This week, my task was creating a finalized version of the project I've been working on since bootcamp ended, my 3D scene. All of the criticisms have been addressed, and everything in the scene has been polished up as best as I can manage. The background mountains have been replaced with a more modular, less processor heavy version rendered in Zbrush, allowing for multiple surface textures - giving them their snow-capped peaks. The rocks and ground mesh have been replaced with lower-resolution models for the sake of allowing the game to run more smoothly without sacrificing visuals (and, incidentally, fixing some of those nasty seams that were on the ground plane). The ground plane has had it's collisions assigned to a significantly lower-res invisible version of itself for the sake of the navmesh. The moon model has been reoriented to better match the lighting direction, and moved further away to make it look more realistic. And, of course, the visuals of the level have been given a general polish, just to make it all look extra nice.
My progress at this point, unfortunately, has been stymied by one inexplicable technical issue - whenever the level starts running, the interactable gemstone (my pickuppable object) vanishes from the scene and the outliner, for no apparent reason. Neither I, nor my peers who are more experienced with the engine, have been able to figure out what's going on (possible corruption of the level or asset have been suggested, but no recourse has been discovered). Barring any last minute revelations or aid, this issue may go unfixed, but at least I made the visuals as polished as possible, which is the most important thing in the end.
In any case, I think I've rambled on about the thing for long enough, so here are some pictures of it:
