Final Year Project - Week Five: (27th February - 5th March)
- Ryan Harlee Jones
- Mar 6, 2017
- 10 min read
Final Year Project - Week Five: (27th February - 2nd March)
Monday:
The Monday session was like the week before, filled with information and feedback from various people and tutors. I spoke with both of the tutors in my morning session, and got their separate opinions on a few different parts of my project. The feedback I got was fairly varied, although in the end I feel as though it was all very helpful overall. My supervisor appreciated the direction I was taking, and the different things I was trying to achieve, she was very positive overall about the project and urged me to believe in what I was doing and keep at it.
The other supervisor also liked where I was heading, although stated a few technical issues which were obvious to him in the scene. He liked the complexity of the scene and how interesting it looked, and didn't want to lose that from the scene. The tutor believed it reminded him strongly of religious buildings such as churches or cloisters, mainly this was because of the scale at which the character was in comparison to the surrounding pieces. This tutor stated that one of the issues was that the overall scale of the environment was a problem currently, there was nothing that was human scale, therefore making the environment seem small in comparison to an outside viewer, although unbelievably large to the player view. Therefore he advised that I add in some steps at player height, or something similar to help recreate the perspective correctly.
Another point the tutor made was that I needed to think a bit more about the function of the environment, specifically in discussion, the stone that I had created. He found it hard to believe that the door made of thick slabs of stone would be able to function easily as a door because of what the weight of the object would be, the design of the door for what it was, also wouldn't make sense, considering how heavy the slab sections would be, along with how detailed certain chiselled in sections were.
I was advised to go gather reference from local buildings around Middlesbrough, specifically ones such as the Middlesbrough train station, so that I could have reference on how to place together certain sections of the building, and how these buildings were logically pieced together.
Fig 01. Middlesbrough Train Station (Jones, 2017)
Afterwards I also asked the opinion of another tutor that I had checked in with the week before to give him an update on my progress, this tutor mentioned reference again after I mentioned my prior discussions that day, as it was easy to see by the construction methods I was using that I was hindering myself without having enough reference to go on. This tutor mentioned that the layout of the environment viewed as quite flat, and would benefit from some interesting variation such as corridors, or even just dipping the floor down some steps at some sections. The tutor was pleased with the progress I had made on the sculpt, and only mentioned that the crack details on the door didn't work entirely because of how uniform each of them were.
After I had gone through all the pieces I had to show this tutor, he advised that I look into Substance Painter so that I could texture the sculpted asset, to then see how the end result of my pipeline will look, especially so that I can make sure that I can accomplish and understand the process of getting an asset from the start to end.
After all of this information, I took a few hours to just process and cherry pick the information which I found relevant, this being that even though all of these people are tutors, they can still be bias, or incorrect in the sense of it's what they would do, but maybe not myself. So I though about the advise I had been given, and sifted through what I believed would be worth the time to implement.
Later that night I decided to type up my blog entry as I do every Monday or Sunday, this took me longer than it usually does because of the time I had spent during the day asking tutors opinions and thinking about the response, although was accomplished eventually.
I also made sure to double check my Expotees information, I felt as though the title I had placed up originally wasn't up to scratch compared to others in the prior years brochure, and I tweaked the description to read more fluently and to the point.
Nearer the end of the day I spoke to my housemate that had come along to the labs with me, he studies a different pathway, although still has similar knowledge to what I do, and was even doing an environment for his FYP also. He mentioned why some of the architecture was probably pointed out as an issue prior, one of the things that stood out to him was the fact that I had doorways and arches that lead up to a point, and then hit the ceiling. He mentioned that the issue might possibly lie with how structurally integral that structure wouldn't have been, as pressure on the pointed section would possibly cause the structure to buckle under pressure.
Fig 02. Eye of Magnus (Bethesda Game Studios, 2011)
He also mentioned valuable reference points such as Skyrim's Eye of Magnus asset which was similar to the Artefact asset I wanted to involve in the environment, and that I could add certain symbolic details to the current asset I had to give it more interest and detail.
