Reflection on Stylized tree, week Twelve

After I had finished my final concepts, I began modelling the trees. I used my orthographic concepts as a guide to model by adding it as a material to a plane. Once the models were complete, I had to unwrap them. Most of the model was made from cylinders and cones, therefore most of the unwrapping was done using the cylindrical unwrap and the pelt unwrap for the bark on the woodland tree. However some of the model I had to unwrap by hand instead of using tools, I did this mostly because some of the tools did not look right on the uvw map and I wanted to make sure it was all unwrapped correctly. 

This is the bark texture and the uvw unwrap render map for the pink blossom tree.

These are the texture maps for the pink blossom leaves, including the alpha map, diffuse map and uvw unwrap render.

These are the texture maps for the blue leaves on the woodland tree, including the alpha map, diffuse map and uvw unwrap render.

This is the bark tiling texture for the woodland tree and the bark uvw unwrap render.

I then rendered the uvw maps ready for texturing. Now I needed to work on creating hand painted textures, First I looked on the internet for bark textures for reference and ideas, I then found one which I based my bark texture from. I gathered together a colour palette and started painting, the textures also had to be tillable which took a long time to achieve. I also created alpha maps for the leaf textures, by silhouetting the areas which needed to be visible with white and the invisible with black. After I had finished the texturing, I went back to the uvw editor to create map channels for the material ids, I did this by setting a map channel in the uvw editor with the map I want, then collapsing the modifier save the map channel. I also set the material ids for the muti sub object, I did this by selecting the polys in a area then setting the material id number to match the map channel id. I then selected the correct materials in the muti sub material for the same id as the map channel.  Once this was done I could apply the multi sub material and the models were finished.

These are the renders of the final textured floating blossom tree from front, back and side view.

These are the renders of the final wire frame renders of the floating blossom tree.

These are renders of the final textured floating blossom tree from different perspectives.

These are the final renders for the woodland tree from front, back and side view.

These are the wire frame renders for the woodland tree.

These are the final perspective renders for the woodland tree.

Overall I am quite happy with the stylized tree project, I have managed to work within the deadline, which time management has been a problem before, I have learnt new skills throughout the project, such as more hand painting skills. I feel now that I am fairly confident with painting textures and would say it is one of my strengths, however I could still improve on making the end result of my textures sharper and neater, especially by using normal maps and specular maps. My final model against the brief proves to be a good asset and fits the style guide, as it has a stylized fantasy look, has chunky stylized textures and fits the bright colour palette with purple shadows. However, if I were to improve the model I would add some more details, such as bump maps to make the model look less flat, especially in the bark. I would add more detail to the bark, such as in the concepts for the floating tree it has a hole in the middle.

Feedback to feed forward

I have progressed onto the second term, now I need to reevaluate what my goals are now, and how I am going to achieve them with planning the rest of the year.

To analyze my goals I need to determine my strengths for each area of study and how I can improve. Starting with Visual design I would say this is one of my overall strongest areas, I understand perspective, proportion and how to make the design process fit within the brief and style guide. Also can create a range of rendering values, a good degree of accuracy in my work and can capture the figure with drawing. Areas I think need improvement for visual design would be time management, as I can loose track of things and fall behind. Also developing my skills further to a professional standard, improving my design process in idea generation and final concepts. Visual design does not cause any concern, there just needs to be improvements that need to be made. The actions I would take to accomplish these improvements would be to plan my time management more efficiently and practice design idea generation skills to a professional standard. There would be nothing in the way of achieving theses improvements, a part from myself as I need to be able to plan my time well to that I can achieve the best of my ability and improve my skills. therefore the first goal outcome for visual design would be to improve on time management and design process.

The second area of study I need to determine my strengths for and how i can improve them, is Game production. In Game production I am able to learn myself the tools and skills I need. I am developing my knowledge further and improving my work as I progress through each project. Modeling and texturing are going well, I would consider texturing a strength at this level I am at. I need to improve on time management in most areas, therefore this applys to Game production as well. I also need to improve on all skills and knowledge to be able to progress to a professional level, especially in areas such as, uvw unwrapping, understanding engines and characters rigging. There is not any major cause for concern at this point, I am progressing at a normal level, I just need to develop on my knowledge and improve my skills. I will develop my areas for improvement my planning my time management, also progressing through the course and learning in my own time to develop my knowledge and skills. The only thing that could make it difficult to do extra is myself, I need to put the time and effort in to achieve my goals. Therefore the second goal outcome for Game production if improvement of time management, knowledge and skills.

