This was a very interesting assignment as we could choose to do whatever we wanted to in terms of digital media. I took the opportunity to teach myself something new which would push me forward into my preferred area of study which is game design and development.
Due to my love for exploration and environments in games I decided to create a game environment. I made up two options either an interior of a spaceship or a small island. I picked the latter so I started doing some sketches however I decided not to stick too much to them as I felt if I found something interesting in the software that I could use I would try to use it at the cost of changing an idea. One such case was the creation of the Island at first, I thought of creating a floating Island but when I discovered you could use heightmaps for terrain generation I decided to make Malta the base for my level. However, when comparing the scale of the player with that of the average human Malta in my game is much smaller. After sketching I started modelling and texturing the fort and the trees. I know how to use the 3D modelling software Maya however when it comes to creating the UV texture map for large models I struggle a lot. This was the case with the fort and unfortunately a messy UV resulted in a huge challenge when I had to texture the fort. Although I am not happy with the texture of the fort I am very proud of myself for creating such a huge 3D model.
While I was creating the models, I started building the foundations of the Unreal Game engine. This started with the planning of the terrain. I divided Malta into 5 parts. A forest, an oasis, a beach, a mountain with the fort on top of it, and the spawn point. However later in development due to having a story, a small puzzle, and because it was taking too long to finish this puzzle, I decided to move the spawn point next to the forest. I also created what I am calling a shrine which holds a key that when obtained will allow you to open the gates of the fort. The one downside with this key is that despite all my efforts to create a Tron-like looking texture when I package my game the texture will not appear.
Another program that I used was a sound design program called Audition. I wanted to make the level feel part of a story therefore I made up a sentence which the evil wizard says to the soldier after sending him through the portal (please refer to sketch book or website for the story).
Now that I have finished my project I am proud of what I managed to accomplish albeit my lack of experience with the software. However, I know I could have done better if I had more time and if I had less assignments to deal with. I found it very hard to stick to my production plan in fact I ended up omitting it in favour of making daily plans of where I wanted to be at the end of each day. Despite these problems I think this was a great learning experience and I know my capabilities with the software that I used. In the future would like to also amend this project and continue using it as a means of learning Maya and Unreal Engine.
Due to my love for exploration and environments in games I decided to create a game environment. I made up two options either an interior of a spaceship or a small island. I picked the latter so I started doing some sketches however I decided not to stick too much to them as I felt if I found something interesting in the software that I could use I would try to use it at the cost of changing an idea. One such case was the creation of the Island at first, I thought of creating a floating Island but when I discovered you could use heightmaps for terrain generation I decided to make Malta the base for my level. However, when comparing the scale of the player with that of the average human Malta in my game is much smaller. After sketching I started modelling and texturing the fort and the trees. I know how to use the 3D modelling software Maya however when it comes to creating the UV texture map for large models I struggle a lot. This was the case with the fort and unfortunately a messy UV resulted in a huge challenge when I had to texture the fort. Although I am not happy with the texture of the fort I am very proud of myself for creating such a huge 3D model.
While I was creating the models, I started building the foundations of the Unreal Game engine. This started with the planning of the terrain. I divided Malta into 5 parts. A forest, an oasis, a beach, a mountain with the fort on top of it, and the spawn point. However later in development due to having a story, a small puzzle, and because it was taking too long to finish this puzzle, I decided to move the spawn point next to the forest. I also created what I am calling a shrine which holds a key that when obtained will allow you to open the gates of the fort. The one downside with this key is that despite all my efforts to create a Tron-like looking texture when I package my game the texture will not appear.
Another program that I used was a sound design program called Audition. I wanted to make the level feel part of a story therefore I made up a sentence which the evil wizard says to the soldier after sending him through the portal (please refer to sketch book or website for the story).
Now that I have finished my project I am proud of what I managed to accomplish albeit my lack of experience with the software. However, I know I could have done better if I had more time and if I had less assignments to deal with. I found it very hard to stick to my production plan in fact I ended up omitting it in favour of making daily plans of where I wanted to be at the end of each day. Despite these problems I think this was a great learning experience and I know my capabilities with the software that I used. In the future would like to also amend this project and continue using it as a means of learning Maya and Unreal Engine.