Here is the embedded document.

UPDATE 1 - 14/10/24

I made a simple model sheet on MS Paint to guide the modelling process.

As I'm taking influence from Nintendo 64 models, particularly Super Mario 64, I wanted to break down the otherwise complex hair shape into simpler geometric shapes fit for a lower poly model.

I took this model sheet into Blender, my preferred 3D modelling software for this kind of endeavor. I only got to outline the head this time, using single verts with a mirror modifier. 

UPDATE 2 - 18/10/24

I continued the model from last time. This time, I was able to block out the head and get started on outlining the hair's shape.

UPDATE 3 - 21/10/24

I continued the model from last time. A lot of progress was done on the hair. 

I didn't get to finish the head entirely this time, but I got very close. I got to a support where I could disable symmetry on the head to get some of the finer details.

UPDATE 4 - 22/10/24

I continued the model from last time. I disabled symmetry as the base shape of the hair was done and I got started with finer details like the unkept strands of hair or the hair obstructing the side of their face.

Finally, I completed the head for the model.

Immediately, I got started on the rest of the body, managing to get a somewhat substantial amount of progress done on the torso.

UPDATE 5 - 23/10/24

I continued the model from last time. I continued working on the body, making quick progress.

UPDATE 5 - 24/10/24

I continued the model from last time. I finished the arms and in extension, the whole torso.

Of course, I immediately began work on the legs.

And finally, I managed to finish the base model for the protagonist. I ended up lengthening the arms a whole bunch later on and messing with the head and arms position, but this is pretty much final.

UPDATE 6 - 28/10/24

With a burst of motivation, I quickly textured the player model and rigged it in one day. Not too many progress shots this time since I was super focused and barely stopped to think to record it. This one tutorial video I used a few years while modelling another character was super helpful, was a quick and easy refresher on how rigging works. Texturing was fairly easy to figure out again on my own, though.

I'm very happy with how it turned out. Here are some example poses I threw together using the rig.

Of course, I had to hook the rig up to Mixamo and make it do the gangnam style.

UPDATE 1 - 10/10/24

Kayleigh was tasked to write the finalized dialogue for the intro story panels, using the storyboard I made earlier as a guideline.

Here is the embedded Google Doc.

UPDATE 1 - 7/10/24

Caine's first attempt at drafting a level for the game using Unreal Engine.

This project eventually ended up corrupting, unfortunately.

UPDATE 2 - 14/10/24

Though still facing troubles regarding Unreal and his projects corrupting, He continued working, getting a working isometric camera system in one of the projects.

UPDATE 3 - 24/10/24

Caine recreated an earlier level design after its project had corrupted.

UPDATE 4 - 08/11/24

Caine whipped up a quick project, getting flashlight functionality and the player model I made. We didn't manage to animate it or anything, but here it is.

UPDATE 1 - 14/10/24

Emma started work on a torch model. Since the game is low poly, she wanted to go for a style more akin to an old Playstation title, keeping the design simple.

Though originally more handheld, she decided to take it in different direction, changing it a wall mounted torch.

In the end, she was dissatisfied with the way the hoops anchoring the torch to the wall looked, and decided to take it in a slightly different direction, a sharper and more cubical design, as well as changing the bottom hoop into more of something that the torch rests on.

UPDATE 2 - 24/10/24

Having finished with the torch, she got started on a decorative minecart model.

Initially starting with this, she scrapped it in favour of a more intricate design.

UPDATE 3 - 1/11/24

Having finished with the minecart, she got started on a decorative pickaxe model.

Though she finished the model, she wasn't able to texture it as she couldn't get it to work right.

She immediately began work on minecart rail tile assets.

In this evaluation, I will be assessing our Unit 9 group project and my contributions to it. I will be primarily assessing my own contributions and how I worked with my fellow team members, and I will generally go over the project, what our aims were and if we met them, issues we ran into along the way, as well as what I’d do differently next time.

