Evaluation

My Own Evaluation 

As per usual, I usually write my own evaluation on my blog. This isn't going to be a long evaluation. 

I'm very pleased with what I produced for this project and I've learned a lot in the unit. I think this unit was a great ending point for my time at NUA, as my last project fits into my first ever project at NUA. As you can see in the images below, my work has changed a lot. Also, keeping a tracker helped me, for the most part, keep me on track. I didn't have to pull all-nighters throughout deadline week or the week before. 

Is there anything I would change for this project? Yes, there is. I wish the focus of my project was on how can games help people get interested in museums again and make museums more interesting using games. I know my main focus for this project was looking at the female Spitfire pilots but I wish it was also focused on the Flying Nightingales. I wish I could add more details in the cockpit of the Spitfire. But other than that, I wouldn't change anything and I'm super pleased. During my time on the MA Games course, my skills have, without a doubt improved. I took the feedback from my final third-year project on my BA Games Art & Design degree and used it to drive me to improve my work. 

The only critique I do have on my own model is that the fuselage (the main body) could do with being slightly more narrow. But other than that, I'm happy with the asset. 

Any last thoughts? I'm looking forward to redoing the Spitfire in 3 years time to see if my skills have improved. I'm glad I've done the MA Games course and I'm kinda sad that my time is ending at NUA (don't really want to leave). 

Thank you to everyone who've helped me, not only on the MA but also throughout my time at NUA. 

Sketchfab

Today, I finally put my Spitfire asset onto Sketchfab. If possible, I'm hoping to have this on show for the MA degree show.
Also, to help with the professional practice there a bit on Sketchfab that lets you annotate it (will add screenshots below). I've added onto the asset my influence, the basis of the nose art and the squadron code (mentions Norfolk). I've also added annotations to lead the viewer around the Spitfire. I think this will help a non-specialized audience understand the meaning and why behind the project but also show them around the best sides of the asset.

Direct link to my Spitfire asset:
Sketchfab - Spitfire Mk IIb

Screenshots for annotations:

Hand in Week

This week I am basically just sorting out and cleaning up my project for submission and writing my critical evaluation. This will be a realativly short post, but I shall write my own evaluation on here the night before hand in.

To make this short post interesting, I've also created an asset sheet for the Spitfire.

Texture Transfer, turntables and final renders.

As predicted, when I tried texture transfer in Maya, it naffed up because of me. As seen below: 

But after a few hours trying to figure out what went wrong (human error) I managed to get it to work:

To quote Stan Lee 'Excelsior!'

It worked and now I know what I did wrong in the first place and what I need to do, I did this for all maps - minus normal map. 

I also added some more geometry on the front section of the Spitfire and on the tail fin. 

Though subtle, it looks way better!

Also, I redid the panels for the Spitfire (four times this week....) and updated the Spitfire serial number to another serial number (still a real one though) 

I forgot to mention that last week, I tried to make my own panorama backgrounds in Substance Painter but they didn't turn out well and the lighting didn't show.

I took my own photographs and try to sort them out in Photoshop. My experiments:

I also created a turntable in Marmoset Toolbag. The first version I duplicated the properties and turned the opacity down to make it look like they're moving. 

But I wanted to push myself, so with hep, I managed to animate the propellers and created a turntable for the new version. 

First version: 

Second version and final version: 

Final renders: 

Also, this week I sorted out the final renders for the MA show. I later decided to make the Spitfire look like it was turning so it looks more realistic, to break up the image so it doesn't look flat. Results below: 

Study and presenting research docs

This week, I wanted to start presenting my main research notes properly and make them look good.
I wanted to get as much I could this week so I can focus on the texture transfer next week.

Example of pages:

I wanted to make the research docs look like military documentation - in a similar fashion to what I did for my year 3 research document. 

As well as these, I did another study. From the tutorial from the other week, it was suggested to use nurbs in Maya to help create curves. Though I know it's too late to do this for the main Spitfire asset, I still wanted to try it out. This study is based on my Dragon Age Grey Warden ring. This turned out really well (at least in my eyes). I will use this for future models.
 Results below:

The 'Night Witches'

A part of the feedback I got for my presentation at the beginning of the month was to look at the Night Witches. 

The Night Witches: Who were they and what did they do? 

The Night Witches was an all-female squadron of pilots for the Soviet Union. The name 'Night Witches' was the nickname the Nazi's gave them as the Night Witches tactic during bombing was setting their plane engines to idle and gliding over targets when they dropped bombs and the only thing the Germans heard was the whooshing of the planes as they glided. These women were apart of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment.

These women ran bombing raids in very old wooden and canvas bi-planes that were meant to dust fields - none of these women were not under any illusions and were well aware how outdated their planes were. In addition to these old planes, they had no radio contact and up until 1944, they had no parachutes. 

The first slogan for the Night Witches was 'you are a woman, and you should be proud of that' as quoted by Irina Rakobolskaya.

After all of their missions, only 30 women died in the Night Witches. If they were shot down, they walked backed to their HQ and continued their mission (regardless if they were hurt).

The most famous Nigth Witch was Nadezhda Popova. In one single night, she flew in 18 bombing missions. 

Research Links:

The Night Witches and World War II

THE NIGHT WITCHES OF WORLD WAR TWO

The Little-Known Story of the Night Witches, an All-Female Force in WWIINight Witches: The Female Fighter Pilots of World War II

The Night Witches The True Story of an Incredible Group of Women

Aditional Research this week: 

How Stuff Works: Supermarine Spitfire

To get the context to what the Spitfire was up against, I wanted to look at the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter plane and the Stuka

. 

The Messerschmitt was the most produced plane for the Luftwaffe and in total there was around 33,000 Messerschmitt produced. Also out of all the planes, the Messerschmitt took down the most Allied planes than any other plane during the war. The longevity and success of the Messerschmitt were credited to the fact the designers made sure the plane had the biggest engine with the smallest frame. This made it easier to produce and repair (unlike the Spitfire, which was harder to repair). The first flight of the Messerschmitt had a Rolls-Royce Kestrel engine that was imported. 

How Stuff Works: Messerschmitt Bf 109

Plane Encyclopedia: Messerschmitt Bf 109

Acepilots.Com: Messerschmitt Bf 109

The Aviation History Online Museum: Messerschmitt Bf 109

The History Learning Site: Messerschmitt 109

The Stuka (Junkers Ju 87 Stuka) was a large angular monoplane and always managed the strike fear due to their dive-bombing. 

The first Stuka flight was in 1935 and by 1939 began to bring terror to people. 

Note: Also, whilst research the sound people associate with a plane flying straight to the ground doesn't make the sound we instantly think of. It was only the Stuka that makes that sound the 'Stuka Scream'. The 'Stuka Scream' was because of the noisy engines. Whilst designing the Stuka, German's ended using this to their advantage and added fans in front of the landing gear and made the sound into a siren - Basically to scare the hell out of anyone who heard the 'Stuka Scream'. 

How Stuff Works: Stuka

The Sirens of Death – 11 Amazing Facts About the Ju 87 Stuka

The Sound of World War II Planes

Junkers Ju 87 Stuka German Dive Bomber of WWII

ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA: Stuka

Ju 87 Stuka

Texturing

This weeks post will be put across two posts

Note: I really like the way this render looks as it looks like an old photograph. If I can, I'm gonna make the final render for the MA show look like this.
I finally finished texturing the cockpit and on track for hand in, in a few weeks (hopefully).

During a feedback tutorial, it was suggested to use texture transfer in Maya to transfer the old textures from an old UV set to a new set. This means I can make the UV shells bigger for the outer section for the Spitfire and not needing to redo the textures from scratch again (something I don't wish to do with not long left for hand in and wanted to get everything done this week). Also, it was suggested to turn down the bumps I have on the metal painted bits of the Spitfire.
I'm not going to settle for less so I will try this as I want the Spitfire to look as good as it possibly can! Also, it was suggested to connect the wings to the main body. This time, I hope I can do it without causing crashes in Maya again.

New game plan:
Re-do UV's so I can do the texture transfer in Maya. I'm going to layout the outer UVs across two UV sets instead of having one - this will make the textures stand out way more.

