Charcuterie Board
This assignment was our first Microscene assignment for this class. We were given models to start with and instructed to make some additional ones. We were also given some Hipoly models to retopologize and then bake into their lower poly versions. We also had to make textures with Substance Designer for all of the models and apply them with Substance Painter. Finally we placed the models and rendered with Maya. We also used Maya to make ambient occlusion maps and then layered that over with Photoshop.
I encountered massive time management problems with this assignment. My Substance Designer texture was rushed due to my poor judgement of time needed. This resulted in poor quality and a poor grade overall. This problem can only be solved with better time management. Instead of working only three days on this I should've given this almost every day of the weeks leading up to it. I had two weeks in total and most of the work was procrastinated until the end. Quickly after this assignment I raised this class on my list of prioritized classes. I saw better results in future assignments. Due to this rushed nature many textures are poorly done. There is lots of texture glitches that could've been solved if I gave myself more time. Many things only took a quick google search before I could find a solution. Nothing was left incomplete, but overall the board was done poorly.
Sci-Fi Assignment
For this assignment we were given two Sci-Fi themed models and instructed to make texture them in detail with substance painter. We learned to apply alphas, more advanced dirt and dust, as well as apply emissive maps to our models. We textured using Substance Painter and then had the choice to render in Unity or Maya. I chose to render in Unity and learned about it's High Definition RP tools to make post processing adjustments. This led to the clean screenshots I was able to get out of this assignment.
I had lots of new texturing glitches with this project as well, many were similar to the last projects. I had many flipped normals that seemed fine in Maya, as well as some weird bleeding between ID maps. I was able to solve one of these two issues with time. The other issue was not resolved until the solution was provided to me by a student on the final assignment for this class. I was able to fix all of the flipped normals and the ending products looked great. I did some additional texture work to cover the models in moss which helped add some story to the models. This also contributed to the story I used for my final microscene.
VW Bus Microscene
In this assignment we were given a VW Bus model. This model had lots of detail and parts. Not many new techniques were learned here, this was more about endurance and time management. There was lots of parts to this model which all required a lot of attention. Unwrapping and preparing for texturing took more than a week, and the texturing process included lots of errors for the entire class to run into. It was an assignment including troubleshooting, patience, and problem solving. We used Maya to prepare the model and unwrap, and we used Substance Painter to apply textures. We were also allowed to finalize our models in our choice of Unity or Maya. I chose Unity again as I still wasn't completely comfortable with it and I am going into Game Development.
This project taught me a lot about time management for specifically UVing models. I scheduled myself time to do this project, but overall it wasn't enough because of my assumptions on how long it would take. I didn't count how many objects I would need to unwrap before thinking about the time. While the bus looked complex, I didn't see that there was about 400 different things to unwrap for this. This didn't lead to rushing, but it led to me having to readjust my schedule for the following weeks once I had found this out. This taught me to have a better understanding of the model I will be working with when I have a project. I can count objects and identify their complexity before subconsciously guessing the attention I would need to give. The quality didn't suffer, although I do think I can use more practice with substance after this. If I had known a fix that I learned in the project after this one for IDs bleeding into each other, this bus would've looked much better close up.
Final Project Microscene
This final assignment was one huge project. We were given three weeks to do it, similar to our VW Bus assignment. This time we had to make ten models to build a microscene in either Maya or Unity. I chose Unity once again. We also had to include models from one of the three previously listed assignments. Since I liked the Sci-Fi theme, I chose to build off of the Tie Interceptor and Sci-Fi crate given to us in our Sci-Fi assignment. I then built ten models to build a story around these models. I had to prepare the models and unwrap in Maya, texture in Substance Painter, make one new texture in Substance Designer, and build the scene in Unity with post processing effects.
I had the absolute most fun with this assignment. I gave myself lots of time to complete it so I could work at my own pace. I also chose a theme I really enjoyed and thought out every piece a lot. I spent lots of time on finding reference and even sketching some of these models. I watched some new tutorials too for new glass textures and techniques for Sci-Fi looks. That didn't mean I failed to hit any obstacles though. I had planned to originally bake a hipoly into a lowpoly mesh. I gave myself time for this and everything, although I had not done this in a while. My hipoly had lots of weird issues with it's mesh and required a whole restart on the model for me to complete it. This would take far longer than the three weeks I was given. I would have to take the lowpoly into Zbrush, re-crease it's edges, and rebuild all the smooth curves from a lowpoly mesh, something that took me an entire week before. Since baking a hipoly mesh into a lowpoly was not required for this assignment, I counted my losses and moved on. This was a good lesson, as I plan to do this hipoly bake over summer still as I think it will be a good portfolio piece. It was good to move on from this loss though because I think if I focused too heavily on it the rest of my project would've suffered. This was a good decision too, because finishing the project took right up until the due date, even with all the time I gave myself. I had many other small visual issues, but with research and discussing amongst peers I was able to solve every visual issue. In the future I plan to set clear goals and analyze exactly what is required for those goals so I can properly measure how long it will take me. This is important in the industry of course because there are many tight deadlines, likely weekly. I will need to know how to meet deadlines consistently and often. Next time there is something new in my list of things to do, like baking this hipoly mesh, I will have to take caution and remember to leave room for the possibility of failure.
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