Personal and Professional Development

 During this year studying Games Development Level 4 I have developed a lot as an artist and 3D modeler for games. I have practiced how to keep to a time limit and how to make a big game project within a team. I also learnt and practiced how to make art and assets to fit within a particular style of a game within 3D modeling, texturing and concept art.

Working within a group I feel was very beneficial. Not only for the large project of the year, but also for the game jams. It helped me see more what other jobs within making a game do, and how to work well with them to make the game fast and effectively, as well as how to combat other team members not doing work or taking a while completing a task. With anything that relies on people, there is a good chance that there will be peaks and troughs while working on a game, so you have to prepare in advanced and try and line up work for when people are most likely to do it. Especially within a large project where people get discouraged at the amount of work to complete. 

Working with a client I also enjoyed, having to make a game someone else would like and make it fit their standards and vision for the game I feel is an important skill to learn and makes you a better artist, coder or developer. Working with someone else's idea as well I also feel was beneficial because not only were you drawing and making assets for yourself, but to fit someone else's vision of a game, and trying to understand that and visualize that in an art format created a unique challenge which was enjoyable.

I started off the year not confident in 3D modeling or texturing, and mostly only relying on my 2D strengths, but throughout the year I have had plenty of opportunities to practice and work on my 3D modelling and see it all come together as apart of a group project which has been especially inspiring to see. 

Throughout the year, I have disliked UV mapping and texturing, and with the concept of the game it allowed me to do it with minimal effort, however when I needed to make my portfolio, the 3D models I made needed more accurate UV maps and texturing, so I got a chance to practice UV mapping and Texturing with Substance Painter, giving me a better understanding and appreciation for the practice. 

However, I wish I was able to contribute more to the team in ways of helping get the game done faster, as we ran into a roadblock half way through development and changed our idea from being a fantasy horror cave game to more industrial abandoned mine. This meant I had to make more assets, but more over it created more work for the rest of the team that I wish I could of helped out with more to help the game get completed faster.

Although despite this, I am very pleased with how the monster 3D models turned out with the animations. I feel it fits with the game a lot and it creates an unsettling feeling within the game. It fits well with the concept art I drew and the original concept for the game. I also love how the animation turned out.

I am going to Falmouth University to study Games Animation so I will be able to specialize into make animations for games and hopefully lead onto a career. Along side this, I still wish to work and progress my skills in 3D modelling and drawing, while also maybe dabbling a little in level design.