Masters Project - Week 03 / 11th - 17th July.

Week Hour Breakdown:

Wednesday - July 11th - Six Hours - Camera asset modelling / milestone planning.

Thursday - July 12th - NA

Friday - July 13th - NA

Saturday - July 14th - One Hour & Fifteen Minutes - Camera asset smaller detail modelling.

Sunday - July 15th - Six Hours & Eleven Minutes - Camera asset body and frame unwrapping / chamfer. Editing armour panel details.

Monday - July 16th - Five Hours & Fifty Minutes - Camera asset remaining pieces unwrapping / chamfer.

Tuesday - July 17th - Five Hours & Thirty Four Minutes - Camera asset baking down detail.

Total time spent this week - 24 Hours and 50 Minutes.

Overview: This weeks entry was exclusively based on myself creating the camera asset. The amount of time spent on this asset was much longer than I wanted it to be, although considering this was the first fully fledged asset to be created for the scene that was not just a block out, I hope that I go through the process much quicker and more efficiently over the next few weeks. At the start of the week I believed the camera to be a key asset in the scene that needed the level of detail I was applying. Although, coming to the end of the week, I find that the way the scene is setup and where I plan to use the asset has changed, and I have found that too much time has been wasted in one space. This week although, has helped me to understand the approach I want to take with the rest of the assets in the scene.

Wednesday / July 11th : The first day of this week was spent getting reacquainted with the project I was working on. I had exclusively worked on the other module for almost a month to get it ready for the submission date. I started by going over my Hack'N'Plan board to create a new set of tasks and checklists for my change of project direction. After making sure I understood what kind of tasks I needed to accomplish, I continued to work on the Camera asset, making sure to nail all the major form portions I wanted to apply.

Saturday / July 14th : The prior two days were spent finishing up the report to be submitted for my other module. Today was the hand-in day and I used most of the day to finish off the majority of the document polish before submitting. This left me with most of the day to take some time off after an intense few weeks of work, although I did spend a short amount of time adding smaller detail to the Camera asset, mainly floaters for screws or seperators, although in reflection I probably went a bit too far with using floaters to bake in detail that could have been applied in an easier manner. This was my first attempt properly using floaters that were not just three small screws, and considering the amount of time it took to do, compared to the result, In future I should be more particular about when to place floaters all around a model.

Sunday / July 15th :

The Sunday was spent unwrapping and chamfering most of the major form portions of the asset such as the main body, and frame portions. Considering that I thought this asset was going to be a centre of attention, I spent a fair bit of time adding chamfers and fixing up the mesh in doing so at the back as well as the front of the asset. The armour panels on the asset which I planned to house most of the small details such as buttons and wires were worked upon. I went round making sure to add enough variations to the panels, with the same three assets just mixed around and resized.

Monday / July 16th :

After the prior day adding details, once I was happy with the placement I went around the details unwrapping one and duplicating it to replace to save time, along with making sure to add one or two smaller chamfers in the areas that would be facing the camera side if the asset was to be viewed.

Tuesday / July 17th :

The process of making sure the baking technique was efficient was a learning curve for me on this day. I understood what things could cause issues when using floaters and baking, but I had decided to do what I could in anticipation and then see what would occur once it got to this stage, this was considering I hadn't had much experience with this approach. So instead of making the high poly turbosmoothed with edge loops, I attempted to bake the floater detail to make sure it worked before advancing. Most of the hand placed screws were so small, and the packed UV's even when placed individually were still not large enough, that a lot of the detail I had spent time placing wasn't even coming through very well. Some of the well sized vents came through well, while most of the screw detail on the back portion of the model didn't. I spent time boosting the size of the portions which had baked detail on them, and replacing them to see if the bake would pick them up better, but only managed to make small quality changes. By this point though, I had realised with the way I had planned to place the cameras, and also with the knowledge of their in scene size against a UE4 character scale model, that most of the detail that was failing to come through would probably never be seen with the way I planned to display the scene. This wasn't a total waste of time, as I now understood what kind of things to look out for when wanting to efficiently bake details, and I had also realised the order in which I chamfered and unwrapped things could also be more efficient. Although this asset took far too long, it has better set requirements for different assets in my mind, and made sure I'm thinking about different perimeters to avoid wasting more time.

Week Conclusion:

As mentioned prior, this week did not exclusively need to be focused on one asset. But through fault of my own, I wasted time due to getting wrapped up in the excitement of new techniques, and also not thinking of time efficiency and scene perimeters. The bonus as mentioned, is through playing around, and going too far with certain techniques, it has better helped me to understand when it's feasible to make use of different approaches, and to remind myself not to get carried away with creating an asset with no context. Adding smaller, and smaller details on the camera asset would have been fine if it was large, or being viewed as a singular prop item. But in the context of my scene, there was no need for the amount of time I spent on it. Hopefully with this in mind, my next week of work can focus on bringing this asset through as quickly as I can, to texture it ready to be displayed as an example on the viva presentation. That and so I can solidify a very empty blockout at this point with some of the ideas I have scribbled down on paper.

-RyanHarleeJones