Evaluation

The theme for my project is a Katana as this is what I will be making for my final major project.

I have developed ideas for my project by creating mind maps and mood boards to gather ideas for designs, and then I started drawing sketches for rough ideas of designs for my katana model.

Some of the reference material that I sourced from one of my tutors that managed to gets these images as they own a katana. This was useful for my project because this also gave me ideas in which I could use for my design/model, it also gave me an idea of colour schemes that I could use for my design as I was unsure of this before. This affected my work because I used elements of katana in the reference images like the tsuba for example and used the model because I liked the design to it.

My research has informed my skill development because I have gathered photos which I have used as reference; this has helped me understand the form of katanas which has also help me throughout my project with modelling for example.

Some of the artists that have inspired me from this project are; Chris Nichols, Peter Nowacki and Andrea Giordano. All of these artists are 3D artists and have made some sort of 3D art that has inspired me. For example, Chris Nichols’s work has inspired me because of the amount of detail and effects that he has included within his work. All of the artists that I researched create their work on programmes like Maya, 3Ds Max, Photoshop and V-Ray for example. Typically programmes like Maya and 3Ds Max is used for modelling and then Photoshop would be used for texturing, then Maya or V.Ray for rendering.

Some of the materials that I used in my project are, Blinn and Lambert, I used these materials because this determines what is reflective and what is not reflective on my model. For aspects like the blade for example I have used Blinn because this material is reflective and will give a more realistic look if my blade is reflective. But for other aspects of my katana like the handle for example I have used the Lambert material as this is a non-reflective material and will give the handle a matte look to it.

Some of the techniques that I used throughout my project are, box/subdivision modelling, this is you start off with a basic shape like a cube or a sphere and then refine it until you achieve the shape you want, an example of this is when I created the tsuba for my model. I started out with a cylinder then I started modelling the cylinder until I had the desired shape and added more cylinders and that is how I created my tsuba for my katana model. Another technique I have used is the use of ambient occlusion; ambient occlusion creates realistic shading on the scene.  I have used ambient occlusion twice on my model, the first time was when I rendered my final piece without textures, and then the second time was when I applied ambient occlusion in the Unreal Editor 4.

These techniques and materials influenced my outcome because using the different types of materials like Blinn and Lambert, and also adding the effect of ambient occlusion has added more detail into my model which makes it more aesthetically pleasing to the eye also making it look more realistic which is what I wanted to achieve.

My work has not changed that much throughout the project as I have stuck with the same idea throughout. The only thing that I have changed from my project is the tsuba, Firstly I was going to design a basic tsuba for my model, but then later changed it after deciding that it needed more detail and didn’t really fit the rest of my model. Then I made a more detailed and overall better looking tsuba that fit the look of my model.

There is no research I wish to have progresses further; this is because I feel like I have researched everything that I need to for this project; however I would have liked to look into online tutorials and apply them to my project then use them as reference to improve my model further.

I have used formal elements of art like colour in my developed sketches where I applied color themes and chose the one that I like the most. I have also used shape also in my developed sketches and initial sketched as well as I used shape to create my katana ideas for my model. I have also used tone in my initial sketched as I shaded on some parts of the drawing to show the light and dark areas of the katana, I have also included pattern on one of my initial sketches as I added patterns to one of my sheaths to make it look more traditional.

Some of the visual language elements I have found through research are the dominant and sub dominant form. These are the things that catches your eye first and what you first look at when you see the image. For all of the images I came across on the internet the dominant form was the katana as this was the first thing that you see, and the sub dominant form was the objects in the background, some images didn’t have a sub dominant for as the katana was the only thing on the image. I purposely used the element of dominant form in the creation of my design so people are drawn towards my katana straight away.

Overall I am very happy with my final piece and it turned out better than I expected it would. The part I am most proud about was the UV ing because at the start of the project and before this project I was very unsure about UV ing and wasn’t sure how to go about it, however throughout the project I have managed to teach myself how to UV in Maya. I was then able to UV all of my assets of my model by myself without help which I am proud of and then this allowed to me texture the UVs on Photoshop.

