Weekly reflections

Week 1

What have I done?

This week, I formally started the Through The Keyhole project and I started by looking into Branding, this was a main focus as branding and presentation make up a large portion of my grade this year. I also looked into Maya and Unreal, 3D modelling several pieces of furniture and also creating basic white boxing in Unreal, whilst coding in movement and camera movements.

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learnt about several new techniques both when it comes to 3D modelling and also the Unreal Engine, I have looked at creating camera movements and character movement in Unreal, I now believe that I have a greater understanding of the Engine and also the basic functionalities of the 3D modelling software. Also, the analysis task that I completed this week has set me up with this project quite nicely because I was bale to view other people recreating buildings and environments, this has helped me to understand the basics of what I need to do when it comes to my project and how I should be working in Engine.

What could have been improved or gone better?

I feel that the main area that could have gone better this week would be getting back into my previous workflow style because I feel that this week kicked me back into work mode and I think that I need to improve my workflow to better meet last years standard, this is something that I will need to take on board next week and further throughout the rest of the year.

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them?

The only main problems that I encountered this week were related to 3D modelling and also the Unreal Engine, I had a difficulty understanding the layouts and tools in both Maya and Unreal at the start of the week but I quickly resolved this problem by taking notes in both sessions and referring back to videos and notes whenever I felt that I needed support with my work. I will continue to take notes throughout the sessions in order to refer back to later, to ensure that any mistakes or problems do not arise again.

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

Finish my Branding work as we still need to cover typography and house style
Continue to work to the timeframes given and also work at a continued high standard
Move onto looking at materials in Maya and also new mechanics in Unreal Engine

Week 2

What have I done?

This week, I continued my work in both Unreal and Maya looking at materials in Maya and lighting and torches in Unreal. I also carried out planning into my project, finished my Branding package and also started work on a research report.

What have I learnt?

This week of the project, I have learnt about several new techniques both when it comes to 3D modelling and also the Unreal Engine, I have looked at creating advanced character movement in Unreal, so jumping, crouching and running, and in Maya I have created a detailed model of a torch from a reference image and also a tablecloth that has physics applied to it in order for the tablecloth to react in a realistic manner. I now believe that I have a greater understanding of Unreal Engine and also further knowledge surrounding Maya. Also, the planning documents that I have completed this week will set me in a better positioning coming next week when I plan on starting to develop my final outcome. In Unreal Engine, I have also learnt about lighting techniques and how to apply light sources to objects.

What could have been improved or gone better?

Following last weeks improvement comment, I have now been able to work on my workflow and I feel that I am now getting back into my previous flow. In terms of improvements this week, I feel that with the continued note taking I have been able to improve on my work in both Maya and Unreal and I am now able to independently and confidently use Maya to create designs.

Any problems? If so, how will/have I resolve(d) them?

As I started to develop my final outcome on the last day of the week, I ran into an issue when implementing my door mechanic, this issue was that the door would not open fully and correctly when interacting with it. I managed to resolve this issue by reflecting back upon my research source and adjusting the door height to ensure that it did not collide or cross with other assets and also removed collisions from the wall borders that where positioned next to the door and door frame. After changing these two points the door then was able to correctly open and close.

My targets for next week and the remainder of the project are:

Move onto working on my final outcome
Continue to work to the timeframes given and also work at a continued high standard
Move onto looking at more advanced techniques in Maya and Unreal to further extend my knowledge.

Week 3 - Progress Report

As of Thursday 26th September, I have now finished developing my environment in Unreal Engine and have also finished 3D modelling all of my assets in Maya and applying textures to the assets in Unreal, although applying textures was not a requirement I felt that I needed a challenge and also my environment feels more polished with textures. I am now moving onto writing my final evaluations and also writing up my weekly reflection reflecting back upon my work over this week. During the develop of my outcome I encountered many problems all of which are detailed in the Problem Solving tab, however a few notable problems stood out whilst developing my experience, for example, whilst trying to add a door mechanic which was my added mechanic for this project, the door would not open fully when interacted with, I believe that this issue arose because I forgot to adjust the collision boxes of the walls so the door was clipping on the walls and not opening as intended. This was exactly the problem and I resolved this by adjusting the collisions of the walls and door frames.

