Kirby and West Post-mortem

Good points

The team felt we had a strong initial concept, good organisation and very open communication (most of the time). Leadership was good and helped by unanimous group enthusiasm. Because of this things went quickly: problems were voiced and resolved quickly, everybody got better at 3D (both texturing and modelling) and every one got good experience with the engine.

Bad Points

In terms of the team we suffered a missing team member and had a communication blip right at the end that though solved maturely did result in repetition of some work and a bit of wasted time and energy.

With the project itself the central room proved difficult to block out and get proportions right and we all felt we could have benefited from a clearer idea of project brief, particularly in the early stages when we found we were going much deeper into game play issues (for instance) than we needed to.

Things we’d do differently

Next time round we would knock out more concepting faster to really stoke through the initial buildup.

Not having a professional infrastructure with builds and so on meant that possession of the level was a scarce resource, particularly in the early stages when making pretty important big design decisions. We would have to work out some way of ensuring the core of the level was available for everyone.

In hindsight we probably should have had only one tech lead and expected them to be around more. We should have given out the assets differently, ie more coherently, such as having one person do all the pillars.

The computers in the lab weren't up to the job so it would have been good to have had the space to work together more, this would also have moulded the team more and energised the non-leads to get more work done.

From a design point of view it probably would have been more interesting to have done the back corridors rather than the main hall of the building. The project certainly developed our understanding of what buildings are.

What we learned

We learnt that communication is key. Working together better - more often, more effectively, more efficiently - is so important in a group and we should all be actively working harder to be better group members. We learnt delegation skills, problem solving and time management.

From the project we will take away a better understanding of the creative potential of engines, it's a creative tool too. And we have all developed our abilities in and understanding of generating ideas and artistic judgement.

Final Assessment of group project

Each group to put a folder on K drive labeled for their team. The level will go here. Then each team member has a subfolder below that for their personal work.

1.A walk-and-talk through of the finished level in Unreal, highlighting:

A) The development from initial concept to final environment (how well the finished product replicates the initial concepts)

B) Any alternative ideas tried and rejected

C) Highlighting any special features

2. A bullet-list post-mortem, based on discussion with the team:

A) what went right

B) what went wrong

C) what we’d do differently

D) Lessons to take forward

for an example see:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3606/postmortem_saber_interactives_.php

but there’s no need to write a huge essay, just summarize the key points

3. Each team member to produce a visual presentation of their own assets in sub-folder below group folder

A) conforming to industry-standard presentation style

B) JPGs viewable in Windows Pictures and Fax viewer are sufficient – no need for powerpoint

C) All assets should show clearly wireframe, rendered and textured view, with box outs for texture sheets and any special features you want to highlight

4.Each team member to place their max files in a their personal sub-folder

A) Use a logical file structure so that we can find things without effort

B) Include all necessary files, textures, etc

We will also have a verbal debriefing based around the post-mortem where we shall extract essential lessons that need to be taken forward to third year work.



We will meet on Monday Morning at 11ish for the last time as a team and do the "team post-mortem". I will type it up while we speak.

Almost there screenies

Megan and I worked on the lighting yesterday, she did the walkway lighting and I did parts of the ground floor lighting and bathroom. I upped the general ambient lighting, I know we want it to be dark but I felt it was just too dark and a lot of our hard work was unseeable. I can always darken it back up again if people think its too light.

I have given an extension to a few people as they were unable to get assets to me on time and I will place said assets in next week. Can we all be in on Tuesday? See's you soon.

decided to do a few assets in amongst my breaks from drawing. i made a wheelchair and an iv stand as well as all my personal assets and a remake of my tv.

heres the wheel chair. :D

Crunch time: the rules

• Work smarter not harder.
• I need to know what everyone is doing - to avoid duplication of effort.
• Be in the lab whenever possible - it is open 8 till 9.
• Discuss! Communicate! Be available. Be accessible. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

• Assets need to be in for 10 o'clock Friday morning.
• Friday day will be spent finalising things in the level and we will not be working on it past then.
  
• After Friday: relax. Catch up on 2D. But no more level.

Everything looks so good. We've all worked so hard. We're so close and we all share the same goal - wanting a good result. We can do this.

Horse : Again

I have returned

Greetings all!

I have returned from my holiday (which was amazing!) and am now raring and ready to go with the last leg of our project.

I have read through all blog posts and am aware of the problems that occurred while I was away. I am also aware that these problems have been sorted out so will mention them no more except to say well done on bringing things to a mature conclusion - this team work element is what we learn just as much as modelling etc.

I am looking forward to seeing people in the lab, 9 o'clock on Monday morning, am unsure what the tutors have planned for us next week but we'll do our own stuff anyway.

I'll be working on dirtying up my horse today and will have all my outstanding UPKs ready for Monday.

See you soon!

*slaps head*

I did that whole blog without changing the lightmap res of the floor.........zomg.......

Our floor in this blockout was one brush, so its got a lightmap res of 4.0 on it now. I don't know what the new floor is like, but it will most likely need a 4.0 over most of it to get nice crisp shadows.........

.....silly Megan...

Lighting, and a bit of asset placement...

Here is some screenys of how I've set up the lighting. It also shows how I've arranged some of the assets. I think my monitor might brighten things up a bit, so if it looks odd I will change it slightly in the labs tomorrow.

There was a lightmap resolution of 4.0 everywhere when i received the blockout. So i reset everything to 32.0 which is essentially a blank canvas. I have picked select areas to bump it to 4.0 where it will make the most of the lighting.

Here is one of the little nooks, and the lighting I have used. I deleted the door I didn't think it was necessary, but if people want to keep it thats cool, it doesn't make much difference. I used pointlights to replicate ambient lighting as unreals ambient lights make things look flat, especially when there is allot of different things going on in one room. Having two pointlights helps the lighting travel more smoothly over the harsher angles on the walls.

This is how it looks when built, I'm fairly happy with it, but i still think its a bit empty. Maybe I should have left the door in, or if we could put some other stuff on the walls it might look nicer. I know Ash has done more decals and things which might help.


All the nooks have pretty much the same lighting in them, These screenys show difference in changing those select faces from 32.0 to 4.0. The lighting is more crisp and clear, and looks a whole lot nicer, it doesn't make much difference to areas not being drastically effect by directional lights. It all depends on what kind of lighting you have really. Bumping the lightmap res to much isn't such a good idea though.


Heres the chess set up, I think once we put the radiators in it will look a whole lot more complete. Sophia has made some board games that we can add to any bare looking spots in the nooks, and I'm sure someone mentioned scrabble at some point?


These are the food dispenser things Sophia made, there is an ambient light there, but I'm not sure it needs any directional lights, it looks nice just with the emmisive maps i think. She also made little number plaques, I wasn't too sure where she intended them to be placed, so I think we should wait for her say first. Or just place them and jig them later. I had subtracted the holes, but I brought all the assets back into the very first blockout Ash sent me, so the holes aren't cut in here, there are a few plates, bowls and cups in the spaces. after taking these screenys I think that maybe the pointlights are too bright, so I've changed em for the next few.

I thought it would be cool to out these directional light above our beds, Ash had already put some beds in, but I added more so there was 8 one for each of us, and updated it to Tomo's new uv'd and textured version.


I didn't get anyone else's personal assets sent to me, but i put my own ones in all textured. There are some slippers round th other side :) Once we have added in some decals to dirty the beds up a bit it will give em a bit more character, and get the rest of the personal assets in.

Dining tables and chairs, I moved them slightly as they were not flush with the floor, and placed some plates etc around and on them. Haven't got the cutlery yet, but I know Soph has done it. I used a slightly brighter pointlight in this area, so it was clear what was going on, I don't think any directional is necessary. Theres a lil scale dude there too! Also I think you can see in the back gound the doors have glass in!(All the doors not just these ones) its not got the texture applied yet, I only placed them again a little while ago. I got Tomo to set up the upk again with the pivots in the correct places, so now they all fit nicely, yay!


This is the area just outside the toilets where the showers were planned to go. I've got the upk, but wasn't sure exactly how Kian had intended them to be placed, so he can place them exactly as he desired in the lab tomorrow. I was also unsure about which kinds of light to use here, I thought maybe we could bring the lights from the toilet area out into this bit, and put them on the lower ceiling space. I think maybe Tom can create a subtle emmisive map to use with the lights he has made. What do people think of this idea?
I have placed a few assets here, the clothes hooks, and the racks with some folded towels on. Soph has done shampoo bottles n such, but i haven't received the upk yet.

Theres a few other nooks n cranys in the downstairs area, but thats as much detail as i want to go into atm. While writing this blog I was tweaking th lighting as I went, so its actually a fair bit different to when I first started ;P

So, the walkway. The lighting still needs allot of work up here, I can't be sure exactly of all the little spotlights until the horses are all in. And due to an unfortunate incident and me being a Zbrush novice i will have to do it again *sigh*. But I'm sure it will be much better second time anyway, and it didn't take too long. I plan on doing it on Saturday.

Once the banners are done we can work on lighting them up with spotlights too. I hope this is the way the lights were imagined, this is the impression I got from what Tom talked about. But if we want them changed thats fine.

