The End is upon us.

This will probably be the last post of this blog as hand in is in a couple of weeks and I will be concentrating on getting everything finished for that.

I have had a roller coaster of a year working on my BA, both rewarding, stressfull yet totally exhilirating to have it done.

I hope that it is informative, shows good practice and is interesting for anyone who gets to read and look at the work.

I will also be able to use this experience as a guide to use for my own teaching, incorporating all I have learned into helping write the new BA Degree and applying techniques into modules and lessons.

I just want to thank everyone who has helped me along the way, that being,

Stas, Dave, Kate, Graham, Graham and Mariane. You have all been very supportive and having the faith in me working at the college and doing a BA at the same time ismuch appreciated.

Workbook almost done

I have almost completed the writing of the workbook. Its been a nice relaxing piece of writing that reflects on the year I have had and the work I have done. Its good to see what I have achieved all recorded in one place.

Not much else to discuss really.

Oh other than the dissertation is about done. just a little amendment to add to the conclusion and I am finished. Oh and Add illustrations too.

Time is coming to an end.

With hand in dates looming it is now time to start collating my work and organisig it into a cohesive and intelligent hand in.

Part of the hand in is a Model Book wich will cover the whole production side of things from start to finish. I am looking forward to this as it will be a good way of seeing how my work has developed as part of a document. I will firstly concentrate on writing it then start to illustrate it through my designs and renders that I have done over the year.

Fun fun.

Dissertation is coming along now and is focused and getting good feedback now from Kate. YAYYY.

Dissertation updates.

I am more happy now with the direction the Dissertation is taking. Its given me focus and really has given me something to explore.

I have decided to focus on two popular characters, Lara Croft and Mario. Two totally different styled characters yet two of the most successful game characters of all time.

Back to the Document.

Dissertation changes YET AGAIN.

Well the Dissertation has taken a new turn yet again.

At least now with most of the Production side of things I can concentrate on getting the writing done.

From Kates notes. She feels I am writing more of a journal than an analytical academic piece so has guided me with more notes to steer it in a direction that examines key points or areas of game development.

So I have decided to focus on what makes a character successful within popular games and then also look at why other characters of a similar vein are not so successful.

Lots of new reearch to be done. but I can now focus on this for the time being.

More modelling

With one major character modelled for each army and several supplemental models modelled I have decided to have a go at modelling a few key models from Doctor Who that would appear in the game.

I decided to model the TARDIS, the Doctors time machine that is in the shape of a 1960's Police Box. This was quite a simple model to make as the shape is documented on many web sites. I managed to get the TARDIS plans from the TARDIS Model Builders group here. http://tardisbuilders.com/

From this site you can download detailed plans of each TARDIS that has appeared in the TV series. I chose to build a TARDIS based on the Current TV series TARDIS as this is the era my game is set.

Here are the results of a finished modelled TARDIS. It is flat shaded and Textures will be added at a later date.



I have also modelled the Doctors pet Dog K9. A Robotic counterpart that has appeared in the seires regularly since his first appearance in the 70's.

I managed to get plans for K9 from the Internet here. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard.bradley3/K9updates.pdf

Again a nice simple model, that was easy to build and makes a nice addition to the models I have created so far.

All change on the dissertation front.

After a few months of research and blocking out I just wasnt feeling the topic I was covering wich was 'the role of female charaters in games'.

So I have now dropped that topic and decided to write about the role of the artist in the video games industry, using my own experiences as reference to how good or bad life as a game developer can be.

I feel I will understand this topic much more clearly and be able to talk about the industry I know and love with a much deeper knowledge and clarity.

I will start blocking the topic out first and let Kate have a look at this when she can and see what she thinks.

Dalekbuster modelled

Well I managed to do the Dalek Buster, after a little tweaking of the shape I feel he has worked with the Unreal Skeleton quite well. I have kept the hands as this means that if I want to test him in the engine I will be able to let him use normal weapons.

Continuation of modelling.

I have started blocking out another character model, This time a supplement to the UNIT trooper in the form of the heavily armoured UNIT Dalek Buster.

Looking at the shape and scale of the Unreal character skeleton I feel the Dalek Buster will need alot of squashing and reshaping to fit and I think I am going to rejig the weapons and hands to make sure that it works with the weapon system.

I feel this isnt vital and I should really stick to my design but for now I am going to adapt it to fit the skeleton just so that if I deecide to test it in the engine it will work OK.

Naming conventions

OK. Just a quickie to make sure as you are creating your textures to name them correctly ready for import and implementation into Unreal.

Here is the information you need that I have cut and pasted from the character inplementation document found here.

"Texture setup
As mentioned your character can use up to two 2048x2048 ‘materials’. Each material is usually
made up of at least 3 ‘textures’ (Diffuse, Normal and Specular) with the option of emissive and
Specular Power (Glossiness). There are others according to your ‘baseskin’, which we will look
at soon.
You HAVE TO to name them accordingly in your package in order to get Teamskins
working. Best to name the actual files as this will save time and probably issues later with
CharacterNameHere being your character name, obviously.
Body General Diffuse - CharacterNameHere_MBody01_D01_V01_SK1
Body Blue Diffuse - CharacterNameHere_MBody01_D01_VBlue_SK1
Body Red Diffuse - CharacterNameHere_MBody01_D01_VRed_SK1
Body Normal - CharacterNameHere_MBody01_N01_V01_SK1
Body Specular - CharacterNameHere_MBody01_S01_V01_SK1
Body Emissive - CharacterNameHere_MBody01_E01_V01_SK1
Body Specular Power - CharacterNameHere_MBody01_SP01_V01_SK1
Head General Diffuse - CharacterNameHere_MHead01_D01_V01_SK1
Head Blue Diffuse - CharacterNameHere_MHead01_D01_VBlue_SK1
Head Red Diffuse - CharacterNameHere_MHead01_D01_VRed_SK1
Head Normal - CharacterNameHere_MHead01_N01_V01_SK1
Head Specular - CharacterNameHere_MHead01_S01_V01_SK1
Head Emissive - CharacterNameHere_MHead01_E01_V01_SK1
Head Specular Power - CharacterNameHere_MHead01_SP01_V01_SK1"

If you dont name your textures in this way it WILL NOT WORK in unreal.

Happy texturing.

Dean :D

Trooper Complete.

Well the UNIT soldier is almost finished now. I thought I would add an update as I havnt done so in such a long while.

As you can see in these renders there is no normal map or specular. Just a flat diffuse.











I will try and get the extra textures done next week.

Thought I would put some flat shaded renders of the two extra sontaran factions I knocked up last week too. Things you do when your bored ey!!!

Comments and Crits more than welcome chaps.

See you on the flip side.

Dean :D