Vee's MA Blog

This is the final post reflecting back on my learnings over the complete project, and how I developed my creative decision making.

Reflecting on my learnings, I can definitely say I've grown as a modeller, but I still lack a lot in texturing and lighting department. My main focus was developing myself as a vehicle and weapon artist, and I feel I've achieved this objective. However, it's never too late to learn something new and I believe there's still time for me to learn and develop myself in texturing and lighting areas.

Focus on my working methods, I feel I've learnt and developed a lot. Comparing my previous practice and current practice, I can clearly see the difference in time utilisation, especially after using the Gantt chart, texturing (not the best yet but a lot better than before) and also documenting my progress. Blogging updates frequently for the past two and a half months validates me to work as an individual or team member when needed and take up on my colleagues' tasks if something comes up to hinder the project's progress.

I agree there were times when I had to focus and put other things on priority, jeopardising the project's timeline. However, managing everything and keeping the project's timeline on track nurtured me to handle multiple tasks at the same time. This may be valuable someday when I might be working on multiple projects at the same time.

One other thing I feel I lack or should develop myself is presentation. I feel I'm not confident enough to showcase my work to people, especially when it comes to virtual presentations. Although I trust in my work and I know the strengths and weak points in my art, I'm not confident enough to put them in front of people. I definitely need to develop this area as I'll have to sell myself out while attending interviews, which should not be too long from now.

In this post, I'll be reflecting back on the complete project, the results and how the team worked as one.

Starting with the concepts, Paula did a wonderful job providing us with the conceptual artworks. She presented an actual concept, and then variations as well which opened a lot of options for the team to explore for the project. Not only bus, but she provided with concepts and variations for the cab as well. And never late, she was on time with the work she was assigned.

Discussing Praneeth's contribution, he did some wonderful and vital contributions to the project. He not only created the environment but also invested his time in learning Unreal Engine 4 right from the basics. Apart from that, he was the one to pitched the idea to all of us and made sure everyone is on board with the concept.

Reflecting back on Kieran, he was very quick to complete the assets, which is impressive. He was always ahead of the time and made sure to catch up with everyone with group calls. I feel he could've done a bit better in modelling given the situation that he was using basic primitive objects, but there's always room to grow and I believe he'll definitely do.

This week feels so so so different from the past 3 months that I've been working on. Took a personal day off on 12th Aug, cuz I believe I definitely deserved a break on my birthday. So had a day to relax and chill before crunching back to work and getting everything ready by the morning of 16th August.

These past three months I've been stuck to just switching between Maya - Substance Painter - Unreal Engine 4, but this week saw a few different software. Felt so good to use Photoshop and Premiere Pro after so so long. I was able to complete my promotional video in time and get everything sorted for presentation.

As planned last week, I was able to get the bus done by 7th August. However, it is not the best I could've done, but have to settle with this for the time being as I need to work on my documentation and presentation now.

The bus looks like this after texturing:

As I learn more about Unreal Engine 5, I find it quite interesting and not-so-complicated as the Unreal Engine 4. Maybe that is because I already know the basics from Unreal Engine 4 and so it is not new for me?

Anyway, looking around for Unreal Engine 5 tutorials, I come across this amazing video by Peter Ankermann on YouTube. A wonderful article for the same can be found in 80.lv again by Peter Ankermann.

In the article (and the video), Peter states out step by step process and the shortcuts for basics (such as mouse settings), Material Editor, Graph Editor, Lightings, activating windows and handling viewports. All in all, this is a great Unreal Engine 5 video which is not only for learning about material editor but the basics of UE5 as well.

References:

UE5 Material Editor Shortcuts and Setup [YouTube] 2021. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjPdQnqMts - Peter Ankermann

So managed to finish Kieran's assets by the evening of 1st Aug such that I can at least have a week for bus (and hopefully Black Cab). This I'm hoping because I need to start with my presentation and documents from the 7th of August. According to my Gantt chart, I was suppose to start from this week itself, but priorities are set on the bus at the moment.

The assets I worked on are:

Not to mention the Road Signs folder had further 5 folders inside it. So a total of 16 assets. All these assets have to be retopologized, unwrapped, baked and textured. Retopologizing and baking were the most time-consuming.

As the group is moving towards the final days of the timeline, we are working on assembling the final assets are counter tackling the issues we are running into. Alongside this, I'm looking into Unreal Engine 4 and the early release version of Unreal Engine 5.

As we complete the project, I was thinking of getting to know Unreal Engine 5 better as we may have to convert our scene into UE5 when it releases. This is because I want to keep our scene to be readily available to be used in Unreal Engine 5 in case a studio approaches us for our scene.

This YouTube video from Ryan Kingslien teaches the user how to convert a scene from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5. Ryan is an unreal expert and he shows the viewers how to use the new tools, set up the lightings and maps. Ryan is the founder of Vertex School, which is an online learning platform for artists who want to learn programs online and secure a job in the video game industry.

Learning how to convert scenes from UE4 to UE5 will benefit me greatly and help me learn something really valuable to gain entry into the video game industry as I look to secure a job.

References:

Nikitin T. (2021) Converting Scenes from UE4 to UE5. 80.lv. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/converting-scenes-from-ue4-to-ue5/

Overall, I guess we are making good progress but personally I don't feel as such. Kieran's pc cannot do texturing hence I had to hop in to texture his assets, which is fine. What is not-so-fine is the messed up mesh on most of his assets.

