Final Evaluation

Since my last hand in that was in February and since coming back after that term I have been involved in some different set of projects, which my main was a collaborative game project with a team of 5 people (Me, Ben L, Ben R, Curtis and Olivia), I also was involved in a week-long cross-course collaborative project in fine art this consisted of a team of 5 of us once again. (Me, Michaela, Elly, Jo and Shin), during this week I also had an interchange project that was one session looking at UI/UX design, Designing a swimming pool. During these projects, I realised team work was a very important part. Without my teams, I would not have been able to get where I am now with the game and the fine art collaboration project. I have realised how important it is to keep communicating within a team if you are working together because if you do not do this so well you do miss out on what you should be doing and not seeing the progression of the project at hand.  Even though I attended all my sessions with my team meetings for the game and fine art project I can see how certain members within my team did not have a better understanding of the tasks set.

I believe in doing my collaborative projects I have learnt how you must be more patient with how other people do their work, I find that I like to get straight into a project if it has to get done, I have seen how some others do not work in the same way as I do, I especially saw this in the fine art project as Jo and Shin did not have any or not much knowledge of the programmes I and other game students have, they work differently to us in the way they pitch a creative idea and the speed they work. I did enjoy branching out into fine art for a week-long project with Jo and Shin, we all got on very well and worked well together, when we did all meet up. The only downside to the fine art project is that we could have been more organized as half way through the week as our idea did change as our communication wasn't as solid as it should have been during the first day or two. Overall we all put in a good amount of effort on all sides and produced a final video that was presented successfully.

In the collaborative game production project, I knew me and Olivia would end up in the same group as we were working in the same group during our game jam and worked well together. It wasn't hard to find a team we knew Ben R fairly well but I did not know Ben L and Curtis. I liked the idea of being in a team with people that I haven't ever spoken to it was exciting to see how we would all get on as a team and to work with a team were most members where 3D artists, I thought it would be a good experience to see how they produced they own work and to see if I could pick up any new skills along the way. I would say the communication within the team could have been better in the first week or two but this did improve except for one of the members. At the start of this project I would meet the team and we would discuss the game and what tasks which were set for each of us. I would meet them for an hour or so and leave to do some of the tasks (Concept art) at home because I work better sometimes with less distraction around me such as noise, I understand in the game industry I will not be able to do this, I must break this habit. I think now that I should of stayed and worked more often at the university with my team at the beginning of our production, this did change mid-way through to the end of the project I should of started to work more inside the university with my team more as this would of gave me a better understanding of different skills that I could of learnt by them. As a concept artist for the game I did find at times that I wasn't very useful nearing the end of the project even though my team stated that I had done a lot of work for the game and should be pleased as they were with my contributions to the project. I would have liked to of done some 3D work or blueprints for UE4 that would have been placed into the game but because of my lack of confidents with 3D and the logical side to blueprints I did not want to slow the team down or let them down. Therefore, I am going to try and do more modelling in Maya and use substance painter in the summer break even if it is with simpler items or props as I am currently working on my Z Brush skills I could also gain more knowledge in Maya while I do this. I am also planning on working on a small indie game with a small group during the summer break to gain more knowledge of UE4.

Overall there were a few things that did not get put into the game because of time limits but I find if me and some other members had better knowledge of certain skills there would have been a higher chance of achieving these tasks. There could have been a few things in the game that could have been improved on such as the controls at first while playing the game it can be a little tricky to get used to and I find that this could be a problem for the public who will play this at the Norwich gaming festival, a games controller may have been a better option for how to control the character for our game. After a while you do get to grips with the controls in the game. Something in the game that I was disappointed with the most for me was the characters in the game particularly the AI's. Because I specialise in character art it was a shame to not get the time to put in my own designs within the game. Another reason why this did not happen was because no one knew how to rig a character. I believe if we had more time to do this I would of gave it a good attempt to bring this into the game. I have rigged a character once before in 3Ds Max a few years ago now but I find it hard to remember how to do this, I may have still tried to give it ago but time limit was a big issue for us with this specific task. Overall the game project went well and we didn't have many problems as a team, we all added our own skills to this project and I have enjoyed my time doing it and made new friends in the process, I believe the game looks well developed in aesthetics it has well modeled assets and textures, it was a busy but enjoyable experience.