Evaluation

Explain your approach to the THEME, how does your final product link to the THEME. 

The theme for this project was order and chaos, as soon as I heard of the theme my thought turned to two options, apocalypse and riots. It made me think of these as they are almost one and the same in terms of oversight. to put them both basically there is a force of nature, anger, recklessness which the people representing order, such as police officers, army, general good civilians trying to maintain order in the area, so what you have is one chaotic force trying to destroy order within the other force, Because I thought about riots and apocalypse I then had to think about how I was going to get both of those themes into my final scenes, I did research about what I could do to combine these two theme in one design. To do this I decided to create two scenes in one project, one scene for before, and one scene for after, one scene would show the theme of order, and one for chaos, because of order I thought of neatness, OCD which then dragged my mind towards a small convenience shop. this in two scenes would be perfect for making one scene all about order, and the other scene chaotic. My first scene would be the shop scene before the chaos overcomes the area, the shelves filled with products, tinned foods, milk cartons, shelves with labels, the door nice and clean, the signs swaying gently outside the front with the street lively with signs, possible the reflection of a car in the front of the shop window. However my second scene would be the same design in terms of the structure, building shape, signs, windows and doors, however the placement assets such as the products would be scattered, the scene would help tell a story of what happened here, a piece of paper perhaps torn on the wall, what looked to be a final letter, a single barrel pump action shotgun would be placed on the floor next to a small splatter of blood with a magazines full of shotgun shells, this would help tell of someone’s last stand, perhaps thieves, monsters of some kind or rioters who had blood on their minds, it would help show to the viewer the nature of humanity which to me at least really speaks out about how we as people can act in desperate times and the levels they will stoop to survive and thrive. my chaotic scene would be badly damaged, my door and window smashed, the sign ripped apart with the panel ripped off by its chains. 

Compare your proposal to your final product. 

Compared to my proposal, I am sad to say I’m very disappointed in the finished product, after the setbacks and major changes I have had to do to work on this project it rather saddens me that my final product is so bad compared to what I usually product, even with this being the FMP of the year I wanted to push myself and my understanding, however that did not happen, not only in textures but in some modelling aspects, I decided to take shortcuts in some modelling to help me save time on the texturing in Photoshop so I could be done by the deadline so I could manage my time neatly. 

What stayed the same, and what was different?

Why did it stay the same? OR why did it change? 

This project had a few changed to the scene which has in some ways changed the scene entirely, some have changed and only tweaked the scene. For certain elements I kept the same as even after the changes I still wanted the attributes to be in my final scene. One of the things I decided to keep the same was the general layout of my scene, which had shelves and products on one side and the cash register on the other side. I also had to keep the shotgun asset and the shells which I places in my second scene to help make the weapon look like it was used to its extent before being either abandoned or been lost in order to keep the theme of chaos in my second scene. 

The assets did not change either, while I did have a few assets that I was going to make differently like my shelves most of my assets stayed the same as since I had modelled my assts to look realistic in my scene there was no point to edit these models any further, especially after unwrapping, but this was a good call as it allowed me to make my scene look realistic to the viewer. 

There of course were some changes that I had to do to this project based on several reasons, 

The first reason was due to hardware problems, because of these problems I had to change my method of how I was going to complete the project as 3 of the intended applications was simply not possible to use, because of this I had to change the applications to use to complete the project, the end results vastly changed from what I initially had planned for my scene, unfortunately this meant I had to go for a new style of art for my scene, as well as the final product presentation. 

Another problem with this product was because if some of the changes it meant that time became an issue once I had started playing around in Photoshop I realised to create the maps I wanted for my scene would take a lot longer that I had initially thought, this meant that I was on pressed for time in the last two weeks of the product, this even meant that I had to cut off some of the assets for this scene such as my soft drink cans. These somewhat limits what variants is inside my scene, overall though I think my scene has a vagrancy between my tin cans, my milk cartons and bottles. 

Reflect on your research and how it informed/changed the development of your final idea. 

My research onto the idea even as I dwelled deeper into my ideas that I had to present Order and Chaos was most helpful. The images and stories that I read, I listen to astounded me, I was almost dumbstruck by the amount of ways some grim, and some harder to make than others, but I think that all of my idea would of conveyed the message of how easily order can be shattered onto the viewer, to give my scene a message, a metaphorical banner across it displaying my message to the world. my research helped my choose what I wanted to do, how I was going to build my scene up and what the final product would look like, after the visual ideas and tests I had a good idea of what most of my assets would look like helping me think about where to place them in both of my scenes. 

How well did you manage your time? What methods did you use to manage your project? Explain answers. 
To help me manage my project I had to use the weekly diary in my development log, this diary helped me keep track of tasks that I had completed, tasks that I needed to get done as well as helped me plan for problems as well as solutions within time frames. This diary has all been documented and from reading through it we can see opinions, thought about the work as well and plans of what else to complete and work that has already been completed. 

What skills did you use? 

