Working on this module has been the most eye-opening challenge yet. It has given me so much more knowledge that I would not have been able to learn If animation and games design did not crossover, from learning the imports and exports into Unreal Engine 5, To learning how to properly model and texture an asset for a game, I feel that my role within the group gave me the greatest experience as I worked on both environment and character. 

Before the module had started, I had put myself down to work on the environment, I thought this would have been the best suited to me as I really enjoy hard surface modelling but that’s not what I stuck to throughout the full module as you will see. When we began this module, the lecturers told our groups to split into smaller pairs of two people and to produce ideas for a game that you would like to make, Me and Deaglan became close very quick, and I feel like we knew that we would have some similar ideas. Deaglan and I had come up with some particularly promising ideas and then backtracked, realizing that they sounded remarkably similar to previously made entertainment, for example, we thought of making a game in a clothing store in which mannequins chased you around the store, but then Deaglan realized that that same scenario has happened on Doctor Who, we did not want to have our idea too similar to already made entertainment. We did this a couple of times, but it never became an issue because we could bounce ideas back and forth very quickly. Eventually, we produced the unique idea of having a demi-demon run a rundown almost macabre restaurant. Then the groups got called back together and every pair told their ideas to the lecturers, the lecturers then chose the best idea, me and Deaglan’s got chosen, we began work on it. At the start it was quite easy as me and Deaglan had hashed out a lot of the base game already, letting us get straight to work, we did have a big meeting at the so that we could refine the overall idea, this was more for the game designers side of things, but it was good that the animators could have an input, our input was also needed at times as we could say if certain things were possible to do or not, the whole group got along well, it was important to have a good bond between the animators and the game designers, this would make the whole process so much easier. 

During one of the meetings that we had, Jack had drawn up a sketch of what he thought the building layout should be, I told him that I could take it home and get it drawn up digitally and he agreed, so that’s what I done. 

We then thought that we should keep making different iterations of the map layout and I said that I’d do it just so that I could keep it in this same style, I just wanted to help with the building blocks of the design, so then I came up with this design going off of the main one and trying to create something more stylised and refined. 

Jack then texted me asking if he could do the map blueprints as he was a level designer, up until that time I didn’t realise that we had a level designer, and I didn’t mean to steal his role from him, there was just a big misunderstanding, I then apologised to Jack and got on with different work whilst also offering jack any help if he wanted it. We looked at different references and picked a couple that we thought would fit our scene nicely, based on those references I decided to go and start making some 3D assets, I started with something small, just a candle holder with an almost gothic style, as this was before we had made the style guide. 

These where the two iterations that I had done, I then shared it with the group to see their opinions and they liked the one with the more bevelled look. I did prefer the sharper look, but the majority wanted the rounded one so that was the one that we went with. I then decided that I was going to make a medieval wall sconce as I wanted to stick with the medieval gothic style, I originally made it with a high poly count just to get a grasp on the look that I wanted to go for, the finished asset ultimately was not used but I did like the outcome of it. 

This, then, was around the time that we created the art style guide; after doing so, it gave us a greater capability of creating objects more refined to a certain style. The art style guide was an immense help in asset creation as up until that point everything seemed to be up in the air. Prior to the creation of the art style guide we knew that we were going with a graphic novel style, but the refinement of our style was key in the way that we would move forward. I then went ahead and created an oven, a dishwasher and a phone, I made the oven first and at the time I was thinking of making every object in the kitchen monstrous, but when I really thought about it, it would have made the kitchen look too busy, especially for a place that the player has no reason to go. After these, I went ahead and made the table and chair combo, in my head I already had an idea for the chair design but didn’t know what I wanted to do with the table, I wanted to keep the chair corners sharp, almost going for a German expressionist feel, elongated and pointed, after making this I knew how I could tie the table in with it, I made the table more bevelled but gave it the same ornamentation underneath so that it would look like an actual set. I made most of the big assets in the kitchen, including all the tables and the machines including the dishwasher, the oven, the fridge, the freezer and the plug outlet that lines the room, I tried to keep it looking like the references by making the outlets plastic with no open wiring, I made the machines metallic whilst keeping the fridge and freezer more of a glossy white. It came together nicely and gave the kitchen a nice aesthetic. 

It was around then that Zoe needed help with the characters, so I took on the bulk of the demon character, thankfully Zoe already had a base mesh made so this made it easier on me to go ahead and complete the rest of it, I started with the detailing of the demon, this process was finished quickly and was enjoyable as the base mesh that Zoe had done was relatively easy to work with, then I was on to the texturing which I thought that I would have struggled with because on previous assignments, I wasn’t that fluent with substance painter but this time I feel that it went well. My first attempt at the texturing didn’t go to planned as I created a somewhat realistic rendering of the demon, I showed the team and they wanted some of the details pulled back a bit which was fair, so that’s what I did and to be fair the second rendition matched the art style a lot closer than the previous example. 

I made the animation process more difficult on myself as my knowledge of weight painting was pretty much null, it was made more difficult as the apron was a separate mesh that was conflicting with the main body mesh resulting in a lot of clipping, but after tweaking the weight painting for a while, I finally got it working the way that I wanted it to. The demon only needed one animation and that was of him swinging his arms whilst walking to attack the restaurant goers. I then moved on to the waiter as Zoe had needed someone to work on the headphones model and the animation for it, the model itself was a simple model and texture as it was a small asset that would be hard to see in the game, the one problem we did run in to was how we were going to implement the headset on to the actual character and we came up with an idea of giving the headset its own bone and having it connect to the hand for the first part of the animation and then for it to clip to the head so that it looked like the character was wearing the headset but unfortunately this issue never got resolved as the games designers were quite busy working on other things around the game. 

After that was when Niamh made the task sheet so that we could get the end list of tasks done out and choose who was doing what, this was particularly useful as now we had a final list and the endpoint was in sight. I picked up quite a lot of things on the list that I knew I would be comfortable doing that may have been harder for others to do, this worked great as I could get the rest of tasks done in a truly abbreviated period, I made a new set of front doors for the restaurant, a new door for the kitchen and two different signs foe above each of the doors, a new fence model as the previous one was a plane with a texture, I made a new rules page for the game this also was not implemented on time, I had made a new asset for the floor and gave it a texture to tie in the whole kitchen as previous kitchen floor was the same as the outside ground.  

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this assignment especially because it let us work with the games design team, it was different from any other assignment we have had, and I believe that I have gained a great deal of knowledge whilst working with them so much so that I am planning on working with a few of them in the near future on different projects. This assignment has taught me a lot about the game workflow and how to work in a professional manner with individuals that I had not known before the start of the assignment.