Fmp Postmortem

In the very beginning I was a little stuck on an idea which took its tole on timing, and generally being able to For this project I wanted to use is as an opportunity to experiment and further my knowledge within all aspects of the game art pipeline whilst creating a small contemporary partially stylised scene, that i could then record and create a static image like scene with a hint of movement and sound. Layout decisions I set out for a contemporary partially stylised small late night scene set in Tokyo after some research. During research I did design the buildings and general layout based upon referenced source but with the added detail of partially stylised as to not fully represent hyper realistically. During tutorials and occasional talks with tutors I agreed with feedback of not using unnecessary geometry to block off the non see-able and unnecessary corners around buildings so I jiggled my set up a round a little bit and rid the sides of anything based on feedback. Also as my outcome was not for a playable level nor a fully closed off scene. I would have liked to ensure I myself provided myself enough time to further populate the scene to add more interesting factors. Even though the level was not playable i made the decision to still create the insides of the large buildings, firstly for the general shape from reference and so make the small seen still feel a little bit like the possibility of being able to adventure around but also experiment and play around with modelling techniques to get the walk ways and stairs rather then just make the small opening with the ellusion of multiple floors and landings.

Texturing Texturing was definitely an aspect that I had avoided early on, it was an area I wasn't sure how to go about. However after some greatly appreciated time and patience from a tutor who went through substance designer with me to create my tillable textures, as the majority of mine were that with the exception of colours or roughness ect to give the elision of slight differences within the scene. I then remade my textures using substance designer which after a little re go over on some word tutorials I was finally able to crack the process and create my tile texture that way which gave better results. Whilst using photo shop and substance bitmap2material for unique texture and editing as needed manually.

Engine I had a great deal of experimental moments within engine and a great deal of hindering errors mostly uvs that were definitely not over lapped and collisions randomly disappearing or appearing when its not needed nor added in the first place. The same problems occurred during the packaging moment of my level which were eventually fixed with some help. I also changed the sky shphere to a more night time scene, later on darkening the sky light but I also added an emissive moon to the sky framed by the utility poles and buildings to also slightly center the end wanted image and contrast against the scene and the night sky.

Particle effects When it came to making the rain particles it was fairly easy and straight forwards and I loved the added effect of the small random bits of bounce back when the rain hit the ground. I decided early on that I wanted to experiment and add some rain puddling. After having a search around on tutorials and a small chat with some tutors I decided that I would go forth with the meth of vertex painting. The puddles/rain ring marks it became a lengthy process of create, check in engine, change, re import and so forth which came to a point of being ok with the results but not enough time to continue to continue to change them. I did also take some time to create my own flip book for the rain rings using after effects which I didn't have experience beforehand working with. It did however give alot of control over the end effect however was a lengthy process to continue to change once tested in engine. Whilst I also had to check they went with my particle rain effect and the water ripples in the puddling from wind ect. Using after effects held its own problems mostly being not having used it before and also adding the ghetto normal plug in to change my flip book into a normal map was a challenge. It did however take a long time to continuously ensure that each layer was timed correctly, spaced correctly and tillable which was strongly needed for the flip book. I would like to go back and darken my normal flip book to enhance the rain rings a bit more.

Lighting With lighting I was able to experimental and learn alot with how it effected the scene and meshes, whilst also being during a night scene which was extremely fun to experiment with. I generally tried to keep to the same colour schemes with the light as some colours used in the scene for textures, off whites, red and blues. whilst lighting the scene up but also laying out the colours to break up the scene in a way that make sense

Premier pro I also put together a small video with sound effects and recorded from my unreal level, As aside from my goal of exploration, experimentation and knowledge learning I wanted a static small scene with slight movement being the rain so i compiled a video with sound to strengthen that portrayal. Programs used that highly contributed towards my project and expansion of knowledge and experiments. 3ds max Unreal engine 4

photoshop substance designer substance bitmap2material after effects ( with ghetto normal maps for the plug in) Premier pro Conclusion There are still and probably always will be a list of changes that I want to make such as time management and bettering it a great deal, population, continuation of tweaking textures, assets, layout, the particle effects but I have taken a great deal of experience from this project such as engine work. It wasn't fully a programme I was comfortable using aside from the basics of importing meshes and textures, I was able to experiment with lighting, particle effects, vertex painting, and other bits and options engine had.