Production Journal

Originally, I intended to create a 3D city made in 3DS Max. Jordan was also intending on creating a similar final piece. He approached me about creating a 3D environment and we continued the final major project as a pair as we both felt we would be able to create a larger and more professional piece of work overall.

I conducted research in the form of a survey which is in my research section of my blog. I found that mostly males between the ages of 18 - 24 played between 2 - 9 hours a week. I found that people preferred to play in third person, people enjoyed role playing games and people preferred to be playing in the present tense.

Taking this information, we decided to create a 3D environment in the present tense which will be playable in UDK as third person. 

Deciding on location

Me and Jordan discussed areas to create or re-create in 3DS max to be implemented into UDK. We discussed creating our own city and re-creating areas when we were on Google maps and saw that London is a city that is not used in a lot of games and it has iconic structures to help make it instantly recognisable.

We started by planing out who would do what in the area we decided to re-create for out final major project.

21st April week throughout

During this week we began the planning of who will create what within the environment and conducted visual research to allow use to analyse the environment we intend to create. We also made an asset list of what we will or might implement into our playable environment.

Traffic lights

Street lights

bollards

fences

cones

buses

cars/taxi's

electrical boxes

construction buildings

28th April week throughout

During this week we have been working on the images we collected and finding textures and creating a list for what kind of textures we will be creating for our models.We have also began some asset creation for our final project.

Metal texture

brick texture

road texture

pavement texture

cracked wall texture

window textures

rust textures

I created this fence in the week to be added to the environment which will be used to stop the player from advancing to areas which will not be intended as a playable section.

5th May week throughout

During this week we have been continuing to create assets and also began to test the textures for the models we had created for our playable environment.

This fence has a galvanised steel texture applied it which makes it look realistic as I have used the uv mapping to apply the metal look more professionally. 

12th May week throughout

This week we have been creating models and texturing if possible. I started work on the shell building and I was not able to begin texuring during this week as I did not meet me time schedule.

19th May week throughout

This week consisted of creating the texture map for the shell building and other models which feature within the environment. During this week we began to import models from 3DS max into UDK to see how it would cope and the models we have created so far work with UDK.

I have also created the houses of parliament which will feature in the environment.

These building will feature behind the hospital which is yet to be created for the environment.

26th May week throughout

This week we have continued to create models and texture then for our final outcome. We have also decided to create a fly through animation for our final major project due to time restraints and high poly counts on the models we have created. 

I have been creating the London eye over a period the course of a couple of weeks trying to reduce the poly counts which is now finally created.

2nd June week throughout

This week I continued to create models and texture before we began and completed the setup of the summer show.

After I had finalised the creation of the models and put them together with the models Jordan has created, I was able to then begin work on setting up the summer show the next day whilst leaving the computer on to render the animation.

The theme for our final project was a zombie attack look. I contributed by showing up everyday to assist with the creation of the summer show. I carried wooden boards from the workshops to the class room, painted the boards black and helped with the overall look and display of the room.

Here is the slide show which goes through our models we created which is on display.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gsbvyZ5i1c
Here is the fly through animation of the city we created for our final major project which was on display for the summer show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Te6MFqeBA&noredirect=1

Here are some of the models I have created which I setup in 3DS Max and then printed off so they could be displayed in the room for the summer show.