Tuesday, 19 April 2016

Unit 9 Communication and Presentation survey.

This survey is to help you to understand the ways that you have communicated on this course. This will show us what you think of these ways of communicating and if we need to change anything in the coming years. You can let us know what the advantages and disadvantages of these were.

Please answer each question as fully as possible.

Verbal presentation skills - In what ways have you verbally communicated your projects or ideas during this year?

Group discussion around a table between peers, where we discussed our ideas and received feedback afterwards.

What were the difficulties in communicating in this way?

Trying to describe my ideas as best as possible to receive the best feedback I can.

What were the advantages?

I was able to receive honest and accurate feedback from my peers and tutor relating to my ideas so I could develop from them.

How do you think using these skills will help you in the future when furthering your education or going into employment?

The skills I’ve gained from verbally communicating with my peers allow me to easily describe my work in a way to receive the best feedback that I can, so that I can start the development of my project.

Visual presentation skills - In what ways have you visually communicated your ideas throughout your project?

I’ve prepared my work on my blog and allowed other peers to sit at my computer and check out my work, whilst giving positive and constructive criticism.

What were the difficulties?

The difficulties in this were that I had to neatly present my work in order so it was easy for the viewer to give feedback on; I also had to choose certain pieces of work depending on what I wanted them to see.

What were the advantages?

This allowed me to collect more feedback from my peers so I could progress and develop my ideas.

How do you think using these skills will help you in the future when furthering your education or going into employment?

The skills I've gained from visually communicating with my peers allow me to see the advantages and disadvantages of a piece of work, so I can give feedback on it.

Final exhibition - How do you plan to show your work at the final exhibition?

I plan to show my work at the final exhibition by setting out the development of my project from day one; I will firstly show my initial ideas, and will develop from there.

What other ways can you communicate to the exhibition visitors who you are as a games student/artist so that they understand who you are?

I have created a personalised business card on Photoshop based on myself and my project.

How do you think using these skills will help you in the future when furthering your education or going into employment?

These skills will allow me to use basic presentation skills in a work environment in front of colleagues/peers.

Wednesday, 13 April 2016

For this document, I've sketched out three different knife shapes so I could get a rough idea of the shape of it so I can develop from there. I've also annotated the different features of each knife and spoken about my ideas regarding them all.

Sketches

For this sketch, my mind was set on tropical related environments, so I recreated Maya Bay in the Phi Phi Islands and drew the large rocks in the background for added effect. I then proceeded to sketch a knife (not finalised version) into the sand. Other features in the sketch include the ocean and waves, making the sketch more realistic. This sketch is one of the competitors but at this point, I was looking for something more basic/realistic.

For this sketch, I took into account my initial thoughts for this project and sketched it onto Photoshop. The end result is as shown above, which reflects my initial thoughts very well. I also took into account my recreation of the Far Cry 3 poster and sketched down my ideal setting. I included large sand hills in the background, along with wind physics to the leather strap, making it look more realistic. This is still my favourite idea as it reflects my initial thought process at the start of the project period.

For the final sketch, I decided to experiment with other environments. Immediately, my thought process was set on trees, so I sketched down a forest environment, with the knife standing up in the dirty, very much like the previous two sketches. The sketch contains very few features, but is still an idea regardless - I included a rough dirt terrain and lowered the wind physics on the leather strap. This idea could possibly be improved more but didn't appeal to me in the slightest, so I decided to look at our other two sketches...

After discussing my plans with my peers and tutors, I ended up planning my scene on the desert environment, purely because of the simplicity and realism of the idea. I will base my ideas and development up on the picture shown to the left - I will recreate, model, texture and render the image to my desired standard, and so it fits the merit criteria.

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

Mindmap

Here I've set out and labelled my rough ideas of the project so far. As you can see, I've labelled, the different types of knives, such as a bayonet, flip knife, machete, throwing knife etc. I've also labelled the different types of materials, specifically for the handle or for possible straps hanging from the knife. As well as this, I've labelled the different sizes and shapes for the knife to rule out unwanted ideas. For example, should the knife be big or small? Futuristic or vintage? These ideas are definitely something to take note of when drawing my ideas and actually creating the knife itself. In addition to this, I've written a few ideas involving the history of knives in general. For example, could the knife come from the Cavemen Era? The Egyptian Era? The Qijia Culture? These ideas could spawn a unique idea during the process so it's good to write down these things.

