WEEK 3 - Brace yourself!

This week was more of a “brace” period for the upcoming week. As an animator who is scheduled to work on the texturing process for half of the assets - alongside with group member Paulo Pineda - this week was meant to equip us for the next. The main enemies are being modelled by the other 2 members, Ahmed and Amos, so we are a bit laid back (for now).

Concept art inspiration for our main character - ANUBIS. PTimm (2015). Official Smite Anubis Concept Art on Deviant Art [artwork]. Retrieved from https://www.deviantart.com/ptimm/art/Official-Smite-Anubis-Concept-533208131

However, as we showed our work to our lecturer for feedback, we realized that our different styles didn’t really match our overall benchmark. We had to rework our designs and models. So, during the 3-hour studio session we had at the start of the week, the animators sat down and figured out the right style we were planning to go for. Soon after, I made a list of tasks I needed to accomplish for the week. See below for everyone's individual work and styles done during the last week (and given for approval).

Dagger modeled by Paulo Pineda. Work in Progress for textures.

Some map assets modeled by Amos Mwape.

Amos tried to texture the assets he modeled in a style he thought would work for the game on Substance Painter.

Treasure chest and variations modeled (with LOD) by Ahmed Mohamed.

Some map assets and AXE that I modeled over the week. Implemented the LOD as well.

Honestly, if these objects were placed side-by-side or viewed at a glance, it is clearly visible that the styles are VERY different. This wouldn't work! Everyone was obviously taken aback when we received feedback on this, but it was very much necessary to get us onto the right track. Since everyone was working in their own worlds, communication was lacking between some members. For example, Amos did not need to texture the assets before approval from our lecturer. It was just a waste of time! Hence, I had to schedule meetings and organize more stricter means of communication. So we spent the week discussing on discord and Whatsapp.

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“Taking it chill”, or so I thought! By the end of this week, I had to do the following:

List of tasks I had to accomplish by the end of the week (sticky notes screenshot)

In addition, I had to teach myself how to use Substance Painter if I were to texture the character next week. We were gradually growing (physically) sick. Having to push ourselves to achieve our best, did in turn, backfire at us! Two of our animators fell severely sick while my laptop crashed, causing 3ds max to stop working. This adversely affected our productivity, hence I had to adjust the weekly timelines to compensate for this.

Screenshot of adjustments made to the Gantt chart on Google Sheets.

By Tuesday, each animator had a redesigned weapon for feedback and approval. Ahmed was ahead with the first character, whereas Amos had to restart from scratch. Puzzle concepts and the circular model for puzzle #1 were made by me and were given to our programmer for basic testing and coding. The shield was promptly made within the day as well.

It was Wednesday of Week 3 and it bothered me that we didn’t have a confirmed story-line to work with yet. Hence, I scheduled an urgent meeting with JP and the team to discuss how the story would flow and note down the basic plot points. We needed a basic level design from JP, but due to several excuses and reasons had to wait a week longer.

Over the weekend, I sketched out some logo designs for the team but wasn’t quite happy with any of them. Since it was taking a lot from me to figure out a unique design while also having to manage the group and work on my tasks, I asked to meet one of the graphic designers who would collaborate with us on this project. I gave him a brief and asked him for designs ASAP. He delivered three unique audio tracks for our game, that we were very pleased with. I also began working on the LION texture for the puzzle. Figuring out our “hand-painted” style was challenging, but after a few trials and errors I had gotten a gist of it.

In conclusion, this week was sort of a mess! Knowing that this is just Week 3 of the unit has overwhelmed me a bit, but I will strive to work harder in the upcoming weeks. Encountering such problems along the way is a good practice for learning to overcome potential workflow clashes in the future. It is essential to be able to identify the main cause of the problem and then work around it. I believe that my team can do their best! We just need to communicate better and be more open to feedback and criticism.

References:

PTimm (2015). Official Smite Anubis Concept Art on Deviant Art [artwork]. Retrieved from https://www.deviantart.com/ptimm/art/Official-Smite-Anubis-Concept-533208131