Backup plane:
Get the old Spitfire ready and make sure I'm happy with it so I can submit it, just in case the texture transfer doesn't work (aka I screw it up).

Additional research:
Whilst watching YouTube I can across a channel called Simple History; Bitsize videos about history. But two of their videos stood out to me.

One was a British Spitfire ace who actually had no legs. He was also stationed at RAF Coltishall in Norwich for a bit. It's actually pretty amazing despite no legs, not only could he fly a plane (even more amazing once you know you have to use your feet to control the rudders in a Spitfire - Found out this from watching one of the Spitfire documentaries at the beginning of this project) but also to become an ace pilot, now that's amazing!
In further research into Sir Douglas Robert Bader, he was also a Prisoner of War (POW) and whilst a POW he made so many escapes attempts the German's even threaten to take away his prosthetic legs.

Simple History: The WWII Flying Ace with No Legs (Strange Stories)
The smile of a stern-faced hero: Rare footage of WW2 fighter ace Douglas Bader walking with false legs shown for first time
Missing Both Legs, This RAF Fighter Ace Took Out 22 Germans Planes, Then Escaped Multiple POW Camps

Also another video by Simple History, there was a video about a WW2 British soldier nicknamed "Mad Jack". Why was he given that name? Because he fought with a longbow, sword, and bagpipes instead of guns. You can understand the nickname.
The Man who Fought with a Longbow and a Sword in WWII
Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Churchill
The British Soldier Who Killed Nazis with a Sword and a Longbow "Mad Jack" was finally

Note: As stated in an earlier post, I've been using Grammarly and I've been testing it on my blog posts. It's actually been really helpful with my writing as being dyslexic it hard for me to write sometimes. I think I may use to help me with my critical evaluation.

Can Video Games help Museums?

Thinking about photogrammetry and what I could do next. One thing that came to my mind is to use it for museums. I know some museums are now digitizing their collections. But what about making it interactive using games technologies? Or perhaps, using photogrammetry they can create models from their collections that aren't on show to the public (i.e. too valuable to put on display). 

According to some articles, the museum numbers are going down. Is it because they just don't appeal to the average person? Too expensive? Too dull? I know I'm proposing a lot of questions, but wouldn't it be interesting to use game technologies to make museums more interesting.
This could make it not just interesting to kids, but attract people who may not otherwise go to museums.
Furthermore, this also could help dyslexics as the most common way for a dyslexic to learn is via experience, being shown or being hands-on. Note: I can confirm this from my own experience with having dyslexia.
Also, read an article from the BBC, some studies even say that video games help people children with dyslexia to read. The link: Video games 'help reading in children with dyslexia'

One prime example of using games to make museums more interesting is the discovery mode in Assassin's Creed origins. Using the base game map from the main game (they change it so there's no violence so kids can play) and they have interactive tours and players can interact with the environment, participate in activities and explore ancient Eygpt, whilst learning. This is basically an interactive museum.

Note: With the base game alone, Ubisoft used Historian but they had additional historian for the interactive tours.

If museums do this online, so people can get interested they are more likely to actually to go to the museum to learn more. Better yet, if they do it in museums they can attract more people there and kids will be more interested to go too.

Note: I kinda wish I had this idea as I started this project, as I would base the project around this. Unfortunately, it's too late to implement this idea in the project beyond the idea phase.

 But as I also said, museums could use photogrammetry and digitize their collects (even ones not visible to the public) as people can get closer to the object without damaging the real thing and they could digitally curate it. Not only this, it could serve as a catalog for the museums, as this would archive their collection and could digitally lend their collection to other museums or for further study. They could even find stuff they couldn't before as they don't have to as careful with the digital version as it's, well digital.
Also, if this was done with a game company, not only would a museum have more resources and specialist working with them, games could get something out of it too, they can use the research for their own games. Also, given that the games industry has grown massive in the last decade, this could also lead to more jobs as there could be a museum cross game development studios and make museums popular.
This would be an interesting field to go in and if I could would pursue this further in a future career.

Research Links:
Major London museums see visitor numbers plummet
British museums and art galleries hit by 1.4m fall in visitors
The drop in museum visitors reveals a nation without aspiration or hope
the decline of Britain public museums
Test for Dyslexia: 37 Common Traits
Action video games to fight dyslexia
Neither action nor phonological video games make dyslexic children read better
Here's One More Reason To Play Video Games: Beating Dyslexia
Video games tested as treatment for dyslexia
NHS: Dyslexia
Common characteristics of Dyslexia
FAQ: DISCOVERY TOUR MODE OF ASSASSIN'S CREED: ORIGINS
Assassin’s Creed Origins’ Discovery Tour lets the beauty of Egypt shine
Assassin's Creed Origins' 'Discovery Tour' mode turns history into
Assassin’s Creed Origins’ new educational mode is a violence-free tour through ancient Egypt
We give access to a lost world': Assassin's Creed's new life as a virtual museum
Ancient history shines in Assassin's Creed's new Discovery Tour - but it's the gaps that are truly thrilling
ASSASSIN'S CREED ORIGINS - DISCOVERY TOUR Q&A WITH HISTORIAN MAXIME DURAND
Museum games: the kids are all right
Interactive Games Make Museums A Place To Play
Victoria and Albert Museum announce London video game exhibition
Videogames museum will show 'gaming is not for sociopaths'
University of Helsinki: VIDEO GAMES AND MU­SEUMS
Journal: The Introduction of Computer and Video Games in Museums – Experiences and Possibilities
Gaming for Museums
The Art of Video Games
Digitisation: a simple guide for museums
Digitisation
Digital archives: making museum collections available to everyone
Digital collections programme
Digitising Collections – breaking through the museum walls and opening up collections to the world
Natural History Museum CIO David Thomas digitising collections and the visitor experience
3D DIGITISING MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Virtual reality at the British Museum: What is the value of virtual reality environments for learning by children and young people, schools, and families?
How Can Museums Use Virtual Reality?
Virtual reality vs museums
VIRTUAL REALITY AT THE MUSEUM
https://qz.com/quartzy/1162533/more-museums-are-succumbing-to-virtual-reality/
AR and VR could be educational — and profitable — tools for museums
What is Museum VR and Museum AR ?

Texturing the cockpit - Also my birthday week.

Will mention this before I continue, on the 12th July I did go into uni to do some work for hours I did give myself the early morning and evening off as it was my birthday.

Nevertheless, I got more work done for texturing and almost textured the cockpit for the Spitfire - I even did some over render test for the Spitfire. Note: I'm gonna have to do the final renders in Painter, as Designer doesn't do transparency well for glass.
To make the cockpit look more detailed and more real, I created dials for the cockpit. Also, with feedback from the presentations last week, I tried to make the textures pop out more on the outer sections for the Spitfire.

Graphic sheets for dials:

Render of the cockpit during texturing. Note: I also added text to make the cockpit look more realistic. 

Test to see how everything looks together:

Playing around with the render settings in Painter

Sods Law: Art thou a bi....

The main thing to take away from this week? Always. Always have a backup copy with files. The only time I didn't have a backup copy of a file, the main file breaks.....
I spent a good day trying to recover the broken file. In Painter, despite having the same UV's and the textures were fine. When I went to work on the file the next day, sections of the textures weren't showing and the file kept crashing.
 This was the only time I didn't have a backup file. Fortunately, I managed to recover the work. Though I did lose a day worth of work.
Moral of the story? Always keep a backup file.

 I tried to connect the wings to the main section of the Spitfire, however, this caused some problems in Painter (UVs not painting despite remapping the UV) but caused crashed in Maya. I can see why the other artist kept these two sections separate...
I seperated the two pieces again. Fortunatley, this made the curved and alignment of the two meshes perfect(ish). See below:

Before everything went wrong, I finally created a Benson graphic for the Spitfire nose art.

Benson Graphics: Same graphic but two different tones.
It's also worth mentioning I also made more graphics for the Spitfire in Photoshop.

Render of Spitfire with turntable base before I change my idea on how I want the Spitfire to be presented.

Also this week, I spent some time playing around with the render options in Painter.
Note: After this, I got an idea on how I want to present the Spitfire for the MA show. Instead of a turntable base with the model on top, have the Spitfire looks like it's flying in the air. This does make more sense as the turntable base idea made the Spitfire look like a little toy - Though it looks cool and looks like an Airfix model, it's not the way I want the Spitfire to look for this project.

