This term has been hard for me but I feel that through these projects I have found what I would like to progress with and found what maybe isn’t so much my forte.
Weapon:
This is the final outcome of my weapon as well as the research for it:
Overwatch Environment:
Diorama:
This week I decided that I wanted to focus on progressing my fishing shack project. While it may not be the highest marked project so far I feel it has the most potential and is the one I would use in a portfolio.
Some of the crit I received was that it needed more assets and to feel more lived in and that the presentation could do with some work. From this I decided to spend the week doing such things as placing more assets, modelling a crate and a boat and tweaking things like the water and the presentation of the project. I am actually pretty pleased with how it has turned out though there are parts I would like to re-vist and change in the future.
In addition to this I did go back and tweak my weapon a bit more by adding more roundness to the parts that needed it, fixing a section in the UV’s and the harsh edge on the tape at the back. I am glad I did this as it does actually make all the difference.
This is my Formative hand-in for the diorama. I would like to spend polish week working on it further but I feel it is much more successful than previous projects so I am happy about that.
I would like to add some more details such as a boat and place more objects around in polish week.
All textures were made with either substance painters pre-set materials or substance share materials (Share.allegorithmic.com, 2017) that have been heavily edited and layered in with other materials and generators in order to create my own textures or were done in substance designer.
Share.allegorithmic.com. (2017). Substance Share « The Free Exchange Platform ». [online] Available at: https://share.allegorithmic.com/ [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].
This week seemed to go very quickly and I spent a large portion of my time creating shaders in engine and making sure everything looks right there.
I started the week by making changes to the ground as it was not working as a small platform as the end felt far too sudden. In addition to this I modeled the chimney properly and made changes in engine to the ground by vertex painting them.
After this I began making the buoys and then the rocks. 
From there I went on to make the reeds as my foliage piece. I made them according to Shanes tutorial and I am really happy with how they turned out. Below you can see the high poly versions about to be baked down. 
By the end of this week I felt like I had achieved a lot- while there are many things still to fix and many things I wish I had had time for I am happy with what I produced.
This week has seen this project come together a little more and start to look like something I am relatively proud of.
I started the week by creating window frames and then texturing the barrier around the platform. I decided to use the same texture as the platform and just strategically place my UV’s. I think it works pretty effectively and saves me texture space so that’s good. I also added a little more shape to the ground underneath but I didn’t really like it so I am going to re-visit it later.
From there I worked on texturing the door and the other amenities that are vital to the shack. I baked down a lot of the detailing and used a similar texture for all of it to keep it consistent. These textures were again combinations of different substance painter materials and generators.
I did also spend time this week taking parts into engine and tweaking them to look most effective. In addition to this I made my own ground textures using a texture I found on substance share: https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/645 and making my own grass to go ontop and changing the colouring, noise and the way the puddles lie to fit my scene better. While I would have loved to make this texture from scratch it was a good way for me to get a texture made within the time frame given. I then exported three versions of the ground so that I can vertext paint them in engine.
(Share.allegorithmic.com. (2017). Mud Grass Patches. [online] Available at: https://share.allegorithmic.com/libraries/645 [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].)
This week was a good start to this project. I feel like a realistic style is something I am much more comfortable with. I started out by making a white box. I kept it relatively simple but with a few different elements.
After this I moved on to baking down and texturing the main body of the shack. I used the painted wood material in substance painter and changed the wood in which the paint lay on it a different type of wood (another painter material edited in wood grain and colour) and then edited the amount of grunge in the cracks after baking them down. I am relatively pleased with how it has turned out. It can be seen here in max (normals are not showing correctly)
After this I focused on the platform texture and the roofing texture. Both of these are baked down textures that I then took into substance painter and used multiple materials presets and downloaded from substance share combined to create a texture I though worked. I am actually really happy with how these have turned out though they took longer than I would have liked.
I am hoping to pick up the pace and work more in engine next week.
So this project I decided I wanted to try and push myself to do the diorama brief. However after last project I realized I needed to scale back completely and maybe not try and make all my own textures this time.
While trying to decide what to base the diorama on I referred back to briefs examples and noticed a cute fishing shack that I thought would be interesting while manageable and also give me a chance to try some shaders in engine.
From this I started doing my research and came up with this as my main point of reference as well as a few more images that can be seen here: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/honorwhat/fishing-shack-diorama/
This is the stage I am at for my formative hand-in. Unfortunately I ran out of time and so there are a few things still unfinished such as the floor, harsh edges on the windows, lack of small props and possibly a feature piece. However I would like to come back and do these when I have a chance. Despite this I am actually please that I hand made a tiling texture that worked and looks good and also got back into using z-brush and creating stylised assets.
Today I spent the day building all the base elements for my level such as windows and doors and the buildings. In addition to this I planned out what texture spaces things would be using. At the moment I feel behind but I have looked at my time plan and I am only a day behind so I plan to just push this week to try and get ahead. Tomorrow I would like to start one of the tiling textures and possibly texture the doors.
Today I mainly focused on creating a basic whitebox layout so I could get a feel for size and scale of my project as well as start to make an asset list. this is my whitebox so far: I still expect a lot to change and I am concerned about the scale of the project […]
Its the start of week two and I am thankfully feeling better and more motivated to work.
I decided to pick the Overwatch style environment brief to do which I am quite excited about. Overwatch is a game I play a lot and a style I really love so I had lots of ideas from the get go as to what to do. While I considered doing a Paris or Amsterdam themed environment I settled on a small French village as the theme and place. From there I decided to look for images and most importantly a key image. This is my research from that:
Today I decided to start off with the weapon project. After looking at the selection I decided to pick the gun that made the most sense to me. This was this one:
First day of third year!
Just got the style matrix briefs of which I have chosen my three:
– Weapon modelling project
– Overwatch style small environment
– Realistic Diorama
I am excited to start this year! Heres hoping everything goes well.