Progress Update - Final Game

So I have now completed my game and it is ready to submit. I am very happy with this result. The last couple of weeks have been spent polishing it and enhancing it since the 'beta' version. I went through near enough every single texture and polished them up, adding in normal maps along the way.


Fixed Problems

Audio - I realized that the audio volumes were all wrong once I tried my game with headphones. A lot of it was far too loud. I had to go through it altering the volume of specific sounds in order for a more well rounded game.

Meshes - Lightmaps were all created autmoatically by Unreal Engine. This works but it does not give quite as good effect as creating them manually in Maya. I went back and sorted all lightmaps whilst I was checking through all my meshes.

Restart Function - I managed to implement a restart function in my game menu's. This enables an easy restart of the game

Story - I went through all the story pieces (journal extracts) and did my best to shorten them as I felt they were initially too long which could possible bore the player if they do not find themselves interested in the story element. I am hoping that with shorter articles, reading it can be quicker and easier and therefore, the story can be gathered much better.


I have one and only main issue with my game which I have spent hours trying to fix but was unsuccessful. It relates to the beginning objects interfaces - ID card, Medical Book, internet sheet and journal. Currently, a HUD operates whenever you are in a trigger box and press 'E'. This brings up a specific image on an object onto the screen. The idea is that it is an object you look at. So when you look at it and interact with it ('E') you can view it up close. The problem is that as long as you are in the trigger box and press 'E', the object appears on screen. Even if you are looking in a completely different direction.
I tried fixing this multiple ways. The main being using a line trace, to trace where the camera was looking during gameplay. I could get parts of this to work but overall I was not getting a desired effect. Unfortunately due to time I have had to leave it as it is. It is something I can maybe try have sorted ready for my exposition.

Final Game

Personal Notes

As this is me at my final stages of hand-ins, I will be producing two more final blog posts - one will be similar to the last few I have done (a end of week update). This will also include my plans for the next two weeks regarding the rest of hand-ins. The last one I do will be an overall 'end of year' review type of thing.

'Beta' Version Complete

I have now completed the 'Beta' version of my game. This involved fixing numerous issues that were obvious in gameplay. This game is now suitable for proper testing which I will begin next week. After the testing I have one more week before hand ins which I will use to polish the game.

Major fixes were:

• Fire light shining through walls
• Interfaces
• Asylum roof (corners/t-junctions/ends)
• Padded Cell lighting
• Above dorm wall

Personal Notes

I am happy with my results so far - I look forward to getting this game complete and ready for showcase. I need to look more closely at the showcase stuff as time is of the essence for this particular hand-in.

Showreel Submission

So we have been asked to put forward parts of our work that can be showcased in the showreel. I have put together a 30 second video that acts as a trailer to my final piece. It must be noted that this can still be edited by those in-charge of putting together the showreel.

Personal Notes

This was a difficult process, especially with the specifications required when putting forward. I have tried my best to have it with the best possible graphics/framerate, however, it still came out not 100% desired. Having said that, I am still pleased with this clip and feels it shows my work well.

'Alpha' Version Complete

My aim was to have the alpha version complete. I have achieved this although there are still plenty of things that need fixing.

This 'alpha' version is basically a complete working version that can be played. It has some minor issues and needs a lot of polish, but it works. I have recorded a clip of me playing through it (quite rushed) to show how the different events all work and come together. I am aware that it is very dark. I can assure you that the game is in fact brighter. I believe it is due to video compression.

Personal Notes

This weekend I will purely be working on my dissertation. By the end of next week I wish to complete the 'Beta' version of my game. Issues that I know of and need to address are:

• Fire light passing through walls
• Minor mesh glitches
• Light maps
• Condensing the story (words on documents)

The following week, I will look to test the game with people and hope to discover any last minute issues/errors. This will then give me one more week to polish and finish of my project.

As for my dissertation, after this weekend I will only be working on it Monday's and Wednesday's, before and after work. I anticipate that this should still be plenty of time for me to get it done.

Media Test - Level Streaming

For a while now, my game has become very slowly which has been very frustrating. I have been trying to figure out ways of fixing this which has taken me such a long time. The frustration has also slowed my progression in development as I have felt irritated. However, I have now found a solution and have finally fixed this problem!

Level Streaming
Level Streaming is an effective method to make a game much more efficient. It enables you to easily load in or out certain parts of your game. This means that if there is an area that the player cannot see, you can save rendering process by loading this part out and only loading it in when the user is going to see it.

