At the start of the project everything was going to schedule and after recently playing Batman Arkham Asylum I wanted to give my project a comic book style. I had may different ideas in terms of story such as a loser super hero trying to stop a thug and a father and son fighting. But eventually settled on a story of personifying good and evil and having them fight each other.
After I had my story sorted I started on my characters but it wasn’t going well so I took a break and started on my environment. Sticking with the comic theme I wanted it to be set in a dark New York alleyway. I made the alley look like it was the back of a restaurant because I work at a restaurant I was able to take photos at work and use them in my project such as boxes and fans. I became obsessed with my environment and completely neglected my characters. After a while there was nothing more that could be done to my environment and turned back to my characters.
After about 2 thirds of the way into the project my characters weren’t looking great or moving great ether the joints when moving seemed to buckle and nothing I did made it better so I decided to remake my characters. I was surprised on how quick I managed to get them done the last models took weeks to make, bone and skin. Whereas the new model took about 2 and a half days and was 100% better I also found it a lot easier having previously doing it. I also did research into how I could make the envelopes work better and found a way of editing them by vertex it was more time consuming but I had more control and a better outcome.
Other than some timing issues I feel the project was a success. I believe the strongest part of my project was the environment as it was exactly as I imaged it was going to look and is realistic. The weakest part of my project id the animation as its something I find more of a core then something I enjoy its not something am passionate about but I do want to improve my skills and will work on the animation side for future projects. Overall I enjoyed this project very much and shows a improvement in my skills .
This project has also given me a clearer view as to what I want to do as a career. I always wanted to do something in games but was torn between different aspects of the industry but after finishing this project I realized how much I enjoy the environment aspect. I found it extremely rewarding creating the sets and found creating characters relatively easy but a core at times.
1st drafted of character
2nd draft of character
Textures created from photos from work.
environment
environments with lighting
