Jasmine Quaill S5222053 _ Games Art Journal

Jasmine Quaill S5222053 _ Games Art Journal

Week 1 Shield Activity

Creating this model was a good introduction to the program we will be using, as someone who has some cgi knowledge from Maya I picked it up decently fast. A lot of these techniques will be helpful for creating my asset pack.

Week 2 Hachet Activity

This hatchet brought my first hurdle, my helix was having a lot of problems with the coil shape and getting tangled, I tried to figure it out and this was the best I got. I will have to reattempt that part to figure out where I went wrong but the rest of the hachet was extremely straightfoward and I was able to follow along easlily. Techniques I learnt from this have made me more confiidant with the program I believe.

Week 3 ~ Spear Activity

I started on this a couple weeks after the initial tutorial upload and definitely underestimated how long it took me to create this! This week I've been working on the Far Cry Primal Spear, in total it took probably 9 hours so it took me a couple weeks to have time to work on it. I had to be on and off working on it with some of my own personal obsticles. I have been in the middle of moving house due to my mum moving out of the army so my devices have been packed or I myself have been busy with the moving and cleaning process. 

This tutorial was beneficial to my skills as, despite the lengthy time it took for me to ocmplete it, helped me become more comfortable with the program and has been helpful towards my own game asset pack development.

Questions from this week:

New techniques i can learn?

what are some areas i can improve in? 

How can i improve my workflow?

Common mistakes and how to avoid?

I could definatly improve in a lot of areas when looking at this model as well as reflecting on my process. Polishing the model and pushing more detail could improve this model especially when lookingat the wraps on the spear.

I could learn more about what materials I should use, looking into how glass looks as a material or clear plastic for my assets.

The best way to improve my workflow really is to continue practicing using the program as I think I'm just extremely slow and maybe too methodical which eats away at my time.

The common mistakes I made were misclicking keyboard keys (which would do something and due to my umfamiliarity with all the programs shortcuts I wouldn't know how to fix it), straying from the reference sheet (some of the specific shapes don't line up exactly) and typology problems which are easily fixed now I'm more aware of them.

Week 9 Texturing Activity

I did not model another asset for this weeks activity but I still attempted it with one I already had just so I could try out texturing. I found the UV unwrapping much easier this time in comparision to when I had to unwrap a character so that was good. It took some time learning how to navigate the software for this specific step but painting the UV wraps was fine. I didn't spend much time on the painting itself but it was a good refresher for me and it is something I would love to improve on hopefully through the asset pack I am creating.

I did add a little skull detail and it made me realise how I will have to think about flat surfaces and how I should go about texturing them. If I wanted to add this skull in the inital design I think it would work better to create some smooth space for it or having the rough shape slightly raised from the axehead.

Lectures

(notes and reflections from classes)

Week 2:

When looking at the material from week 1 and week 2 I was encouraged to do my own research for inspiration for my asset pack, not only for the workflow but for the techniques I want to use for my models. 

Some inspiration I was reserching were these models created by 

These are extremely helpful for seeing how much detail the models themselves are and how much the texturing really goes into detail. This is something I want to keep in mind for my project with how much I can make my asset pack shine through the textures as someone who is more accustomed to digital painting and not CGI.

I want to think about how can I make my models pop with the use of shaders and hope i can familarise myself with them. I have some experience with UV wraps but I am hoping to learn more with shaders and materials to make my models more impressive. 

What is a Polygon:

Made up of a Vertes, an Edge and a face, a polygon is the most common geometry used in 3D software.

To ensure a clean topology for my mesh I should use quads and triangles can be problematic.

Week 3:

Scott McCloud's Big Triangle

Taking a look at Scott McCloud's Big Triangle I believe my chosen art style will fit at around where 70-71 fits. This is because my chosen artstyle will still be quite stylized with some fulid shapes but still inspired by reality with not abstract inspirations at all. I want my style to be reconisable but also something that could exist in reality (stylized realism).

Week 4:

When creating my assets I should think about the production preparation. This includes texture preperation, rigging considerations, modelsheets and references gathered before modelling.

When looking at prop model sheets it is important to have different drawings for the front profile, side profile etc to ensure easier modelling and it is also good to have a size reference on the model sheets.