The skills I used in this project vary from application to application. However, I think I had to use quite a variety of skills to complete this project. I had to pay attention to detail for my modelling especially for my drink assets and milk bottles which I had to pay some quite careful attention to detail, I also had to pay attention to detail when placing my final components together. I had to work on my wording in my blog work when describing certain setbacks and research at the beginning of this project. With this project I had to show off my modelling and texturing skills, I showed off my organisation skills within the folder structure I placed out my Project in. 

What problems did you face? 

With this project I had to face a lot of problems, some big, some small, I had to work around quite a few of these problems and some of these problems meant I had to abandons what I was doing to fix them. 

My first problem was college closing due to the corona virus, because of this It meant that I could no longer work inside the college, thankfully my college was generous enough to lend me a laptop where I could keep up with annotations, and creating my project. The laptop was easily to set up, and to install my application took only a few hours before it was ready for use.  

The next problem I faces was with the laptop itself, after getting help online on discord and reddit, along with a college colleague it was found out that this laptop is not specked enough to run substance painter or designer, correctly, after learning this I discovered that this laptop cannot handle unreal engine 4 either. This completely threw a metaphorical wrench into the works of my project. This meant that I could no longer texture with any substance application, this was really annoying for me as I had already started on a few substance designer stuff, some stuff such as my cracked brick wall and my wood grain texture which was coming along really well, I was hoping to use this project to help motivate me to learn substance designer before moving onwards with other projects, because of this setback not only have I lost with hours of work my substance designer files and the other files I was using to help me understand the application better, but it also meant that I had to find a new way of texturing my assets. I thought about what application I could use for texturing. In the end I came up with four main applications for texturing with. My first was blender as I knew a little about the program and what it does, I know you can create some great textures in there but because I was so unaware of what the UI does and with it being a new application I decided to disclose this application. My second choice was paint cube, from what I have seen of this application I have seen that the UI is relatively simple but with this being a new application it would take me a while for me to get fully used to the application which I wasn’t confident with the time I had left. My third choice was an application called Mudbox which I had only head about from a friend up in surrey. After looking further into the application the application looks very good, simple UI and tutorials which I could use to help me understand the application quickly, how the application does cost money, because of this I decided not to buy the application on a gamble on whether the application would or wouldn’t run on the laptop the college lent to me, however I have kept this application in mind to experiment with later. My final choice was Photoshop. I have had a little experience with this application and understand some of the UI. I also know how to export and import images, and how to set up my documents with the layers and folder organisation. I knew this application didn’t need good specs to run correctly like they needed to with substance painter or designer. This made photoshop my most desirable, however I knew it was almost all hand painted textures that I would have to do. This initially threw me off using photoshop altogether as I know my hand painting skills are not very good, I knew I wasn’t that good at paying close attention to details and the finished products were often disappointing. I do feel the same with the final piece I think using Photoshop was the best application that I could have gone for as I only had to spend about a week relearning the application, which worked wonders when it came to time management. 

Another problem I had to face was with the UV exports. As I experienced in my testing with my milk bottle assets, because the background colour by default was white when it came to assign a white colour for the glass sections the colour came up as the default texture in Maya, even after re-exporting the unwrap and applying new layers of colour into the areas the colour didn’t change. I couldn’t work out why none of these didn’t work, and when I put it out onto a reddit chat I’m in people hand their heads stumped. 

A problem I had was with my shotgun asset, I had the unwrap exactly the same as the texture in my photoshop document, however when I applied the texture to my asset the texture came up as a map on the magazine of the weapon, I can’t figure this out, I has the unwrap there when I exported it from its original document, when I checked the unwrap again for the shotgun asset in my final scene mays file the unwrap apparently didn’t exist. Which is why I am completely stumped by this; I have tried to fix the problem to no avail. 

What have you learnt during this project? What would you do differently? 

During this project there is a lot I would do differently if I knew the outcomes and what was to happen. Personally, if I could have the time again, I would texture some of my more detailed models such as the original chilled shelves, I would have finished unwrapping them and just done a base colour in Photoshop for each shell and got rid of the front flaps, I would spend the time again to remodel the building shape and to model the windows into the actual object which I think would have been Brilliant especially with the side door I was planning. I would have spent the time in college working harder and harder, getting to texturing each model as soon as it was finished so at least some models would have substance designer and painter stuff applied which I think would have had an amazing look to them. During this project I have learnt a lot about unwrapping, lowering the poly count due to a few tutorials, the substance designer stuff I am now starting to get my head around and I do hope to expand my skills in the application during the summer. 

Reflect on peer and tutor feedback. 

Personally, I think that the feedback on my work has been remarkable. I think that the feedback from my tutors as well as other colleagues, they have helped me work on my annotation especially in my research as I often have the struggle of getting what I feel into words. They have helped me expand on certain pieces of modelling and annotations, A friend even suggested a colour pallet for me to choose from for an asset which I tried each out and found a good shade of colour later in the project.