Mark Eastland's DMUGA Blog: DMUGA Week 32

As the project comes to a hectic close, we still want to add a couple more things which we will do soon, but the majority of the project is there and we're all very happy with the result. Looking back at the whitebox screenshots from weeks 1 & 2, it feels weird but exciting to see how the level has developed over time. To see comparison screenshots, please view my Post-Mortem blog (Coming soon!)

On Monday, I sorted out the sound accreditation list for sounds we definitely want to include, and there is a certain way I have to accredit the creators of the sounds/music:

This Video Game uses these sounds from freesound:
Cork by sjnewton (https://www.freesound.org/people/sjnewton/sounds/256568/)
Swallow water by anagar (https://www.freesound.org/people/anagar/sounds/267932/)
Munching Food by Kodack ( https://www.freesound.org/people/Kodack/sounds/256311/)
Solfeggio Energy Bar Chimes by the_very_Real_Horst (https://www.freesound.org/people/the_very_Real_Horst/sounds/239040/)
Wind Chimes and Waves by breo2012 (https://www.freesound.org/people/breo2012/sounds/269361/)
Instrument_chimes_quick_soft by vrodge (https://www.freesound.org/people/vrodge/sounds/119543/)
PianoMoodHappy3 by HerbertBoland (https://www.freesound.org/people/HerbertBoland/sounds/128544/)
gate_1 by jaava73 (https://www.freesound.org/people/jaava73/sounds/54269/)
MetalGate by ahill86 (https://www.freesound.org/people/ahill86/sounds/207137/)

&

"Anguish"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

There are more, but I haven't listed them all here. I knew you had to accredit people properly if you've used their content, but I was always was unsure of how to do it. At least now I have some kind of understanding on the different licenses and whether or not I am able to use certain sounds for things I create.

I also tried to blend the landscape a bit better using masks, but I didn't manage to do that very well. The 3D tutors pointed it out to me towards the end of the project, so I thought I'd at least give it a go and try to improve on what I've already done. Unfortunately, just using a mask and/or changing the brightness of the texture a little bit didn't produce the kind of thing I was after. I ended up just leaving it because even though the landscape doesn't technically make sense, visually I think it is good because the path is much lighter than the rest, and it works just fine.

Tuesday was the day in which I finally got my hands on the engine and got to do all the things that were on my list, this included deleting unwanted landscape components, replacing fog particles with height fog, putting sounds in, changing collision & level boundaries, and much more.

Alongside all this, I also generally went round the level and making notes on anything I could see that needed improving, and tweaking these aspects until I was happy.

Wednesday was a very stressful day. We tried to build the lighting with Dom, it crashed multiple times and crashed again during saving after we built the lighting for our main level. So, just when we thought the ride was over, it just didn't finish. We then had to leave the lighting build until Thursday, but yet again... it crashed.
So, Friday was our last hope for the lighting. I thought that I'd rather have it built on preview, than not built at all, so I set it to preview, and for once, it didn't crash! It was good enough to hand in, and since we had so much other stuff to do, our level was pretty much untouched from Wednesday onwards.

Our documentation forms took over my life from Wednesday afternoon to Friday. I only got a few hours sleep because I was up, making sure that I have everything done, filled in correctly, and documented everything I could think of that needed mentioning. In fact, I know the majority of it is just pictures, but my asset document ended up being 83 pages long! I certainly did not have fun going through all of my files and putting them together for hand in. Nevertheless, it's done! The project is over, and we can move onto bigger & better things (basically just do something else).

I have had a great time working with my team, and even though we had a lot of stressful moments, I know that we've created something pretty damn cool considering we're only just finishing our 2nd year.

My "Post-Mortem" blog will follow this one - that will be up within the next few days, but other than that... My 2nd year here at DMU is over. I am both excited an nervous to be beginning my 3rd and final year at university, however, I have a list of things to do over the summer in order to improve myself, and in short it includes:
-Practicing anatomy
-Learning new software/getting better with Z-brush
-Improving my CV/Portfolio
-Summer project/s - small pieces for my portfolio
-Learning more blueprinting
-Practicing my 2D art for environments

Anyway, please keep and eye out for my next blog to see some pictures of our finished Alice In Wonderland level, in the mean time, please enjoy the following images showing some shader explanation, and images of the unreal scene we had to quickly throw together... Have a good summer everyone!: