Month: May 2022

Throughout the creation process of this project I learnt a lot of things, these ranged from modeling skills, to texturing skills, to working as a group and being able to work smoothly without too many problems occuring.

Firstly when it came to modeling my assets, I learnt a lot because I needed to make multiple high quality models and in a short amount of time, I learnt how to quickly make them so that I didn’t impede on the overall team progression of the project. I also learnt how to make them look good even if the meshes themselves weren’t the best, this was through texturing with substance painter and realistic textures/ materials.

Another part of the project that I had to learn a lot for was the pre vis animation that I created, this was because I had never done one of these types of animations before and I wanted to learn how to do it to improve the overall quality of the final cutscene for the project, looking back on it now, I think I did a good job as in my opinion it was the perfect reference material for the team member who created the cutscene.

A final big learning point for the project was GitHub. GitHub was important as it brought all team members together in a single place where we could put all of our assets, materials and code together so that the 2 team members making blueprints and the environment could create the game and make it playable. I think using this was a great idea for the reasons mentioned above.

Overall I think, for me, the project went quite well, I learnt a lot of new techniques and skills when creating a project like this, and also improved upon other things that I have already tried out before hand.

To begin the design process I began by researching the types of trains which were in 1870s America. I did this by going on google images and searching up different types of steam trains that were in America during the time period and then I took inspiration.

Once I completed this research I began modelling the train itself, I did this by creating multiple rough blackouts of the tubes and the main body and cab of the locomotive. After i did this i went into more detail for the intricate parts of the model such as indents for different parts of the main body, and also the windows for the cab. Then I made the wheels and mechanisms around the wheels.

Finally i textured all of the train inside of substance painter and sent over the textures to the game so that they are visible on the train when playing.

I did this process for all of the models that I created as this was the simplest way to create all of the models that I wanted to make, plus it was also easier to make them in groups then texture them in groups too.

After I created my models i used my train model to create the pre vis animation, i did this by creating rough models for the environment, train carriages, bridge and train tracks, i animated the train going down the canyon path underneath the bridge where a character jumped off and landed inside the last carriage. I textured and rendered this and gave it to the team member who would create the final cutscene for the game intro.

Overall the team worked very well, we were always communicating with each other via discord where we had a group to discuss the process of the project and also share images of what we had done at certain points in time.

The 3d modelers in the team worked well together as we were always communicating with each other about what models we were creating, in addition to this we also helped each other out when we encountered issues. For example when I had issues texturing my sofa, one of the other modelers helped fixing all of the UVs so that it was able to be textured without any issues.

There was also good communication to the team leader as once we finished a model he was able to add the models into the project to see how they were in the game, this was the same with the person who was creating the functionality of the game. For example when I finished my reworked revolver i gave him the files for it and he added it into the game and replaced the template revolver that he created with the one that I made.

One problem we did have with the team was the 2d artist who was supposed to make the main menu art as well as the logo for the game, however due to time constraints one of the other team members had to create that logo. The 2d artist did however, manage to create some very useful concept art at the start of the project which helped quite a lot when creating initial assets.

In general i think the teamwork and leadership went well when making the project and didn’t encounter too many issues.

When we began the project, we initially planned for a game that was to be made by only 3 people, however after 2 weeks we merged 2 teams together to create a group of 6.

We also initially planned on only creating a game that was quite short in length which would not have too many aspects to it, however after we merged the 2 teams into one we were able to add a lot more ideas which raised the overall quality of the project as a whole.

Once we finished with the initial ideas we decided that we could create many levels that the player will be able to travel through, roughly 7 levels, including many varying factors to them, like a floating level, a normal train level, a backwards train level etc.

We also had a small schedule which helped us when we first started creating the project as it helped us stay on time and helped us know what to do.

Finally we made a google docs page so that we could write down all the assets that we needed to create and all the levels that we needed to create too, we have boxes to say if they’re done and also what date they were done, this makes planning what to do next a lot easeir because it tells each modeler what asset they should make next and what assets have already been made by themselves or by others.

Here is the model sheet with colour coordinated this was very helpful because it gave us a sheet of models that needed to be created and we could choose which ever models we wanted and put our names next to them.

Here is the level priority and concept art tables, these helped us organize the levels and concept art pieces that needed to be created.

For the group project, I was one of the 3d modellers. My task was to create some 3d models for the game, these being some background objects, the train locomotive, a sofa, revolver and finally a bridge.

My main strengths in this project was my commitment to making good quality models so that the models that other group members have made don’t look out of place, or so that they don’t have different styles. Another strength was being able to quickly make the models so that the group can test them within the game itself, this helped lots as if they wanted to see what something was like then I could make the model quickly

For all of my work on this project I used the free open source 3d creation software known as blender, I used this as I’ve used it for a few years now and I would say that I’m confident in using the software.

In addition to my 3d modelling work for the group, I also created a pre-vis animation that would be used as direct inspiration to the cutscene which will play at the start of the game, I did this to help the team member who was creating the cutscene get a sense of what he should create before he creates it.

I encountered some issues when making my models, for example my revolver file becoming corrupted, but once i recovered an older version I managed to remake the back half of the gun and improved upon the first version.

Another problem I encountered was the train cab breaking and not showing faces in the correct arrangement, I had to change the cab design multiple times until i got to a point where there wasn’t any clipping and everything looked normal.