Max's Game Art Blog: Week 2: Films and the rooms in them

So the first warm up project has finished, the Asset swap scene handed in, and the new project is well underway which is the infamous film room project. this project is to make a room from a film as best as possible with 20,000 tris and 1024 textures in the new engines, giving us an opportunity to use PBR! I love films so having the chance to recreate the room from one of our choosing is very exciting; not just because of the fun involved but also because it's a chance to really push my skills further in all areas of a project.

One of the many moodboards made for this project. I hope this shows that I like watching films.

At the beginning of the project we spent alot of time trying to decide what to do and after a meeting with the course lecturers where we were told to look further and push forward it hit me just how much this can change an "alright" idea into an awesome concept if your willing to iterate. I became a little obsessed with the search for a new idea and every time the group found something I would see if we could look further and find something new. I found that this pushing whilst fun wouldn't get us far and while I've decided in personal projects to push that little but further every time to not try to force others to do the same.

We eventually decided to go with Andy's room from Toy Story 3

Our group decided to go with Andy's room from Toy Story 3 which is an awesome choice especially as Pixar make some fantastic films filled with colours, beautiful lighting and the intriguing mix of stylization with PBR rendering for realism in their design choices. We then got planning and starting our studies of the room to get an idea of what object are in the room and their placement as well as colour studies so we can understand the lighting.

Some of my layout/value thumbs

My Colour Thumbs. We each made our own colour thumbs and moodboards building up to alot of work.

We now have the long road of production now that the planning has been acheived and making these assets and sliding them into engine should be a blast. An ambitious project like this will take lots of effort but should be well worth the reward.

Early enging light test made by Calum Bellis our group lighting man

And early pass of the props that I have made in-situ

Outside of the set projects my mood has changed and now I'm feeling much more positive about group working and second year. Realising that the nerves and stress of starting a big year in my progression were just the shakes, has allowed me to calm down and start a new push. My next step in improving myself starts with a more structured and planned approach to my learning as I become a self directed learner. Learning discipline is a key element in this as it allows me to allocate timescales for my days and when I should be doing certain exercises. These plans are still forming but the first bricks have been placed in my new work ethic. Last year I learned how to work hard but this was mainly against strict course structure where I just learned things like perspective (draw canal 60 times) or rendering (visit new walk every fortnight). This year I'm trying to take this process into my own hands as I have to learn skills towards my future goals. Improving my figure drawing is a major part of this and I have started doing more life drawing in my own time as this is something I avoided before because I wasn't particularly good at it. This is precisely the reason why I should practice it and become much more confident and competent with my line work and anatomy.