Finding the Issue
At first I thought my level was slow due to so much lighting. I ended up deleting a lot of lights to help improve my game. This helped only slightly. Thankfully, it did not effect the ambiance of the environment too much as it was after all a horror game in which, darkness always entices atmosphere. After further reading I read that fully opaque materials can use up a lot of rendering process. With this in mind, I changed all my opaque materials to be fully visible, however, nothing much improved.

I then looked into level streaming and thought that this actually may end up solving my issues. I found this really helpful tutorial on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqdz9n-7H_A

Using this I quicky tested in by splitting my environment in two. Apart from lots of errors to due coding links being broken etc, it worked perfectly. My game was running so smoothly I couldn't believe it!
I then went ahead and decided to split up all the extra rooms I have and have them stream in nad out depending on where the player is (via trigger boxes).

Media Test - Level Streaming

This has helped dramatically and the only issue  I occurred was in relation to blueprint references and matinee's etc. The reason being, I could not find a way to call these functions/variables in different levels. It was easier for my to just make the assets in the room that were not referenced in blueprint as the level's pieces. E.g with the levels that are not loaded in (the assets are not there) trigger boxes and matinees still sit there.) thankfully these to not take up much memory so it is ok to leave them there.

Personal Notes

This has been an extremely annoying hindrance for my process (the slow frame-rate). I am so glad that I have fixed this using level streaming. This does mean I am a little behind plan but at this point, I am not overly fussed as I am happy to have just solved this major issue I was having. I still aim to have an 'Alpha' version of my game completed on Monday, as well as starting my dissertation.

Media Test - Linear to Non-Linear Story

All along I wanted this story to be experienced in a non-linear fashion. However, I felt best to approach the development of it by creating it as a linear story and upon completion, converting it into a non-linear story.

Linear
To begin with I created my story events in a linear process, which would result in the playback of these events, happening in a linear process. I had 5 events:

1. Gravity Law
2. Mother Issues
3. Death Of A Soldier
4. Fire At Orphanage
5. Family Death

These were created in this order and therefore occured, in this order. I wanted to convert this so that you could experience events 1-4 in any order with event 5 being the conclusion/ending. In order to achieve this I needed to 're-wire' my level blueprints in order to accommodate some complex calculations.

Non-Linear

I got started on attempting to make my story non-linear and was happy to find it not overly difficult. The main concern was that in my linear story, each event, triggered some sort of change in the environment. This worked well, however, if I was to make it non-linear, I would still want the environment change to happen in the order I chose. The order being:

1. Environment De-saturates
2. Roof changes
3. Walls/Floors become a Half-State (Hotel/Asylum)
4. Walls/Floors compeltely change from Half-State to Asylum
5. Game ends

This required some careful though but it was easily managed after much consideration:

Media Test - Linear to Non-Linear

As you can see in the image above, the 'Linear (before)' image shows how each event looked before converting it. They each had a trigger boxes that would trigger the event and change the environment. Very simple and very effective. Now, the two images below that, show how it has been converted into a non-linear story. All the different trigger boxes link into the same switch node. This helped manage what environment change would happen as it would cycle through them in the correct order, alternating the environment correctly.

In order for the correct event to happen (not shown here) I had to insert a 'call function' node just after each 'doOnce' node. Each of these functions were different and would reference the different events that would happen in the story. E.g player hits trigger box ('TriggerBoxMotherIssues01') then this would call that event and play it, and then the environment would change depending on number the 'environment change' was on. So if this happened to be the 3rd event triggered in the game, it would be the 3rd environment change that would occur which is the Half-State.

Personal Notes

I was really happy to achieve this all so easily. I really enjoy using the level blueprints as it is very similar to hard coding which is something I have enjoyed in the past. I am playing a little bit of catch-up with my blogs as things have gotten slower this past few weeks. The main reason being that my games frame-rate has gotten extremely slow and has been frustrating to work with. I have now fixed this issue which I will discuss in the next blog.

Practical Issues

Just a post to make note of the practical issues I have been having recently which has annoyingly slowed my workflow. The engine seems to be running slow now at a rate that is so frustrating it has put me off working on it. I have reason to believe it is the lighting as when playing the level, it is still stuttery but when you set of a trigger to delete most of the lights, the game runs fine. I will be looking briefly into ways of fixing this or at least, removing some of the lights to help.

This is officially my last week I want to work on my game. Ideally by Monday next week, I will have a fully playable game which only needs polished.

Event03 - 'Death Of A Soldier' - Progress

This event has been completed very quickly and effectively. I have started to use cgtextures.com to help enhance my texturing. It has helped a lot and has really made my environment look much better. I still feel a bit uneasy using these textures as I can't then say that this project is all my work - although I was told not too worry about that, especially as that is not what I am being graded on.

Where I Am So Far

I have managed to pretty much finish this event - to a playable level. You hear a banging at the door to which you open. A body underneath a white sheet is lying on a table. Upon entering, the door starts to continually bang shut for a while. It eventually stops and the body disappears. When leaving the room, the hotel's walls and floor states to change into a 'half-state' material which is a crossover between a hotel carpet and Asylum tiles.

Event03 - 'Death Of A Soldier' - Progress

Personal Notes

I am really pleased with the speed of this event. I am managing to complete each event faster than the previous as my skills and knowledge of UE4 is improving with every step. I am going to spend tomorrow on research and Monday on practical work for Event02 and Event03. I will move on too Event04 on Tuesday. Bit of a hectic week this week but should hopefully pick myself up again next week.

Event02 - 'Mother Issues' - Progress

This event has had me troubled quite a bit due too the amount of complex changes required within the environment. First I have been manipulating sound to play, more in-depth than my last event. This has been an enjoyable yet timely task. As for changing the roof - this has become difficult for one main reason - lighting. I am going to have to create some mroe lights that fit in with the asylum style, place them in the scene and turn them on as I turn off and delete the other lights. I may add more effects into this such as flickering etc but for now I need to sort the basis.

Where I am at so far

Playing with sound: I have been messing around with sounds. I wanted to incorporate a creepy laughter as this next scene involves a padded cell. I found this clip of my friend laughing and simply reversed it for a really terrifying effect. The two sounds below are 1 - his laugh normal, 2 - it played in reverse:

Test01 - Laughing - Original

Test02 - Laughing - Reversed

Working with the sounds has been fantastic. It has really enticed the gameplay. Here is a video of where I am at with this event:

Personal Notes

What I plan to do now is create the lights for the asylum roof and have the lighting work correctly for each set of lights. I can then go on and improve the textures and more of the story elements associated with this scene

Event01 - Laws of Gravity - Progress

So I have been carrying out work on my first even which involves feathers floatign about an open hallway. Upon entering this hallway - music will play and feathers will slowly fall from the ceiling. Hammers will also start appearing on the floor before fading out. In the middle of the hall on the wall will be two sheets of paper - explaining the memory that is being portrayed.

Where I Am At

So far I have managed to get a lot of this sequence complete. I had to change a few ideas around in order to make it work but here is the progress of triggering of the music and feathers:

Triggering The Music

Adding In A Few Feathers

End Result (So Far)

Using The Matinee

Personal Notes

The rest of this week will be dedicated towards research and journal finding. I am pleased with my progress and was just unfortunate with time not to get a little further. I will give myself all of Monday to finish of this event as much as possible before moving on to the next. My idea is to have all events completed within March to a standard level. I can then use April to polish everythign ready for my final submission.

Drawing a Texture To The Screen

Now having finally got my 'story' assets in place in my environment, I needed to figure out a way for them to be looked at by the player (Magnified to the HUD). After lots of researching online I figured out I was going to have to somehow use the 'drawTexture' node function. I discovered this tutorial that helped a lot with this. This tutorial uses the 'drawText' node but I was able to adapt it to my needs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWVUr-i5zaM

With this I managed to get the picture to appear once you entered a trigger box and pressed the 'E' key. Unfortunately even when you left the box trigger, pressing the 'E' key would still display the image:

I then fiddled about with the blueprint and managed to achieve my desired result. This next video was meant to show off the blueprint itself - as it displays what is happening (useful for debugging). Unfortunately the screen capture software I used did not capture this. So in this next video, I am pressing the 'E' key quite often, and as desired, the picture only displays when I am in the trigger box.

I then went ahead and used the same technique, for the other pieces in my environment. At the moment, the images are still rough but at least the functionality works! At first this did not work until I used a 'sequence' node to allow the 'eventDrawHUD' node to connect to multiple outputs. The good thing with this is I can add to it very easily which should help, later on in my project.

Using Trigger Boxes

Blueprint For 'DrawTexture' Function

I am very pleased with the outcome so far. It takes an irritating amount of time to figure these sorts of things out but once they are complete, it helps a lot. I am spending one more day on this bedroom before moving on with my environment. I will definitely be coming back to this but I'd like to move on so I feel more comfortable that my overall environment is nearer completion. What I will look to do in this one day is really make these textures that appear to the user look fantastic as they are a high focus point. I will also fine tune other features of the room.

Personal Notes

Ignoring completing my own lighting, sound and perfecting each asset in the room, I am pretty much finished this part of my environment. As I progress with rest of environment, I can apply the skills learnt so far and when learning new skills - sound etc - I can come back to this part and edit it. This next week I will be asking testing participants to play the environment and see what they think. I will be mainly looking to see if they engaged with each interactive piece in the environment as well as understand who they are and why they are there.

One major thing I still need to look over (which is for my hallway) is the changing of meshes. I noticed an idea of making a wall opaque and therefore having another one appear in it's place. i will be looking at options for this as I think it will really enhance my environment.

Progress Report - Creating the Starting Bedroom

This week I wanted to complete the bedroom scene which is where the player starts. It is here that they have the chance to discover who they are and why they are there. There will also be a subtle hint into what may lay ahead.

Using NCloth - Maya

Bedroom Progress - UE4

Story Items

Personal Notes

My next plan of action is:

• Complete some tasks that were set out by supervisor
• look into 'drawTexture' Node
• Look into changing mesh during game play - using opaqueness
• Polish Room

I am wanting to use techniques learnt from previous research to help entice and encourage the player to play the game - do a little, receive a lot, add some hidden items etc

Media Test - Dynamic Materials

I successfully managed to alter the saturation levels in my previous test however, then next step was actually changing the materials. Once again, this was quite a daunting task however I knew I would be able to find away. In my supervisor meeting, two techniques were mentioned - Vertex Painting and Lerping. I had already come across lerping and so began with that. I eventuially stumbled onto this tutorial which worked perfectly for what I wanted to achieve:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mikG9ZuM2gY

Like with my last media test, I decided to take it one step at a time. I began with create a sphere - like in the tutorial, and used that as my test:

After achieving this, I went on to doing the same but for one of my own materials:

This process is simply consisting of using the blueprint and the matinee. The blueprint is basically the code, programming what is happening and the matinee is where you set up the animation with time and value settings. After testing it on a couple of tiles, I then applied it to all of the 'FloorMain' tiles.

Media Test - Dynamic Materials

Finished Result

Personal Notes

Again, I am very happy with my result. The next step I wish to take in this process is figuring out a way to make the change over more random/interesting - perhaps with particle effects. Almost as if the hotel pieces burn away into the asylum pieces. I also need to figure out what too do with meshes as for example, the wall mesh will need to completely change. This is one step further from materials but it is something I need to look into.

Media Test - De-saturating the Environment

Now that I have decided to have my environment deteriorate throughout the game, I have decided to look into transforming materials and I have been looking at de-saturating them first.

I have spent a long time working on this and been through many tutorials but the one that worked best for me was this one:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/ParameterCollections/index.html

This involves using a 'master parameter' to adjust the whole environment. First I followed through the tutorial using blank squares to test it out. I managed to get this to work relatively easily:

Here, the coloured squares de-saturated every time I held the right mouse key down. On release, they would return to their original colour. This was very pleasing to see as it had taken me some time to find a relevant tutorial to help me.

After I had done this it was time to apply this technique to my textures. An issue I had was that the coloured squares where instances of each other and so needed no editing, however, my textures would each need to have the required blueprint attached to them.

Finished Result

Once I had figured out how to work it I edited all the material blueprints and manage to get myself a nice effect:

Media Test - De-saturating the Environment

Personal Notes

When it comes to the final piece, I intend to use this feature through a trigger. When a player enters and then leaves a room - the environment will change - right before their eyes. Visually this could be very interesting for the player and provide an effective story telling method. Initial thoughts are having 5 rooms and therefore 5 stages. The next step for this test will be to ensure I can change from one texture to another.

Scaling/Proportion Issues

It was noted that in my media testing from semester one, the hallway I created in UDK looked very squashed and proportionally incorrect. My supervisor recommended I fix this issue immediately before I go ahead and create more assets.

