UAL Awarding Body – Level 3 Diploma Unit 13 – Project Proposal

proposal

UAL Awarding Body – Level 3 DiplomaUnit 8 – Project Proposal

Candidate Name	Adam Nunn
Pathway	Games Development- 3D Modelling
Project Title	Apocalypse Has Come

Section 1: Review

Over these last 2 years at college I have expanded my skills in a number of applications such as Maya, Unreal engine 4, substance designer, substance painter, unity, Photoshop, with this knowledge I have been able to push myself to try new techniques as well as other elements of this which I can use to improve my work in the industry. From this I have also learned vastly about how the gaming industry works, how new games go through their stages before their release, because of this I have a desire to be part of some of those big games, to help create assets that people would be able to see and use inside a video game, I can now create models and texture them so that they fit the art style of the rest of the game as well, because of this I am aiming for the highest grade I could get so I have the pathway open for me to walk down in the road of life.

To create video games, to even be part of a team that makes a big video game is a big dream for me, i want to ensure that I have the skills needed from each step I take, for this section I hope to learn enough skills and expand my knowledge so that I learn more and more of different applications, from this I could also learn about animation so I could try and start to create working models ready to be used in a game engine. For me not only this opportunity but the coming opportunity’s mean so much to me, as it allows me to learn and try to push myself and my skills will make me more desirable to hiring companies and allow me to create a name for myself int he gaming industry.

Over the last almost 2 years I have learnt a whole lot about how the gaming industry works in the making planning development of games. I have also learnt about 3D modeling which I have chosen as my specialism, I have been learning about the environments in games, a great example of this is the fallout franchise as even the smallest environment can have their own story to the piece who lived there and how that story ends. this I really like and I would love to create environment that tell a story to a player, not directly but it builds up in their mind to make them think deeper into the game. Because of these influences I have had I decided to do exactly what I want for my Unit 13, I decided I wanted to do an Environment scene which would tell the story of what happened in the scene before the viewer sees the scene, reading closely into the scene seeing the assets and the position of those assets in my scene will help tell a story, because of this I have created my ideas based around that desire, looking into research such as the fallout games which tells some really deep and tragic stories mostly told just from the positions of objects and environment pieces in the worlds.

My immediate aspiration is to get a good grade in this unit so that I may get into my chosen university I do this so that I can learn and develop my skills in university to get a better job in the industry as I would have a better qualification but with this project I hope to get my pathway into university to which from there I can gain access to a good job in the gaming industry as an 3D environment artist which would lead me to have a happy life but to also have a well paying job to buy and house and be able to sustain myself.

Include any examples of your work.

I want to work in the games industry as a 3D modeler , I also want to continue programming and expend my skills in rigging as well as animation. because of this over the year I have been creating my own portfolio, adding my 3D models as well as textures to show off to work places as well as university.

In this screen shot of my portfolio on Sketchfab

Section 2: Project Concept

For this project I would make one environment scene and then duplicate it and further model it as it would create my second diorama scene. I would make these scenes to scale with the UE4 man to keep all my objects to scale and to make sure that the spacing would be realistic so that would make it seem like the scene would be usable if it was a real place.

My first scene would be the before scene, This would be a shop along a side walk, I would only be modeling the front part of the shop so I can fit this project in the time limit given. there would be a standing sign outside the shop with the words “we are open” embedded in base colour onto both sides. The shop would have the door on the right with a large window next to it with a shelving unit showing products to people who were passing by the shop, but also have shelves on the other side to hold other products which people in the shop could buy. The inside of the shop would have a few products, cans of drink maybe, (2-3 textures for the same mesh) cartons of milk (2 textures but this will be easy as I can just change the base colour of the label) as well as possibly a few alcohol bottle and packets of other products. the shop would have see through windows a counter and a till, with a small handing sign saying what other products could be found in the shop, however they would be further into the shop than I am modeling which makes the shop seem much more realistic but also saves me modeling and texturing a load of different assets.