Spitfire fully textured (Taken before the file broke)

After file recovery. Playing around with the renderer in Painter.

To make the Spitfire as authentic as possible, I wanted the Squadron code and Spitfire serial number to be real and not made up.

The serial number I found (P7540) actually turned out to be belonging to a Spitfire that was lost during WW2 and was only found again in 1982. It was located in Loch Doon. It was later restored. P7540 belonged to an MK II spitfire that at one point with 66 Squadron. But I may change the serial number to a Spitfire that would have been in The Battle of Britain.

Loch Doon Spitfire P7540

Whilst looking for Squadron codes for the Spitfire, I came across 66 Squadron (Squad code LZ). The reason why I chose this Squadron is that not only was it the second unit to ever receive Spitfires during WW2 (The first being 19 Squadron, also originally based Duxford). But I also chose 66 Squadron as it was based not only Duxford (the present day a museum aka my favorite museum) it was also based in Norfolk a couple of times during the beginning of the war - Horsham St. Faiths (now Norwich Airport) and Coltishall. Also, throughout the war, 66 Squadron only used Spitfires.

Additional research this week:
No. 19 Squadron (RAF): Second World War
The Spitfire
National Museums Scotland - Supermarine Spitfire LF.XVIe
Five Things to Know About the Spitfire, the Legend of Dunkirk
Women with Wings: The 75-Year-Legacy of the WASP
RAF - SQUADRON CODES - WWII
WWII Warplanes: The Superb Supermarine Spitfire
No. 66 Squadron (RAF): Second World War
No. 66 Squadron Royal Air Force During the Second World War

Nose art, baking and Spitfire Panels

This week I wanted to do some nose art for the Spitfire asset. As much as I love the pin-up model style, I know I wouldn't be able to re-create it. So, I did the next best thing. I added my dog, Benson, to the project and going to use him for nose art. This is my first attempt, as I'm not happy with it. I played around with a lot of filters within Photoshop to get the style I was looking for - It didn't work.

Nevertheless, my dog is in my project and I will go back to it and rework it. 

I also thought it was wise to understand the history of nose art. This isn't going to be an essay but I shall do a quick summary.

The first reported use of nose art was back in 1913 on an Italian boat plane which had a sea monster on the fuselage. It was then commonplace for Italian pilots to do this. During WW1, this became a decorative thing to do and help make the 'ace' units stand out. Example of this was Germany's, Baron Von Richthofen and his Flying Circus - named as they were agile and also had brightly colored planes. 

WW2 is considered the golden age as this is when most of the iconic designs were created (such as the shark design). Once again, different units had nose art to make them stand out. 

Cartoons and other popular characters were used. The pin-up models (easily the most iconic) and these were used to remind them of home (also something to look at). The American pin-ups are different than the European ones as the American ones had far less clothing and more 'racier'. These also served as morale boosters - given that they were fighting a war, you can't blame them to find anything to help boost morale.  

War-Paint, Shark Teeth and Pin-ups - A Brief History of Aircraft Nose Art

Airplane Nose Art

This week, I laid out the cockpit UV's into the UV set. I also spent a couple of days this week, exporting every single bit (high, low poly models and cages for both sections) out for both spitfire outer sections and cockpit to bake and then bake them.

I also tried to make panels for the Spitfire in Maya - they didn't look right. So I then tried to put the high poly main section of the Spitfire in Zbrush to see if I could sculpt in the panels - this didn't work either. Annoyingly, Zbrush kept crashing and so did Substance when I tried to bake. Fortunately, it was sorted by the end of the week and was able to begin texturing

I think Substance Painter is the way forward regarding the panels. Will do this next week when I texture. Results below: 

Maya attempt at Panels

Zbrush attempt at panels

Texturing in Painter. Only base color and no grime or extra detail. Also, I created the RAF graphics you see below. I decided to do these in Photoshop and then import them into Painter so I can control the uniformity of them.  

Low Poly Models, UV and the Most British Thing You'll Ever Hear.

