Off the Map: Post Mortem

Off the Map hand in was last Friday and I'm pleased to say the least although work can still be done on it for the actual competiton hand in date which is sometime in June I think.

Like a lot of other people when we first got the brief I had lots of ideas and thought it had great potential. I wasnt too fussed about being given a group at random however as none of us had worked together before I think it was a bit difficult to get started. 

At first the project was set to be a sidescroller and nothing more howeverthe brief was opened up so we could chose to do anything however we stuck with the sidescroller idea as we had done some research on that type and had some ideas. We all worked on moodboards to get a general feel for what we would like in a sidescroller game and what each of us personally like.

I think it took us awhile to decide because we had all looked at sidescrollers and we couldn't deicide on an art style so we were floating around on nothing for awhile. That's when Imogen had shown us a clip of a video game that very stylised and 'faceted' which matched the concepts she had started.

The concepts I had come up with were fairly basic and average. Let's say concepting isn't one of my strong points but I tried my best. I had some garden areas of the level and the rabbit hole to concept and design. I also tried to come up with some puzzles for the game and one of them was used for a room adjacent to the rabbit hole.

We had all worked on our concepts separately which looking back on it wasn't a good idea because they were all kind of separate and didn't match well together. At this point I didn't realise but this was to continue for the whole project so the level became very odd and mismatched, even when it came to engine. I mainly modelled assets for the section of the level I had worked on but they were also used to populate the level. I'm pleased with the assets I modelled and I'm glad they were simple and stylised. 

I have to say that I didnt do as much work as I could have however there are valid reasons for some missed days and lateness. I didn't work on anything in engine as I know very little about UE4 and I honestly wouldn't have been any help at all.

I really like the look of the level in the end as its very stylised and stands out from others. I had good feedback from friends about how it looked and that it looked fun to play. So personally it seems like a good level and is something quite different and interesting, I'm really glad we picked to go really stylised as that's the sort of thing I like, realistic is not for me. I think this level would appeal to lots of ages adults and children as it's simple and easy and has a colourful, childlike style.

Overall I found it hard to work in a team for this project. Other projects have been ok and I've managed however I don't think any of our team gelled together very well and that made it hard.
I am quite disappointed in myself for not doing more work and being a bit distant from the group however it wasn't just me that didn't communicate very well as I think we have all fallen on that hurdle. If I were to go back and re do the project I would have voiced my opinions a lot more and contributed more. As my communication skills have been poor on this project I plan to do a few group projects in the summer to build on those skills and group work in general. 

Some Art Stuff

First things first I've been pretty stressed and dealing with some issues that I'm in the process of sorting out. So the OTM project has been a bit of a back burner which I do feel quite bad about however health is more important. 

When I haven't been working on uni stuff I've been trying to get a lot of drawing and digital painting done. This is due to the lack of life drawing lessons because its the end of the year and I didn't want to get rusty. Also my digital skills are not that great but I'm working on it. 

One of the drawings I've finished recently is this Rockhopper Penguin skeleton which I took a picture of in Manchester University's own museum to draw from. I drew the head slightly large and I couldve taken more care in the shading however it was good practice. 

Here is something I painted for an acquaintance, this is one of my first few proper digital paintings so I know it's nothing amazing but I'm proud of how much I've improved over the last few paintings. 

Another digital painting I did a few weeks ago is this Angelina Jolie portrait. I think it's actually alright for my first colour painting, I'm hoping to improve loads more over summer which is right around the corner. 

My newest project is to paint portraits of the Parks and Recreation main characters as it's a series that I love and it will challenge me a bit. I'll keep this blog updated with my progress.