Project Evaluation

The theme for my project is a knife in a desert scene due to it being my aim for this project.

I have developed my ideas by creating a mindmap and two moodboards which consist of numerous ideas regarding knives. I’ve created these documents to gather more ideas about knives, so I could gain inspiration from them later on in the project. I’ve also sketched numerous knife ideas regarding my project proposal, and developed them by showing the progress in Photoshop.

I found two key pieces of reference material that was personally taken by myself in the Isle of Wight. The images show a beach, the ocean and the sky; most factors relating to my idea as it consists of mainly sand and the sky. I didn’t gather any reference material relating to knives as I wanted to make it entirely based on my own imagination to see what I could create as a result. The sand in the reference photos allowed me to have a more in depth look at the patterns in sand, so I could later apply it to my own ideas and development. The same applies to the sky; I looked at the clouds and thought about how I could apply it to key documents in my project, such my ideas and idea development. It also allowed me to look at other opportunities in my scene such as an ocean in the background. This affected my final design as I actually took inspiration from the sand and sky to create my own idea, resulting in it being applied to the final model and render.

My research has informed my skill development as I’ve taken an in depth look into minor details into assets such as sand and sky, which ultimately allow me to gather more inspiration and stretch my imaginative ideas even further. For example, small details into the clouds allow me to take on more skills to create the best looking sky I possibly can. The same applies to the sand; the contrast in colours stretches my skill capability even further, allowing me to take on more difficult tasks in the future.

The six artists that have inspired me into creating my project are: Jason Poland, Florian Heutzenroeder, Den Ovsyannikov, Piotr Mierzwa, John Church and Simon Kemmer. I’ve personally found all these artists on artstation.com and all follow the exact same ideas; knives, which in the end has led to inspire me create my own knife model in Maya. An important artist out of this list to take note of is Den Ovsyannikov, who has inspired my ideas the most. The sheer simplicity of his knife and high detail textures look incredible, therefore leading me to employ this myself in my own ideas. All artists are very similar however, in terms of shape and size, so realistically, all artists have inspired me in some particular way throughout this project. Den Ovsyannikov, the artist who has inspired me the most, used three main software in the production of his knife: Blender, 3D Coat and Substance Painter. According to his artstation page, he used Blender to render, Substance Painter to texture and 3D Coat to actually model the knife itself. Other software may have been used but this is unknown information on his page. The techniques that this artist used is fairly unknown to me as well as I used Maya to model my knife, whereas this artist used 3D Coat to model his – two quite different software I’m fairly certain. I do know one thing, however; this artist used the ‘extrude’ tool in his software to create the majority of the shapes.

I used two main materials in the production of my scene: Lambert and Blinn. Lambert is used for things generally non-reflective so I used this material for natural objects such as the sand and the sky. Another object I applied Lambert to was the leather straps on the knife itself; leather is generally seen to be non-reflective, so employing a Blinn material to this would be incorrect. On the other hand, I applied the Blinn material to realistic objects, like the actual knife itself, specifically the blade of the knife which is generally seen to be reflective due to it being a metal. I altered the reflectivity of the Blinn material on each section of the knife accordingly – I increased the reflectivity for the blade to a fairly high level to make it look more metallic, whereas I decreased the reflectivity level for the handle to make it look more materialised and natural.

The main techniques I used to produce my scene are box and subdivision modelling, which is where one can alter vertexes and faces of a basic shape until an appropriate and desired shape is created. I employed this technique to pretty much every asset of my scene, one example being the blade of the knife, where I imported a simple polygon cube and altered each vertex/face until I was comfortable with the shape. I also employed the insert edge loop technique into the production of my model, which allowed me to add extra divisions and position them to create more defined details in the object, for example the sharp serrated edge on the blade.

These different techniques and materials influenced my outcomes by making it look realistic and extremely detailed, thus reflecting my initial aims for this project. Not only does it make it look realistic, but it makes it look professional and appealing to the viewer’s eyes, again reflecting my initial aims for this project.

