Off the Map Submission

Off the Map Submission

29th April 2016

Name: Katie Byrne

P Number: P1413266x

Email: p1413266x@myemail.dmu.acuk

Project (The brief you are writing for):

Off the Map

Summary (Brief Summary of processes involved in Concepting/Modelling/Unwrapping/Texturing/Engine):

Off the Map is a brief provided by the British Library as a yearly project for game development students. Each year students are given a selection of themes which they can choose from to create a game level in what ever style or direction they choose, as long as it portrays the story of the selected theme. This year the themes were chosen in association with the exhibition showcasing Shakespeare's work which is available at the British Library. The themes that could be selected included the plays, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet and The Tempest.

Our group was selected by the tutors using a questionnaire we had filled out for group selection, and we were grouped in groups of 6 unless we specified we wanted to work individually.

The University project is a 10 week project required for submission on the 29th of May, however the actual Off the Map brief's deadline is in June.

Our group chose to go with the theme A Midsummer Night's dream, and went for a fantasy disney-esque stylised approach. My role in the group was initially making characters which I concepted, modelled, textured and rigged, but I also made some environment and prop concepts, props and textures and also a piece of splash art. As well as this I planned each scene and what would need to be portrayed in each scene.

Visual Studies:

A selection of the work which I produced for visual studies, including moodboards, concepts and splash art.

Game Production:

The final rendered assets I made for the level and also some props which I made along with tileable textures.

Final renders:

Final renders of the scene all together in UE4.

Conclusion (Brief paragraph on how you think the project turned out/Self Critique/ Include 4 ways in which your work could be improved):​

Looking back throughout the project, the major things I would have changed would be to emphasise the environments more and possibly scrap a few characters and make the story a lot simpler to allow larger more expansive environments. However our original aim was to respect the Shakespeare theme and create a story intensive game which recreated the story-line for the viewer, which I think our approach worked a lot better for. It is quite difficult to judge as for the course hand-in the game is not required to be fully functional with dialogue and focuses more on the environments, whereas for the official Off the Map hand in, we intend our game to be fully working and animated. Due to this, I think in the long term our game meets its expectations for the Off the Map hand-in with its extensive story line and character focus, but it may have been more beneficial to us for our course hand-in to not think about all of these details in such depth and focus on making amazing captivating environments, as after all, we are aiming to be game artists and not game designers, which are two quite different roles. I have definitely learned a lot on this project, and it has been a great experience to combine all of my knowledge and learning for the year in a new group project where we can see all of our hard work coming together to produce a final outcome.