Final blog: in summary

This report will summarise my contribution to the project as well as my personal thoughts throughout.

At the beginning of the project, I went after the role of art director, responsible for managing visual look, concepts and paintovers. I got this role, along with 2 other people. While I did lots of concepts, and paintovers when we were trying to imagine what areas should look like, I never really felt like I was a big contribution in dictating what the level should look like, but rather I was in agreement with the group on most topics, and just continued to pitch in ideas wherever appropriate, despite feeling like my input was dismissed on occasion. 

Our ambition in the beginning later proved to be far too big, as we planned to have not only the main theatre room, but multiple rooms leading off, including a prop room, storage room, dressing room, tea room and even an outside alleyway area. With this is mind I initially created a concept for the tea room. This is a good example of how being too ambitious cost us time that we could have spent on more assets or the like, since these additional rooms never made it to the level. Despite this, I did enjoy the concepting very much. 

As seen in my asset zoo, my contribution was primarily through assets, including a fortune teller character that consumed a bulk of the time. I created all the big curtains you see on the main stage, including the backdrop and curtain frame, complete with pulley system. As well as the bar stools, till, plant, fortune cards, coins and gramophone, then collaborated on cardboard boxes, popcorn bags, a bucket and theatre programmes with Holly, through completing the UVs and texturing.  

The Fortune Teller character was pitched by me as one of the two main assets in the level, as our focus was largely on Victorian automatons. After my team approved the idea, I went ahead with much research and several pages of concepts before beginning the model in Zbrush. I went through the same process I did to create my character in the previous 10-week project, but was proud to say that the whole fortune teller (booth included) took me significantly less time to complete. 

After I was done with the fortune teller, I was able to contribute and dress the level with more assets, and created a set of objects, with particular focus on the classic ornate style the Victorians are known for. I often chose to spend more time perfecting objects and creating detailed patterning in my high polys, than keeping them simple and creating more of them. While I could have created more with this method, during the project I kept the motto in mind, ‘quality over quantity’, and thought it better to create fewer high quality assets, than more of a lesser quality.

Although asset creation was my main form of contribution, I also assisted with setting up the sound in the level. While Beth chose and brought in appropriate music for the level, I brought in my gramophone and set up a sound attenuation for it, so it sounds like the music is actually playing from the gramophone, with the volume lessening the further away the player gets from it.

Overall I’m happy with my contribution, with my only gripe, if any, being that I wish I could have done more, or that we could have created something on a bigger scale than just one room.

Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts and Round Up

The off the map project was an intense roller coaster. As a group we knew very early on that we wanted to create a theatre circling the theme of Maskelyne and Cooke’s work- primarily focusing on automatons and the nature of these. We had initially intended on creating a theatre with a prop room, dressing rooms and an outside to cover the specialities of all group members. Unfortunately, we suffered an initial hit with a team member leaving the course early on which made the workload heavier on our group. The second hurdle in regards to meeting our target was the work pace of our team members- with some working considerably slower than others due to working on portfolio pieces- because of this I was forced to sacrifice much of the quality of my work in order to meet the target of creating assets for the theatre room.

Lighting

Early on I wanted to learn lighting and this seemed the perfect opportunity to do so. After Holly initially lit the scene with three point lights, i then went in and appropriately place point lights with shadows turned off in all the room’s light sources.

I used spotlights to illuminate the stage from above and side light sources with a yellowy/green tint to give the appearance of lime lighting from the era.

I also illuminated the chandelier and the ground floor dimly to create atmosphere.

Particle Effects

As the room was intended to take place during the day time before a show, I wanted to create a dust particle effect to ensure that a further atmosphere was created.

Sound

Using http://freemusicarchive.org/  I was able to find copyright free Victorian music that I then exported and changed the file type to .wav. I then took these files and, put them into engine and set it to play as background noise. Following the gramophone being imported, Jasmine set the music to play only around this object to create a most interactive element for the level.

Filming and Editing

Holly, Jasmine and I decided a list of shots we wanted to make so that we covered all the bases for our show reel. Whilst Holly made the rails for the filming, I stood by her as a critical eye to help make sure the shots were perfect. Following Holly filming and exporting these shots, I edited them to create the final cut in Adobe Premiere.

Final Blog - Group Contribution & Thoughts

Off The Map is finished!

Here I will discuss my contribution to the group and what I thought about the experience, breaking up my contribution into different areas.

Project Management:

I was in charge of managing the entire group, creating asset lists, setting up meetings and ensuring that people were doing there work that they were assigned. I liked doing this but it could be frustrating at times as I felt I shouldn't have to chase people and that they should take the initiative to do the work themselves. We also assigned the role of art director and brand director; even though I wasn't an art director I ended up creating the style guide, gathered most of our primary research at the beginning during the concepting phase and found assets that would be a base to focus on for the tri count and texture style. I felt that this was not my job but it wouldn't be done if I didn't do it.