Another problem was that when I added lighting to my environment I was unable to view any light in the viewport and the walls around the buildings seemed to glow and reflect light easily. I believe that I was unable to see light because I used the wrong type of light, a spot light instead of a point light and also I believe that the walls were highly reflective because I did not correctly adjust the reflectiveness of the materials on the assets. I was able to resolve both of these issues by doing exactly what I had predicted, I adjusted the reflectiveness of the materials by reducing the specular value and I resolved the lighting issues by replacing the spot lights with point lights.

Final Evaluation - How I met the Brief

For this project I was asked to digitally recreate a company's building, more specifically a company's building that had a family tie to, for example my Uncle works in a Barclays Bank office or my friend works in McDonalds. This project came with some specifications, for example, the building had to feature more than a couple of rooms, each with lighting and also they all had to have been within an enclosed space, so no outside gardens or courtyards. In addition to this, I needed to ensure that my experience was first person, featured a controllable torch and also another mechanic of my choosing.

This was the brief that we were given at the start of the project and I believe that I stuck to all of the points on the brief exactly because, in my project I chose to recreate my Uncles office in Canary Wharf, this already met the brief because I had a family tie to the company and also the office featured only an enclosed space and several office rooms each stretching from a single corridor and common office floor. I managed to meet this criteria by asking my Uncle for photos and videos for reference and then I opened up a blank Unreal Engine project and created the basic blueprint of the office based of the digital blueprint that I created.

This is where I met the brief:

This is my recreated office space.

As you can see I have created an enclosed space which features more than a couple of rooms each separated by a wooden door.

Comparing my reference photo to the outcome you can yet again see that I have met the brief because I have recreated the office space as closely as possible and the office is recognisable from the recreated experience. This meets the brief because I was told to recreate the building as accurately as possible and I believe that I have done that.

Furthermore, the brief required me to include lighting in my experience, I have met this because I have included both ceiling light and also environmental light reflecting through the windows of the office. You can see in the screenshot above that I have clearly met this specification because you can see the ceiling lights producing light rays and also the sun is casting shadows from the objects in the recreated office, this criteria was met through the use of point lighting and I have included a video showing my process of implementing this lighting below.

In addition to this, to ensure that my project met the brief, because I wanted to produce a very high quality outcome, I created a fresh project in Unreal Engine 5 and created a first person character with walk movement, jump movement and also camera movement. I managed to code all of this in using my knowledge from experimentation, without this I would not have been able to code any of this in. Furthermore, as you can see from the showcase video and the screenshot below the players camera is in first person perspective, exactly as the brief stated, so I believe that I successfully met this specification.

Also in the brief, it stated that I needed to include a controllable torch object, I managed to include this torch using the torch asset that I created in experimentation and using the theory learnt from my Unreal Sessions to implement the controllable torch. I believe that I have met this specification because I am able to control the torch in the experience by pressing the 'T' key in order to toggle the torch on and off. This can be seen in the screenshots below and also in the showcase video above.

As far as adding another mechanic goes, I met this specification by implementing a physics door mechanic, I achieved this by carrying out research into two ways of implementing a door mechanic. I chose to stick with a push door mechanic that uses physics to open and close the door based on the players collision with the door asset. Below you can see a short Gif of the door mechanic in action.

Overall, I feel that I have met the brief because of my planning, experimentation, research and also development process. I ensured that this outcome met the brief because I did not want to fail on the first project and also I am aiming yet again for a distinction come the end of the FMP, so sticking to the brief in all of my projects is key.

In terms of areas that I feel would need improving, I think that if I was to complete this project again or was given more time than a week I would look at designing and modelling more assets, although my outcome sticks to my reference images I feel that I could elevate the immersion by adding more details to my models such as separate materials for each part of the model and also adding more office style assets such as pens, pencils, wall signs to add more depth to my experience. Furthermore, I feel that another area that could be improved is my lighting, the lighting that I currently have feels too intense and if I was to have more time I would work on implementing more natural light both from the outside environment and also the ceiling lights to produce a less intense light. Other than that I am confident that my project has met the brief and I am pleased with the progress that I have made throughout this project.

Final Evaluation -Personal Performance

Looking back over the three weeks of the project I feel that my performance grew as the project progressed, the first week of the project I was readjusting back into my usual work mindset and I stated this in my weekly reflection.

By the start of the second week I felt that I was back into my normal workflow and I was able to continue with the rest of the project without slipping away from my high work standard.

Context

Looking specifically at the Context stage of this project which was the very first stage, this saw me carry out an Analysis task, gently easing me into the project by getting me to analyse three sources where a building or object had been recreated using Unreal Engine. This analysis task set me up for the project because I was able to understand the theory behind what was required for me to do in the project and also gave me the basics as to what workflow I should follow, for example I identified that all of the sources used reference images or videos of some sorts and so in the end I decided to follow suit and also use reference images as this seemed to be industry standard.

Following on from that, I believe that this analysis task was imperative to mu understanding of this project because within the first week of the project I had already built up the basic knowledge of what I was to carry out, the techniques I needed to apply in order to carry out the project and also how I could use planning tools to ensure that my outcome was as accurate as possible. I feel that my performance in this analysis task was on standard to that of my previous work, in simpler terms I was able to compare and contrast the three sources and draw conclusions as to what techniques I would bring into the project as well as how and why I was going to do so. Overall, I am pleased with this analysis task and the effort that I applied to this task because I was able to complete this project before the deadline and also to a very high standard, and I feel that this analysis helped me to reach this because it gave me the theory required.

However, one area that I feel I could have improved is that I would look into a wider range of sources because not only will it help me to evaluate more techniques and working practices but also it would have helped me to build up my theory knowledge more before moving into the practical elements of the project.

Research

Moving into the Research stage of this project, I carried out an extensive report into three key areas of game design and also in-engine mechanics, those being, Breadcrumbing, Environmental Lighting and also a Door Mechanic for Unreal Engine, all of which I would then be required to apply to my project or later projects.

Throughout the research report, I independently identified, thorough and sustained research and carried out extensive investigation into a range of relevant sources that I used to create insightful interpretations on the varying methods and mechanics that would help me in the development process of my outcome. I was able to compare and contrast my sources in order to draw independent conclusions based upon the methods and theories that I had researched, I then evaluated the sources thoroughly and stated what, how and why I was going to apply the research to my project, for example I evaluated the two sources that I used to research into door mechanics and found that the second source allowed for a more immersive and realistic implementation.

I feel that upon reflection, many areas of improvement stood out to me, I feel that if I was to complete this task again I would look at including a wider range of sources and by this I mean finding another source for the environmental lighting section because I only looked at one. Also, by looking at a wider range of sources I would be able draw more comparisons and also conclusions for me to apply to my work, thus improving my outcome further. Furthermore, I feel that I should have carried out experimentation into the door mechanics because as I saw when implementing the mechanic I ran into several issues such as the door not opening correctly and also not closing as intended, so with experimentation I would have been able to workout these issues before moving onto the final implementation into my outcome. Other than that, I feel that my performance was on par to that of last year and as I look forward to the next projects I will build upon this and push my work ethic further.

Planning

Looking at the planning stage of this project, I feel that I was able to produce a detailed range of planning documents that helped me to produce the outcome to a high standard whilst sticking within time constraints and also brief constraints. Just like my last projects last year, I produce a time keeping document on Trello Board, this helped significantly in this project because of the quick turn around time for this project I was able to track my progress and plan the stages accordingly, I feel that without this time tracker I would not have been as planned.

This project did not require as much planning as the likes of my FMP and so it relied on the quality of my documents in order for me to produce a high quality outcome, my blueprint, asset list and also reference images worked hand in hand, my reference images played a key role in the creation of my outcome, as I identified in my analysis report, and without them I would not have been able to produce both the asset list and blueprint to such high standard. Looking at my asset list I feel that this document is the most detailed planning document that I have ever produced, I included small details of the assets right down to materials and colours, this was because I wanted to produce an industry standard document and also to set me up for the best possible outcome, I feel that my performance throughout the planning stage was consistent and I was able to successfully use my planning documents and previous planning knowledge to produce my outcome.

