Evaluation

Over all I am pleased with my final result. It was a mammoth task and I think I had efficiently planned my time to get the most out of the scale I was after. Designing the interior from scratch was more challenging than I expected as for the most part I had overlooked realistic structure and form in the early stages of planning. However this was the part I was most excited about as well and managed to put up with it and really get into it giving each section a unique style and design. This kept me fresh and interested when moving on to the next part.

The initial idea remained a constant through out production and new ideas were only planned to bridge gaps in existing ones. I feel I successfully completed what I set out to achieve from the concepting stage. This is because I spent such a dedicated portion of my time frame to getting the structure to fit and flow like a real building. The biggest problem here was the stairs, both main and office. These were tricky to fit into the buildings structure and where hard to imagine in the third dimension when sketching in my notes. This left me going through many ideas that changed the shape of the rooms themselves in order to accommodate new design.

Prepared a well made archive of textures that I had found both in London and Leicester. This allowed me to quickly not only texture but inspire design for individual assets. Of course inspired design meant new imagined creations without photograph textures but with a good understanding of photoshop and the assets I had created I could generate my own. This however softened off the realism and contrast but I still think its of strong visual quality.

There where many problems that arose during production but because of well managed time I didn’t find my self battling to rush them. One main problem that couldn’t be fixed was the real time reflections. I wanted a shiny marble floor and a large glass fronted window but both these would require RRT's to look real and effective, this however drastically drained the performance of the level. Even one of these was enough to half the FPS. To combat this I had to opt for a cube map on the marble floor which did give reflections but did not line up with objects it touched. This meant I had to fade it out enough so it only hinted at the fact it was a well polished floor. As for the window this had to be kept an RTT but I managed to lower the settings just enough for it to level out on performance.

The most enjoyable bits and the parts I felt I succeeded in the most was the planning and ideas. I felt each new idea was incorporated seamlessly into the existing model. This is not to say I felt I lacked in my modelling or texturing but I felt some of these areas could have been improved. The project was set over such a long time period I found my self to be learning more things and better more efficient ways to do things faster than I was meeting each phase of the brief, this left me looking back at some parts of my level and not being happy with the final result only to find I didn’t have the time to go back and update them. An example of a successful update to my quality of work was when I made the second desk. I really didn’t like what I had done with the first desk even though I had taken it all the way to the finished stages and placed it within my level. Something wasn’t right and I decided to remodel it using new techniques and skills I had learnt since making the first. Now I am much happier with the final design and could fit it into an essentially more modern setting.

If I had more time I would continue to update and tweak areas I felt were a little lacking but suffice. You can only tweak it so much before you have to move on and I had to leave some parts as they where. This goes for texturing and modelling as well. I feel I can always add more and this is probably the cause of the scale and magnitude of the level, I just kept thinking of better parts to add on. I still am and Steve and myself were looking into extending it further, adding an underground station and possibly a rooftop. This would round it off as a completed level and something whole.

I understand that the level was more of a scene than to be something playable but I couldn’t stop thinking of new story telling devices and areas to explore.

Not only does it showcase what I know and can do, it also showcases my ability to design, overcome problems and make something to the best of my abilities.