I have compared my final piece to one of my early models of my katana, I can see that there has been a big improvement in detail as the early model was very blocky and didn’t look very realistic, however, compared to my updated final piece which I have textured, the final piece is very detailed and looks a lot more smooth and realistic. Also with my final piece I have added effects like ambient occlusion to add to detail and realism.

There is nothing that I would change in my project as I am completely happy with all of the work I have created and how far I have come.

Throughout this assignment I have learnt many thing, some of these things are; new skill on Maya and learning how to use new tools such as the soft select tool. I also learnt how to use Unreal Editor 4, which I had never used before up until this point. I had managed to mess around with some of the settings and found out how to add ambient occlusion to a scene. I have also learnt about rendering in Maya, because I knew of this before but did not know what most of the setting were and what they did; now I have a better understanding of rendering and what the settings mean.

I think this work is very important to my games course and will help me in a future career because this 2 year course will give me real experience on various things like modelling, rendering, UV-ing, animation and texturing. This will help me in the future if I need to re visit any of these elements as I will know what I am doing because of the experience I had during my college course.

I gave my assignment my best effort I could possibly give, I done this by using my time very wisely and making sure that all of my work was to the best of my ability. I also planned out a table of 14 weeks which told me what I would be doing every week for the 14 week period of the assignment. This helped me with time management as I was able to plan everything out ahead.

Some of the things that I feel I don’t really well was texturing for example, I feel like my texturing was good and very detailed however I felt like I could have improved it by increasing the resolution of the texture so it was more clear and detailed. I also feel like UVing was another thing that I done really well considering I was very unsure about UVing at the start of the project, and I was able to successfully UV all of the assets of my katana by myself.

Some of the mistakes that I have made throughout this project are, I had multiple vertices for one point on my model. This was causing me problems what I attempted to start UVing. To resolve this I had to highlight my entire model and merge all of the vertices to make sure there was only 1 vertex per point.

The one thing I would do differently in my project would be to up-scale the resolution of my texture, at the moment the resolution is 2048x2048, I would upscale this to 4096x4096. This is because I felt like my current textures are slightly blurry and low res. By increasing the resolution this will increase the detail of the textures and make them more crisp and detailed.

The classroom activity that helped me learn was when we had to leave a piece of work on our screen and we had to walk round and give different people feedback about their work. This was helpful because it gave me constructive feedback that I was able to follow and further improve my work.

Some of the materials I used that I had previously not used consist of ambient occlusion; I had never used this before but had heard of it in games etc. I found this relatively easy to use considering I had never used it before. I had also used the soft selection tool which I had also previously not used; this tool allows you to bend objects as you want. I also found this very easy and simple to use.

I could use these techniques again in future projects as they are very simple to use and come in very helpful for modelling.

One of the problems I encountered during this project was, making the handle for my katana, I knew how to make the base handle as I just used a cylinder, but was unsure about how to add the wrap on the handle, and this was because I was still new to Maya. To solve this problem I asked for help of one of my tutors as they were a lot more experience in Maya than me. They helped me create my handle wrap in the way I wanted and it fit the look of my katana perfectly as well. Another problem that I encountered was, I was having trouble with the lighting in Maya when I wanted to render it with the textures applied. I created a box, and put my model inside the box so that when I created lights they would reflect off the walls and show the reflectivity of my model, like the blade for example. However the problem was that when I tried to apply light in to the scene they were not illuminating. To solve this problem I went into the settings for the light and discovered that the intensity of the light was very low which mad the light very dim, by increasing the intensity it would make the light brighter. I then increased the intensity and was then able to render my final piece. 

Comparing my work to my original proposal, I have discovered that my work has not changed at all throughout my project and I have stuck with the same ideas and designs throughout. This shows that I am comfortable with my work and after trial and error I have reached the desired standard, maybe better than I originally planned for in this assignment.

I have developed personal skills throughout this project, one of these skills include confidence. This is because I have had to engage with new people and communicate with them about the project and also give and receive constructive feedback about one another projects. I have also gained new skills and knowledge in programmes like Maya and Unreal Editor for example. Unreal I had never used before and now I can assign different materials and add ambient occlusion to my scene. In addition now in Maya I can confidently UV assets without the need for help.