Presentation Ready!

Well the presentation is ready, and I'm pretty confident it will be ok, though im always nervous about having to stand up and talk in front of people. In the process of making it I did realise that theres still a fair amount i failed to talk about on here, concerning things such as areas of my research iv been exploring, identifying my skills gaps and what games/films etc I plan to study as lighting examples. So here is a quick overview of the parts of my presentation I feel should be documented here.

Identifying Skill Gaps

Lighting - This is the main one, being that I'm planning a project on lighting, yet I've never been very happy with the way iv tackled lighting in the past. But hopefully by putting a years efforts towards improving on it, I can come out the end of this year with much more skill in this area. My current understanding of lighting comes from my 2D traditional drawing background, and I'm sure with some practice I will be able to transfer this into my 3D work.

UDK - While I did get some practice in my 3rd year for Advanced Interaction, it was mainly only pipeline stuff, importing models and applying textures. All the lighting was default, so I need to get a better look at the lighting tools available to me. I have some inclination as to the quality of lighting I can expect, from looking at games created with UDK, which was part of the decision to use this engine.

Zbrush/Mudbox, Normal Maps - If I want to make a truly stunning environment, then high poly models  normal mapped onto lower poly version will probably be the way to go. Iv had limited experience with Mudbox, mainly just a bit of playing around to understand the tools and such, but I've never sat down and sculpted a finished piece yet. As for normal maps, I have done them in the past to some extent, but not for a while, so I feel I need to brush up on these, as well as others such as ambient occlusion and some that I have not tried like specular maps

Sky-Domes - The sky will play a crucial role in this project, at least for the beginning and end when the player is outside. Iv never created a sky dome, but i understand how its done. This is more a case of me trying out something new which I know I can accomplish.

Organic Modelling - This is another big one I want to address, which is making plants with the use of planes and alpha maps. Another area I understand the process behind, but just need to give a try. I think these will play a fairly big part in the project if we keep the environment looking old and run down, as well as for the beginning location outside the tower.

Self-Directed Study - As mentioned before, I've realised that I find it quite difficult to decide on a project when im given no direction but my own, as well as build up the motivation to create it. My success at the end of this year will be determined by my ability to push myself to do work rather than being told what to do.

Research

This is a list of the areas of research I have been undertaking so far, in order to get a better idea of where i want to narrow my focus even further:

- Lighting in Horror (technically research undertaken last year, but it should prove useful this year for at least a selection of the emotions and atmospheres I want to create)

- Colour Theory and Lighting Theory

- Gestalt Principles, Visual Perception Psychology

- History of Architectural Styles

- Using light to create moods

- Environmental Storytelling

- How light and shadow can be used to influence player actions

I plan to go into these in more depth in later posts, as I dont want this one to be too big. I also have a list of future areas of research which will also be discussed later.

- Cinematography

- Stage/Set Lighting

- Lighting in Games

- Industry Magazine/Articles

- Colour symbolism and associations

Ideas for media to possibly study

Games - Dishonored, Half-Life 2, Skyrim, War of the Roses, Dear Esther

Films - Barry Lyndon, Sin City, How to Train Your Dragon.

I choose all of these because I consider them to have effective lighting set-ups and wish to examine them more critically in order to understand how to emulate them in my own project. 

I also mention at the end of my presentation that I plan to enter the Samsung Student Developer Challenge and the Epic Games competition. I think doing these projects will help me to build the work momentum i need to immerse myself in the honours project, as well as help give me valuable modelling practice and address most of the skill gaps mentioned above.