The third area of study of which I need to determine my strengths and how I can improve them, is Critical studies. Although in the previous areas I have had problems my time management, I do not have this problem with critical studies as I document my thoughts and reflections on each week in a note book, ready to be written up into a blog. The areas I do need to improve on would be my writing skills, being able to articulate and analyse in my writing. Also improvement in my presentation skills, for example being able to talk to the audience rather than at the computer screen. There is no major cause for concern at this point, however I need to develop my writing skills and presentation skills to a professional level. I would achieve these improvements by taking more time to write blogs so I can refine to professional level. The only barrier in the way on developing my improvements is my own writing ability, I am not the most intelligent or articulate person and I find it more difficult to express myself using words. Therefore the third goal outcome for Critical studies is to develop my writing and presentation skills to a more professional level.

In conclusion the three main goals I wish to achieve this year. For visual design time management and the design process. For Game production time management, knowledge and overall skill. For Critical studies writing and presentation skills.

Reflection of Game art, week Fifteen

Returning back from the Christmas break to start a new project. Started off with a lecture about character design for the new village character project and looked at Andrew loomis's work with anatomy. I found Andrew loomis work very interesting and will try my own studies of heads and faces.

Drawing heads and hands, Andrew loomis

A task we have been given is to photograph interesting people in the street of different age groups, this is to start the design process of character design. Also to photograph ourselves expressing twelve different face expressions. During digital painting lesson, I learnt about human proportions from head ratio to the rest of the body. For example shoulders are three head, arms are 3 heads down (with two heads for the lower arm) legs are four heads, the average height is 7.5 or 8 heads and hands are usually face size, so slightly smaller than a head.

In life drawing this week as we had started the character project and are learning about human proportions and anatomy, we went back to basics drawing proportions. First we started with warm up sketches of two minute continuous line and then opposite hand, this is to stimulate both sides of the brain and loosen up my drawing for later sketches.

I also drew a two minute line sketch just using lines to mark the shape and weight distribution. 

This is a two minute blind drawing, which I did not look at the page and keep looking at the figure to draw.

In these proportion sketches I tried to think more about the anatomy with the muscles, adding volume and weight to the figure. In this first standing proportion drawing, I used the head to measure the rest of the body then marked in the weight distribution of the shoulders and hips, then started sketching in the figure by measuring angles around and on the body.

In the second sketch, I took the same approach with drawing the figure, by using the head to measure the rest of the body and then marking in weight distribution, I felt I achieved capturing volume well, however my measuring of proportions was incorrect slightly and had to make changes. I think the volume of the figure weight distribution and foreshortening added heaviness to the figure to make it seem weighted into the seat. I also had to think about foreshortening , which did not prove a problem as I used my measuring to achieve it.

In the last standing sketch, I had a pose front on to myself, which made it easy to achieve proportions, therefore I tried adding more volume and muscle anatomy to the figure. I did not focus of any rendering this time in any of my drawings, as I wanted to focus of the proportions and volume using line.

Continuing the theme of anatomy, In the Game production lesson we started practicing modeling a female character. I used the template and tutorials provided, which I was able to achieve a finished model by the end of the lesson. This task proved fairly simple for myself, as I understood the tutorial very well and could solve problems by myself were the tutorial was not clear.

Here are the renders of the female character model, including smoothing groups added on the right.

Reflection of week Eleven

Week Eleven was review week, Therefore I had no lessons. I handed in all my visual design work, apart from life drawing and then spent the week working of the week to work on my stylized tree project. For this new project, we were briefed to make two stylized trees to fit the same style of the assets we had been creating so far, for the village style and surroundings.

As this week was a review week I used this time to work on my tree project. I was in the process on developing my concepts.

