Introduction
What will I cover?
In this evaluation, I will go over all of the work that I have produced throughout this project. I will be analysing all of my work by breaking it down into its own sections such as the proposal, the planning, the research, the production and the final product. I will go over problems that I encountered along the way and explain how I overcame them as well as explaining how I will stop this from occurring in later projects.
What was the project?
The project was made up of five members in my course as we all joined in together to make a functional multiplayer shooter game. The game would consist of two game modes which were a team deathmatch and a free-for-all all mode and the idea of them was to get the most points in a round to win the game which were acquired by killing other people.
My role for this project was being the 3D artist of the team which meant I had to focus on making the game look good with the models I had to produce. I was tasked to 3D model the guns for the game as well as help from one of my team members Alex Needham to build the level of the game. My aim for this was to help build some structures to help build up a functional level for the game to be played on which meant I had to communicate very closely with Alex to keep updated on what was happening with the level.
Proposal and time planner
To start the project I first had to create a proposal which would showcase what I had intended to do throughout this project. The proposal would have been broken down into different sections to help break up the project into different topics. I will cover each section on its own talking about what it is that it is asking me to talk about as well as what I have written and how this helps with this project.
Proposal Breakdown
The first topic included my preferred specialism which would include me writing a small brief of what my specialism in game development is and why I feel it is. The next section would be broken down into the project rationale which would cover all of the work that I have done in previous projects explaining what I have learnt from those past experiences and bringing all of that to assist me in this project. The next one down would include the project concept and this topic would include what our idea was for this project and what personal aims I had planned for this idea. Moving further down the list, the next section was the evaluation and reflection which would include me going over how I will evaluate and reflect on everything I did in the project and explain if it went well or if there were any problems as well as if there was anything I could improve for future projects. This was another section to talk about how my team members did as a whole and if they communicated very well or if there was a lack of communication. The final section was the research sources and bibliography which will explain how I will plan to showcase my primary and secondary research as well as how I will plan to display my sources of research.
Reflecting the proposal
The first week of the project I wasted no time to start the proposal as this would set off my tasks for the project. I had no issue going through each section as I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do for this project. However, I did come across some slight confusion during the project concept as I wasn't fully aware of what our final idea was but I had some sense. This issue wasn't too major as I managed to eventually clarify with the team during the beginning of the week.
I had a bit of a change in the early stages as my personal plans weren't yet confirmed. Although I did have an idea of what I was doing, I wasn't aware of how much I should produce. I confirmed with the team that I was modelling the guns for the game, but I was stuck with how many to produce as I didn't know how long each one would take me or how many were too many. I initially put a number down of eight guns to help me get somewhere but I wasn't set with this number.
This problem had me confused for a little while which is definitely something that I should consider for any future projects to come. This was something that I should've spoken a lot more with my team about to get their opinions and thoughts on this situation which could have possibly solved my problem of not knowing how much work to produce. This is something that I struggled to understand in the early stages of this project and it would've helped the team out more with my communication.
I had no issue completing the rest of the proposal as I knew how I was going to evaluate and reflect on my work throughout. I understood how I was also going to research into my primary and secondary research as well as knowing how I would display the sources of research that I found.
Time planner
It was at this point that I managed to narrow down the guns with how many I wanted to model for the game. I created a survey to help me decide on the number of guns I should model and what type of guns I should be modelling. This helped me narrow things down to allow me to spread this work across my time planner. The final answers were in from the people who answered my survey as the majority votes were set on modelling six and as well as this I got a few gun models to help me decide on the guns I should model.
The time planner played a major part in this project as this allowed me to keep on track with any work that I had planned to do in this project. I used this as a guide to help me keep on time with everything and allow me to understand what I need to be focusing on for how long to help with future tasks. To complete the time planner I had to plan out my work over the course of eleven weeks and narrow them down into each week. I aimed to keep sticking to this plan to keep me on track with any work to ensure I didn't fall behind on the work. I managed to get through the time planner by the end of the second week with no struggle.