My second scene is after the apocalypse, this would have the same shop, however the street would be the same but with the lighting I intend to give this scene it would give the scene an disturbing and perhaps dangerous feel to it. The sign outside of the shop would be broken as you could see the outline and the stand for the sign leaning against the floor but the swinging part of the sign advertising that the shop was open has been torn of as I would model the chain’s to be broken and perhaps has shown some strain, the window with the shelves that were once showing off the shops products would be smashed and she shelves almost bear with few products scattered over them, pieces if glass would also be modeled to be scattered over the shelves. (This would be on one UV map as this would just have a base colour, opacity, metallic and roughness map) The door would have the top window broken with scattered glass shards (once again on the same UV map) the sign near the counter would be hanging and I would (if I have enough time) be animated slightly to be dangling in the wind with the chains, the products on the shelves would be mostly gone with few scattered products around the store, this gives the effect that the store has been robber or looted. there would be the cash register open but with no money inside as this would give the reader the illusion that this was a robbery. there could be a few empty bullet or shotgun shell casings left around on the floor that shine in the light,. The floor would be more or less the same as it was in my first scene however I would add the effect of dried blood splatter, this leave the viewer with the question of how long ago was this incident, was it a year ago or a few days ago. I would then add a dust particle effect into the scene so it look like the after scene looks a little old and a rain particle effect on the street so it gives my scene a rather depressing feel to look at.

Both of these scenes would be presented in unreal engine ready for the exhibition so that my work can look as good as it could possibly be.

Before The Apocalypse Scene:

• Cans of soft drink (possibly 3 different textures as it allows variation.)
• Tins of food lining the shelves.
• Cartons of milk (one mesh with the same unwrap however I would texture this to be more or less the same and would change the base colour where the label would be to give the impression of that they are the same carton containing different types of milk.
• Shop door which would be made of steel with a top and bottom window.
• Shop front with a hole to model the door in but also a window modeled into the geometery for me to texture upon.
• Shelving units, for the products to be placed upon.
• Cash register, at the counter near the front of the shop.
• Counter near the front of the shop where the worker would be behind serving customers as they buy products.
• Products sign, near the counter dangling from a thin steel wire attached to the ceiling.
• Outside open sign, a sigh with a panel in the middle that would be textured with the words “we are open” on both sides with minimal design the shop does seems very poor as you could see from the lack of products.

After The Apocalypse Scene:

• Scattered products (such as tins, cans of drink, as well the cartons of milk)
• Bullet casings/shotgun shells scattered over the floor near the counter.
• Products sign, near the counter dangling from a thin steel wire attached to the ceiling one wire broken as the sign was hanging from the ceiling from a thread.
• Outside open sign, a sigh with a panel in the middle that would be torn off and missing, this would be noticeable as the chains that were once holding the panel to the support would be broken and ripped into pieces.
• The shop front, this would consider of the door which would be closed but would have one of its windows broken with pieces of scattered glass on the floor and the window would be smashed as there would be glass on some of the shelves and some on the floor.
• The cash register, this would be open with all the pockets inside empty as it would show that the store has been robbed.
• A weapon on the floor, this weapon would be a short single barrel pump action shotgun, perhaps it was dropped and abandoned by its old user, maybe the owner left it for a reason or perhaps he was running away from something he had no choice but to leave it as it was slowing him down.

If I have extra time to model and texture other assets I will be sure to create them and fit them into my scene as it would allow me to expand my scene slowly and to make the scenes look even more realistic if I created a few other products.

The software I will need for this project will consist of:

• Substance Designer as I will have to texture the pathway (sidewalk) as well as the floor inside the shop, I will be using Substance Designer as I believe I can create a much better and balanced texture than I could using Substance Painter.
• Substance painter, I will need this appreciation as I will use it not only for scaling materials I have made in substance designer but I will also need this so I can texture and add effect to the texture so that my final products look as good as they could be so that they will stand out during the exhibition.
• Maya 2019, I will need this application primarily so that I can model and unwrap all of my assets and then bring them all together to create my scenes before I start to texture my assets.
• unreal engine 4, I will need this application to create the particle effects that will be imputed into my environment pieces as well as the lighting which is where I can show off my final pieces. I would also be using this application for the exhibition, if my work is placed on a PC it would be shows in unreal engine 4 as it allows the viewer to interact with the model but not to edit the model or potentially delete the model.
• for the hardware I would also need to use a graphics tables incase I need to hand paint any effects over my textures to make them look better.

For this product I would try to make my scene and all my assets look quite realistic but not so realistic that people would think that its a real scene as I believe I would not be able to spend that much time texturing my assets for this product, but I also don’t want my textures to be so unrealistic it makes the scene look quite a bit dull. This way the texture would be shining in the light when I put the products into unreal engine which I can then use to make the scene look even more realistic with the particle effects.

Include any research or drawings which will help explain your idea.