Once i have all my models prepared I intend to create a piority list to reflect and keep track on all my models.

(this work is in my assesment 1 submission)

Week 5:

Notes~

clean modelers are rare and in high demand!!

polygon-count and topology are the two core attributes that define a clean model. 

watching your polycount is important when looking at the budget, animation, rigging, texturing and rendering.

only use the geometry you need to get the detail you want 

Week 6: 

Noticibly there is no work completed from the week 6 workshop yet. I have begun work on the concpets for the commisions I have yet to model do to time constraints. Even if i do not submit them as class work I do intend to complete these to gain more practice with 3DS Max.

Looking at boolean operations in the week 6 content I believe that it will be extremely helpful towards my asset pack as the controller in the video tutorial is extremely helpful to my arcade assets I am creating.

(note this is where I began to struggle with allowing myself time to dedicate to my classes so I did not get as much practice apart from finishing my spear and begining my asset modelling.)

These are the sketches I created when considering the commision descriptions.

Week 7:

looking into subdivisions I watched some videos on the topic such as

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iRaLN3sWLo&t=60s 

which helped me understand the basics more and when looking online I was able to gather why they can be super important.

Subdividing seems to be more used for organic modelling where as for a lot of game prop models they tend to rely more on crafting geometry manually.

Always think, how close is anybody going to see this model? 

Most clients do ask for lowpoly and then relying on texturing for higher detailing.

subdividing can also be useful for creating a faster workflow! 

- in response to the question asked in "Think" week 7:

(which assets do you believe would benefit from a sub-d workflow? why/why not?)

i do not think my assets would benefit as much as more organic models would if i were to implement a sub-d workflow. My assets are extremely not organic with its shaping, apart from some simple shapes like bunny ears, and so i dont think i should overcomplicate my meshes by sub divinding them. An example of one that would benefit would be for an animal model or a character model that needs a lot of organic detailing.

Week 9:

When looking at texturing it will be important to think ahead especially for planning style and materials. I need to also consider the colour, lighting and texture resolution so that my models can look their best.

Since im doing a stylised semi realistic asset set I will need more bold colours as well as using a hand painted technique to be quite recongisable. This lecture is one I will be revisiting when I begin texturing my own assets as well as visiting some videos I have saved in preparation to help with the process since I'm unable to attend physical lessons.

 

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Assignment Progress / Updates

Modelling was Quite fun but I did fall really behind in my schedule, due to unexpectedly having to move houses which limited my accessibility and time for my class work this trimester.

Once I completed modelling I ran into a few problems from downloading Substance Painter. I couldnt work on my UV's without 3DS Max bufferring or crashing and Sutstance Painter wont run on my computer without crashing far too quick. I did try to work my way around things and do what I could  to get something to deliever. I put my assets all together and slowly worked on producing a render (this took way too long because of the crashing but I still got something done thankfully). I would get an extension but I know I would'nt have time to get much better done so thats fine. 

Whilst I could'nt texture my models like I had hoped, I still created some coloured versions of my construction sheets to demonstrate what I was aiming for because I could use my ipad freely while 3DS Max struggled.

Final Render:

This is the final render of my assets. I stacked a few Gachapon machines to display how they can be stacked which does really pull the look of them together. I chose some pinks and blues in the lighting to give my render an arcade vibe as well and I think it works well to pull my props together.

Reflection

This assignment was quite enjoyable dispite all the setbacks I had. 

From the constant crashing and programs my computer stuggled to handle, to not being able to attend classes on campus, I had my work cut out for me. Nonetheless, I continued to attempt my best with what I had.

I really enjoyed the modelling process and found it quite theraputic. Looking at my meshes it's clear my typology isn't the greatest and could use a lot of work and practice. I wasn't sure if some of the steps I took were correct but continued anyways, which is definitely something i wouldn't have done if I was able to attend classes and have more time to dedicate to this. Looking at my asset pack, I believe the over style and look translated well from concept to model and each prop does really link well together even though I had not been able to access texturing like I had planned. 

Going forward I would really like to practice modelling props more so that I could become confident enough on my own one day. I am still going to attempt to try texturing my models if I ever get the chance just to have that learning experience. 

Despite not having completed this assignment with texturing in my final submission I am still happy with how my final models came out visually and I'm excited to continue to learn and improve.