For this unit, we were assigned to concept and create approximately 3 to 10 minutes of a vertical slice of a game themed around “Escape”, featuring 3D elements. We were told to get into groups of no larger than 4. My team consisted of me (Joshua Ramos Fernandes), Caine Saunders, Kayleigh Steeples, and Emma Adamson. I was given the roles of Artist, Concept Artist, 3D Character Artist, and Programmer, a role which I shared with Caine. Along with simply concepting a game, we had to create a detailed game bible/GDD (Game Design Document), covering each individual aspect of the game such as an overview, gameplay, level design, characters, etc.

The concept we came to was a game called Pitfall. As a brief overview, Pitfall is a 3D dungeon-crawler style puzzle game with influence from games such as The Binding of Isaac. In this game, you would take control of a nameless, blank slate character, a teenager who was dared by their reckless clique into exploring an abandoned mineshaft, before the bridge collapses, causing them, the protagonist, to fall deep into the mine, leaving their friends shocked. The player’s objective is to escape from this mineshaft, as the theme of the game suggests. You would have to solve a diverse selection of puzzles and traverse through the mine, meeting different enemies and challenges along the way. As the player goes on, however, they realise the mine doesn’t seem to be stopping, and that the more natural landscape around them, along with the already established man made architecture, is becoming more and more complex the deeper they traverse, until they find themselves in what resembles more of a subterranean temple rather than a mineshaft, getting tangled in something far bigger.

We aimed to create around 3 minutes of gameplay, including an extended intro sequence detailing the backstory of the game and introducing the main character and their friends in the form of storybook style panels and RPG style dialogue. The game took on a simple low-poly style, akin to old Nintendo 64 titles such as Super Mario 64, with the occasional pixel art element, such as the story panels and UI elements, appealing to nostalgia as well as those with a partiality for more stylized artwork in video games, all the while making production simpler by loosely following the limitations of old hardware. The puzzles we had conceptualised for the beginning area were simple and took inspiration from a plethora of other games and media, games like Temple Run and general endless runner titles, to games like UNDERTALE. The game was to be developed in Unreal Engine by me and Caine.

Starting off, we immediately ran into issues. Having forgotten to properly read the brief, we had assumed the project was simpler than it was, and had also not known that the game had to feature 3D elements. We had initially conceptualised this game as 2D, featuring a solely pixel art style. It wasn’t until the end of the first week when I had read the brief, realising the nature of the assignment thankfully sooner rather than later, and was able to redirect the course of the project before we ran into further issues. Though we started off bumpy, we did end the first week with a solid idea of what we wanted to do for the project, and thanks to the nature of the concept, we were not just able to translate it into 3D, but working in a 3D environment would make production easier. We had gotten a significant amount of set up done this first week, with a solid game concept, some research, as well as character design. Unfortunately, this issue was only one of many.

Throughout the weeks, we had faced many issues and ended up being substantially behind. In fact, the entire class as a whole was said to be behind other classes doing the same unit, for what I can only assume to be for the same issues we ran into. It had taken us a while to really get started and move on to further stages of pre-production. We often had trouble understanding certain tasks, such as one relating to workflows. Misinterpretation like that ended up being a sort of theme, as well. At some point, everyone but me and Caine were on such different pages, I had to piece together the latest information about the concept into a master document, which I had treated as a sort of prototype for the GDD and a way to guide it, just so everyone could get caught up. In hindsight, this could have likely gone towards the proper GDD, which hadn’t even been started yet, surprisingly so considering how many weeks into the unit we were at the time. When we had gotten down to it, I believe we worked well together, teamwork was no problem when we really set our minds to it. However, communication was sort of lacking in some areas. For example, we had attempted an after college group call meeting. Only me and Kayleigh showed up for the 4 hours it lasted, Emma had showed up for 10 minutes before leaving and Caine wasn’t able to make it due to his own personal issues which will be addressed later. Though notes were left in our group chat regarding things me and Kayleigh discussed, this sort of group meeting wasn’t attempted again, likely due to the lack of participants the first time. When we began on our GDD, admittedly, not enough work was done there. I ended up writing a lot of sections as they ended up empty even as we were approaching a presentation day. Even in the end, I feel the GDD ended up not quite hitting the mark, with a lot of empty sections and odd section assignment choices. The rough state of communication definitely ended up affecting the GDD negatively the most.

