Day 207: Presentation

Today was my final presentation – I can’t believe that is my last one for university!

I had originally built a presentation in Unreal Engine 4, so I could showcase more of my honours project and immerse the viewer in the world of Rose. However, the presenting PC did not have direct X installed, and thus my presentation wouldn’t open, and I had to use my back-up powerpoint (I came prepared).

Instead, you can see my original presentation below, and I’ve added in the commentary so it gives a holistic view of my project.

 

Day 204: The Skinny

 

Today I found out both myself and Sandy’s work have been featured in The Skinny to represent the showcase 😀

You can read the article here: http://issuu.com/theskinny/docs/theskinnyscotland-may2015/1?e=1069858/12580763

Day 201: Final Showcase Pieces

Today I ordered my final showcase pieces from Moo. I’ve ordered some business cards – which instead of using as business cards (as I already have ones from GDC) I’m going to use as flyers.

I’ve also ordered some stickers, again so people can take away something to remind them of my project.

 

I’ve also started to collect the bits I need for my cake – which is (hopefully) going to be epic!

Day 198: Cutscene Storyboards

So halfway through packaging up my submission, I realised that I hadn’t got anything depicting the backstory, explaining that the brother was dead.
So I began to lay out a short narrative in Unreal, which I could screen record and use as the backstory. Because I would animate inside Unreal rather than Maya, it meant I could re-use animations that I already had. The idea is the brother dies when a bridge he was walking on collapses.

Day 197: Preparing for submission

Today has been taken up with getting ready for the honours project submission for Monday. I have gone through all of my animations, taking looping playblasts, and been working through all the screenshots I have taken over the last 15 weeks and turning them into a monster digital sketchbook.

All though its been a lot of work, it was really cool to see pictures I had taken at the beginning of the project, and compare it with the finished project. I’m glad to say there has been a lot of improvements, but at the same time my final piece is almost the same as my concept; it’s really cool to be able to make my ideas into real things after four years of training.
Concept Art

3D Art Test

Final In-game Screenshot

Day 195: Sound and Showcase Design

Today I got all of the sound implemented in Rose! That includes both sound effects that I received from Willy, and the music I have licensed from audionetwork. I hoping to post a video playthrough later in the week, so the sound will be present then.

For the second part of the day, I have been finalising my showcase design and I totally changed my mind form yesterday. Having the pictures of styles and colours, I felt the piece didn’t work well as a whole. Instead I have split up the top layer so I have the two characters, then underneath I have the grave and my project statement.

 

Personally I think this looks a lot cleaner than before and more visually coherent. I have sent of the first set of images to be printed, and hope to have the second set sent off tomorrow.

Day 194: More Showcase Designs

Once again I have been working on my showcase designs, as I need to send things away to print tomorrow. Above you can see my final layout and pictures that I have chosen. The grey areas are space that should be taken up by my name, the computer and a hopefully a plinth for my tablets. I’ve chosen these pictures as they cover a range of parts, characters and styles of my project.

 

I’ve tried to keep the area clean, so that it is not over cluttered, and will hopefully be able to line up all my paintings (I’ve had to guess a little bit about where the grey areas are). I plan to get the pictures printed as matt-posters.

Below are some other shots I have taken, which I may get printed in-case I have more space than originally planned for.

Day 193: Showcase Designs

Doing I have been doing mainly backend tidying, so not much to show, but I did find some time to sketch out some ideas for the showcase. I looked at the examples from previous years, and I did like the undercluttered areas. I will also lose some wall space as I need a table for my tablets, so I’m not going to have a lot of space.

Out of the designs I drew, the far left is still my favourite. Along the top I would have a large printout of a screenshot. The vertical one will be another screenshot. The top square will be the text explaining my project and the smaller one below will be the piece of 2D concept art I did.

 

Day 191: Content Complete

Today I have been working on the final scene between the brother and sister in the woods. These are the main animations I have been implementing. Alongside this, I have been writing the AI so this scene happens during gameplay. It was tough, and required lots of triggers so the animations played at the right time in the right place, but I got there in the end. With these the last things to go in, all of the script is now complete and I would say the project itself is close to finishing. Now I have a couple of days to polish up some of the animations and add in sound.

I’ve also been taking some more screenshots of the level.

Day 188 & 189: Dissertation Editing and Formatting

It’s finally starting to look like a proper dissertation now! I’ve spent the last two days rewriting the sections 5 & 6, as well as fix up my introduction and conclusion. Plus, I got some help from the library and fixed up my formatting.

dissertation v7