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Week 01.

Hidden Ace
Oct 9, 2015
3 min read

First day back studying on DMU’s Game Art Design course has been nothing but familiar grounds for me. I am more than used to receiving projects so the anxiety I may have had during the first week of last year is definitely non-existent, however that’s not to say everything went smoothly. Today we were all allocated groups for our first project. I look forward to group projects as I have no problem working together with others to create something great that would otherwise be near impossible to make if not in a group, several imaginative minds are better than one, unfortunately we came across a small dilema in our first session.

The scene that we decided would be appropriate for our film room scene was none other than the black market hidden room in movie Pacific Rim. Originally my group decided on Davey Jones cabin from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, but decided to scrap the idea after we evaluated the scene and realised it would be too much of a task to replicate the atmosphere the scene created in the movie, not only that but the lighting was very poor hiding most of the assets in the room, this would make it difficult to accurately model what was in the cabin.

The black market room however has a glossy marble floor and lighting that wouldn’t be as hard to replicate and the colours represented by the jars holding alien specimens in the scene makes the room stand out and if replicated properly will make a very impressive and beautiful scene. The fact that our chosen room has a sci-fi theme makes it a lot more interesting and unique compared to other rooms we could have chosen, it has alien specimens in jars, unique shells on worktops, sci-fi equipment and an aesthetically pleasing wood grain finish on an oriental themed room, this sets us a very challenging task with a high reward if replicated accurately .

This week I managed to model two assets for our Black Market room, one being a small desk glass jar, the other being a lamp. The jar was 828 tris, it was relatively easy to make. I actually had one of my team members take a look at the jar after I had initially finished and he couldn't find any major flaws other than some unecessesary geometry that I didn't need to keep, this helped me decrease the poly count of the model. The lamp was a lot more complex, it ended up being 1,722 tris but its still up for modifying. Initially I was asked to make another copy of the lamp, the new copy would have a lot less detail lowering the tri count, keeping the old copy so I could come back to it later, however we heard some great news that identical assests wouldn't take up any additional tris, this would allow us to duplicate objects without worrying about the 100,000 tri limit we were given.

Time Management:

Time Management was adequate this week, I felt like I got enough done, I met the goals my asset leader set me and I managed to put enough time aside to make this blog. Next week I will try to meet the same level of work output or better.

Action Plan:

- Make two or more assets for the film room project next week.