7. Evaluation of FMPA2

Critical Evaluation of FMPA1 & FMPA2

Research

Palaeontology

My research into dinosaurs was very successful and I tried to make my research as in-depth as possible.  I wanted to make sure I gathered as much as I could about anatomy, style, How they had been portrayed in other places than just games, which I think I achieved to a high standard. I also tried something I had never done before, Contact creative’s and Palaeontologists’ to get their thoughts and advise to help back up my research. This turned out to be very successful and I will be sending them the link to my website so they can see the final outcome and my work flow.

Technical

By the time I completed my Palaeontology research I realised that had not given myself enough time to conduct a thorough technical research portfolio. At that point I decided that I had to sacrifice some aspects of my technical research these include; learning about practical light and colour, Polypainting and rendering. I decided that these subjects could be picked up later in the project if need be. My main concerns were on dinosaur anatomy, learning how use Zbrush via the Gnomon tutorials and altering and sculpting my sea creature from the first year.

Conclusion to research

Though my palaeontology research was thorough and concise I feel that I went a bit over-bored with it, there were some aspects that I could have left and it would not have hindered my final outcome. If I would have realised that earlier I could have had fully completed my technical research and not have had to cut some important process out. Not going through the practical light and colour DVD hindered my abilities to texture but I will be going through the tutorial after this project is completed. I did learn how to Polypaint in the end, I went over and cut out unimportant aspects of my concept stage.

Concept and Development

Concept

I spent some time before the start of this project experimenting with what kind of dinosaur I wanted to create and the overall game idea. By the time I was at the concept stage of the project I had the idea pretty much down. I didn’t want to spend too much time working on drawings and in Photoshop because my focus was on the 3D design, also that small time I had on this stage was cut down again due to my having a extension on my dissertation but due to spending time in the summer working out a rough design I pretty much went directly to the development stage in term 2.

Development

Instead of using this time to draw out a polished orthographic image I looked to my research and found that an artist creating a dinosaur in 3D created a rough orthographic to work from to speed you his workflow. Instead of drawing a rough orthographic I had an idea that would save me even more time, I already a image of my dinosaurs head that I felt was good enough to use so I went back to my research and took an image of a dinosaurs body and cut it up and roughly readjusted the autonomy to the anatomy of my creature using Photoshop. Which saved me half a day’s worth of work.

Conclusion to Concept and Development

By cutting out the aspects of these stages that I didn’t need, I saved enough time to create, sculpt, texture and render a strong final piece for the exhibition. I also learned more about time management and that when writing my learning agreement I should have thought more about what was necessary and what wasn’t.

3D work

Low-poly Mesh

Because 3D has always been my strongest skill during this course, I got straight into modelling and with the help of my rough orthographic my low-poly mesh didn’t take as long to complete. I had to make sure that the anatomy and topology was correct but with the help of tutorials from my technical research I quickly learnt new techniques and adapted them to my own workflow.

Rigging and weight painting in Maya

I knew that this year I wanted to have a posed model because it brings the creature to life that little bit more. Initially I was going to use Zbrush to pose my creature but after using Zbrush I found that it couldn’t pose the model to the standard I wanted so I decided that the next best thing was to rig and weight paint my creature. I had never really used this method before but after having a few tutorials with the technical staff it turned out to be a quick process, unlike if I was going to animate the creature.

Using Zbrush to sculpting and texturing

Doing research and practice sculpts prior in the research stage really helped me optimise my time at this point in the project. I got stuck straight into sculpting making sure that I made the detail natural and by not using the mirror tool because organic creatures are not symmetrical. I used all my anatomy studies to the full here.

After the sculpt was completed I felt something was missing, so I asked my peers for their opinions and having a tutorial with Nigel I found that my creature lacked skin creases so I added them in as well which greatly improved my model.

When it came to painting the asset I was lucky that Polypainting is a very timesaving technique and that my basic texturing skills didn’t affect the look of the final outcome. Was worried about how long it would take and I doubted my texturing skill.

Conclusion to 3D work and the Project

I feel that I have achieved a strong final outcome and the reason why I think this is because of my strong research and eventual management of time. I feel that I should have worked harder to have not had to cut out as much as I did, but it didn’t hinder me too much. I intend to carry on with this idea after the project is complete because I want to go thorough more tutorials and keep improving on what I’ve done already. I wanted to have a rider, saddle and bit as well but they were sacrificed due to time but I’m going to add them as I continue to improve my modelling skills. I feel that I have achieved what I set out to do at the start of this project and I feel that I have improved in every aspect of my work compared to what I did on the FDA course.