Reflecting back on this week, has been rather productive compared to last week as I have finally got back into my work flow. Its still been difficult to motivate myself to work due to these inconveniences. But I am managing to carry on with the work however I spent half this week doing my written work. As there was an email sent out about the Planning folder in how it should be done. So with this I focused on the written work for the submission as I want to get most of the written work out of the way. This will allow me to have some spare time before the hand in to sort any issues. With this I carried on with the practical work for the other half of the week. Also at the start of this week we had no team meeting over discord as we already know our targets which most of them carry on over multiple weeks. Even though I do feel like we could have had one to see how everyone is coping with these circumstances. Although we had a team meeting with Aaron on Thursday to discuss how our game is going and how to improve upon it.
From Aaron’s feedback it was mainly improving player controls and making the games environment look abandoned/ left to time. With this we discussed how we could achieve this look which we worked out we just needed more ruined assets such as rubbish and debris which we have already got some of them assets. So for us asset artists we can carry on making more assets. Another way to weather the environment is by creating a type of wash for the assets like dirt and grime in the unreal engine. Which the Dev’s already have an idea to achieve this look which is worth a try. Other than that Aaron is happy with the direction of the game which improved our groups motivation to try and carry on with our game even with these circumstances.
As for me my targets are to carry on making more assets and finishing off the assets. Which as I mentioned from last week we have down scaled the game in certain areas. So with the assets we have down scaled the details on the assets and their textures. Which is a shame as I was looking forward to seeing the end product of our prototype game if we didn’t have these inconveniences. With this in mind I started to go over the assets again to see if they need improvements such as reduce poly gons (re topology) or just start from scratch. Also I needed to sort out the textures which we are applying texture masks in Maya and importing them into unreal where we can create textures. This is why I am going over my assets to fix/improve them and then apply materials to the texture masks. With this I started to polish some of them due to how basic and flat they looked. So with this I improve the designs of the houses which the first one I reduced the poly gons and added the masks. The first house turned out alright but I feel like I could add more details which I can do later on if we have any spare time. With the second house I ended up reworking the whole thing as the windows looked to small and narrow and I didn’t like the layout of the windows and doors. So I ended up starting from scratch again which was the right choice as with this new design that still keeps the shape of the old design. With this I am going to improve upon the windows and doors and add some balcony to add some character to it. With this I have come up with a couple of ideas to add character and detail to the buildings such as power cables going from one house to another or some washing lines. This adds some character to the buildings making them look like they have been lived in. With this I will bring up these ideas to my group in the next meeting to see if I can get an approval of the group.
Overall this week has been good in producing work but again I feel like I could have done more. The reason for this is that I ended up with a migraine near the end of the week reducing my production. As this migraine made it difficult to think and look at the screen. This might be down to how stressed I am with the unit and probably staring at my screen for long periods. So I am going to work out a time table to hopefully reduce the consistency of my migraines. I am just hoping that this will go before next week so I can catch up with the work and my targets. But in a way its a positive as it allows me to work out a time table to work around my life at home. On top of the work I have been carrying on with the written work which I have taken a good chunk out of the Planning folder.
Thomas Morphew Games art 