Personal Portfolio Development - Project 3, "Week" 4

 Okay, so, it really hasn't been a week.  My Ventures project didn't need any more props or environment assets from me, so I wound up having more time than usual and got done early.  With that out of the way, I'm happy to declare that the Spongebob's kitchen project is now officially complete!  This week, all I needed to do was bring all the textured models into unreal for a final lighting and display, which I've accomplished.  I did do a few small other tasks, too - I made a simple card system for the hanging dried grass on the surfboard counters, created a simple tiling texture for the ceiling, and created a simple curved wall with tiling textures for the back wall of the kitchen.  Once I got that out of the way, bringing it all together into Unreal to set up my scene was no problem at all.  

I've been experimenting with lighting a little more, and I think this setup's looking better than the previous 2.  I don't think I've got a career as a lighting artist ahead of me, but I think I've gotten a bit better here.  I'm planning on putting all this stuff in my Artstation portfolio so employers can see it, so I'm going to use the new lighting setup to re-capture the previous two projects as well.  As things stand now, I can say that I'm pretty happy, not just with this project, but all three projects that I've been working on over the semester.  There were difficult parts, sure, but I overall enjoyed it quite a bit - the assets came out looking really fun, and I think it's a good showcase of my abilities.  I might even bundle this stuff up and put it online for download... for free, of course, what with the copyrighted material and the student licenses.  

I don't think I'm going to be able to get another project of this magnitude out with what remains of the semester.  There's not much time left before graduation, and even then there's the hustle and bustle of both holidays and graduation stuff.  I might try to work on a little something, but no guarantees - I don't think there are any Spongebob rooms with a lower amount of detail that I could pull off in the limited time we've got left.  So this may be the last project of mine here at FIEA.  It's bittersweet, but, like I said, I'm happy with the results.  In any case, let's have a look at those results and see how I did.

Personal Portfolio Development - Project 3, Week 3

 Here we are at the penultimate week of my final major project for my final semester here at FIEA.  The end is quickly approaching, and, despite some mild interruption from the recent tropical storm, I still managed to get the week's work done more or less on time, and to a satisfactory degree of quality.  This time around, my focus was on taking all of the art assets from Spongebob's kitchen, and giving them all nice textures.  I experienced no significant problems in this process - I'm getting pretty practiced at this stuff by now - and I feel like all the stuff came out looking great.  I feel like I've been keeping a pretty consistent visual style with all this stuff so far, and I still feel like I'm faithfully translating the designs from the show.  In addition to the stuff I've been showing off so far, I also created two walls for the kitchen - one curved wall, which will have a tiling texture (texture shown below), and a straight one with a door hole and a specific texture.  Next week, for my final deadline, I'll be bringing them all together into the Unreal Engine, and setting up a nice lit scene to show off.  In the meantime, here's what I have to show for my work.

Personal Portfolio Development - Project 3, Week 2

 Another week of work on the Spongebob kitchen project, and I've gotten all the game resolution models complete.  I've got to say, things went really well this time!  Unlike with the bedroom project, I can't say any of the models gave me any particular trouble this time around.  Not to imply that I went easy on myself this time - the models were still fairly complex and required a good amount of work, like the surfboard counters and the fridge. Still, though, things went smoothly enough that I got them done and dusted with a bit of time to spare before my self-appointed deadline, which means I can probably get a head start on the next phase of the project - texturing.  As always, I'll be devoting week 3 to getting the textures done, and then creating my final light and display in Unreal for the final week.  In any case, let's see how I did.  Because the non-final models look pretty similar to the final ones, I've included some helpful wireframes to show off the clean final geometry.