First off, I shall start off with a bit of research I happened to stumble across and that ever since WW2 all Brtish Tanks have tea making facilities in them. Why?
There was a survey conducted on 'Casualties Amoungst Armored Units in Northwest Europe"  by the British Medical Research Council found that around 37% of all accidents were caused being outside of their tanks. Also, there was an incident where the British were taken by surprised by the German's because the British tank crews were brewing a cupper.  So British tanks were then on made to have tea making facilities inside.

Research links:
The British Perfected the Art of Brewing Tea Inside an Armored Vehicle
Tanks for the Tea

Anyway, back to the Spitfire model:

As stated in last weeks post, I sorted out the low poly model and UV mapped the Spitfire (minus some Maya crashes during the week).
I also sorted the low poly model for the cockpit and have mapped the UV's, but I haven't sorted them out on the UV set yet. That will be next weeks task or I may just begin to bake to outer sections and begin to texture - As UV unwrapping is the only part of 3D modeling I'm not fond of, so I may just take a break from it for a week.

Also, to take a break from UV mapping, I fully textured the Fallout 3 10mm pistol in Painter to do some texture practice:
Note: I gave myself two days at most to do this

Note: I gave myself two days at most to do this

High poly modeling

This week I have redone the wings. I also did the high poly version of the outer sections for the Spitfire. I think I'll do the panels in Zbrush and bake them onto it or failing that, I shall paint them in Substance Painter later. Also this week, I ended up modeling the cockpit for the Spitfire - this took up most of the week.

Whilst trying to find references for the cockpit, I couldn't find any good reference pictures. However, I did find something better. I found two 360 views of a Spitfire cockpit (unfortunately they aren't the right mark but it'll do for reference)

Spitfire Mark IX Cockpit Interactive Panorama
National Museum of the US Air Force - Cockpit 360 images - Supermarine Spitfire MK. VC

I also couldn't find any good refs for the Spitfire cockpit chair, so I did have to look at some models (i.e. Airfix models) for reference:
Spitfire Mk. I/II & Mk. V Super Detailed Cockpit Sets
Tamiya's 1/48 scale Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Ia by Werner Scheibling

Next week: Clean up the low poly model and start unwrapping 

Modeling

This week I haven't been feeling too well and feeling low, so I'm keeping my head down and work. I'm not going to write much this week. I'm going to post screenshots of the progress I made during the week. Each day will have a screenshot(s) from the morning as I start and the second will be a screenshot before I finish for the day.

Note: The first screenshot of the 4th is where I finished off from last week after faffing around (and restarting it) for two and half days trying to sort out the main body and making sure that it looks right. I did end up moving single edges to try and get the form right.

Note: I also decided instead of modeling one side and then the other, I decided to model one side then mirror it - as it saves way more time and makes sure it's the same

Monday 4th June: 

Morning 

Afternoon

Note: As you can see, I made the outer wings and the wing sections that connect to the main wings and the body separate - This will give me more control with the shape. Learning from my mistakes from the first model and learning from analyzing the other artist models. 

Tuesday 5th June

Morning

Afternoon

Wednesday 6th June

Morning

Afternoon

I'm not happy with the wings. I've added too much geometry (which is far from clean) thus made it extremely hard to edit and change the shape. I'm gonna restart it as the wings are way too thick for a Spitfire. Tomorrow I'm gonna keep it clean and simple, get the right form then edit to the right shape and the way it needs to look like. 

Thursday 7th June

Note: I got really huffy with the front side of the wings yesterday, so I restarted it. Also I only just done screenshots from the afternoon as I only worked on the wings. I used a cube and added a lot of edge loops and then moved the edges to the round shape. I finished editing the section connecting the wings to the body. I've now connected them to make sure all of it flows right. 

Friday 8th June

Saturday 9th June

Today I took a break from the Spitfire and created a turntable for the Spitfire as ideally, I want to have a turntable video for the show. I created, baked and textured within a day. 

Sunday 10th July

I think I may edit or even redo the wings for the Spitfire. I took a render in Substance Designer (with the turntable as I wanted to test the turntable stand) and I wasn't happy with the form

Test render:

As seen illustrated below with the red lines, this is roughly how it should go. I'm gonna spend today trying to edit this section.