To ensure that I completed the time planner, I referred back to my proposal concept to help me fill out each week at a standard that wasn't too difficult to stick with. I managed to spread my work over the course of the eleven weeks to a reasonable standard to the point that I thought I wouldn't struggle with it. However, this didn't seem to be the case as It all was a bit too much for me to follow throughout the project as I ended up adding too many tasks to each week that I couldn't handle. This consisted of me adding level design work to the same weeks as my gun modelling weeks which ended up getting too much and I wouldn't have been able to follow along with the time planner later in the project.
Reflecting on the time planner
To conclude the time planner as a whole, I think it helped me a lot in the early weeks as I managed to keep on track and follow along with each week. This was only for the research side as I started slacking towards the production side of the project when I started losing focus. With the amount of work, I gave myself for the production work every week, I struggled to keep up with everything I planned as I wasn't aware of how long the models would take to model. This is something that I will take into consideration for future projects as I will understand more about planning my work and not giving myself too much to work with.
Planning
The planning stages of the project consisted of me researching into a wide variety of topics which would include researching my weapons. To bring across my planning, I created different ways of showcasing this and the common methods I was using were mood boards. This method of planning out my guns helped me produce a large amount of work and gather up a lot of information.
Mood board planning
My first method of planning was using mood boards which I made on my own Miro board. This method was a useful way for me to showcase my reference images in a group as this allowed me to be more organized with my work. This way of planning also allows for different angles and different pieces which allows me to be more specific with what I am looking for. I created a mood board for each of my weapons to show them off individually as this kept it easy to understand and in a clean format. I made clear which board was for what weapon and made sure that they were all framed into their own boards to be clear with what goes with what.
Reflecting the plan
The mood board method was a great way for me to showcase my weapons in a neat format and not have any trouble reading each one. I was very impressed with how organized I created the mood boards as I made it clear how many mood boards I created and made sure each weapon was dedicated to its own area as I gathered a lot of attachment references. I managed to gather a vast amount of reference images to help showcase each weapon on its own, providing all the details possible. This method was a great success as it made everything clear about what I was looking into.
Looking forward, this is something that I will continue to use in the near future projects as it created a great impact on my research. It helped me showcase my work to a standard that not only helped me with the modelling process but to allow me to present it in a way that people could understand it and see what specific guns I was researching. This method created a visually appealing page for people to read and not get bored with words. I had no problems presenting the work and I had no issue finding the right reference images to display as the navigation of Miro was simple and easy to follow. Looking back at the mood boards, this was something that I don't regret doing as it didn't slow me down in any of the weeks and it didn't get in the way of any other plans. This was because I was able to stay on track with my time planner and focus on the only tasks set for that week.
Research Introduction
Researching played a huge part in the project as it helped start things off to help gather the information I required. I used a bunch of methods to help me research the work I required which were using articles and surveys. I looked into both primary and secondary research as I would be using my own surveys to gather information as well as looking into articles to help gather reliable sources. These ways of researching provided great results in terms of which one helped more and which one provided more answers. Article researching was a great method that helped to better my statements and to provide valid evidence. Surveys were another way for me to help narrow my thoughts down and come to a final answer in terms of my weapons.
Primary Research
Survey One
Starting with the primary research, I got on with creating my own Google forms to ask people a few questions about my topic of the project. This was focused more towards my weapons as I wasn't yet sure about how many I should create and what types to make. This was very helpful as I found that people would prefer specific guns over others which would help me to narrow down to the responses I was sent. It also allowed me to understand how many models I would need to make as there was a majority vote of six weapons which to me sounds reasonable as I would have the chance to produce at least one of each gun type whether it would be an assault rifle or a pistol etc. The survey also allowed me to understand what attachments I would need to achieve a great outcome on the weapons.
Survey Two
Towards the middle of the project, I went off to create a second survey for me to get feedback on how I have done with the progress of my weapons. This was more of a survey to help me understand what I was doing wrong or if everything was what the people expected. This survey wasn't quite as useful as the first one as I didn't bring out the questions that great as I believe that they were too broad. Something that I felt I struggled to bring across was allowing people to get their views on the models as I restricted them to yes and no questions. This is something that I will think about in the future as it didn't allow me to see what parts were good and what were bad so it was hard to know how good my models were. A positive about this second survey was the responses I received from the materials as this allowed me to go through and understand what I did wrong when texturing which seemed to be adding more wear and more scratches to make the gun feel like it had been used.
