End Of Year Feedback

Pros:

Liked the tight knit community to the course, not like other courses where your sitting in a lecture hall of 200+.
Because of this, it makes much more of family feeling to the course,

Again, because of this help from other students, 1/2/3  years was not far away and getting to know them is very beneficial.

Overall laid back approach, I say this meaning that there is no push from the tutors, if you want encouragement, or help it is there but you can work in your own time so long as work is of an acceptable standard and completed on time.

Now have a working knowledge of the industry, because of the course my goals and focuses have dramatically altered, originally wanted to go for the cliché concept artist job, now would much rather work with engines/modelling something 3D based, I have so much more fun in these areas, although I do still love 2D.

Presentation skill development, very good idea, hope it continues into 2/3rd years, being able to get feedback from mike as he has given probably hundreds of presentations and listened to more, being able to be told the positive and negative points, from that experience was very beneficial.

2D very well designed, to get everyone to the same standard, making it more equality rather than some students roaring ahead.

Liked the outings, drawing directly from life, give a much quicker, better understanding of shape, form and depth, and it also gives students a knowledge of their surroundings if they are like me and have moved to Leicester.

Love the imaginative projects that can be made unique to each student, really lets creativity flow and enthusiasm for doing the work majorly increase.

Because of this problems are found that can be individual to each student, but when solved are beneficial to the entire year as other student/friends around you can learn from each other, which is another good point for the labs, the fact that everyone can bounce ideas and or problems off each other.

Liked the second Facebook account, although it’s a tad annoying to be continuously logging in and out of two separate accounts, the use of Facebook for the course has proved tremendously useful throughout the year to get the vital course information, speak with other years outside the labs, post problems on DMU technical at obscure hours of the morning and posting your work as well as seeing other peoples work and learning from there ideas.

Cons:

3D tutorials on blackboard to be updated and made clearer, perhaps short videos, or links to YouTube videos would be good, amount of time I’ve spent trying to follow the blackboard tutorial in the 1st & 2nd  terms  that could be better explained through a video.

More frequent feedback in critical studies, I don’t really know if any of my entries were any good, what could be improved on, what  needs to be cut out because I’ve rambled on too much, or gone off topic.

Other than those two very minor things I’ve had a fantastic year and know I picked the right course in DMU, looking forward to the second and perhaps more to a summer of gaming to catch up on!

Weapon Project Update 2

Well, that’s the end of 3D!

Finished the weapon project with the completion of the 3D work, it’s getting to be business as usual J.

Didn't run into any major problems on this project, and the smaller ones were taken care of in minutes. I tried a new method to myself of baking normal maps using a high poly mesh made from the lower poly inside of 3Ds max, results were pretty  damn effective.

In the future however I will be using Zbrush to make higher poly assets to be baked as it stands it is far superior to this method, but ah well, learned something new anyway.

The main reason I wanted to finish this project ahead of time was so I could comfortably plan out and complete the what seems like a mountain of 2D work to be finished by next week, famous last words here would most likely be, ‘ I will not procrastinate now’ but only time will tell.

Update: UDK & Weapon Project

Another update, just finished the UDK project and the Visual Design portion of the weapon project, thoroughly enjoyed both, maybe more UDK, was a bit tricky in the beginning but like most programs once you get the hang of it, it was good fun to work with, well tell a lie it is apart from all the fecking error messages and light maps…

All in all though I really did enjoy using UDK and am already thinking about designing another level over the summer break.

As for the weapon project, it was not without it’s challenges, being in student accommodation I didn't have access to many tools, in fact the only tools I had to work with were duct tape, contact adhesive and a multi-tool which made combining materials a pain in the arse, what I wouldn't of done for a vice or clamps. Apart from that however, the final product came out quite well, being a three barreled assault rifle with a cooling system:

Admittedly some of my other preliminary sketches in hindsight would have been much better as a more interesting design, but I got too caught up in putting the pieces together and getting to paint the decals, ah well.

One last note would be that I had a really good life drawing session last week, no frustration at all, if this trend continues I think I’m getting the hang of it J.