To begin this project I wrote myself a time plan in my diary planner, so that I can make sure I manage my time well and stick to the deadline. First I started my research for stylised tree, I mainly sourced my research from the internet, using website such as pinterest. After researching image material such as Bonsai trees, fantasy trees and bark photography, I created mood boards so that I could start generating ideas into silhouettes. While creating my silhouettes I started by making basic shapes or brush marks, then cutting into them to create a tree shape. With some of the silhouettes I tried to capture the fluid shapes of Bonsai trees by using exaggerated curved branches and roots.

After creating my silhouettes I refined my ideas and quickly decided on two final ideas that were the most realistic and interesting for a stylized fantasy world. 

Once the idea generation stage was complete, I could move onto concepting ideas.

Next I moved onto colour values. I took the first colour painted trees, experimented with the colour balance and duplicated to different variations of the trees. I finally decided on three similar colours for each tree, then continued this process again to achieve the right tone and colour to fit in with the surroundings of the village project. I decided for the floating tree concept a light 'bubble gum' like pink on the leaves and a light yellowish brown on the bark, with a purple hue in the shadows, I thought the pink blossom worked well for a positive fantasy environment. And for the woodland tree I decided a bright blue for the leaves and a purplish brown for the bark, I also thought the unusual colours for the leaves worked well for a fantasy environment, as it wasn't too extreme of a colour and has a green tone, which makes it look slightly more natural. The bark also worked well for the style guide, as the purple tone fit to the colour palette.  

I then produced orthographic paintings of my final designs. I chose to use these trees as a final result for my designs, as they fit within the style guide and brief. Compared to the style guide they fit the stylized fantasy world of the village, the bright colour palettes fit the positive colour scheme and the unusual colours add to the fantasy theme. Overall I feel the final concepts achieved the brief and would make a good asset, however if I were to improve my designs, I would push them further thinking about environment change due to lighting and weather. I would also spend more time on producing final concept art for each finished tree.

Reflection of Game art, week Ten

Visual design lessons have been merged into one lesson, which I prefer rather than having separate lessons at the start and end of the day, as I felt previously I was not learning enough from visual design at the end of the day. Everyone was always tired and nothing much ever got accomplished as a result of the lesson. However now that the lessons have teamed up, they are able to review and critique our work. I feel I benefit from this layout, as I am getting more feedback on my work and am able to use a computer during lesson, therefore mange my time wisely and continue with work.

During life drawing this week we used charcoal and chalk to explore value range and rendering. I enjoy working in this medium of material, because of the mark making and blending I can achieve. However in this recent task I fell I did not achieve the results I was hoping for. 

In the first warm up sketches I used continuous line to capture the curves and shape of the figure, in the two minute time limit we had, i did not use proportion measuring I quickly drew down what I could see, while trying to capture the volume and curves of the figure.

The second warm up sketches were to capture gesture of the the figure with a time limit of one minute. To do this I tried using long curved lines to quickly capture the shape of the figure, I also used circular marks to capture the muscular areas of the figure and quickly highlight the anatomy.

However in the charcoal and chalk drawing I felt I did not achieve the results I was hoping for. I the first Ten minute drawing I spent too much time on the proportions of the figure and left myself no time to work on the values. I think the reason for this was because I started drawing too big, also the position I was in gave myself very strong foreshortening looking at the figure, which made myself spend more time trying to get the proportions correct.

In the second Twenty Five minute drawing I managed to spend a lot more time on the  values, as I drew slightly smaller and quickly marked in the proportions with pencil first.

Reflection of game art, week nine.

The beginning of the week our digital painting and visual design lesson were merge together, so that they could look at our village building project so far and give us feedback. During the lesson I had already finished my project, however I had struggled with the multi-sub materials, so spent a bit of extra time to finish applying the textures. I manged to work out how to create a multi-sub texture using mapping channels in the uvw unwrap and tiling texture in the material editor. We were given longer to work on our village project, as we have already finished with it, this time given was to push us further with our project. I feel this extra time will benefit myself well, as I need to make some changed with my building and does not fully fit the style guide. To achieve the style I want I need to change the colours to the wood and make it darker, the overall look of the building needs to be chunkier and I can do this by re-sizing beams and the shape of the building. I will be continuing this work though my game production lessons and importing my final model into engine. 