Section 3: Evaluation

Over the course of this projects to make sure my work is up to scratch I intend of having a little help from my fellow class mates, I hope to keep checking up and asking of these pieces which I’m showing them is okay, and asking them what I could use to improve them, this would be good as it allows me to expand on my ideas and to see what they think would work best and from their advice I can improve my work so it looks even better for the exhibition, but it would also allow me to keep my peer reviews as a guideline on my blog about how I have done over the last interim’s. The peer reviews will also tell me how to improve upon my work as it allows me to save what I have and to then create a plan on how to fix those, to which I can also get words from the peer assessor about how I can work on and improve my work.

My overall project however will be based on the final; evaluation, at the end f this I will have a load of questions about myself and the FMP, how I think I have done and what I could do better. this is where I will be evaluating not only myself but my final piece which will be on display and rendered. these is where I will evaluate the overall outcome of my FMP project and will document it onto my blog.

My decision making would be choosing in my initial ideas which I have also ready completed but It would also come from the visual ideas and test section of the blog work, this is where I would evaluate each piece that I complete but in a separate paragraph at the end of each section I would be stating what decisions I have made and why I have made that decision for my FMP

How you will you document changes to your ideas as your work progresses?

overall the changes I have made to my scene will be documented at the end of this project on my final evaluation. There I would have paragraph about how and why I changed this around completely, compared to my original proposal as well as what I think of the finished and well as if in hind sight I believe that it was the correct choice to make that change or if I was wrong making that change.

Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format)

List your initial research sources, both primary and secondary, that you intend to use.

To acquire the research I need to help me through this project I intend in using a various number of sources of information to help me expand my skills and to help make my scene better using pointers and videos. My first source of information is the local library near the town center where I can use the books and search for books about modeling and texturing, I can use art books to help me decided the colour coordination for my textures that will go onto these assets which will help my assets looks better to the viewer with colours the effectually push my message across to the viewer as well as giving off the overall tone of the scene to help show the theme strongly in my scene. I have also been reading through magazines about the gaming industry, these magazines are a great source of research and inspiration when creating my assets and planning on what I am going to make and texture for my final product scene during the testing part of the project. a huge source of information and research is video games as I can look at video games and think about how the environment is set out and why is it set out like that, what it shows the player and what the game subconsciously forces the player to think. For creating the particle effects in unreal for my project I can find a great number of videos which will help me and even walk me through what I need to do for this project, this would also allow mt learn all about one part of the application in one go and will teach me tools I have never used before which I can practice from and learn from them so I can create new effects in the future and grow my skills from there.

Sources should include libraries, galleries, books, magazines, films, computer games, websites, blogs, social media, Youtube videos etc.

