I have uploaded my demo reel. As you can see, there is a new link above called demo reel. I have added the video below for everyone’s connivence too.
Trevor Lift Demo Reel from Trevor Lift on Vimeo.
Today is my last day at my college. I will now have a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Game Production. I am currently seeking employment as of this posting. In the mean time, I will be working on some other projects to add and keep myself occupied.
My project is coming along better each day. I am starting to notice now that there is a lot more detail that could and should have been put in to this project. Alas, a lot of the projects that I have ever worked on have been low poly models and details in objects. Most of the objects in my scene have not gone past 500-poly’s tops on some objects. Some not even over 100-poly’s. I will be finalizing all of the scene and placing all foliage at the very end. I should be able to have everything done by the end of this week and create some videos and take screenshots. I will be creating a finished product for my class, however, this and another project will be polished up before I start my next project. Additionally, I will be done with college on December 16, 2010 with a BFA in Game Production.
On a completely unrelated topic, I would like to remember this day, December 7, 1941. The day that Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Also it seems a lot of people on social networking websites have been changing their profile pictures to something from the 1990′s or early 2000′s. So here is a picture of an old TV show I remember called Zoids.
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Image Source: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080529032450/zoids/images/6/66/Van_Bladey.jpg
After I posted my screenshots yesterday, I noticed that my lighting time increased by a couple truck loads. It seems that all of the foliage that I added increases the render time. I have removed a lot of the foliage for now, and will add it all back in after I finish getting the last few assets in and clean up a few textures. I will be looking up a way to do a video type of recording from UDK as other programs seem to just make my computer lag, thus making the video really jerky and unpleasant.
I promised pictures and a video. Right now all I have is pictures. I will get a video done soon. Enough text for now. Pretty pictures are below.
Due to the holiday’s, I have not had much time to work on my project. I am planning to work in it this weekend unless something comes up. After that, I will be spending many days working on the project around my work schedule. I will include a video and screenshots in my next post.
You may be wondering why I have titled my post this way. In my last post, I stated that I would texture an object in 3D Studio Max, then take and apply multiple textures to it. However the last project I worked on did not involve a step of taking and rendering a texture to the unwrap. So I decided to take and test my theory on that. Now that process did work and the texture came out on the unwrap nicely. However, the texture came out really pixelated in UDK. So I tried and tried and toiled over it, trying to make it come out better. After a few hours of trying again and again, I failed. Now you see why I have named this post Scientific Theory. The theory was to render the multiple textures on the object using the render to texture option in 3D Studio Max. The render to texture did work, but the detail did not come with it.
My school host a conference called Interfaces in the summer. At the conference, I remember one of the guys who worked on the Splinter Cell series tell us this quote: “No one can teach you how to make a game. You must learn by failing.” I know my project is not a full game of any kind, but I did learn something by failing at my render to texture theory.
I decided to take a step back and access what I have done and what still needs to be done for this project. I feel like I am falling behind on things, however, I have actually put more focus on to other parts of the scene more than others. Additionally, I have been tweaking the textures of my assets to make them look better. All in all, I am spending more time building the objects, unwrapping them, and applying the textures and collision boxes to them. That right there is why I feel like I am falling behind.
The last project I did, I went ahead and modeled a good chunk of the scene, then went through and textured everything. Also my way of texturing is not of the, how shall I say this, “traditional” way? I mean that as take a model, unwrap it, then texture the unwrap. I am going back to the way that I textured my last scene. This process involved taking a model, apply the multiple textures to it, then render the applied textures on the unwrap This might not be the way of the industry, but it’s how I do things, plus I find myself more efficient and have more control in my work.
Please wait for video. Something happened. Sorry…
Update 1: The fist video I uploaded continued to lag so I was forced to take it down and use another screen recording application. It is currently being uploaded to youtube for ease of access. I will update again when the video comes through.
Update 2: The video has been uploaded. I am just waiting for the video to be processed. It will show up here when it is done.
I am going to be totally honest here. The texture I have been trying to make for the fountain in my last post just is not working for me. What I have been making does not look good at all. So I have changed up the fountain design completely and will be texturing it a lot better. For some reason, I had this idea stuck in my head where one solid texture would work for the entire object. My texture is looking like complete garbage. I think I am going to hold off on making the fountain and come back to it later. I need to move on and improve other areas of my conservatory that I have fallen behind on. I am getting in to crunch time and only have maybe four weeks to complete this entire project. If there is one thing that I have learned thus from from this project is that I should have made the area I am building smaller.
I spent longer than needed learning UDK and trying to make everything work in it. Again this will be another project I will want to completely finish.