Screen grab of the Style Guide I created

Screen grab of the asset list I produced (with the help of Harriet as I'm not good at Excel)

Perforce Bugs/Fixing:

Week 4 I had to fix our entire perforce level with help of other students outside of our group and tutors as it had not been set up correctly while I was in hospital the week before.

Modelling:

I produced nearly everything large and structural including:

- Modular Kit (Floors, Walls, Archways)
-Second Floor
-Stage
-Loading Deck
-Bar

This was fun but I would have liked to have been able to make some small intricate and decorative props and assets that the Victorians were famous for but I was unable to as no one else was doing the structural elements and I was also working a lot faster than most of my group, some members of our team worked incredibly slowly and inefficiently producing only one asset every 1-2 weeks, so I knew that if I did them myself then they would be done in time for the hand in at an acceptable standard. Also producing them all myself helped insure a house style, even though I shared the materials I was using as well as creating a style guide.

As I had to pick up the assets that other people weren't taking I felt I had to sacrifice on the level of detail and care that I took in both my modelling and texturing to ensure that we had a finished level by the deadline which was frustrating but I recognised that this wasn't the time to make a only few portfolio pieces.

In total I made around 30 assets solely by myself and then collaborated on 6 with Jasmine and then altered some of Justyna's pillars to fit the level.

Dressing The Level:

As I did the modular kit and structural elements I dressed/placed/created a very large percentage of the level with the exception of the bottles in the bar and some of the shelving backstage. I also placed a lot of other group members assets in the level once they imported them. I did enjoy this but I felt that I could have spent this time creating more assets instead of placing everyone's.

These screenshots show the level dressing, I would say that 80-90% of these assets were placed by me.

Creating Substance Materials - Vertex Painting:

-Wood
-Wallpaper
-Brick
-Vertex Painting

Decals:

Created some decals of scratches in wood to make the wood look more realistic and worn.

Lighting:

I started the lighting set up (extremely basic and minimal) with a basic colour and mood, adding a post processing volume and light mass volume, Beth then said she wanted to continue making the lighting which was great as it freed time up for me. I would drop in occasionally and add new lights or change a colour temperature but otherwise Beth did the lighting for the level.

Blueprints:

I recovered the first person blueprint from the start content and then removed the gun, person and cross hair from camera view but that was the most I did there.

I also created a flickering light blueprint/material which we didn't include in the final level as we felt it looked more horror-like and wouldn't fit in with a fully working theatre.

I would have liked to do more blueprints and add game play elements but as I was already doing so much I did not have time.

Lightmaps:

I insured that the lightmap density for the entire level was correct and green (with minimal blue areas). This was quite tedious but vital to ensure a good FPS.

Video Capture:

I created all the camera rails and sequences for our video, which Beth then edited into the final video. Me, Beth and Jasmine collaborated on which shots to take and I then made the rails for each area and captured the video. We had some issues with post processing auto exposure which took some time to work out.

Packaging:

I had to package the entire level which was difficult as I kept running into errors and finding solutions so these were difficult.

Week 32 Minutes

Off The Map Weekly Minutes

Week 32

In Attendance: Justyna, Matt, Beth, Jasmine, Holly

Work Progress

• Holly- Made iterations and decals to break up the symmetry, dressed backstage and has fixed the lightmaps.
• Matt - Continued refining the stage front.
• Justyna- Worked on piano and separated pillows from chairs.
• Jasmine-  Finished the gramophone and imported all assets into engine.
• Bethany-  Finished additional assets and bar dressing and has refined lighting.

　

This Weeks Actions

• Make sure all assets are modelled, unwrapped, textured and in level
• This must be done by Wednesday at 12:00 to be in the video.
• This must be done by Thursday at 12:00 to be in the packaged file.

Issues Going Forward

• Make sure ALL of your completed work is in level
• Complete all asset zoos with notice of each other

Week 9 + 10: final assets and fixing/polishing

This last week or so I spent primarily fixing and polishing my assets and bits here and there that needed altering. But I also found the time to work on some new ones.

Firstly I completed the uvs and textured these 6 assets: the bucket, cardboard box, popcorn bag, flattened popcorn bag, theatre programme, and open theatre programme, and placed them in level.

I created a separate black out version of the top trim curtain to complete the set backstage, and additionally a curtain backdrop to go at the back of the main stage.

The curtains on the backdrop began as blue but after consultation with my team, I changed them to red to match the real curtains.

I also placed my coins around the bar area

And lastly created a gramophone asset.

While Beth chose and brought in appropriate music for the level, after I brought in my gramophone, I set up a sound attenuation for it, so it sounds like the music is playing from the gramophone, with the volume lessening the further the player gets from it.

Week 9 - Polish Week

This week my main goal was to pleasantly light the scene to give atmosphere and mood.  I worked on the post processing filters and modes as well as generally brightening up the scene. Following our presentation I also worked on creating additional small props for the scene such as mops, brushes, posters and tools to dress and give the feel that the scene is dressed to show before a show.