-Choose 'OXFORD', 'UNDERGROUND', or 'GARDENS' as a priority section to base your idea on.
-Resource material is supplied, e.g. Sounds, Maps, Information/Text.
Our teamwork throughout this project was for the most part rather good. We worked well together, gave each other constructive feedback, shared a similar vision, and got on with the work at hand. The workflow generally was smooth because we always had someone; adding to the engine, working on assets, working on concepts (at the start), and managing the project/the team to keep us on track.
If something didn't work in engine, it would need to be tweaked or re-made based on our team feedback - Nothing was taken personally however as we agreed at the start of the project because that would just be detrimental to the morale of the team.
For time management, we had regular team meetings to make sure we were doing the right things and that we had a good amount of time to do what it is we planned on doing.
Overall, the project was fairly well managed, a good learning experience, and enjoyable to finally be able to see something we've created that technically works as a full game level (which is fun to play!).
What went well + examples:
Juggling the engine file between each other went much better than expected. We used a certain naming convention (E.g. AliceOTM 4.7.6_23 - 05-05 - 2358 = Name, Version, copy #, date, time) and daily updates to the team letting everyone know who has the engine file. Also if someone needed it for a longer amount of time, we agreed on a set amount of days they would have it for until they had to hand it to someone else. We also found out that multiple people could work on the engine at once as long as the external (version that isn't the main) modifications didn't involve; the landscape, foliage, or level blueprint.
We were almost always with each other so we could quickly ask each other for feedback, and talk about what needs to get done. If there was something major to discuss, e.g. the lighting change, or what needs to be done and when, then we'd have a team meeting to assign jobs and deadlines for everyone.
We all generally had solid roles to do - managing what needed to be done and when it needs to be done. There were 2 'stick-out' leaders in our team who helped with the main decisions for the level and what needed to be created. This meant that by working from the style guide and having team leaders, we were mostly aiming in the same direction, and for the same outcome. This was important because otherwise we would all have different visions, making the level incoherent.
What didn't work well + examples:
Time management was good overall, but definitely erratic at times - by this I more or less just mean motivation. About half way through the project, our pace slowed down, and I know for a fact that I got bogged down in the details of things that weren't really too important. We all were just working a bit slower than we normally would (or at least it seemed that way), and not much changed in the level for a good week and a half. However, the pace picked up again when we had a team meeting and discussed what needed doing. I think in the future, I would call more regular team meetings on a schedule to ensure that the team is keeping up the pace and on track to completing what we planned.
The lighting changed hugely after receiving feedback on our presentation. Our level was looking good, but I knew myself that there was something definitely odd or that wasn't working the way we wanted it to. It was nice overall, but it was clear to see that we hadn't considered the lighting as much as we should have. We immediately looked into what we could do to improve, and changed it from midday, to an evening setting. This can be seen further on in this blog under "comparison shots/what changed".
It turns out that you can't have a translucent material which has reflections. This meant that if we wanted to be able to see the "depth" of the lake, we had to use a translucent material. However, if we wanted to get perfectly nice reflections, we needed to use opaque water. It ended up being a compromise, and we thought that the translucent water looked so much more believable/worked better in the setting we had, than the opaque water.
Problems encountered:
The landscape broke near the beginning of the project and none of us could figure out why. It was displaying the whole landscape, but it was as if components had been physically deleted so that you could no longer walk on just those components - everything else was fine though. So, we had to go back to previous back-up of our file where the landscape was alright, and luckily, we lost almost no work and just carried on as normal.
Our frame-rate was a huge issue as soon as we started putting in foliage. It dropped significantly (which is understandable) and we had to take a number of measures in order to try and improve it for the hand-in. This included; taking out as many lights as possible, changing the quality of the shadows, only using dynamic lighting for things that really needed it, LODs, getting rid of an unnecessary resolution/number of landscape components, minimising overdraw, deleting foliage density in the forest etc.
Building the lighting towards the end of the project was lengthy and frustrating because it kept crashing and we never figured out why. We think it was because the light-maps were too big because it built fine on 'preview' lighting. However, the 'Dark World' lighting didn't build at all, and there was a significant and definitive 'No' to building the lighting because the "insertion failed". We have no idea why this is happening, and it means that we currently can never build the lighting for the "Dark World".