Tuesday:
On the Tuesday I had an upcoming deadline on the Monday, which was the projects progress review. We had to create a presentation for our supervisor and another tutor which we would get graded on, and it was just simply a project update and overview of where we had gotten to so far. I started the progress review by creating a presentation design, this way I could use the same slide background throughout the presentation for consistency. I used references such as how WoW: Legion display some of their assets, and the same with the Darksiders 2 assets, and through this created a fairly simpler but stylised background to display my work on.
Fig 03. Presentation Background (Jones, 2017)
After doing this I then decided that for the title page, for Expotees and for my portfolio, I could make use of a title or logo. I applied some of my prior Graphic Communication experience in Photoshop to create myself a fitting logo. I originally was unsure of what to create because of my lack of title, although because of the fact that the day before I had gone through my Expotees application and spent some time debating a proper title, I had something to go off to create a relevant logo.
Fig 04. Project Logo (Jones, 2017)
Wednesday:
The Wednesday was spent finalising my project progress review for the deadline. Because of the fact that the day before I had set out everything I needed for the layout, this meant the day was spent just typing up the relevant information in each slide, and making sure the placement of text and images were consistent between each slide.
Fig 05. Progress Review Slide (Jones, 2017)
I also made sure to go through my collection of art books to look for valuable reference, and spent an hour or so going through all of the books I deemed useful and then marking down valuable pages, to then scan each of the pages so that I had a library of references on the computer to make use of. The books that ended up being the most valuable references was the Elder Scrolls Online art book labelled "The Emperor's Guide to Tamriel" and the WoW: Legion art book labelled "The Art of World of Warcraft Legion."
Fig 06,07,08. Elder Scrolls Online Art Book Pages (Jones, 2017)
Thursday:
Thursday was an early start compared to the other days in the week. I got myself up earlier in the day so that I could go for a walk around Middlesbrough to gather some reference like the tutors has advised. I originally had the plan to walk to Middlesbrough train station for reference and then work from there, although when adventuring around the area I found that there were a rather large amount of buildings that were useful as reference which I hadn't took notice of. This ended up with me having a variety of images to choose between, although it meant the journey out into the town was useful.
When I had finished my journey and gotten back to the university labs, I then sorted out all of the references I had gathered and cherry picked the most useful or applicable ones I had gathered and placed them into a separate folder for quick access.
Fig 09,10,11. Middlesbrough Architecture Photos (Jones, 2017)
The rest of the day was spent watching tutorials on Substance Painter, and playing around with the application itself to get a feel for what I could accomplish in the program. I watched the whole #1 starters series on Allegorithmic's Youtube channel, so that I understood the basics of the menus and functions in the program that I needed to know about to make it work.
I then made use of this new knowledge to create a test texture on my sculpted door asset so that I could see what I could create in the program. The end result was fairly good, although considering how basic the end texture was, I feel as though combining the usual hand painted workflow of Photoshop with the layer application of Substance Painter, might be the best combination of the programs for me to achieve the desired texture style I want.
Fig 12. Substance Painter Practise (Jones, 2017)
Friday:
On the Friday I was aching to get working on my project again, but with the scene and the assets so that I could continue to advance. So what I did so that I could get to that stage was to export the Substance Painter texture I had created, and then apply it to the asset in the Unreal Engine. I did this so that I could make sure I could apply and import the textures correctly, and also so that I could get a screenshot of it all in engine for my Expotees application.
Fig 13. Boss Door Asset in UE4 (Jones, 2017)
I did my final changes to the Expotees application page by uploading my new screenshot, and the logo I had created, this way the page had a little bit of everything I had done, the 2D designs, the 3D assets, the scene iterations I had gotten through, and the sculpting and texturing attempts.
I also went back to my progress review before submission, since I had the presentation on the Monday, although the submission of the file itself was on the Friday. So i went through the marking criteria and made sure to double check each of the sections, I found that one particular section was fairly weak. This section was about updating the viewers on my progress in comparison to my original project plan, so I simply made an extra slide explaining the issues I was having, along with the resolutions. So basically the pros and cons of the current project plan compared to where I was currently at.
Before I dove back into creating more assets for my scene, I thought that with my reference it would benefit me to create a level layout of some sort so that I knew exactly how the scene was going to be built up. This worked in the sense of how many layers or floors the room would have. So through this I had planned to have the platform the building was placed on, the floor panel, stairs and then the first layer of walls which were entrances. From there upwards there was a connector or lip, and a second layer of walls which would consist of some windows or openings, then the ceiling panels after another connector or lip.
Fig 14. Vertical Level Layout Sheet (Jones, 2017)
After this was accomplished I then set up a new 3DS Max scene with appropriately named assets so that I could use this file as my new building station, the assets which were built prior were put to one side in case I could re-purpose any of them to save time, the floor panel was kept as that only needed minor changes to the geometry.
I used a mixture of existing assets and basic shapes created in 3DS Max to block out the new layout of the scene, I only created a few bits for the first floor so that I could see if the overall new shape of the room would work. I ended up creating some simple steps after working out the measurements to even numbers so that they could be scaled correctly. These were created quickly, although helped to fill out the scene a bit more.
Saturday:
Saturday I continued to sort out the layout of my new scene. While working on it the prior day I decided I needed another sheet like the one for the multiple floors I had created the day before, but for sideways so that I wouldn't overlook anything. This consisted of laying out where walls would be in comparison to the lower floors walls, and where pillars would be placed and link to the ceiling pillars. This sheet helped a great deal in helping me to envision the scene I was creating, and making me feel confident about how the room was built up.
Fig 15. Horizontal Level Layout Sheet (Jones, 2017)
Using this I then blocked out all the main structure pieces that I could in the scene such as pillars, ceiling panels, walls, windows etc. This made sure that the measurements were all even numbers and rounded the closest I could get them, these assets could all be used as measurement references for when the actual pieces were to be created, and all I needed to do was check the scale in comparison to the character in the Unreal Engine for building anything too complicated.
Fig 16. Level Layout Image (Jones, 2017)
I started to make use of a 2D door design that I had access too beforehand and decided that the design would work wonderfully as a window design, I felt as though re-purposing this particular work piece was worthwhile, and for what I had in mind would work nicely. I planned for this particular window to just be an opening with a rock pattern over the top like bars almost, so that a light source could come through and work like a spotlight in the dark tomb zone. I started making progress on this asset, although did not finish it on that night.
Sunday:
Sunday was another day which I decided to take off and to relax. Although I hadn't created too many new pieces for my scene, I felt the knowledge I had gained, and the planning I had set in place was going to pave the way for me to create what I needed more efficiently than before. So I spent some time indoors with my housemates, then going out with some course friends, preparing myself for the presentation on the Monday.
Overview:
As mentioned just before, I feel as though progress this week doesn't feel like a great deal, although in the end it will make a big difference to the quality of my project and my understanding of where I need to be heading to achieve what I want. I now understand how I need to go about creating individual assets, and what pieces of the environment I can't afford to overlook to make sure it works well. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of progress i can make in the coming weeks, and I feel as though the time remaining will be more than enough if I plan the use of my time efficiently.
-Ryan Harlee Jones
References:
Fig. 02
The Elder Scrolls Wiki (2017) The Eye Of Magnus. [PNG Image] Available at: http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/elderscrolls/images/8/84/The_Eye_of_Magnus_(2).png/revision/latest?cb=20120103104144 (Accessed: 06/03/2017)
Fig. 06,07,08
Zeni Max Media (2014) The Emperor's Guide to Tamriel. United States: Zenimax Online Studios.
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