The blackout ceiling is the result of tweaking the falloff of relevant lights, so I haven't used a height fog at all.I learnt all this lighting stuff pretty quick, so thanks to Jesus and Carter for helping me out if I had any questions. Also, nothing is final because its only my input so far, Its important to get the opinions of all the the group, lighting is something that needs to be spot on. So I'd like it if everyone could give opinions when we meet up on Monday at whatever time, Sophia can decide.

oh and I haven't done any lighting in the toilet area, atm its just bluish lights I think, but i think Ash has done something, I remember him saying earlier. We will sort it all in the morning anyways.

thought id upload a few images of some of the stuff ive been doing over the past few days

this is an attempt at dirty decals to try to seperate the clean upper levels and the dirty lower levels. ive done quite a few different decals to spread around the place.

i managed to get displacment to work quite wonderfully. it gives a good impression of extruded brick. although ive done some research and found that displacment can be quite processor heavy and almost certian that it would olny be implimented in high spec games for pc and not the console. but its well worth it in small amounts.finnished a speed model of some stairs and a ticket booth. just thought id make some larger assets to fill spaces one evening. also the strip lights. although they follow the art style im not to sure i like them so ill probebly retexture then a little differently.

ive also de-cubed the level about 95% just gotta do one corner and finish up neatening textures and my upks. i managed to find out how to do cube maps but they suck at the moment. ill have to do a little more research on them. also i forgot to say i finished the aircon thing. will get on with the rest of the stuff ive got to do now :D

Beds

The bed's done!...finally (sorry for the delay)







I may do more itterations after I've done everything else, but for now I think this bed will "tile" nicely across the room.

The Epic Confuzzlement...

I have wrote up a sincere explanation of what has happened on My Blog if anyone wants to read it. If you don't then just be aware that everything seems to be fine now, and come up to the labs tomorrow if you want any to make any input to the level.

I'm still holding onto the fact that in 18 days we will all be stress free :p

Read me...

I've spent a ridiculous amount of time sorting out the level with lighting and arranging the prefabs. I also made the decision today to rebuild the level with unrealed primitives using ash's blockout as a template. There was talk of rebuilding before at some point, and it was very necessary, so I just went ahead and did it.

It's important that you send me all you upks before the weekend, I would like to have some time to spend on my 2D work, and If I'm lucky have some time off.

I'm not in the best mood when writing this. Mainly because I feel like the days and days off effort are going to be shrugged off by whoever's grading us, If I thought we were going to be graded fairly, I might be feeling a bit satisfied now... but I'm not.

textured security light

I retextured this to suit the art style.

Give me stuff!!!!

Here is a list of stuff I'm waiting for from people. I haven't received stuff put in sharing folders so an email might be better.

I want as much of this as possible by the weekend please! We want our level as complete as it can get for Tuesday.

TOM! don't worry about changing the plates, they look fine in the level, the other stuff is more important.

If anyone wants to meet up on Monday sometime to check things over thats cool, I would like more opinions on how its going, and any last minute changes that can be made.

If anyone has finished all of there assets and wants more to do. The main thing we need is decals, especially for the walkway area.

Also I'd like some things to put on the walls, like posters, newspaper clippings, photos or whatever else you can think of.

If Anything I've put in the list is bizarrely new to you, then ask me about it, leave a comment or talk on msn or something.

Hope everyone is getting on ok! only 19 days left till summative now, then we can all chillax.

Showers

Kian, I wondered if you could make the showers one solid mesh kinda thing? like putting a drain and tiles and things all together. It will be easier to place , and I think it will just look more consistent. We can line up like four in a row.
You can use the bits you've already created as they are fine. If you don't think its a good idea, just tell me and I'll import what you already gave me. Thanky!

Textured Walkway...

Bench Piece

Door Piece

Perfectly Average Piece

UV LayoutDiffuse (2048x2048)Normal(2048x2048)Specular(512x512)

I haven't posted in a few days as I've been too busy working!

The walkway texture is complete for now. I'm still willing to change it if we decide its necessary.

The walkway area in our style isn't weather worn or rusty, It was quite hard to make it look nice without slapping a tiling rust texture onto it. I've given it some scratches and dirt, enough to fit with our initial idea.

We will have to do some decals to go on the glass brick floor of the walkway, as that is looking a bit too clean atm.

This is an unlit view, I will post again when I have lit it properly.

I have moved the walls in the level slightly,as there was the slightest bit of intersecting that wasn't worth creating a new walkway mesh for. I have also moved little bits of walkway that lead up to the doors on the side, and I've moved those doors too (only a little bit).

Everything fits snuggly together now.

showers

I spent far too long trying to make stuff operational only to not gain success :\
sorry for the delay.

Chess and Checkers...

Mini-Carousel

Sribbly scrawl...

Chalky doodles to sprinkle about the floor.

Bathroom screenys...

Here is how the bathroom is going, I will post up the lounge are later.

List of Bathroom related things:

Alpha feathering - to do with a setting in unreal, the alphas don't look to hot atm.
Showers - need to be finished asap, i have seen no sign of them!
Compile stray upks - Anything thats completed that hasn't yet been put in
Complete remaining assets - Broken Tiles, Extractor, Overflow planes ( the most important ones)
Lighting - Check out the lighting to make sure its dandy
Final check - check it all fits the style guide and everything is to scale, and we like how it looks.

Then the bathroom will be all done! :D

Post up any info regarding the above^