I do not feel that any large improvements could be made to the planning stage of my project, however, I feel that when I started to Whitebox my building in Unreal Engine I should have used my blueprint directly and imported it into the engine to build off of, this would not have made a large amount of difference but I would be following industry standard and setting myself in a better position for studio life.

Experimentation

Moving onto experimentation, although my experimentation was not based off of any research and instead based off of in class practical sessions, I feel that the level of quality and detailed applied to these experimentation tasks were paramount for the progression in the project and they played a key role in the building of my knowledge surrounding new areas, such as Maya and Unreal Engine 5.

Throughout the experimentation tasks I overcame challenges and problems by applying resilience, perseverance and problem solving skills, many of this can be seen in my problem solving tab where I wrote down the problem that I encountered and detailed how I was to go about resolving the issue, I attached video and photo evidence so that I could reflect back upon the issues to improve my workflow in future projects. The experimentation tasks saw me experiment with basic features such as how to setup a character, its movement and also camera movement in Unreal Engine, these Unreal Engine experimentation tasks always ran without any large problems effecting my progress and this was due to my excellent note taking abilities, I consistently took down notes as the tutor was explaining a theory and thanks to this I ran into no issues, I will continue to take notes in the future as this has significantly helped my performance in this project.

Other areas in the experimentation saw me learning about 3D modelling and Maya, these sessions required more problem solving than that of Unreal Engine because there were more elements of the software that I had to learn in order to successfully 3D model assets. I yet again recorded all of these processes for use in later projects if I feel that I need to relearn a mechanic or tool instead of having to research into the method again. Overall, I feel that experimentation for this project was extremely important and I feel that my performance in these tasks were on par with previous experimentation in the past, this experimentation taught me all the practical tools and theories that I need for this project and without it I would not have been able to carry out the development of my 3D assets or in fact the development of the Unreal Engine experience.

In terms of improvements, I feel that I should have carried out experimentation from my research because I ran into issues when implementing my door mechanic, as mentioned previously. Also, I feel that to stretch my project I could have experimented with my different environmental lighting techniques to better understand the different lighting types and how they change the mood and tone of an environment.

Outcomes

Moving onto my final outcome, I ensured that the development of my final outcome ran as smoothly as possible by making use of all of my knowledge and understanding, as well as planning and experimentation, and overall I was able to independently plan, design and develop a high quality final outcome that met my expectations set out at the start of the project and more importantly met all of the criteria set out in the brief. Overall, I am pleased with my performance throughout the development of this outcome because I was able to consistently work to a high standard and also I was able to stretch my knowledge by including extra criteria in my experience such as materials and textures for my assets, something that I added off of my own back as an extension.

Comparing my outcome to my reference images and also blueprint, I can confidently say that my outcome is as accurate as the real office itself, the layout of my experience has been copied from the reference images and blueprint exactly, so I am confident that I have met the criteria set out in the brief. The development process of my outcome was riddled with problems and issues, however thanks to my experimentation and problem solving skills I managed to resolve any issues without fault, for example, I encountered an issue with my office lighting where the Lightsource was not producing any light, I overcame this by reflecting back upon my torch experimentation and found that I was using the incorrect light type.

In conclusion, although I felt that the development of my outcome ran smoothly some areas for improvement stood out to me, for example, I should have white boxed the entire environment first before adding assets or materials because I did not follow any development cycle and instead added assets and materials throughout the entire process instead of dedicating time to developing all assets and then adding them in at the same time. This may not seem like a large deal however, I need to get into the habit of sticking to a development cycle because all studios follow a development cycle so getting into that habit now will help me in future.

Furthermore, I feel that my environment is lacking character so if I was to complete this task again or was given more time I would work on adding more environmental assets to fully complete the look of the office space. However, when looking at my performance, I feel that I do not need to change my performance because I was able to successfully complete the brief and add extended work whilst sticking to timeframes and the deadline, so if I continue to work as I am then I will have no problem in future sticking to timeframes.