Secondary Research
The secondary research side of the project consisted of me looking into other sources to find reliable and valid sources. I managed to gather a few videos to help me get through some sections that I was stuck on which I think was a great way for me to understand my issue and learn from the error rather than struggling and not relying on the videos.
Articles
The second way I looked into researching was using articles which was the secondary side of the research. This method of researching was a struggle as this one took up more of my time as I was finding it hard to find some reliable sources. This was one of the weaknesses of this project that I wish I could've avoided when I was looking into colour and shape theory, as I wasn't aware of how long it would take up my time. To avoid this problem in the future I will make sure to take into consideration how long this research method took me to bring it all across as I will be able to plan this around my schedules in the future to make sure I don't come across this issue again.
Another great way these articles were used, was for my target audience as this helped me achieve reliable facts from other sources to back up some of my statements. I used this to help gather statistics for the games that I was researching into which gave me a lot of information to talk about. This was fantastic as it helped me talk about each game and compare it across different consoles to decide on the best platform. If I could do this again, I would say that the time management wasn't thought through as I wasn't aware of how long it would take me to find reliable sources. This was something that I should've dived into more and taken into consideration how much it would've affected my production.
Reflecting
There were some positives to this way of researching as it allowed me to provide valid and reliable sources to display on my page. Although this was a long and slow method, it did help me gather the information I was looking for and helped me produce a great quality of work. For future projects, this is something I would like to tackle more and incorporate into my work again but I would take into consideration the amount of time that this method of researching took me and work this around my future schedules. If I were able to do this again, I would think more about time management and take into consideration how long the research process would take me. This is because it would stop me from cutting off any other work in future weeks to just complete this research for colour and shape theory as well as it would allow me to not fall behind on any past work due to this problem.
YouTube Videos
The second source of research I used to help me throughout this project, was using YouTube videos as this was a great way for me to understand any problems I was struggling with. I found this way to be a greater way for me to find solutions to my problems as I have a direct focus on the video that will be specifically aimed towards my problem. This is a better solution than googling as this would create a more broad approach and not be targeted to my specific issue. I focused on using tutorials on areas that I felt needed more of an understanding of the situation to make me more aware of the problem.
Reflecting
I do think that this was the greatest choice of research as it allowed me to be more specific with my searches to find the specific problem. It was also an easy solution to finding ways around my problems as videos are everywhere now and YouTube has almost everything that I need to find. This is something that I will continue to keep doing as it is a brilliant way for me to get help without having to constantly require the tutors around me as well as this allows me to learn a lot easier as I can watch the videos over and over until I understand my issue.
Production
The production stage consisted of me modelling all of my weapons and creating the level as the weeks went on. This was a major part of proving what I could do and providing good models for my team to use in the game. I took up a new challenge that I had never done before which was modelling guns and modelling a building. These two things were new to me and I was interested to see how this would turn out.
Production Pipeline
The production pipeline consisted of me starting in Maya to model the weapons and the building, to UV unwrapping in Maya which I then switched over to substance painter to texture the models which would then be sent off to my team in Unity. This pipeline was a little guide that I thought would work best with the flow of my models to keep consistent. However, this was something that I didn't take into consideration as I wasn't fully aware of the pipeline of producing models. This was something that I should've looked into as it would've made me aware of when each model would be complete. This would also allow me to create a continuous cycle for each model to keep consistent for the flow of the production. If I were to do this again, I would focus on creating a pipeline for my models to understand where I would start what stage would be next and then what final steps I would need to complete the whole process of one model.
Weapons
The first phase of actually producing some work was creating all the weapons for the game. This became an issue for me at this start as I lacked in knowledge to complete each step of the way to completing each weapon. I had found that I didn't know how to begin which led me into getting help. I eventually achieved each model through some hassle but this was something to look back on and change in the future.
Weapon Modelling
The production stage of modelling my weapons started ``a little bit slow but I eventually picked up the pace as I started getting used to the process. When I first initially started modelling the first weapons, I went in blind and what I mean by this is that I didn't have much of a clue on where to begin modelling the guns. This was something that I wish I had researched beforehand to help me get that knowledge before I started the modelling. This meant that I had to go looking for some tutorial videos to help me understand where I should start but this had slowed down my production for the first week which held me back just a little bit. The next few weeks of modelling the guns weren't an issue as I had already understood what I had to do for these models. It was at this point that I had the rhythm of each gun and I knew what I had to do to complete each model as it was just the early weeks of modelling that had slowed me down. Not helping myself in the early stages was something that impacted my production stage of modelling the weapons as I had to pause myself from modelling anything to find and understand what I had to do to pull off these weapon models. If I were to restart this part of the process, I would've considered looking at some tutorials before the production phase started as I would've had that upper hand and I could've got straight on with the modelling. At the end of the day, the models turned out fantastic and resulted in something that I would not have expected which makes me feel great that I overcame a new challenge.
Weapon Unwrapping
To ensure I would get closer to that final step of each model, the next phase was UV unwrapping each weapon which was another new challenge that I had to face as this was something that I hadn't dived too deep into. As I was new to UV unwrapping myself, the early stages got delayed even more as I had to find more tutorials on UV unwrapping models and complex shapes. This was something that I should've again looked at before I started my production phase as this was another roadblock in the early weeks. I also get some help from a tutor to help simplify the process of UV unwrapping. After some trial and error, I started to get a grasp of UV unwrapping, but this massively held me back in the first week of production. Looking back at this, I wish that I had taken some time beforehand I look deeply into UV unwrapping models. Just Like the modelling phase, this was another step that pushed me further back to complete the process and was something that I should've considered doing at the time. Again, this part of the production was a great success on the outcome as my skills in UV unwrapping started getting progressively better as the weeks went on. By the final few guns left, I had already mastered UV unwrapping and I was really happy with the outcome of each gun as I kept seeing improvements as one gun went by. Overall, I think the outcome was brilliant and I wouldn't change anything about how they looked or how I did the process but I just wish I knew this before I started this phase as it would've made a quicker start.
Weapon Texturing
To complete the final part of each model, I had to texture the weapons to ensure they looked good when they were added to the final game. Missing this step would be a massive problem as I wouldn't have been able to show what I was capable of but also the final looks would not have any textures to show each attachment. Unlike the other two stages, I had an idea of how to texture in Substance Painter but I wasn't fully aware of the whole layout and how to navigate the software. Initially, I got some help from one of my tutors to show me a quick guide on texturing the weapons just to make me familiar with the process. This didn't hold me back too much in the early weeks, as I had somewhat of an idea which meant I didn't need much assistance. I used my Miro board for help finding the right textures for my weapons as I wanted to make them look as accurate as possible. This meant looking at the colours and the materials for each attachment and seeing any marks that were shown for wear and tear. I managed to get quicker at this process over the course of the weeks in my production phase which was something that helped me continue the flow of my work. Overall, I think I did a great job accurately texturing and I think using Miro was a great way for me to incorporate my research which is something that I will continue to do in future projects as it was a massive help in getting the correct materials and colours. If I could've changed anything in the process, I would've looked into some tutorials before the production as I think this would've allowed me to know what I was doing and just get straight onto texturing, however, everything still turned out great and this didn't affect my production at all.
Level Design
During the process of modelling my weapons, I had to include some level design work to ensure I got everything complete that I had planned. This consisted of me having to model a building and the map floor. I had to ensure that I could model both, UV unwrap them and texturing them just like my weapons. I found the level design a real issue and a huge struggle for me to complete but I eventually achieved it.