The foliage shaders in 4.6 was very bad. One side would be lit correctly as long as it was in the sunlight, but the other side of the foliage was so dark that it just looked silly. Luckily, we took the risk and upgraded our project to 4.7 where Epic had updated the Engine in terms of how it handles and renders foliage. This made our project much faster, and aesthetically look far more pleasing as the grass & trees now shaded more correctly.
Throughout the project, Dom had some troubles with getting certain scripts to work. However, as we go further into it, he found fixes and we collectively came up with some better logic to make them function more precisely, making our project that much better than it was.
We had a scare half way through when we thought we couldn't change the landscape anymore as it would crash. It turns out it was because we were trying to edit the landscape through the streaming level instead of the level that the landscape was in - the engine didn't like this. We
What I’d do differently/How I'd apply it to future projects:
Produce more detailed assets. My assets look good in general, but
to really give them the ‘stand-out’ factor, I need to put even more detail into
them. This means using better reference to really understand what it is I’m
aiming for, and maybe some time after I think I’m done texturing to add another
pass of detail to make them come to life.
It is hard when there are
so many things to do because you get blinded and see something as finished,
when it could be so much better. For example, I would have liked my fountain to
have some sculptures around it, and detailed normal maps that actually make
sense, but I didn't know how to go about the sculptures, and it became
something in the back of my mind which I should only do if it is needed – there
was so much stuff to do in the engine itself that I didn't have the time to
look further into doing what I initially wanted for the fountain.
Landscape blending. The landscape materials were fine up until I
looked at it again towards the end of the project, and I realised there isn't
as much variation in textures as I would have liked. There are only 3 – dry
cracked dirt, moist dirt, and grass. I did try to blend those better using
masks, but it just had undesirable effects and make the player path look
strange. For the sake of aesthetics, we decided as a group that it looked fine,
despite it technically being a bit wrong and not true to life. I tried many
different iterations to improve upon Craig’s feedback, but none of them turned
out well. Therefore, in the future, I would need a bit better planning of what
materials would realistically be on the ground in order for them to make sense
and blend together in an appropriate fashion.
Self assess/make more artistic judgements. As I've gone through the project, I frequently asked
for feedback on whether something looked good or if it needed changing. Most of
the time the feedback was keep it as it is, indicating that my judgement was
fine, I just needed clarification in that what I was doing was correct. I need
to trust my own judgement more because I did ask for feedback on a lot of
things – probably on things that didn't really need feedback. In the future, I
will continue to ask for feedback, but trust my own judgement on the things I’m
sure of, instead of getting double clarification on the majority of what I’m doing.
Watch my tri-count. I am usually good
with my tri-counts, but on a few of my assets, I went a bit too far. My key for
example, was a high tri-count and it didn't need to be (In my defence, I made
it in-case we made all of the pieces big). I could have gone round and deleted
some loops, made the label an alpha etc. This was just an unfortunate miss with
what we ended up doing with it, so it looks as though I can’t handle a tri
budget.
I can however definitely
say that I need to watch my count on my foliage – the lower poly LODs kick in
quite soon so it isn't much of a problem, in terms of a model though, there are
some unnecessary triangles which could be deleted.
In the future, I just need
to keep an eye on how many triangles I’m putting into my flowers because I can
achieve a similar result with a lower tri-count.
Conclusion:
In summary, the project outcome was very good. I am pleased with how the aesthetics turned out, the gameplay is fun/engaging, and everything is coherent with each other – relating to the story of Alice In Wonderland. The team worked almost like clockwork, and we all got along very well. I worked very hard to ensure that I kept up the standard of work required of me, and felt as though I contributed a good amount to the project as a whole.
Now that the Alice In Wonderland project is over though, it is good to be able to devote some of my time to something else other than asset placement & tweaks.
Action Plan:
Even though we could still work on the project after the deadline, the whole team is agreed that we won't do much on it. I want to submit it, so I really hope that we do - I'd be gutted if we didn't. In terms of what I'm going to do after this project, I spoke about it in my previous blog which includes a short list of things I need to do over the summer DMUGA Week 32:
-Practicing anatomy
-Learning new software/getting better with Z-brush
-Improving my CV/Portfolio
-Summer project/s - small pieces for my portfolio
-Learning more blueprinting
-Practicing my 2D art for environments
I do wish to do a small project, but based on environment only. Please view this blog for more details on what I'm aiming for with that project:
DMUGA Week 31
Here's some comparison screenshots/what changed from throughout the Alice In Wonderland project:
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| Level Blockout |
The level from start to end:
