Week 30; From Humble Beginings

  Well, I managed to reach the end of my first year at university (relatively) unscathed! It's been such a blast I can't believe it's over, I've thoroughly enjoyed every part of this year and have made sure I won't regret anything that I haven't done this year. I feel like it's the first time where I've really wanted to work for something, which has been completely alien to me in my past experiences. Enough of the sentimentality though, I may tear up. However, I will leave you with a comparison of what I started out the year with, and what I ended up with.

Week 4 Sci-Fi Crate

Week_30

  So, as you may well know this is the summation of all the work we've done for the past year - the zombie pick-up truck. It's been great fun to model, however sadly my free trials to nDo and substance designer had run out, so I couldn't complete the whole PBR look, however I tried hand-painting the different maps (even though I fully well know it's nowhere near the same). What I did find out though is that UE4 have updated their launcher in which their new version supports Metalic and Roughness maps! I wish I had known this before instead of fiddling around with them in the previous project! At least I know now and I can fully utilize this function, which is great! 

  Right, lets move onto my thoughts on the outcome of this project. I'm indifferent at the moment. Having just finished it and handed in, I'm not really quite sure what to think. I think under the circumstances of having no substance designer and trying to make the textures PBR I did quite well. However I just don't like the design. It's just too bland for my liking. I should have gone back into the diffuse of the truck and fiddled around with the map there, however it wouldn't look quite right as the metalic and roughness map wouldn't register the extra information and I didn't have access to substance designer or nDo, so fresh blood I add to the body work may seem really dull and rust, for example. I've also learned a good lesson in not adding extreme detail to areas which wont ever be seen, for example, for the gear stick in the interior, I made on the normal map the inscription on top of the gear stick, however no-one is ever going to see or notice that unless I tell them it's there, which rather defeats the object. All this being said, I'm happy with the aesthetics of the asset, it's just the design I really have a problem with. I'm impressed that I was able to push myself to try and learn this technique in time to submit a project with it, and it'll only help me in the future. 

  Now, what I'd do differently. Firstly I'd spend a larger time concepting until I was completely content with the final outcome (although this may be unrealistic as I will need to make the asset some time, we'll see). I would also pay closer attention to the allocation of space I set out in my UVW Templates, as sometimes I give too muck texture space to a small detail. For example, the barrel on the side of the model looks hideous and I'd make the texture larger and just change the amount of noise in it, it really doesn't fit the top of the barrel and sticks out like a sore thumb. Obviously, with the great news that UE4 now supports metalic and roughness texture maps, there had to be a cog in the works. For some reason when I export my truck as an OBJ and import it into engine, the spikes don't show up like they do in 3DS Max (see flatshader). So if I were to change anything, that'd probably be first on the list. In all honesty I think that's about it, other than what I've mentioned before about the bodywork, I will conclude I'm actually quite happy with the outcome, as opposed to what I wrote before. 

  That concludes my first year. I have a plan for the summer which I'll divulge. I plan on working with my Father, who happens to be a programmer, in creating small app games and keep working on my 3D. I'm also going to be setting myself certain drawing tasks from life since it's summer, and I should be going to some nice places around England in which I can draw. I also plan to save up for a wacom tablet so I can texture from home as well as model, which would help immensely over the summer as I wouldn't want to fall behind on that! Other than that I'm going to be looking at game engines and what they can do more closely. I really want to be able to fully utilize UE4's potential as I currently feel like it's being a bit wasted on my understanding of it. I also plan to make my own website for my blog and move all the posts onto there, as I feel that it'll enable me to design it exactly how I want it and accommodate my requirements. I will also keep blogging what I'm working on over the summer as well as I wan't to stay in a good habit of blogging.

Thanks for reading!