Though our pre-production was rocky, what we ended up with showed promise. We had created a Trello board to keep track of priorities and tasks completed and yet to be done, and we had a gantt chart set up to organise when these tasks should be started and completed. My contributions with the gantt chart are something I’m still proud of, considering how I’ve never been very good with organisation. Though minor, I ended up organising a fairly solid production flow plan, when people would begin with certain tasks and how they’d lead into each other, mostly involving me and Caine. Sadly, due to complications, these plans never ended up executed, and we had to settle for working disorganised. At some point, Kayleigh was appointed the scrum master, and those meetings and debriefs did end up helping for the little time they were in place.

By the time we had properly moved into production, the assignment date was closing in rapidly, and our mistakes as well as other issues outside of our control were beginning to weigh on us. There was a lack of motivation amongst team members brought about by the pressure which certainly didn’t help with our already tough position. Though personal circumstances were a constant issue throughout all stages of development, they really started to show up during the little time we had of production. For example, throughout the few weeks, Caine had no access to a computer at home. It was broken, meaning he was limited to working on college computers. It wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but he often had troubles regarding transport, at some point became sick, and we had one week off mid production, meaning there was a large period of time in which Caine was completely unable to work on the project as a whole. This heavily impacted production, as he took on the important role of level designer and shared the position of programmer with me. It helped even less that often, his project files would be inexplicably corrupted, meaning he had to start anew many times in the little time he did get to work on the project. At the beginning of the project, Kayleigh had a similar issue, where her laptop had been broken for months and she was unable to work at home because of it, but that had affected the project significantly less. For what they were, I’m proud of my contributions during production. Having modelled, textured, and rigged a 3D character model has definitely given me a better understanding of working in 3D and was generally very enjoyable. Unfortunately, little to nothing was added to the GDD the entire duration of production. I was told to back away from the GDD as my team members believed I had written too many of the sections at that point, and so I did. Caine was also unable to make any changes to it as well, due to his personal circumstances. During our last days, me and Caine managed to get together during class to piece together a very barebones demonstration of what the game could look like, but it was very basic and didn’t so much as have character animations, something I unfortunately didn’t get to do.

In conclusion, though we had a promising concept, and though at times things seemed to be manageable, our initial error ended up snowballing into much bigger issues as we continued, which, along with personal circumstances, ended up weighing us down a lot during the full course of this unit. Very little of our initial goals were met because of these issues, and we ended up with a very barebones final product not quite fitting what we had in mind. This extends to our GDD, which has a few missing sections and parts that we didn’t get to cover, although for the majority, the gameplay sections are fairly detailed, and we mostly just faltered in the research and marketing related sections. If I were to do this again, I’d make a bigger effort to stay on top of our current tasks, read up on the brief from the start to get a better understanding of what we’re doing without having to face any small issues that might lead to larger problems and generally allowing us to get a better head start. I’d preferably work in a slightly smaller team to better avoid issues regarding distributing work, communication, and keeping a steady vision. Finally, I’d personally want to put more effort into leading the team forward and keeping things moving and in control. Though rocky, this project did allow me to further my skills in organisation, something which I’ve struggled a lot with in the past, and though the work done in that area was minor and ended up failing to circumstance, in a better situation, it could be explored much further and could make me a much better lead in the future, even if I wasn’t technically the lead here. One other skill I’m happy that I got to explore and further in this project was 3D modelling. This project allowed me to take on the difficult endeavour of modelling, texturing, and rigging a full, stylized, low-poly human character. Though I’ve taken on similar tasks years ago, it’s not a skill I get to explore very often, and I’m glad this project allowed me to work on it and sharpen this ability.