Sentry Gun Post Mortem

On review of the sentry gun project as a whole I found it very fun and interesting! I decided to do something I don’t usually do, which made the project way more interesting and the ice cream concept made it super fun!

Speaking of the concept, I’m really glad I chose to do a fun and different idea, as I usually would have done something very generic and I feel like this idea is much more original.

If I could improve anything on this project I would like to go back and re-paint all my textures as I feel like they’re not quite right or good enough. I’m pleased with how they look on the model in the Unreal Engine but I definitely feel like I could improve them if I spent more time on them.

If I were to go back to this project I would spend way more time in ZBrush sculpting the umbrella and learning the process of baking more in depth. I find baking as a process very confusing and I had a hard time grasping how everything worked however I think with experience I would eventually understand it a lot more, so I think I’ll do it more in the future for practice. I found my sculpt wasn’t very good in the first place and the normals that I made from baking didn’t show through much on the final model in engine which was disappointing, so I would re-do all of that if I were to go back and work on the project some more.

I would also like to add some particle effects that were more fitting for the ice cream cart, like some blob of ice cream that shoot out when the ice cream is shot too. However I found out that after Christmas we will be revisiting this project and learning how to make particle effects so I’ll most likely do this at that point. 

We also had to make posters to advertise our sentry guns to tie the whole project together. I based mine on a Walls advertising poster I saw online which had a really smart advertising campaign and just added my sentry gun into the poster. 

As I progress through my second year I try my best on every project to try and push the boundaries and try make something as original as I can. This has definitely come from my tutors and peers showing awesome work that inspires me but not only that, it’s the drive I have in me to really push to get a great degree and an awesome job.