Evaluation

I’ve been working on this project for about last three months, so it’s really hard to be critical about the work that I’ve been making for so long, trying to finish every detail to the high standard. At the end of the process I am very happy with it, but I can also see some weak points and areas for improvements.

For the most of the project I’ve been struggling with time, which pushed me to do several thing differently than I’ve planned (I haven’t used SpeedTree, gave up on baking down HP to LP etc.), but it tought me that sometimes we just have to carry on with what we have. I’ve still managed to get the wanted result, but instead of using a shortcut I had to work harder and find another way around it.

Because of time, I also had to use few assets from the marketplace in order to have a properly finished product, but I believe, that if given some more time, I would be able to create similar assets by myself.

However bad it may sound, I’ve been able to successfully produce a substantial amount of work and finish everything on time. I have also succeeded in recreating the real-world location and use its terrain as a base for my own design. From the beginning I’ve been working on a well-planned level design and was able to fully create the entire scene on time.

During the production I have been making many important decisions, including a significant change in colour from light to dark. I believe this improved the general mood and atmosphere, but probably also had a small negative impact of visibility and clearness of the level as well.

I am not as good at technical work and optimization, which definitely needs some improvements. At the end my work was running smoothly at constant 60 frames per second, but that’s not all I should be worried about. I’ve been struggling with lightmaps and lighting in general, so I am not happy with some parts of my work.

During the project I have also successfully managed all my files with naming conventions and folders. It may sound unimportant, but when working on a big project like mine, it becomes a crucial responsibility.

During the entire process, I had several major problems. The most crucial was the baking down a high poly to the low polygon mesh, which wasted some of my precious time and I still couldn’t get it right. At the end I had to work around it and get the similar result by using completely different method. It didn’t work out as bad as it sounds, but a successful bake would change the result dramatically.

In the overall, this project had a huge impact on my future, as I’ve been able to work on my strengths and weaknesses. It also gave me an opportunity to work on a big scale like never before, at the same time pushing me to improve in many aspects.

The future of games

Many developers are always aware of the upcoming hardware specifications as these will affect the possibilities of the future gaming. The next-gen consoles are planned to support 8K graphics and ray tracing which will affect the standards for the game development. Sony announced that their future release will have a custom made, eight-core AMD CPU and GPU which will definitely improve the process speed and possibilities it gives to the game engines.

The latter is a technology that greatly improves the visual fidelity in games, as it mimics the way light moves and bounces from object to object, particularly reflective surfaces, and refraction through water, other liquids and glass. Given the proper optimizations, games could exhibit more realistic lighting and shadows as a result.

Sam Loveridge, GamesRadar

The upcoming unofficial name of PS5 (as many have already called it) will be backwards compatible with PS4 games, which makes it easier for developers so far. The only huge difference will be the loading time, as the recent experiments have proved a significant change (from 8.10 seconds to load to ONLY 0.8 seconds!).

But what’s in there for the future?

Someone suggested some time ago, that the next-gen consoles may be the last to see as an actual hardware that people would buy in order to play games. The streaming becomes more and more popular after a release of such services as PlayStation Now or Nvidia’s GeForce Now and their subscriptions. The user can play games by accessing a large library of games from the servers from around the globe to play instantly on their own device without any additional costs of buying a new hardware. This saves the time and money of the user and makes gaming even more affordable.

PS5 will also support an advanced streaming and cloud technologies and combine them together. The console is said that the process of accessing the games will be more seamless than ever before.

So what can we expect from the next-gen consoles and the development of the games? Here is a list of the next-gen titles that will be worth checking for the upcoming standards for graphics and visuals:

  • The Elder Scrolls 6
  • Starfield
  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Beyond Good & Evil 2
  • Halo Infinite
  • Dying Light 2
  • The Division 2

It’s said that the next-gen consoles will be released around holiday 2020, so there is still some time to figure out the new boundaries for creating the next-gen games.

Loveridge S., (2019), [online] ‘PS5 release date, specs, games, backward compatibility and more’, Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/sony-ps5-release-date-news-specs-features/ [Accessed: 12 Aug 2019]

Hurley L., (2018), [online] ‘5 games that are definitely coming to PS5 and Xbox Scarlett, and 4 that might’, Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/5-games-that-are-definitely-coming-to-ps5-and-xbox-scarlett-and-4-that-might/ [Accessed: 12 Aug 2019]

Dino RIG and animations!

Today I’ve been working on textures as well as finally rigging and animating the dinosaur that I’ve created a while ago. I’m not a good animator, so I didn’t expected the best results, but what I’ve managed is well enough for the environment artist work.

The Low Poly Dino with a bone structire inside 3DS Max

I’ve been working on the bake for some time, but I couldn’t get it right, so I had to create my textures in more old-fashion way – painting it in Photoshop and using it as a base for the normal maps. I’ll also be adding a tillable reptile scales normal map to get the random look of some scales and the missing details to my dinosaur. I am not sure how well would that work at the end, but I’ve created the textures so far that I’m happy with.

The Isle – an Early Access Game

I’ve heard about this game for a while now, but I’ve never considered it as a must have before. Now, while working on my own project related to the dinosaurs, I’ve been paying a closer attention to this game.

The Isle is intended to be a gritty, open-world survival horror game, where you can explore vast landscapes of divers locations. Its world is nicely crafted with an focal point on the foliage itself. You may play as a dinosaur and try to survive the ongoing fight with other species and bigger carnivores.