I managed to get myself Unreal Engine 4 and so now my final piece will be produced through that. Already I am finding the interface much more friendly and appealing than UDK was so I am very pleased with the switch. As for sorting the scale and proportion issue, I ran into some similar problems when trying to edit it in Unreal Engine 4:

Scaling Issue

Perspective Issue

Final Result

Looking at the final result I am happy with the change I have made. It looks a lot better in scale and I will now go on to creating a more thorough block-out of the hallway before moving onto the rooms.

One thing I have noticed is there is an odd perspective issue which I mentioned in the second picture. Things look oddly small from a minor distance but once up and close, it looks fine.

Level Design - Hotel Rooms

Level Design - Hotel Rooms

Level Start

This is where the story will start. You begin waking up in the middle of the night in your hotel room. You can then leave the room and explore the halls finding more open rooms. The room you wake up in is your room and so in here you will find out your back-story through various methods. There will be different items in the room explaining who you are - ID etc.

Production Of Rooms

Essential

• Walls - Normal, Corner1, Corner2
• Doors
• Windows
• Beds

Ideal

• Decor - Curtains, paintings, desk, bedside tables, Rug
• Bathroom

Story Items

• Personal ID
• Notebook/Journal
• Medical Books

Personal Notes

This part of production will require a little more work as there is a lot more objects required than the hallways. However, these can be duplicated easily for each room as being a hotel, most things are similar. Some of the story items will be taken straight from the book

Level Design - Hotel Hallway

Level Design - Hotel Hallway

Hotel Hallway Plan

Part One - Hotel

Part one gives you the freedom of exploring a level in the hotel. There are a couple of rooms you are able to enter including your own one. The rest are all locked for obvious reasons (It's night time and there are people inside). The room in the top right of the image above is where you will start. With non-linear exploration being part of the research, it is clear from the image above, there are multiple ways to the end ('Staff Only' door). However, in order to try and force the player down a certain path I have decided to add the rooms marked with a 'tick'. These will be rooms that can be explored and the idea is that the player will see the open door, and therefore take that path.

Whilst all this is happening, every now and then a piano will begin to play - coming from the 'staff only' door. This is what will drive the user to continue forward.

It makes know difference which way the user goes, however, on the basis of research, I will be interested to see what route most people end up taking.

Production of Hotel Hallway

To successfully create this environment I will need the following assets:

Essential

• Walls - Normal, Corner1, Corner2, Doorway, Window
• Doors - Rooms, 'Staff Only'
• Windows

Ideal

• Walls - Interesting shape ('s' type shape in center image)
• Doors - Elevator, Stairwell
• Decor - Tables, Paintings, Plants, Curtains

Story Items

• Paintings/Pictures - showing hotel used to by asylum
• Note paper - suggesting hotel used to be asylum (Taken from Book)

Personal Notes

This part of production should not take too long. As it is primarily modular and only the beginning of the experience, not too much iconic features are needed. Part One is purely to suggest story and give the user a feel for what is coming next. It is also a test of what direction the user takes in order to get to the final stage.

Media Test - Importing into UDK

With my final project aim to have the user explore my environment it was time I imported my practice environment into a games engine for practice using another program. I decided to use UDK as I used it a little bit last year and so am some what familiar with it. I was happy too discover I succeeded with only some 'typical' minor problems. These issues have happened to me before but I need to research further on how to sort them. At the moment, I believe its the light maps but will need to keep tweaking them in order to hopefully resolve the issue I have, ready for when it comes to developing my final project.

Importing into UDK

There was only one major issue I was having with my environment and that was (what I believe to be) the lightmaps. I had a lot of annoying shadows in places that did not look right or make sense. I have a feeling that this is due to my light maps and I need to do much more research on these are as they are a vital factor for making a UDK environment look good.

Problems With Shadows

Things To Consider

• Still early practice in UDK - plenty time to sort
• Still need to try out animating objects in UDK
• Sound also needs to be looked into in preparation for next semester
• All in all, scene came together nicely

Personal Notes

Using UDK was not scheduled in my plan until next semester however starting it now has definitely given me not only a kick-start into the program but has raised issues and concerns I now know I need to look at ready for semester 2.