I also began looking at different images of knives on the internet, and gathered two solid mood boards. The two boards consist of a variety of different knife shapes and sizes, some vintage, some modern, and some even futuristic. These allow me to take into account different types of knives so I can alter take inspiration from them when sketching my ideas.

Reference Images

These are images of a beach that I personally captured in the Isle of Wight. They show in full detail the sand and the sky, which will serve as inspiration for when I go to model and texture in Maya.

Knife Diagram

As part of my research, I took into account the different parts of a knife, so I can look back at this when modelling the actual knife itself. Key parts of this diagram to take note of is the tip and the belly. Its curvature is an interesting concept and will most likely inspire me to incorporate this idea into my own model. Another key feature is the ridges in the handle; most combat knives lately have this feature, and my idea in this project involves modern weaponry, so again, this feature could inspire me when modelling my knife.

Research on Knives

Knives are small yet dangerous weapons usually very sharp at the tip of the blade. It consists of a handle, and the blade itself, however knives used in the military have specific names, as they can hold gadgets and tools. The typical kitchen knife, however, simply consists of a handle and a blade. Knives go back thousands of years to the Egyptian era, when simple men forged simple weaponry, ultimately creating a sharp blade to hunt with. Over years, they have changed massively in shape, size, and threat, with the newer military knives capable of penetrating human bone and slicing through raw flesh. Although knives are simple weapons, they are commonly used in gang, urban and modern warfare as a form of sidearm – they are typically used in close combat, however highly trained users are capable of throwing them accurately at a target. Knives have been a massive part of previous world wars, such as World War 1 and 2, where it was clipped onto the end of rifles, commonly the M1917 Enfield. They called this a ‘bayonet’. They produced these through the 1910s to the 1930s, and then produced again in the 1960s.

Wednesday, 23 March 2016

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Week	Session Activities	Personal Study Targets
		Option 1: Modelling a guide for study and planning.
1	Project introduction, Students working on producing their briefs.	Research / Planning / Proposal I have created a mind map as the first document in my blog. I will create two moodboards containing pictures of knives so I can gather inspiration from them. I will also create a number of sketches and ideas relating to my project proposal. For my proposal, I am planning on creating a knife desert scene, so gathering ideas and sketches relating to this will allow me to move onto development. During the sketching of the ideas, I will also look at different environment opportunities so I can get an in depth look at different types of scenes. I will also create a diagram of a knife to label the different parts and features of said knife. This will serve as a guideline for when I model the actual knife in Maya.
2	Evidence gathering	Gathering Reference I've gathered pictures of a beach to use as reference for my project. These images will help me to model the sand in Maya.
3	.	Scene Breakdown For my scene, I will need to create three key assets – the knife, the sand and the sky. Additional assets will include the texturing and bump mapping. I will need to personally create the knife texture in Photoshop, along with the sky and sand texture. The knife itself will be split into four different segments, the blade, the handle, the lower leather strap and the loose leather strap. I will most likely include physics into the leather strap also.
4		Simple Block out I will use basic shapes to create the different assets and I will work from there. I will move and alter the vertexes, edges and faces so that they’re in their appropriate positions. For the sand, I will most likely use a simple polygon plane and create bumps to make it look like hills. As for the sky, I will most likely create a large sphere and reverse the face so that the texture will be facing the camera.
5		Modelling For the actual modelling of my scene, I will create a high-detailed model of a knife, which will include ridges, serrated edges and (maybe) blood splatters. In addition to this, I will model a large plane of desert sand to serve as the background of the scene. I will create two different sand planes; one for where the knife will lay, and one for the background. Last but not least, I will model a sky sphere, which will serve as the sky for the scene.
6		Modelling
7		Modelling
8		Uving I will UV the different assets of the project so that they are ready for texturing. I will most likely teach myself this, or receive help from my peers and tutor.
9		Uving
10		Uving
11		Texturing For the texturing of the assets, I will create them myself in Photoshop. As for the knife, I will paint a metallic looking blade containing scratches and a slight spray of blood. The texture for the blade will be based on a ‘blinn’ material, which will make it reflective when rendering. The handle and straps will probably use the same material as well. The sand texture I will create myself in Photoshop very much like the knife, and will be high detailed also like the knife. The sky will be created by myself also in Photoshop – the type of sky is unknown to me at this point, so I will look at different sky experiments in the future.
12		Texturing
13		Unreal 4 / rendering To render the finalized scene, I will use Maya. It will use the mentalray plugin to add extra detail into the render, such as the reflectivity, the smooth edges and the high detail shadows. I will render the finalized scene in full-HD (1080p).
14		Unreal 4 / rendering Summative Assessment/Deadline. At the end of the project, I will go over each document to make it a merit standard piece of work, adding extra detail along the way.

PROJECT PROPOSAL

Student Negotiated Final Major Project

UAL Level 3 Diploma in Art & Design

THIS SECTION TO BE COMPLETED BY THE STUDENT

Student Name

Student Number

Andy Sheffield

141525119

Centre Name

Centre Number

Birmingham Metropolitan College

20313

Subject Specialism

Prop Modelling

Working Title or Theme of FMP

Knife Desert Scene

Number of words

Personal Tutor Course Leader

714

Chris Pearce

Signature

A.Sheffield

Date

2016

SECTION ONE – The Final Major Project

My idea for this project is to create a desert scene containing a focused knife buried in the sand. I will model the knife on Maya and will take inspiration from reference images that I will collect, and I will texture it in fine detail to the best of my ability. The desert scene will take inspiration from a very simple desert like the Saharan, and will probably implement some sort of particle effect in Unreal Engine to add extra detail and to make it even more realistic. In addition to this, I will look into physics of the Unreal Engine so I can create an interesting effect on the knife. For example; a loose piece of cloth on the knife which could be fluttering around in a desert storm, along with a sand particle effect.

Ultimately, my aim for this project is to make a photorealistic scene of a knife in a desert to the best of my ability, containing a wide range of effects and detail.

SECTION TWO – Influences, Research, Sources and Ideas

As stated prior to this, I will take influence from reference pictures of knives that I've found in the real world and apply ideas from it onto my model. I will undertake a fair amount of research during the production of this project, such as different types of knife materials, shapes and sizes, as well as sand desert colour and shape. I will also undertake research on camera angles and what positions are best to get the finest looking scene possible. My basic understanding of camera angles involves making an object the main subject of the image, to make it stand out from everything else on the scene; in my case, I will add a depth of field effect to the background so that the knife is in focus, thus making the viewer’s eyes lead straight to it rather than erratically wandering around the page.

SECTION THREE – Techniques, Processes and Timetables

The techniques I will use in the production of my scene will mainly be used on three main softwares; Photoshop CC, Maya 2016 and the Unreal Engine. As of now, I am only able to use Photoshop and Maya comfortably, due to the fact that I've never used the Unreal Engine before, and have yet to learn the basics of it. However, throughout the weeks of production, I will hopefully learn the basic techniques involved in it so I can employ it onto my scene ideas. My production time will be split into around ten sections throughout the whole of the project, starting off with the basic research, and ending with a final model/animation. I will spend around two weeks on research, modelling and texturing, while I will spend different segments of my time on different areas of my project; as of now, I am unsure of what I will be spending additional time on.

SECTION FOUR – Method of Evaluation (guide 150 words)

For my method of evaluation, I will answer different questions regarding my project. For example, what were my initial ideas? How did I develop these ideas? Were these ideas successful? How did I manage my time during the process of my project? What reference material did I find and how useful was it? How did I use my skill and knowledge to create my idea etc. The questions may obviously be different, but they all follow a similar pattern – the timeline and process of my project. I will analyse if my work is successful by following feedback sheets given to me by my peers and tutor, and will detect if a piece of work is complete or to a desired standard. The feedback sheet is split into three different parts – pass, merit and distinction. As for my work, I'm aiming for a merit so each stage of the project will need to fit the merit criteria.

APPENDIX – Use this appendix for your bibliography and/or action plan for your Final Major Project

For my research, I will gather different types of reference sources and link them accordingly. I will gather website links, artist links, and photos, and I will set them out neatly so, as a result, it suits my criteria.