Final Evaluation

Overall, I’m very happy with the way this project has unfolded. I feel that it had a good scope from the outset which I’ve met in its entirety, that it covered a broad range of skills and programmes and that it allowed me to learn a lot about the character art pipeline I chose to use in a relatively short amount of time. Of my initial goals set out in my pitch document, the only one that I feel I could have met to a better standard is that of the overall aesthetic direction, which I think could have been a little more refined. However, this is something that I would put down to time constraints and to the fact that this project was largely about skills acquisition for me personally, and so at some points I was worrying more about the technical aspects of the process than the aesthetic ones – my main goal was to produce something functioning and game-ready, which I feel I can say I’ve achieved. That said, I’m still very happy with the overall look of the two models, and I think I can now produce a much higher standard of work as a result of creating them.

The difference in quality, particularly in the area of topology for animation, is fairly significant between the two, and I’m confident that if I had produced a third model, it too would have ended up being a large step up and produced faster as a result of what I’ve learned during this project. I feel that I’ve taken a big step forward in being prepared for industry work and also in being able to pick up new skills as and when I need them, something which will serve me well moving forward. Part of me would like to have tackled something slightly more high-poly and complex, however I think that keeping my scope small and simple was ultimately the best decision, and allowed me time to make mistakes and learn from them without having to cut corners. This project has soundly taught me the value of working from the basics upwards, as I now have a foundation which I’m confident moving on to more complex projects with, and in conjunction with my BA3a project I now feel that I could tackle a higher level of realism and quality without feeling out of my depth or making fundamental errors.

In summary, I am very pleased with the outcome of this project, and while I might have liked it to be a little more polished in places, I value it immensely for the amount I’ve learned from it and for the skills I’ve gained.