HA13 Task 8 - Evaluation

Gain feedback by allowing gamers to explore or view your environment and write an evaluation of your project. Use your blog posts to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your design process. Try to establish whether or not your finished product has achieved the aim of the project. Take into consideration anything said by interested parties.
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Feedback


n/a

Strengths


I believe my main strengths is the creativity and ease with quick and quite thorough idea generation. I think these traits are very helpful when it comes to games, since the planning part is done quicker and the developers can quickly go and start the production phase. Alongside that I had more than enough of research to base my sketches on, which also helped a lot. With that I was able to sketch all these different ideas of locations as well as objects and decorations that may appear in the final design, but it needs to be remembered that it was just a concept art - doesn't all have to be at the end.

Another strength I think was working with creating low poly models. I think everyone who has some idea of modelling can create a high poly structure (maybe not extremely beautiful or high in detail, just high poly), but it becomes a challenge when number of polygons is very low. I think I done a good job with managing the polygons, since most of the models look good even as simplified as they are. Additionally I managed to keep to the proper scaling, by observing what number does the grid represent. 

Once I had the models done, I found it easy to merge them all together.

Weaknesses


My main big weakness was as usual making the plan for the project over ambitious, thinking that I can do it, but later on not spending enough extra time making it happen. I did manage to create the most of it, but I had to make all of them extremely low poly (which, sometimes it's good, but then the texturing is important, which I'm not good at, as well as normal/bump maps which I couldn't implement, except for pre-made presets in the Lightwave engine). I also had to forget about extra rooms or honey/stained glass walls or different types of doors or the violin player or many other objects.

Another weakness was not working to a brief. Instead of cutting one part if it was taking too long (mostly modelling part), I continued it, slowly adding more and more instead of being happy of what I've got and starting the next task, so I would have at least something in each. I think next time I need to do bare minimum for all and THEN continuing if I'll have extra time.

I'm not listing here things like good models or textures, because on those things I can easily improve and I kept them simple because they'll be easier to manage, etc. I could have done high poly objects but most of modern games don't do it because they occupy too much RAM memory space while playing. 

Aim Achieved?


Partially. In fact, the original idea was achieved; rooms from cardboard and the hollow tree with steps inside the trunk. The main theme which was normal furniture alongside DIY objects from tiny stuff was also fullfilled. What hasn't been achieved is the amount of additional furniture and décor objects due to lack of time. Also the texturing wasn't good, applying normal maps failed and I didn't want to make several versions of UV textures for items like rug, book or a pillow. 

I think I could have done a bit more if I would spend more time making it happen. Because we have one single day filled just with one lesson from morning to 4:30, I usually couldn't be bothered to work during the last hour, because I was tired.

As I mentioned somewhere above, I will try next time to finish all the tasks first, and then continue on some if I will have time and if I will feel like they need more attention.


HA13 Task 7 - Presentation

Publish your game environment prototype as an executable file that can be explored. Include screen shots of the completed game environment prototype on your blog. Include some captured footage and upload this to YouTube and publish it on your blog. Record the whole of your production process within your production log.

 OR

 Render your flythrough sequence as an uncompressed AVI file, upload this to YouTube and publish it on your blog. Record the whole of your production process within your production log.
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HA13 Task 6 - Prototype/Flythrough Build

Construct your environment within the 3D game engine, load in the relevant textures and experiment with the lighting and POV needed for the environment. Record the whole of your production process within your production log.

 OR

 Construct your environment within NewTek’s Layout, load in the relevant textures and experiment with the lighting and camerawork needed for the environment. Record the whole of your production process within your production log.
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I decided to create a level in the layout instead of Unity engine. That's the exterior I made by copying, pasting, rotating and moving the individual assets. I left other screens to show how it looks from these angles as well as show the stairs that have been put inside to be able to go from door to door.

The non-hollow tree parts were good for placing them as a boundary on the other side of the land. There is also a short tree just for visual purposes, it won't be a home.


Here's just a close-up to show the size of the doorways, and also the size of a 'character'. I haven't really measured the objects in relation to some existing 3D person, but I was measuring it in metres. The doorway is 2x3 metres big, the character doesn't have to be this exact size, and in real life doorways are usually bigger than an average person.


I placed copies of walls, floors and lollipop sticks that are the shingles and arranger them in the house that can be seen above. It has 2 rooms (no in room divisions, or at least not yet) and sort of a balcony that can be accessed via the ladder.


I finished the other room. This one is smaller and divided into two sections. I was struggling with rotating the sticks so instead I just threw some to seem like it's broken. Since the houses are supposed to be out of cardboard I think it fits, especially as the other room has a 'broken' part too.


That's how these houses look in comparison to the tree. The image next to it shows clearly all the stairs and rooms from different directions.


As I finished all the modelling, I began to place furniture into the building. I started from the balcony, using leafs as the resting long chairs (don't know the name for them). I also enlarged the bottle cap and minimized the cup (can't be seen clearly from there).


Another room is done, this one is supposed to be a living room.



And the next one. This is a dining room and a reading room as well.



There's another part of the house: bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom is the only place where I have put a walnut shell, so far at least. I also placed some furniture on the bigger steps inside the tree trunk.


I placed a massive jar outside of the building just to add a little more interest to that area.


At last I placed several lighting bugs around the place to indicate where I will place the lights. I also placed and changed surrounding lights and checked how they look when rendered. Instead of black shadows I chosen purple.

HA13 Task 5 - Environment Build


At first I made a 5 by 5 metres long square floor. Then I created a 5 by 4 metres tall wall. I was trying with enlarging it a little but then I realised it would overlap other walls if it wasn't positioned in a corner. The triangular floor piece was also made and I had to make one wall noticeably longer so it fits with it.


Next step I made four shapes - small circle, big circle, rhombus and door - which then I drilled out of wall copies in order to create windows or door frames. I deleted all of these shapes except for door. Two last wall copies I cut in a teeth-like manner to signify they are torn.


I saved the UV map of each wall piece as the Photoshop document.


I created an octagonal tube as a basic tree trunk and made 2 copies, each of them more twisted.


I then copied them and tilted to make them more interesting.


At last I quickly made some trunk and the tree top as well as a single box that hopefully will become a branch. I don't have any huge skills for making good looking trees so have to be content with what I got.


In the door figure I cut out the semi circle and added a handle. I was trying to add beveled in two sections on each side but couldn't due to some issues with the programme.


I created a chair out of 3 simple boxed. One of them I copied 3 more times for legs.


I put UV textures onto the walls and floors. Since they didn't appear all the same size on UV maps despite being the same size, I haven't put the tape bits in case they don't match.


I also attempted to place a planar map with normal map on the trees, but for some reason in certain places the texture didn't look correctly and I couldn't fix it. Also the insides of the other tree parts refused to use the UV texture of the insides like tree base has. The leaves for the branches couldn't be alpha channel so they have these weird white borders.


I placed an uv texture on the only piece of furniture I made so far...


I have created a leaf for a hammock or maybe just bed. It doesn't look much like a real leaf but it's close enough.


I created UV maps for tree bark all except branches because they were very hart to texture. I tried to apply normal maps but they seem to not work at all. I tried to make the keaves transparent and creat a polygon that looks like the shape of the branch but it crashed the software when I tried to make less points.


Quickly I textured it, the leaf was easy to place textures on.


I have created few other things keeping in mind the proportions of the other objects. I'm keeping in mind the style I'm going for, which is to mix normal furniture and made up 'furniture'.


I have created a cup and a separate plate for it. I made it way bigger than the other elements because I'm thinking of making it a bathtub, plus it can be easily resized.


For it I made a flat polygon with a water surface applied. I subpatched the cup to see how it will look but I undid it since everything else would be chunky.


That's the texture for my table.


I have created and surfaced 3 more objects: spool with thread, pillow and a cotton bud. I couldn't find a fluffy enough texture for a cotton but but that will do. I also surfaced the bottle cap.


I have made a hollow versions by simply making a copy that's only 75 percent the size of the original and using solid drill though. Only one part has door hole because I was struggling with polygons while trying to do that with other parts. I have made 2 steps as well so the player may walk on them.



I found a reference for the low poly tree crown and I made my own texturing it with ivy photo. It doesn't look brilliant but I didn't know any better way to make it and the previous didn't work.


I added more furniture to my collection: sofa, rug, book and a bowl.


Since I'll make an environment in the Layout, I have created a simple ground. I used preset texture to give it a sand effect when rendered. I left the wireshade of tree parts visible just to show the scale.


That's the textures door, rope ladder and the plank for roof that I have created. They aren't the furniture but rather the part of construction assets. The ladder has these edges to hold the pieces together while moving. I wasn't able to union them automatically.


I created a glass jar and a mirror. I decided to show them inside a layout because that's where we can see the pre-made textures being used on them. 


These are all furniture elements I am going to use. It's about 20 of them, more or less. Some of them, especially the walnut bed were hard to texture.

*for the walnut shell I used this free photo:
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-background-texture-walnut-shells-image30312824


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