Building modelling
The building was a huge project that I thought was impossible for me to get done by the end of this project. I was really worried that I would not create a good model to show off as this was another new challenge for me as I have never modelled a building before especially the interior too. I soon found out that this started to become a major issue for me as I didn't realize that I had given myself too many tasks to work with. I initially created a block out of the building to help me make a start with the final building. This blockout was also used to lay out in unity for my team member, Mitchell Whittaker as this would allow him to create his mechanics. During the early stages of the research, I gathered some images from some games that would help me generate a building style. This impacted my production phase well, as I didn't have to go around looking for any references to get the design of the building as this was already done before the production phase started. Modelling all of the interior and exterior models was not a problem as I created them to a great standard with great detail. If I were to do this again, I would consider spreading my work out across the weeks more evenly and maybe consider splitting up the work a bit more between my team member Alex Needham. This is something that I will think about for the future as I wasn't aware of how much work I gave myself until I started the production phase where things started getting messy.
Building Unwrapping
It was at this point where I knew how to unwrap as I had completed a fair share of my guns by now which gave me the boost to completely unwrap my building. A problem with this stage of the process compared to the rest, was this one taking up a lot of time. I hadn't taken into consideration, the amount of models I would have to unwrap as I had all the interior models like the chairs and tables etc. This was something that I applied to the models like the chairs, the outer walls, stairs etc. This was something that had an impact on the production phase as this would not cause a worry to catch up with any UVs after modelling. An issue I ran into in this phase was setting up the UVs on the final model. To ensure that I would get good UV I would have to set them all to 2k and have them laid out to have the same tiling so none have more details than others when it came to texturing. However I never really understood this and didn't do this to any of the models. This was something that would affect the texturing stage as this would cause some materials to be blurry based on the tiling size. This is something that I will look into next time as I would fix the issue of setting myself up for problems in the texturing stage. Another issue that I came across was putting the UVs into the same UV maps which would cause problems with texturing and creating transparent materials. I would think about changing this if I could go through the whole process again as I would consider organizing my UV maps with specific models.
Building Texturing
The final step was texturing the building which I found to be a huge problem. The process of texturing everything wasn't an issue as I knew the process from texturing my weapons. I think I did a great job applying the right materials and making everything look worn and destroyed however I did have massive issues with making the textures look good in unity. The main issue I had in Unity was making this material look crisp and this goes back to my UV stage as I didn't set the UV's to 2k. Another reason for this was also because the tiling's were off across all of the models which causes blurry issues as some may take up a larger space meaning they would not get much detail to them. To ensure that I don't have this issue again I will consider the tiling across all of my models to make sure they are all the same and that they all get the same details. Another issue I came across was the transparency materials as this caused problems in unity. Due to adding some models into the same UV map, I believe this is what messes with the materials. When the transparent material got added into unity, the other models that were in the same UV map would have their materials completely disappear. To get around this problem I made sure that the models that would require a transparent material were in their UV map so that the other models wouldn't lose their materials. This was a simple solution but something that I didn't want to do as it kept slowing me down with the more problems I occurred. Next time I will consider this problem and work my way around it so I don't have to go through this issue again. These problems have helped me learn from my mistakes and helped me understand what I have done wrong.
Reflecting
Overall, I think the building turned out better than I thought and the structure of the whole model looks great with the small details of the window panels and the broken glass giving the effect of the building being wrecked. I think that the whole process of the model was a huge mess and everything was all over the place which I would consider reworking around my time planner. I think the guns were a huge success considering the problems I faced in the early weeks, but they were things that I worked around despite the loss that was involved. I would've considered looking more into tutorials before I had started the models to give me that boost of confidence to get straight into modelling but I think they turned out great.
Final Product
The final outcome was something that I was proud of as I achieved a lot of things in this project. I managed to meet my goals and aims from the start of the project through to the finish and this was something that I thought I wasn't going to pull off. I think the work that I produced reflects my initial proposal as this shows what I could achieve and what I wanted to produce which is exactly what I did and to produce a level of work that I thought was going to be a real struggle shows that I am capable of achieving anything. This makes me excited for future projects and to see how far I can stretch my skills and what are my limits in 3D modelling.
