Evaluation - Week 11
In Unit 3, I had the choice to create a project of my choosing to show the skills I have developed in other units and improve upon them. I had to create a timeline of the different tasks in the project and work out how long time to allocate for each task. I chose to make a 3D environment in UE4 and reuse some of the assets I had made in previous projects, but give them a new look. I set out to plan, create, research, evaluate and present my work in the 12 weeks given. This project was useful as it gave me a freedom that other units hadn't by allowing me to choose my own project and I got to work on improving my knowledge and skills. This unit also taught me how to appropriately manage my time during an assignment, and will definitely help me manage my time better for future work.
I enjoyed working on this unit and creating a bright and futuristic 3D city environment in UE4. I experimented with stylistic use of design and colours - making it look 'fun' rather than 'realistic'. I reused building assets that I had made for other units, but tested out different layouts and materials. I took the time to experiment with materials and create my own instances and versions of pre-existing materials in UE4. I used real world examples to decide the layout to the city and tried to create 'landmarks' to individualise areas for the player.
An issue I came across was scaling everything to the right size. I blocked everything out and was happy with the buildings layout and size to each other, and when I imported the building assets in, I was happy with how they all were scaled to each other. However, when I tested it with the player character, the entrances of the buildings were far too small - so even though they all looked ok compared to each other, they weren't scaled properly for the player. To correct this, I increased the scale of all the buildings and I decrease the number of buildings as the buildings were taking up more of the map as I increased their scaling. I could have just made them taller and kept the same number of buildings, but the size ratio of the buildings meant the buildings looked too stretched if I left them like that.
If I were to do this project again or work on it again in the future, I would add more detail to the buildings as the level, add some playability - some puzzles or things to interact with, and experiment more with materials and textures.
Overall, I found this to be a good assignment and am happy with my final product. I think how it is, it isn't game ready but I think with some more work on it, it can become game ready and will be something I can add to my portfolio. I liked having the freedom to decide on what type of project it could be. I learnt a lot about time management and I am happy that I stayed within my time limits. There are a few changes I would like to make to the level, which I will do in my own time before I make it part of my portfolio. I feel that this assignment has improved my skills and I think I could implement everything that I have learnt in this assignment in my future work.