In life drawing this week we focus on the silhouette of the figure, using black card cut outs. This task was to produce silhouettes of the figure, by using scissor to cut the outline of the figure in card. For this task I did not have scissors, which meant I had to use my hands to tear the card, However I think this made it easier to tear more detail with the card, as my hands are more accurate at getting tight curves and smaller detail than scissors. Overall I think I produce some fairly accurate silhouettes and enjoyed the task, as it was a change of material used to capture the figure.

This week in critical studies it was Conference day. I learnt a lot about blog writing and have really helped me understand what I need to do, to improve my blog writing and how to critically analyse my work. It has also helped me to gain confidence in my writing and discover that I am capable of writing a good blog, if I analyse my work more and ask myself more questions.Blog writing is a reflection and the meaning of reflection is: serious thought or consideration. I know that I can improve my writing over time, if I follow simple steps and guides, for example,blog writing needs to start with a description to introduce and describe an experience, then express the feelings thought, how the experience made you feel and think. Then you move on to evaluating, what I did? why? how? what worked? what did not?, and finally analyse, which involves looking back on what you learnt and planning, developing on how you can improve from that. 

Reflection of the Village building project

The Ninth week I finished with the Village building project, which was to handed in and looked at on Monday.

Overall I am quite happy with the Village building project, I managed to work within the deadline and I learnt a lot of new skills throughout the project, such as hand painting textures. I feel I have achieved painting textures as a new strength, as I captured the stylized, chunky, hand made look of the style guide. However I could of improved on the textures with adding Normal maps and specular maps, I also needed to add a light map to my model to correct the lighting when It was imported in the engine, as when I imported the model, it looked too light and shiny. 

These are the Orthographic and perspective view renders of my finished model without textures.

These are print screens of my model imported into the UDK engine, as you can see compared to the other models in the scene, my model Is a lot lighter and shinier. Which is why I needed to make a light map, but at this point, I did not know how to. However, despite this problem I still think my final model fits well within the environment and the style.

I Also learnt new skills with uvw unwrapping and how to use multi-sub textures. I had not used multi-sub object textures before and did not know how to apply tiling textures correctly, therefore I had to look for tutorials and use my own trial and error attempts of creating a multi-sub object. I found this very difficult and took me a long time to understand how to make it work, eventually I managed to work it out by myself and have gained a new skill, that I will be able to apply again to new projects.

This Is the final texture map for the additional wood textures. This was the only texture map I made as the other textures were tiling textures. 

These are the hand painted tiling textures I made using Photoshop.

These are the final renders of my model with textures.

 Overall I think the final model is a good product of what the brief wanted and fits to the style guide well, as it has chunky wedging shapes, has chunky stylized textures, fits the bright positive colour palette and fits the handmade medieval look to the surrounding village. However if I were to improve the final model, I would add some more detail such as bump maps, to make the model look more realistic. Especially to areas, such as the roof tiles and the brick wall to make the textures pop out. I would also add tile shapes around the edges of the roof, to make the roof look chunky. Add support beams to the under side of the building, as the building looked too top heavy. 

In reflection with the Village building concepts, I feel I achieved a lot and improved since the previous stylized rock project, However I could of spent more time polishing of the final concepts.

First to begin the concept process I started by researching. I mainly sourced my research from the internet, using website such as pinterest. After researching material such as medieval taverns, I created mood boards from my research so that I can start generating ideas into silhouettes.

Once most of the design process was complete I created a basic model of my design, I then took a render of what I had created and opened it into Photoshop, so that I could quickly paint over the top of it to add details and further improve my design. After I could go back to my 3d model and add the details of what I have drawn. I did this so that I could add details at an earlier stage in the design process, developing my design from 2D to 3D and back.

I then moved onto concepts ideas, starting with silhouettes for the tavern sign and then sketching my ideas.

Once I had my final designs, I moved onto colour studies to achieve a colour that matching the style guide. I decided to choose the colour variation at the bottom left for my final design, as the colours and lighting matched the positive fantasy colour style. 

After I had my final design, I moved onto the orthographics.

This is the final design for my village building tavern.

This is the final concept design for my village tavern building. I used the screen shot from importing my model into engine, then opened it in Photoshop so that I could paint over the top.

I also pushed my final concepts further, by thinking about environment and atmosphere change.