Personal Portfolio Development - Project 3, Week 1

Since completing my previous project last week, I've finished the first week of work on my third (and possibly final, depending on how things shake out) project for the semester.  As I was alluding to, I've decided to make yet another room in Spongebob's house.  I can't help it - the designs of all the weird scavenged nautical furniture are just so charming that I can't resist making more of them, and I want my projects to be something that excite me so I can stay motivated.  This time around, I've chosen to make the kitchen, which has a large variety of interesting props.  Altogether, there are 15 objects that needed to be made - a kitchen door, refrigerator, stove, two counters, a sink, a shelf, a hanging spatula, two barrels, a crate, a kitchen table, a chair, a curtained window, and hanging salt and pepper shakers.  At the end of the first week of work, the game resolution models are now well underway.  To be more specific, they have their final appearance - this is about how they ought to look - but the models aren't ready to go yet.  I'll be spending the next week of work cleaning up the geometry and creating UVs, with the goal of having the final game resolution models ready to go by the end.  In any case, let's see how they're looking.

Personal Portfolio Development - Project 2, Week 4

 Well, it's the final week of the project, so that means it's time for the final update on the Spongebob's Bedroom personal project.  I've got all of the textured models brought together, looking good in the Unreal engine.  I wanted to experiment a bit with the lighting - the flat cartoony look from the last project was nice, but it wasn't really working with this one, so I decided to bring the shadows back.  It still looks good, but I'm still not sure if I'm totally satisfied with the way it looks - lighting in Unreal is definitely one of my major week points, particularly when it comes to complicated scenes like this.  Still, I feel like it's a decent enough show off of the work I've done, and I can always go back and re-create the scene later before I formally slot this away in my portfolio.  Otherwise, not much else to report on this, and I think the images speak for themselves.  Next up, I need to figure out what the next project will be.  I might go three for three and make yet another room in Spongebob's house, probably the kitchen.  It's certainly been fun so far, working on this, so I'll have to consider it.

Personal Portfolio Development - Project 2, Week 3

 So, I've made it over the hump of this four week project, and since I no longer have hurricane fallout as an excuse, this time, I've managed to actually post before my self-appointed Monday deadline.  Which is nice.  Anyway, as I've established, this week's task was focused on texturing up every asset I'd made over the course of the week.  I used the previous project as reference for the sort of color palate and level of detail to shoot for, in the name of faithfully adapting the look of the cartoon to the aesthetic I've established.  I also set out to make another tiling texture for the bedroom wall, too.  I'd say I succeeded pretty well on that account, and I'm satisfied with the ways that it's all turned out.  You can see the fruits of my labors below.  Next week, my main goal is to bring all this stuff together into unreal and create a final lit scene, just like I did with the last project.  There is also a final thing that needs creation - I need to create a card system for the little frayed bamboo bits at at the top of the bedposts, near the candles, which shouldn't be too much of an issue.  If I find myself with extra time to do things besides that, I might indulge in trying to create a few miscellaneous extra things for the scene, like trying to find a way to implement the blanket on the bed.  In any case, this project will be wrapped up next week, so let's move on to see what I accomplished this time.

Personal Portfolio Development - Project 2, Week 2

 Again, I'm posting a little later than I'd like, on account of still recovering from the ways that the hurricane disrupted my work schedule.  I was nearly done last night, but it still needed a bit more tweaking, so I held off until today to declare it done for real.  Anyway, enough excuses.  As promised, here at the week 2 milestone, I have the completed game resolution models for all of the assets I'll need for the Spongebob bedroom project.  Now that these models are ready to go, the next week of work will be focusing on texturing them, much like I did with the previous project.  This will include making new tiling textures for the walls.  On the subject of the walls, I needed to make a special curved back wall, because I couldn't handle that one in-engine, which works for me, because it will help me scale things out.  These models were still pretty fun to work with, though most of them were more work in general because they were much more complicated than the ones from the living room.  The alarm clock, diving board, and caged scallop in particular took a ton of work to get them looking right.  Still, though, I'm feeling optimistic about the work ahead, and I'm feeling good about what I've been able to accomplish so far.  In any case, here's what I've got to show for myself this week.