that I needed I would contact Oisin and he would get back at me as soon as he could. You could rely on him for anything.
Aoibheann – 16.6%
Very hardworking as well, helping everyone left and right, just like everyone. Needed any advice you could also contact her and she would help out if she could.
Philip – 16.6%
Really organised and hard working, kept the whole team in check every single week to make sure everyone is not lost and that the work is being done. Pleasure to work with him.
Caoimhe – 16.6%
Very hardworking as well, helping everyone left and right, which is very important when it comes to team-working. She would always help me make sure everyone is included into everything and nobody is left out. Always asking questions and reassuring everyone.
Shu Yuan – 16.6%
Also very hardworking and reliable for when it came to working as a team and keeping everything in check for the project. Very fun to work with as well because we worked as a team and communicating was one of the main parts.
Self Assessment
I really enjoyed this project because i got to work with one of the best group of people I could ever imagine. They kept me organised and hardworking and very motivated. Working with each other every week made me friends with them and made me fall with the way they work and communicate with each other.
I had used a lot of discipline throughout this project to make sure I am working with my team and that I am being kind to myself as well. I worked really hard when it came to learning and practising a lot of the new techniques. I have applied everything that I learned throughout these weeks into my work to make sure I am meeting the standard I am supposed to. I also made sure I had fun a long the way because what is the point if you’re not having any fun. I observed a lot of my group members and how they work as well and applied it to my work because some of their methods got me interesting into doing new things. I experienced a lot of good and bad days, but in the end it’s all worth it because I got to learn a lot. It’s always about the journey and losses are the experience. I had amazing communication with my teachers and my group members through out when it was needed, at the same time I wanted to be independent and try things on my own. I enjoyed all the experiences that I have made throughout.
Mantas Macidulskas 