Media Test - Story

Recently it came to my attention that there were more parts to this interview from Don Carson :

http://www.primitive-eye.com/pdf_files/Enviromental_storytelling_pt1.pdf

So far I have been applying the practical skills learnt in Michael McKinley's 'Game Environments and Props' book to an environment I had created to carry out various tests and practices regarding environmental storytelling. I was basing these tests on Don Carson's techniques used in the theme park industry and had believed that the link provided was the full interview. I have jsut been made aware that there is a lot more too this which I can use for future practice later in the year. For now, here is the last media test from part 1: Story.

Using ideas on how to convey or tell a story from other games I have done so with a few examples. This first one is a standard typical horror style in which you see lots of blood in the environment which can highlight danger or just add to the sense of worry you have whilst playing the game. The example below are from 'Outlast' (2013).

Media Test - Story (Method 1)

This is an effective method which can be used to suggest something as oppose to using any form of text or obvious happening. It can be also very useful as it is not obvious what has happened which leaves the user's imagination to run wild and a common technique in film and games, is too not show the creature/what happened as someones imagination can create something much more scarier. For example, in my scene, you do not know what has happened except someone or something has been seriously hurt (or killed) This adds a chilling atmosphere in which the user proceeds more alert and becomes much more careful when progressing through the level.

Another method which is very common in various genre's of games is having scrawled writing on the wall. The writing can be clues, hints, ideas or just random rubbish. 'Left 4 Dead' (1&2) (2008/2009) effectively used this in the safe-houses set around the level. They use this to tell a story without the need of cut-scenes.

Media Test - Story (Method 2)

This technique proves very effective as it can subtly convey a story to the user without over-use of literally telling a story. The user can choose to acknowledge the information, take it seriously or just ignore it. 'Portal' (2007) was also famous for this method of storytelling with writing on the walls of hidden rooms which led to the story's outcome.

This next technique I have taken from 'Splinter Cell: Conviction' (2010) and adapted it. Here the text is clearly displayed on buildings to help introduce a level or task as well as offering tips. I went for a more subtle approach in my scene by having the writing much harder to see which would result in the user having to look hard and carefully if they wanted to find out some story aspects or help.

Media Test - Story (Method 3)

This technique would be effective if I wanted to tell an under-laying story that was into necessary to know when exploring the environment. I was using this technique with the idea that 'the environment' was talking/helping the user. This can be explored more in depth once I decide on what the final story will be. The issue that I noticed with this method was that it can be difficult to see so care would have to be taken when carrying out this method.

Things to Consider

• There a loads more techniques similar too these that can be used to tell/enhance a story
• Each of these can be explored further
• Having a story idea and how it's going to be told needs to be looked at soon

3D Practice - SciFi Object

This was the final chapter of Michael McKinley's 'Game Environments and Props'. It combined everything that had been learnt so far plus a few extra things here and there in order to create a sci fi object.

By now, these chapters are relatively straight forward which shows how I have progressed well. There are however some issues that did appear, which as per usual, cost me time and with some cases, time wasted as I could not fix them. However I am really pleased with how my skills have developed through using this book and how it as helped me with my project. I have learnt many new features which I can definitely apply to my project in order to make it much more professional.

Project: SciFi Object

The Steps

1. Create Hi Poly model
2. Create Low Poly version
3. UV map Low poly model
4. Using transfer maps to create initial textures
5. Edit textures in Photoshop
6. Apply these textures to model
7. Animate

Learning Outcomes

It was nice to apply all the techniques I have learnt from this book to one final model. So for this piece, nothing new was really taught however I did come across some problems which I could not fix. Trying to achieve a glow effect using a cone mesh sadly did not even nearly work. I tried messign about with the settings but nothing seemed to work. The other issue was when I rendered my final image, it came out with a really obvious glow which looked terrible and again, I could not sort it.

These issues are always a nightmare to try and fix as I sometimes have no clue on where to start. In some cases (Like I did here) I will just have to try leaving the part out. 

Project: SciFi Object - Problems

Personal Notes

I have found this book to be so useful in developing my 3D and Photoshop skills. It has been very enjoyable and thorough in its projects. I'd hope for more books like this but I am not sure if there are (in date) however now I have completed every chapter except one. I left this one to complete just before I come back to semester 2 as a kind of warm up exercise. It's a project on making a car, which is not linked to my final project however it can be used as the perfect warm up piece to keep me on form ready for semester 2. I would highly recommend this book to anyone carrying out 3D practices - especially for those at intermediate level who need a little more confidence and guidance in Maya.