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: