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'