The Day Before Hand-In Reflection

In this project I have faced a few problems but have been able to overcome all of them, I have learnt a lot of new skills and how to do different things on UDK and 3D Studio Max. Overall I have enjoyed this project but felt that it was a bit too long near the end and started to get a bit fed up of it! Thankfully I had chosen a topic that I have always been interested in, so even in my breaks from work I was watching films and tv dramas that were set in manor houses so could be classed as research.

This project has literally taken over my life for the past few months, resulting in me rarely leaving the house, so I think that after I have handed this in (and celebrated with my classmates) I will be living in the gym, but my main focus will be finding a job! I have already been working on my CV, covering letter and portfolio website to build more of a professional image, but I will put a lot more focus into these and finding a job will be my job for the moment.

I am really looking forward to my upcoming graduation, I am very hopeful that I will get a good degree at the end of this because I feel that I have learnt a massive amount in such a small amount of time. Considering that before I joined this course, I had never touched a 3D program and had very limited Photoshop skills, I feel that what I can create now is actually unbelievable and has definitely made me grow as a person. Initially I never wanted to go to university but after contacting a few games companies, and realising that making games wasn’t just a job that you could learn from shadowing someone in the industry, or having a few weeks of unpaid tea making, I hesitantly joined university not knowing how much there was to be learnt. (Also the prospect of the raised uni fees pushed me in the right direction!)

At the end of this course I am happy that I came to university, I have learnt so many new skills and more about the games industry, also living away from my parents home for a few years has made me more of an adult, and made my confidence grow.

I have gone from a shy and lonely teenager with a few art skills, to a determined, hard-working and industry minded adult with a great knowledge of building 3D games and I cannot wait to get a job!

References Used Throughout This Project

Manors Visited:

Highclere Castle – Newbury, England

Wollaton Hall – Nottingham, England

Windsor Castle – Windsor , England

Greenway House – Devon, England

Catherine Palace – St. Petersburg, Russia

Hermitage Museum – St. Petersburg, Russia

Books Read:

Blenheim Palace Guide Book
Althorp House Guide Book
Wollaton Hall and the Willoughby Family - Pamela Marshall
Castles and Houses

Websites Used:

General 3D and UDK Help: http://www.digitaltutors.com

Flashlight Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUhNISTX_tQ

Various Forum Discussions: www.polycount.com

Various Forum Discussions: http://forums.epicgames.com

Royalty Free sounds: soundbible.com

Soundjay.com

Freeplaymusic.com

Convert mp3 sounds to wav: http://media.io/

Media Watched:

Pride and Prejudice (Film)
Death Comes to Pemberly (TV Drama)

Downton Abbey (TV Drama)

Poirot (TV Drama)

Mr.Selfridge (TV Drama)

Final Major Project [Post 15] ~ Final Test Before Hand-in

It is the Friday before I have to hand in my project so I decided to travel to Leicester to test if my level works on the University computers. Thankfully it has worked perfectly so the only things I have to do now is create my fly-through, get some professional looking print-screens and burn my disc ready for hand-in. I will be glad to see the back of this project but I have actually really enjoyed it and I'm actually surprised with the amount that I have achieved on my own. 
I'm definitely glad that I chose to create an environment about a subject that I was interested in, as it has made the project a lot more enjoyable. I can't wait to hand this in and post this onto my portfolio, I am proud of it and want to show it off!

Final Major Project [Post 14] ~ Smashed Windows and Ridiculously Large Cushions

I finally got round to creating the smashed window in the hall, (to signify the player has broken in) it was simple enough to do but to add a bit more atmosphere I decided to put some rain outside. Instead of using a particle effect that I am quite familiar with, I created this rain on an animated material to teach myself something new. I was really pleased with the outcome and feel that it makes the windows themselves more interesting and draws more attention to the smash. 

I had the usual problems with the fact that the rain used alpha and so was impossible to actually select in the normal UDK view, and because I have a lot of assets in my level now, its quite difficult to distinguish in wire frame view.

I had a slight problem with UDK itself at this point, because I'm not very familiar with actually building things in the engine as I generally just import my own assets that I have built in 3DS Max. Unlike every single program that I have used in the past, UDK doesn't recognise Ctrl+A as Select All, and instead drops whatever material you have selected down on where the UDK box is. Unknown to me, I tried selecting my level by pressing Ctrl+A, it didn't work so I thought it didn't actually do anything, turns out I had actually made it rain in my dining room! After a lot of frustration to figure out how to get rid of said rain, I realise this was actually quite funny and at least I know how to fix this in the future if I accidentally try and use short cut keys. 

Other than just general re-texturing of things and adding some more stealable assets, I don't really have much to write about, I am really just doing the finishing touches to my level. I have finished most things and am very happy with what I have made. 

On another note, when I imported my re-textured cushions they were bigger than the chairs, which made no sense whatsoever, I re-imported them again and they were the correct size. I think I may have found a problem with either exporting from 3D Studio Max or importing into UDK. 

 What?