Project Action Plan and Timetable
Week	Date Week Beginning	Activity / What you are intending to do – including independent study	Resources / What you will need to do it – including access to workshops
1	03/02/20	Initial ideas researched, initial ideas and proposal done to a distinction standards, if not used the next week to bump up your grade.	WordPress. com google chrome available pintrest mind map maker
2	10/02/20	This week would be spend doing sketches, blockouts and the mood boards needed for the specific research and enough time to complete them to a distinction. if extra time is available continue on with the visual idea and tests.	paper and pencils, graphics tablet, Photoshop, Maya 2019, photo scanner, WordPress
HALF-TERM 17/02/20		COLLEGE WILL REMAIN OPEN, With this I am able to go into college for the full time, I can then use this time to work as hard as I can for the FMP, during this time I hope to fully complete my visual ideas and tests and move onto my development log.
3	24/02/20	With this week I should be wrapping up on my visual ideas and texts with the evaluations of east pieces and the overall outcome of the events that take place, once this is done start working on the modeling of each scene taking screen shots to edit and annotate fully explaining, how,why, where, as well as what I think I could do better once I have created the final model of the asset. peer review 1 with full annotations before submission and reflect this peer review on Thursday so I have enough time to get pieces done, I can then use this time on Friday to catch up with the work, therefore if there isn’t that much work to improve for a distinction standard then continue on with your normal workload. INTERIM DEADLINE 1 – CONTEXT & RESEARCH Task 1 & 2 – 28/02/20 – 4pm	Photoshop, Maya 2019, Microsoft Word, WordPress
4	02/03/20	This week would be completely spend with the development log of my projects , if you work on this all week by the end I am expected to see both scene started to be made after they differ, the before scene with the door and mostly completed, most assets unwrapped which is so they are ready to be unwrapped. development log updated quickly with cropped screen shots to improve the looks and detail in the images, as well as full annotations for each set of images.	Maya 2019, WordPress snipping tool
5	09/03/20	This week would be spend continuing on with my development log, This week I would also be positioning my assets so that my environment scenes are almost ready to be exported into a folder location that would be organised properly and exported the .FBX files ready for texturing. I can also use this week with what time is left to start texturing my assets so that they can look good in my scene.	Maya 2019, WordPress snipping tool
6	16/03/20	This week in my FMP I would be texturing and creating my textures in substance designer and painter for mt assets in my Maya, I would be applying these textures to my assets in Maya so I can see how they look, creating stingray PBS in hypershade and then applying the materials to see how they look in my scene. I would also be documenting this in my development log. I would have to get someone to fill out my second peer review form and have a day or two to focus on the work either not distinction standard or worse, if there is not that much of a work load to do then complete the work and continue on as normal. INTERIM DEADLINE 2 – PROBLEM SOLVING Task 3 – 20/03/20 – 4pm	Maya 2019, WordPress snipping tool, Substance designer, substance painter, Microsoft word
7	23/03/20	This week in my FMP I would be texturing and creating my textures in substance designer and painter for mt assets in my Maya, I would be applying these textures to my assets in Maya so I can see how they look, creating stingray PBS in hypershade and then applying the materials to see how they look in my scene. I would also be documenting this in my development log with full annotations	Maya 2019, WordPress snipping tool, Substance designer, substance painter
8	30/03/20	This week in my FMP I would be texturing and creating my textures in substance designer and painter for mt assets in my Maya, I would be applying these textures to my assets in Maya so I can see how they look, creating stingray PBS in hypershade and then applying the materials to see how they look in my scene. I would also be documenting this in my development log with full annotations.	Maya 2019, WordPress snipping tool, Substance designer, substance painter
EASTER BREAK 06/04/20		COLLEGE WILL REMAIN OPEN, while it is though only for the week days I hope to be in every day to work on textures and possibly with the time adding a few new assets into my scene to improve the detail and through that went into the project of course I would be keeping my development log up to date.
EASTER BREAK 13/04/20		COLLEGE WILL REMAIN OPEN, while it is though only for the week days I hope to be in every day to work on development log, visual ideas and tests, any pieces which have room for improvement, I will export all my Maya assets into unreal as I position them, I can then create the materials in a neat and organised folder structure and applying the materials to each object, using a little help I am going to create two particle effects, one of them is dust which i am fairly confident I can do by myself, creating the rain however would be a problem, overall that particle effect will depend on if I can get the outside to look water logged and wet.
9	20/04/20	This week we are back at college I would be working on my unreal engine piece getting the lighting to work rather well and improving where I can, checking over all pieces to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything as well as getting my third and final peer review on my blog with annotations.	Maya 2019, WordPress snipping tool, Substance designer, substance painter, unreal engine 4, google chrome
10	27/04/20	This week is used as a back up week just in case I have to fall behind cause I deleted some work or got a mix of files, if not this week will be spend doing the final evaluation. INTERIM DEADLINE 3 – PRACTICAL SKILLS & PRESENTATION Task 4 & 5 – 04/05/20 – 4pm PRODUCT COMPLETED	Maya 2019, WordPress, Microsoft Word, snipping tool, Substance designer, substance painter, unreal engine 4, google chrome
11	04/05/20	This week would be spend doing the final evaluation, with the final peer review done afterward my own work can come into play, creating new models and enhancing my skills before the end of the project so that I am able to learn as much as I can before I leave, such elements as animation in Maya as I had to miss that lesson, rigging and other events. Here I would also need to spend the time getting my renders complete as well as the fished product of the game so that I can set all of that up ready for the exhibition.	WordPress, Microsoft Word, snipping tool, unreal engine 4, google chrome, White paint, Rollers, brushes, paint tray, PC, Exhibition ready work, Nameplate, printer, Printing Card, Sticky fixers, Metal ruler, Scalpel blades and handle, Cutting mat, Spirit level, Steps, Exhibition plan.
12	11/05/20	last week to get stuff done, this week would be spend getting the exhibition stuff ready to be scene if it hasn’t already been ready.
13	18/05/20	FINAL DEADLINE  – EVALUATION – Task 6 – 22/05/20 – 4pm

I do indeed hope to stick to this plan as it spaces out everything I can do evenly with enough spare time to act upon and should help me manage my time well so that I can get a distinction in this project.