However the first trailers came out in the late 2017, the game is now still in the early access available on Steam. This production is similar to what I would like to achieve in my own project, but on a much smaller scale. However my main focus won’t be the dinosaurs, but the environment, the game shows useful when it comes to comparing my own level of details and work to the current standards.

The isle – Official Trailer

I have to admit that an idea of becoming a dinosaur is really interesting. It changes a point of view into many aspects of a gameplay. Also the exploration of the environment may have many different focus points and depending on the size of the dinosaur, may have a higher or lower point of view. This changes the way the environment has to be produced, to be able to view it from different heights.

The density of the plants in this production isn’t as I would expected to see in the similar environment. I’ve planed my own work to have a very dense foliage resembling some sort of wild jungle rather than a open landscapes. That’s interesting to see slightly different idea of creating a similar world.

Sugar Dunk, Nov. 2017, ‘The Isle – Official Trailer’, [online video] Availiable at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dv9RRrW0UI [Accessed: 03 Aug 2019]

Sketchfab Shed Scene

I’ve really enjoyed doing a previous set of assets and adding them on Sketchfab, that I’ve decided to do one more. This time I’ve used my assets from shed to create a scene. I’ve also liked the actual effect, so I’ve copied the settings to get the same result.

Shed Assets by Kalita on Sketchfab

After the end of this project, I may come back and redo the materials, but so far I really like the effect. It’s different, so I may also make another copy of it with materials and leave this one as it is. It’s nice to look at and I’m happy with it in general.

I’ve also post it onto the Artstation as before:

Sketchfab Lab Scene

I have decided to put a small scene and upload it to Sketchfab. The materials on the scene are deleted, because at this point I don’t have enough time to work on them, but after the project is finished, I’ll add materials to get a perfect piece for my portfolio.

Lab Assets by Kalita on Sketchfab

The scene contain assets that I’ve made for this project, placed over and over several times to create a busy workplace for scientists. I’ve also changed some basic settings for the scene, to get this effect.

I’ve also added the same assets onto Artstation:

Nothing special, but at least I’m showing my work to the wider public.

Fortnite World Cup

This is an event that I am personally interested in. I’ve spend half of a day watching teams of two players competing in a game LIVE on a YouTube live stream. This type of event was the first one ever hold for the Fortnite and was an ongoing even from back in April. Most of the time it was just a qualification stage and the for last few days (July 26-28) the event was held in an arena in New York City. That’s when the finals took place and the winners of the entire competition were announced.

Between the games, the team of guests were talking about the important factors about the game. Some of the information included building the world, creating characters, upcoming updates, new features etc., so this was an interesting part for the developers in general. Although it didn’t cover any technical aspects of creating a game, it was still an interesting thing to watch.

Although the entire event didn’t have much to do with my project, I’ve enjoyed watching the gameplay and was cheering for my favourite players. I didn’t wanted to waste too much time on watching something irrelevant to what I’m working on, so I’ve only watched the duos trying to get their hands on $3 MILLIONS! This is a life changing competition, that allow players to become milliners to the rest of their lives. While watching, I’ve realised that games become a huge factor in peoples lives as most of those competitors were just a teenagers. The games play a huge role in our lives now, and will only become more important in the future.

You can find more information about the winners and other important factors on the official World Cup website: FORTNITE WORLD CUP.

A companion guide

As survival horror games are one of my interests, I’ve been fallowing several different ones. The one that recently catches my attention is a game called the Blair Witch and has a really impressive environments and gameplay that works along really well.

The first and quite interesting fact is that the dog that is our companion, is guiding the player throughout the environment. The idea isn’t anything new, but the way it is implemented in this game is very impressive. The dog added a lot to the mood creation, immersion into the game and implement an emotional connection. The dog gives out signals when the danger is coming and pushing the player to explore the environment by walking in front of the player. This is a unique way of connecting the gameplay with the environment and through that companion, interact with it a little bit more. The player can give out commands to the dog (to go to the places the main character can’t reach), or pet him as much as they want, which builds a strong connection between the characters. This makes the game even more unique, as while playing, the user will probably care more about the dog than the main character. This in it’s purest form is a really wise move to create even bigger tension and immersion into the game.

The companion isn’t the only impressive feature in the game. The action takes place in the woods, and I have to admit, the care for details is at the high level. Although the game is dark and creepy for most of the time, the developers have been paying a lot attention to the actual trees and foliage. Even if the gameplay mostly considered walking around a forest, it’s changing the shapes, atmospheres, lighting and other crucial elements. I would like to apply similar feeling so my own project as by those small changes in mood, the environment doesn’t seam to be repetitive or boring.

Blair Witch – Reveal Trailer

The game is available for pre-order now and should be released at the end of August.

Xbox, 9 Jun 2019, [online video] ‘Blair Witch – E3 2019 – Reveal Trailer’, Avaliable at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=74&v=bdTB4YNvOps [Accessed: 25 Jul. 2019]

Tall Palm Trees

Today I’ve worked on the rest of the trees that I’m planning to include in my level. As the dinosaur original habitat had many tall tress (so the huge dinos could feed from them) and bushes, I’ve decided to create some way taller tress. I’m also aiming to create an environment with multiple layers of foliage, which I believe will add to the realism of the jungle.

Those tall trees will be using the same texture that I’ve created before. The only difference is in the amount of alpha planes on all of those trees. I’ve decided to copy them to create slightly more dense look.

I’ve also decided to produce 4 slightly different trees to minimalise the respectability of the assets. It should looks better in the final result. However all of those trees are so tall, that I’m worried that the differences may not be visible as much as I would like them to be. I’m still happy with those trees in general.