Something interesting I recently found on the 80.lv site is speed level design. It is basically level designers, who are creating and designing a level from scratch to achieve a scene. I came across a lot of level designers and their videos on YouTube, but the best of them all, I found is Maverick.

Interestingly, I came across one of his videos where he creates an apocalyptic scene/level, all from scratch. Although he uses 3rd party assets, I thought why not replace these third party assets with our assets and we can complete our scene quite early. But we already had Praneeth who had already worked a lot on the environment, so I reserved this idea for a future project.

Looking at the time-lapse of his video, I learnt how easy actually Unreal Engine 4 is, that is of course once you get to know the software. Following and adapting from his method, I can actually use my already modelled assets and create my own level/scenes. This is something I really look forward to exploring once the project and the submission are over.

Reference:

This week was all about the small details on the bus. Making sure no extra vertices, or messed normals or anything which will create issues when unwrapping and texturing.

Also added a few more details to the bus, which almost marks the completion of the modelling part. Almost because I'm just left with Jerry cans, which would hardly take any time.

Another interview where a texturing artist shares her experience. I'm looking for such interviews and articles as I'm in my texturing stage for both, my vehicle as well as Kieran's assets. Looking at these articles and YouTube video helps me refine my workflow and gives me new and better ideas to work and implement in the project assets.

Gabs Hega is a texture artist from Mexico, working at KitBash3D. Her design style is realistic and sometimes stylized. She mostly works in Maya and Substance Painter, which is why her interview really attracted me.

In the interview, she describes her methodology and how she modelled a Mad Max styled car. However, this wasn't the interesting part for me as she modelled the car in Blender, which isn't really my forte. However, she explains her process of texturing, which she does in Substance Painter, and that is a software I use as well.

As Gabs is a texture artist, I really looked forward to her workflow. Honestly, I found her style more interesting and different from all the other videos and tutorials I've come across. She explains her steps in-depth, which is really useful for me as she's texturing an apocalyptic vehicle, similar to something I'm working on.

Further after exporting the maps, she moves back to Blender. However, since I have the workflow for the textures/maps, I can continue my workflow in Marmoset Toolbag 4, which I find better for lighting and rendering.

Reference:

Hega G. (2021). Texturing a Post-Apocalyptic Car in Substance Painter. Interview by Harisova E, Lv.80. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/texturing-a-post-apocalyptic-car-in-substance-painter/

Quick update, browning gun almost done with modelling. Been working on other props as well like the cage around the bus. This is how it looks like now:

The bus:

As a vehicle artist, I'm always looking for videos, tutorials, articles, anything which would help me learn and improve myself for the industrial standard. While skimming Lv.80 recently, I came across this masterpiece by Marvin Washington.

Marvin is a hard surface artist and concept designer from United States. He has previously worked on Forza title, which makes me quite interested to know his workflow. In this article, he discusses his steps on a concept vehicle, C.A.M - L, which stands for Collection and Analysis Mobile Laboratory. He uses quite a range of software in his workflow, which is quite interesting but again, a bit too much for me to learn.

However, I found his modelling technique quite unique. Once Marvin starts modelling his vehicle, he uses Splines and segments for parts like armour and gas caps. This is something new for me and interesting.

Further down the article he explains his modelling process and how he sets up his environment. He uses Megascans, which I'm yet to learn but looking forward to very soon. For rendering purpose, he uses Mental Ray, which I used to use back with Maya 2016-2017. So this shouldn't be too hard for me to learn. Once the renders are ready, he processes the image in Photoshop for Compositing, which is again a software I'm well known to.

This article was quite interesting and opened quite a few new methods for me to explore. However given the current situation, I'll have to keep them to explore once I'm done with the project.

Reference:

This week I started working on the browning machine gun as I feel it'll be a bit more time consuming than anticipated. I'm planning to get the gun done completely by the end of this week.

This is how the current process looks like:

Browning Machine gun:

Karol Miklas is a 3D artist who focusses primarily on vehicles. He is working in the industry since 2013 and is associated with gaming and automotive giants such as Cyberpunk 2077, Metro, PUBG, and Tesla to name a few. The way he set himself in the industry with big company tags is really impressive.

In one of his interviews on Lv.80, he explains his principles, workflow, the importance of detailing and gives valuable advice for aspiring artists. As an artist who is yet to step into the gaming/automotive industry, Karol is an artist to define inspiration.

I admire his simple yet effective workflow. However, one thing I suppose I should learn is Blender, as Karol suggests in his advice during the interview. Apart from that, I feel glad to know that I follow a similar workflow, and with more practice and advice, I can definitely grow to be an inspiration for someone, just as Karol is to me.

References:

Miklas, K., 2019. PUBG: New UAZ (Official), Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zAqYyd [Accessed 4th July 2021].

This past week hasn't been particularly good in terms of productivity. Hardly made any progress on final project assets. Monday to Wednesday I focussed on submitting the deferral assignment, and later on had some heating issues with laptop. Turns out the graphic card's fan wasn't functioning properly, so had to sort that out.

However, I'm done with the base of the bus, now had to focus on small accessories in and around the bus. I suppose they'll be relatively easy and can be done in the upcoming week.

Progress: