Week Summary

On Monday, I was continuing painting my model with the poly-painting method. The poly-painting of the robot is completed. While I was looking over my model as it was near completion I noticed it needed something to weight it down and give the model more balance. I added a base to my model. The model is more like a character diorama piece. Nothing to out there but something that feels natural. The diorama so far has some added features such as some foliage, rocks and earth (Sand/Muddy terrain). I also posed the model to suit the base. With the pose I didn't want to do anything to drastic, I wanted to show the character interacting with it's own UI menu, just like a character would in a game. Before posing the model I drew some quick rough sketches. At first I just wanted the arms to be slightly posed but I noticed once I did that it was top heavy and the model still did not feel complete.

 These were some early pose sketches of my first idea, with the interaction of my character with its UI. I wanted to add UI such as this as I wanted the piece to feel like it was more of a in game piece.

Basic base, start point.

This image shows my character fully poly-painted and ready to pose. I added dents into the model for damage effects to increase the details. I also added the war paint on the characters face around the eyes and the robots name T.A.N.G.O across its chest area. I added this as I wanted to give the character more personality and it represents the character is part of a clan, this shows with the war paint across the face and the painted hand print on the characters back.

The hand print on the back and transparent plastic material effect. The panel hides the characters main working components. I decided to use a thick discoloured plastic material in this area, Because I wanted to give the impression that the robot has been attacked here in the past and the clan that the robot is apart of has fixed him up. The plastic was a piece of scrap that a member of the clan found and easy for them to take on and off it needed if T.A.N.G.O. needs fixing. 

Starting to pose the character. Using the method of masking an area and then using the tranpose tools, carefully to not deform the model to much. I also noticed I wanted the leg a little higher to give the character more balance.

The leg is higher here. Also I gave the hips a little a bit of a twist to help with the balance.

The base and rock so far, the foot resting on the rock.

 Here is the base with added foliage and some added texture to the base using the clay build up brush.

 My model rendered to show the foliage effect. 

On Tuesday, I did not do any work due to a hospital appointment. I have been having a few hospital appointments in the last few months (since starting year 3). It has now been confirmed I will need to have surgery. I spoke to my tutor about this before the Easter term and spoke about my situation and the thought of going in for a extension. I personally do not think I need one as feel I have kept up  with my work as much as possible, I always try my best to keep up. There have been times where I could of probably pushed myself a little harder but I have always had the worry of my current situation. I also have to consider my health. I have the option to have the surgery very soon or to wait till after hand in. I have decided to have my surgery after hand in.

On Wednesday, I went into university. I was pleased as I got to show one of my tutors my model and they gave me some tips for the base. They said the base had a beef burger look to it, when I looked back at my base I had to agree! I changed it straight away, I added a different image texture and added more uneven areas to the terrain. Also they suggested that I added a little bit more foliage in areas. I soon added these details and it looks so much better. I am very happy with my model.

On Thursday, I went in to university again. Most of the day I was getting some render shots of my model ready for the next stage that is the UI process. I aim to add my own UI design (hologram) to one or two of my rendered images. I also produced a turntable of my character. 

 The two images above will most likely be the images I will use to place the UI on top.

 I also had ago at creating some practice UI for my model.

This was a brought in image of some sci-fi UI from Google. I bought it in by creating it into a smart object first. By making the image into a smart object it keeps it's resolution and details while editing the image such as scaling. I will use this method in my final design.I was also playing around with different blending features like the glow effect.

 

I like the orange tone, as I find it suits better to the style of the character, as the robot is well worn. I believe a blue tone looks too advance for a run down robot.

Also on Thursday, James from Immersive VR gave a lecture. Before the lecture he came by to see some of the students work, when he came around to see me I showed him my current work and portfolio work. I showed him my current project which he really liked and I explained the UI element of my project and giving him examples of what I would like to achieve. We looked online of some examples which my UI could look like potentially and told me that some of the UI used in the Iron man films was created by someone locally in the area.

In the lecture he spoke about what he does at the company, and what they are looking for in applicants who are thinking of starting a career in this VR industry. He also spoke about what companies he has done work for example ‘Johnson baby’ and other advertisement’s and big brand companies. They have also made a fun game which is set in World War II, it is a shooter where you must kill dinosaurs, this was using VR technology. It seems the team is not overly big at this company and it seems to be a fun working environment to be in with friendly people. It is something that I would look more into and to see if my skills suit the company.

On Friday, I had a lecture about the exhibition. This was to give us more information on what the layout would look like and how our work may be presented. I plan to present rendered landscape images of my project. I believe there may be at least four prints I would like to present, and if possible maybe a turntable of my model. I also was considering of 3D printing my model but due to the detail of the model such as the wires this may too much time to organise and prepare for printing. I have decided to not 3D print the model.

Also on Friday I had still kept in contact with Chris who does the UI at ‘CodeMasters’. I have been talking to him about the UI element of my project so I sent image of my robot so far. He really liked the design of the robot, he suggested maybe I should go for a retro-looking UI, he gave me some examples such as:

I believe this maybe from the film 'Alien'. I would like to use this as inspiration.

I really like the idea and I will stick with a retro theme, he was not the only person to mention a retro theme as I did show this to my brother and he also said he liked the idea of a retro style as it suits the robot. I will aim to produce some quick examples in the next few days.

Week Summary

This is the first week being back at university since the Easter break.

On Monday, I decided to add someone I was working with at EGX Rezzed from CodeMasters on Twitter. They got in contact with me and we spoke briefly about the weekend and they told me about some job roles going around that if I should apply they will put in a good word. That was really nice to know. I will aim to stay in touch with them from time to time.

I also decided to go into university and head to the library to find some books on UI and for more advice for my portfolio and what to expect from a job interview. Since doing the event it has given me more of a drive to become part of the games industry.

I did managed to find a book that may help me with the job aspect. In this book it does talk about different job roles and some good advice from industry experts which will give me more knowledge of the interview process. It does have some UI sections which is useful.

On Tuesday, I heard more the from the UI artist at Codemasters. (Update we have been in touch most days since Rezzed).

I also have been doing more to my model using the poly-painting method. I have decided to use the method of textures. I have found the images on the website:  https://www.textures.com/

Above are some of the images I have downloaded from the website that I have used or intended to use if necessary. These images work well with damage marks to the metal of the body.

I would like to get the poly-painting completed by the end of this week to early next week.

On Wednesday, I continued with poly-painting my model, it is a long process. I am still using textures from images from time to time and always using alphas to give me the appearance of a textured surface and finer details. I have also downloaded some alphas from the Z brush website to help me get the desired effect I am looking for.

https://pixologic.com/zbrush/downloadcenter/alpha/

 This image shows just some of the alphas you can download for free.

I have also had to add more polys to certain areas to my model such as areas of the arms and legs because the poly-painting method was not showing detail on the hard flat surfaces.

 This image shows the image texture on the arm and also added topology to gain a smoother result.

 Still need editing with the poly-painting but it is getting there.

On Thursday I went into university and shown some of my class the model so far, some suggested that I a little more personality to the character such as war paint, a name printed on the model. I took on their advice and went into Photoshop and produced some quick paint overs of war paint designs over the robot face. 

I decided to do quite a few different designs, some comical than others. I got some feedback from some of my class. The colour red was a top pick, I thought the same. And most of them who I asked liked the simple red paint effect over the eyes. I also thought that design worked well, as it's not to detracting from some of the other designs. 

On Friday, I went into university in the morning as I had my feedback from 'Aiden Lesanto' about the UI art test. It was great to see everyone thoughts and processes on what they created and how their UI worked if it was in a game. I was also surprised at how many of the people in the group wanted or was thinking about going into a UI job role. Most people I know are aiming towards a 3D role in environments or characters so it was surprising to know that some others where also thinking UI especially the year 2 students.

The feedback that I got back from Aiden was positive. He did like my design and he was surprised and impressed at how detailed I made the wire frames that I created in Basiliq were. He looked over my final design and liked the details, he gave me some tips on areas but told me I had potential which was really good to hear. Later that day I managed to have one to one chat with Aiden and showed him my current project which he really liked and wishes me to email him when my project is completed as he would like to see the final outcome of the piece. I will remember to do that. We spoke for sometime and I asked him questions on how I could create a UI piece for my model, he suggested I look into using smart objects in Photoshop, I will look into this in more depth. I also told him as I am new to UI and have not yet got work for my portfolio I am worried about it, he told me he was the same when he was a student and told me to focus on it when I finish university and just build up a portfolio, He gave me advice on how to do this and told me his own experiences. It was good to talk to someone who was also in the same position as me only a short time ago, it gave me the confidence that if I work hard enough I will get their eventually.

Also earlier in the week I put myself forward to partake in the small QA brief set by 'Imagination studios' I made sure to start this task as soon as I could as time is running thin now till hand in. I played a chapter or two of the game Friday night and then went back to it Saturday morning. The game took no longer than 3 hours to complete. It was enjoyable as I have never played a narrative game such as this where motion capture is used this way. I had to answer just a few question's. I found the questions to be more based around the promotion aspects of the game more than its game play which I found interesting. I wanted to do this task to get a feel for QA even though it was not as full depth as a real QA position it was a start and a experience.

Week Summary (Easter)

It is currently the Easter term.

In the first week of the Easter break I did not do as much work as I intended but I did do a little. During this week Zbrush had an update called 'Zbrush 2018'. As I have bought my own full copy of Zbrush I downloaded the free update. For a free update the added features are great!. To name a few of some of the new features Zbrush added.:

Polygroup it

Analyze your model’s topology and based on the settings you choose it detect boundar­ies of potential PolyGroups. This is a quick and easy way of creating polygroups, this may come in handy with my model.

Sculptris Pro

You can  brush across the surface of your model and this feature will dynamically add and reduce polygons wherever and whenever it’s needed. This is great for adding finer details in certain areas of your model without having to increase the poly count of the whole model to gain the effects.

Also to add which will help me with my model for the wires would be the new added curve stroke functions:

Liquid - You can reshape the curve by dragging on it. You can also lengthen or shorten the curve shape when dragging the curve to edit it.

Elastic -  Similar to Liquid mode except that the curve deformation will only occur with the Draw Size radius of your brush. Can also be used to extend or shorten the curve by dragging its end points.

Just before starting the Easter break I noticed my model had uneven areas of the face maybe through bad topology in areas.

I noticed when I smoothed the area it did not really effect the model well and then noticed it opened a hole in this area. I thought using the new Sculptris Pro feature it would add more polys to clean this area but it did not work 100%. Because of this I decided to try another method and polygroup certain areas of the head and played around with the Zremesher and other topology methods.

This was the best result I could get without ruining the effect of my model and keeping it to it's original style. It isn't perfect but I still haven't finished editing the head of my robot, I still want to add to it yet so I may see if I can work something into this area.

In the second week of the Easter break I worked more to my model on the Monday and Tuesday.

On the Monday, I added more to my model such as details for the design purpose of the model.

Before the Easter break my tutor told me to change some of the areas of my model where I added some insert meshes brought in from the BadKing website. The upper leg area was a place I thought to change. The upper joint area shown here on my model has been created using the shadowbox method. I actually prefer this to the brought in mesh. I also added in wires to certain areas especially around the joints.

I also added other details such as scrap metal and more wires to my model. When adding the wires I used the new liquid and elastic features they saved me time with editing the wires and I was able to give more of a drooping effect to some of the wires.

On Tuesday, I started experimenting with poly-painting. I have used it before in my previous project but felt I did not use the Poly- paint method to its full potential last time.

I was blending with this try out.

This shows poly- painting with other materials and using the Sculptris Pro feature while painting to see it's effects.

I was testing the use of textures on a model, using non destructive methods and destructive. It gives a nice texture to the model by using imported images. I will use this method in my final poly-painted piece.

This shows the character with added alpha effects. This will also be a good way to add details to my piece.

This was using standard poly-paint approaches and using a metal material and colour on top.


EGX REZZED. 


In the last week of the Easter term I worked at the EGX Rezzed. At first I had a standard weekend ticket and was going to go with friends, but my brother put me forward to a woman who works for Splatter Group, he has worked for them in the past and he said it was a get way to network.

Splatter Group is an Experiential and Field Marketing agency specializing in face to face marketing experience, They tend to work with a lot of different brands from Video games to Make-up. As I have worked in retail and had to with customers before I started university for a few years I felt confident to do a job role like this. I got in contact with the agency and was successful.  

I worked to promote the car racing game 'OnRush' by the developers 'Codemasters'. It was such a fun experience and I met so many people from developers to players. I got to hand out my business cards and I received a few in return. I loved being able to promote the game seeing how players interacted and enjoying the game experience. One of the best moments was meeting and getting to know some of the develops of the game, we all had drinks on the Saturday night. As I have been thinking of going into UI design roles in the industry I was lucky enough to be working with one of the UI designers for the game. He was lovely and so helpful, he gave me so many tips and advice and looked at my portfolio. We continue to talk over email ever since the event he still helps and answers any questions I may have and I have kept him up to date with my current university project. I really appreciate his advice and kindness.  

I did speak to more of the team at Codemasters some such as the art director, 3D designer and a QA member of staff they where all lovely to talk to and all gave me some good advice I added them on social media. I have felt more confident since doing the event and I would be happy to work at a job like this again. I maybe put forward to work at Eurogamer this year. If I do, that will be another great opportunity for me to network.

 These posters where just some of the give aways I had to give to players that had played 'Onrush'