Something that was quite the issue throughout this project was my time management and staying on track with things. This led to disasters as it kept knocking me down even further to the point that I didn't complete some of my models in the weeks that they had to be done. I would change this for next time and give myself less work for the weeks so I don't fall behind on the weeks and have to struggle to produce a lot of work in the last couple of weeks. Another thing that I would change in this project would be fixing up my UVs because as much as these looked great, they weren't perfect and I wasn't happy with some of them in the end. The main issue was making my materials blurry which let the models down and created a terrible result for the game, especially on bigger models like my building and would be something that I would've changed if I could start again.
Throughout this project, I created surveys to help me get feedback on some of my work and this was something that I thought was useful. This was aimed towards my guns and I helped myself in the beginning by asking what type of guns people would want or see in a shooter game as well as how many they would expect. I think this helped me massively in the early stages as I didn't have a clue about what guns to model or how many to make. I think this was something that stood out to me in the project as this was something that helped contribute to the project and felt like a group effort. This was also used towards the middle of the project to help get feedback on the gun models that I had made. This was useful to me as this would allow me to see any errors that I would be able to fix. The surveys reached my expectations as they were a useful way of getting feedback on my work which I then could fix throughout the project as it was also another way of people telling me what I was missing just in case I forgot.
Creating new challenges for myself throughout this project was the best decision I made as it allowed me to reach new places that I've not explored. This put me out of my comfort zone but it allowed me to find new ways of modelling and that was something that I felt I needed to do. I have wanted to expand my skills and this project was the perfect thing for me to do so. I modelled weapons that I thought weren't going to turn out great and with some YouTube videos and the help of my tutors, I pushed through and achieved them with little hassle. It makes me proud to see these weapons in the final product and to see that I modelled them was something that makes me think that I have gained more knowledge in 3D modelling. Another major challenge I faced was modelling the building which was something that I didn't feel comfortable doing as I didn't know where to start but I pushed through and achieved something way beyond what I could expect. This was brilliant for me and made me think about what I can produce in the future as new doorways start to open up for me. It will impact me moving forward as this has shown me what I am capable of doing and what I am yet to start.
Although I had achieved some great models and had some fantastic survey responses to help me see my errors, I did have some major issues with these specific topics throughout the project. The guns were great, but I had issues modelling them and I weren't typically happy with them and I would change them if I could restart. This is focused more on my knife as this model didn't turn out great and had given me a loss in time as I struggled to make it perfect and it meant more work was slowly falling behind. I wasn't proud of this and I should've looked more into tutorials for each of my guns to know how to start and what skills to use to produce the correct shapes. Another major problem was the building, although this was a great model it cost me too much time and left me stressing towards the end. This model didn't get started when I wanted it to and this was due to my time management being really poor which is something I will think about for future projects. I had modelled this building in different ways and kept having to change a few things as I weren't happy with them. I produced some poor attempts such as the rail for the staircase as it looked like a made-up model and looked nothing like a rail. This was soon changed but I should've considered looking at references beforehand rather than making something up. This happened a lot throughout the model which kept slowing me down as I kept changing which doesn't make me happy with how I did this as this led me to stressing in the last few weeks.
Conclusion
My final thoughts on this project are making me feel brilliant about what I produced. This level of work allowed me to show what I am capable of and what I can achieve when I put my mind to it. I never gave up on these models which was something that motivates me more as I never want to give up and when I want to produce something, I will do it. Seeing the whole progress from the beginning to the final result makes me feel happy with how I ended up producing some good in-depth guns and a great final building that would showcase in a game. It is something that intrigues me when seeing the progress stages as it shows how I navigate my way to get to the final look and eventually see it all assemble with all the pieces and the textures.
For future projects, I will aim to continue my skills in 3D modelling and further my skills and knowledge in the tools I use to ensure I keep getting better. I will continuously work on my own projects to keep on top of learning new ways of modelling and focus on creating models that are out of my comfort zone just like I did in this project as it shows that it can be done. It will allow me to also focus on my areas of improvement such as my UVs or texturing as these were things that I struggled to make look good. I'm very happy with the progress I made in the eleven weeks and excited to see how I can progress in future projects.