My work changed quite a bit throughout the project, for example, the landscape shape has changed quite a bit among the duration of this project – the whole landscape used to be very large, holding an incredible amount of vertexes, edges and faces, which would often slow down the software, thus making the modelling process very tedious and uncomfortable. Another key aspect of my project that has changed is the spherical sky map – at first, I imported my own texture onto it, but due to lack of imagination in the designing process, I was unable to make it look realistic and professional. However, later on in the project, I decided to import the default Maya sun and sky, which casted a virtual day and night cycle onto the scene. I ended up finding a perfect spot for the sun to sit, making it reflect the knife seamlessly and realistically. Other than that, nothing drastic has changed throughout my project.

As far as research relating to my project goes, I’m happy with the amount I’ve done. All pieces of research have inspired me enough to create my scene so additional research would’ve been unnecessary, thus taking up more time. In due course, there isn’t any additional research that I wish I had investigated further.

I have used a fair amount of formal art techniques when designing each asset through sketches in Photoshop. Some of these techniques for example, are line, tone and colour. I’ve used these in documents like my initial knife sketches where I would sketch a bold outline of the knife, so I could draw smaller details inside it with a smaller sized brush. This allows the knife to stand out on my blog, making it look visually appealing for the viewer. I’ve also employed important art techniques such as tone into my sketches into key documents on my blog, such as my initial knife sketches and development to show where shadows are being casted onto the knife. This allows the drawings to look more realistic and proficient when uploading on my blog for people to see, whilst obviously making it visually engaging to my audience.

Throughout the gathering of research, I discovered numerous visual language elements, such as the golden spiral, where there is a centre point in the image where everyone’s eye is drawn to. This communicates to an audience as it shows where the focal point of the image is, and where the artist’s original intentions are set. I also researched a visual language element known as the dominant/sub-dominant form, which is very similar to the golden spiral; it’s the object that immediately catches the viewers eye at first glance. In regards to secondary reference images that I included in my blog, such as the Far Cry 3 poster, the dominant form was the knife and the sub-dominant form were the mountains and forest/vegetation, another example of this is the AK-47 in the sand (where most of my inspiration came from). Again, this image shows that the dominant form is the AK-47, and the sub-dominant form is the desert hills casted in the background. This visual language element communicates to audience very much like the golden spiral, to provide a focal point for the image, so the viewer knows where to set their vision.

I deliberately used these elements in the creation of my design by making the knife the dominant form of the image – I positioned the camera in a way similar to the golden spiral effect, the knife positioned so that the viewer’s gaze immediately shifts to it, and the background the sub-dominant form of the image.

The original meanings that I wanted to convey with my design, is to signify war, and the terrifying realism behind the whole idea. The knife itself is meant to symbolise war as a whole, and each army and nation divided. On the other hand, the lonely desert is meant to symbolise how little it contributes to the idea of world peace.

Ultimately, I’m very pleased with my final piece and conveyed my initial thought-process at the beginning of the project perfectly. I’m particularly proud of the nCloth that I included on the knife as it adds a whole extra level of realism to the scene – specifically picking up on the way it blows in the wind with help from the attribute settings. It also suppresses the artificial look of everything and create a natural atmosphere, again accumulating to this idea of realism and professionalism. Comparing my result to an existing example of my research, specifically knives featured on my moodboard, I’d say the original inspiration is clear. I’ve been very successful in creating this link between my final piece and my research. As far as the final rendition of my creation goes, I would not change anything in particular as I’m extremely pleased with the final result.

I’ve learnt many things throughout this assignment, such as techniques in core software such as Maya and Photoshop. Specifically, I’ve learnt how to model complex shapes and alter their vertexes to make them look visually similar to the original product. This skill allows me to express my imagination to create more complex shapes. I’ve also learnt new rendering techniques in Maya, precisely the lighting position and intensity in the final render. As well as this, I learnt what settings I need to get the best possible result for when I render next.

The importance of this work to my games course and career is to allow me to learn new skills in software such as Maya, Unreal and Photoshop. It gives me the opportunity to finish projects quicker due to my knowledge on features in said software, and also allows me to build a career in games design. Assuming that I get a career in games design, I can look back at all the work I’ve completed and all the knowledge I’ve gained across the course of all projects. Picking up on certain factors, across the whole progression of this course, I’ve learnt how to model, texture, UV and render; including certain features in software such as Photoshop and Maya. I’ve also learnt a few techniques in Unreal which will give me a big boost for when I receive job opportunities in the near future.

I gave this assignment my absolute best effort across the whole 14 weeks by prioritising my college work so I could beat deadlines with work to the best of my ability. All work is completed with my best efforts with time spent wisely across the whole period of the project. Included in my blog, I created an entire 14 week plan which allowed me to manage each piece of work on time so I could beat the deadline at the end of the project. This also shows my dedication and best efforts in regards to this project, as it showed that I held a lot of responsibility for my work.

The things that I personally think I did well is the modelling as a whole. I think that the models that are associated with my scene are incredibly high-detailed and realistic, which is clearly shown in my development on my blog. Another key element of my work that I thought I did very well was the rendering aspect. I personally think I’ve mastered the rendering settings and the camera position so I can get the best possible rendering results. This is clearly shown in the final stages of my blog where I uploaded the final render of my scene – going back to artistic elements, for example, the golden spiral, I personally feel like I’ve used this well in my final render; the main focal point of the image is my knife, and the secondary point of focus is the background.

I made one key mistake during the creation of my project, which is the overriding number of edges in the environment. This led to the software being extremely slow, and in the long-term, leading to corrupt files which impacted the production of my project fairly slowly. Other than that, I only made a few minor mistakes, such as unsymmetrical objects (which was easily fixed by straightening vertexes and edges).

I would most likely spend more time on the environment, as I feel I rushed this section of my project. I spent too much time creating the knife, rather than the environment around it. I would also spend more time on creating the textures of the sand, as I feel this was rushed too. If I had more time, I would definitely improve the detail on the knife, and the detail in the sand texture. Otherwise, I feel like my project is up to my desired standard.

Across the 14 weeks, we participated in a number of classroom activities. One being the involvement in other people’s work, where we had to give positive feedback and constructive criticism. We all allowed each student to take note of different techniques that we used, so that we could hopefully be more inspired to adapt more ideas into our own. This activity allowed me to look into different imaginative ideas around the classroom, and the diversity of each student’s original though process. All of them were very interesting, and have allowed me to look at more imaginative ideas that could be integrated into my own work. In addition to this, the feedback that I received from people who reviewed my blog has allowed me to improve certain parts of my work, and has allowed me to pick up on minor details that I didn’t notice beforehand.

Unfortunately, I did not use any new materials, but I managed to adapt these materials into more realistic looking objects. I did, however, use new techniques in Maya, for example; the insert edge loop tool, which allowed me to integrate more edges into objects, which ultimately allowed me to create more defined objects. One object I used this technique on is the blade – I often found that it needed more divisions, so this technique helped me massively. I could use all techniques again because they’re so helpful. Each material and technique has helped me progress my work in some way, so incorporating most of these into future projects is definitely something I will consider.

One main problem I encountered during the creation of my project is the nCloth physics. As this is a very useful feature in Maya, it was also very difficult to apply to an object. I was oblivious to how to actually use this feature, however, after careful research from websites and YouTube tutorials, I was able to apply it to any object. I also created numerous separate experiments in Maya, such as a table cloth, a flag, and a parachute. Once I was comfortable with this feature, I was able to apply it to my own creation. Another main problem I encountered was the rendering - I was completely oblivious at first about how to render a scene in Maya. I didn’t know how to use mentalray and how to apply it to a render, and I didn’t know a lot about lighting positions. However, after help from my peers and tutor, I was able to render a scene realistically. I can now apply this knowledge to future projects.