Evaluation Of Space Ship Level
My research for the project looked at several different areas which included software, applications and design. I felt it was in depth and helped portray what I wanted to do and the direction that I was going. The pre production was a major part of the research, as it taught me a lot of the inner workings of Unreal Engine 4.
This projects timing was up and down. I ran into several issues, both program and hardware related, which delayed me. Due to having to teach a brand new program to myself, I did the early part of the project in a different order, with pre production coming before the research. This was because I needed to test and find out if this software could perform what I needed it to do before I committed fully to it. the research went to schedule, with no issues occurring there, which was to be expected. the production part of the project is where the most delays occurred. I was set back in some cases a week behind because of software such as Maya crashing. Overall though I did finish on time. I knew this was a huge undertaking for my FMP so the fact I was able to create a fully working level I feel is quite impressive.
Faults for this project came in a variety of forms. although the faults that occurred were not as bad as previous projects, such as the pirate ship crash which erased all my work, The accumulation of all the small bugs did cause me issues. Most of these issues were Maya based, with models not texturing properly, models caving into each other which in turn required me to rebuild the model from scratch, as well as a particularly odd and brand new one to for me where my models would just vanish form the screen if I zoomed out in the slightest. I later found out this was because the model was too large and also had to many vertexes. Mental ray also decided to play up and not load properly, which although is a small bug, caused delays as I tried to get it to work once more. Once I brought it into Unreal Engine 4, I discovered that the textures would not work and instead pasted the entire room with one texture. I believe this was because the models where not built in Unreal engine and had not had their materials created in UE4 either. I had to make a judgment call at that point and decided to leave the textures out of unreal engine 4 and just apply a simple materials to each model instead. Unreal engine 4 had its own bugs which I had to deal with, like light s not compiling properly and blueprints crashing but that was more due to my lack of knowledge of the software rather than UE4 being broken. I also had a moment where the laptop that stores my work stopped charging and in doing so I almost lost all my work. Luckily I was able to fixz this issue and ensured my backups where up to date.
Saying all this I had learned from previous projects and in doing so saved myself a lot of other potentially damaging bugs. To solve any Maya crashes I built each model in a separate Maya file, this was so that in case one did become corrupt the other files would remain safe and I would lose a fraction of the work rather than the whole project.
The quality of this project was rather high, however bugs did lower this quite a bit. Each model had a lot of detail and time put into them, with a similar styling throughout. The lack of textures did hurt the quality and I will be looking into how to add that to models in UE4 in the future.
This project has taught me more than any other project. This is because I had to teach myself a completely new piece of software and learn to make it work with other pieces of software I currently use. for my project I leaned how to “code” using their new blueprint system. along side this I had to also learn the multitude of variables used. the blueprint system is really useful and although easy to use, requires a good understanding of what you want to do as well as the many different options available. Another thing I have learnt is the matinee program. this part of UE4 is really cool and is essentially a built in 3d animation program. It uses key framing, similar to programs like after effects or flash. I used this extensively with lights and doors being the major ones. along side matinee, trigger boxes were very useful allowing the player to activate things when next to them. the material system, although very similar to Maya, allows you to add a unique spin with animated materials such as glows and color changing. this can really bring a level to life. I also learent how to create sky boxes, something i have never done before. this was achieved by using several programs such as spacescape and 3DS Max. the process took me many hours to figure out but it allowed me to make a good looking (albeit bright) skybox.
A major change I would make would be to build everything I could into UE4 first. this is because it would of enabled me to have a brought in the textures I want and bring up the quality of the level. I would also build the skeleton of the level first so that I knew where each asset is suppose to go. this would help me better plan out my level. I would also liked to of created my own materials rather than use the preset ones as well as make my own textures. I would of been able to do this but time constraints hindered what I could achieve. In Maya I would of used alot less veteses in my models so that bugs such as the dissapearing floor didn't occur and also so that it was less demanding on the system. I would also tweak the lighting so it wasn't as glaring. Another thing I would fix would be the skybox. because this skybox was my first ever attempt I found that not all the sides lines which in turn caused some seems to appear. this ruined the environment somewhat and lowered the quality of the level.
Overall I am really happy with this project. it took a lot of time and work to get this project finished, and in doing so I improved my skills in several pieces of software as well as teach myself a whole new program and use it proficiently to achieve my goals. I would love a chance to do this again and feel that my level would look even better if I did this again. I will certainly be looking into what else I can build and increase its complexity more and more.
romaincrisis
theartofmadeline
annaxmalina
areudirty
izzy806
kaledo-art