Christopher Collins Thoughtful Post
Technical Artist
Starting this first semester of capstone I was excited about the next 3-4 months of class. In my personal work I have spent time working on the basic process leading up to animation and some of the programming around it. because of this i was really looking forward to being with a team that would be making something which required animation, modeling, and rigging. but i was still happy to be part of this team regardless.
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I played the part of a technical artist for Out of Shape. This included things like shaders and mesh dynamics/shape keys/blend shapes. Despite the games lack of need for my other skills, like animation, I also worked in areas which were needed in the game like shaders which is also in my area of expertise.
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Our group was communicative and i enjoyed my time so far within it. I honestly look forward to our work together in the future. Seeing the presentation of our project helped me see the pleasure in making something with a group. While we were working on Out of Shape i thought that it would not look very good but even with all things considered overall it turned out far better that I originally thought.
Examples of my work
Since the game did not need very complex modeling, my experience in modeling for this project was not problemattic. I also incorporated Out of Shapes shaders. In my personal studies i have only played with shaders. The models we planned to look very basic and show more of a cartoonish look. The appearance as a whole was reliant on a collection consisting of the toon shading I implemented with some basic textures and the simple modeling.
While modeling I also helped Joseph make with assets for the tutorial level. the purpose was to make sure that everything is in place and rebuild the level when the specific layout is determined later. This way we are not re-doing bits and pieces until we are sure that is what we want and where we want it. This also includes textures which are taken into account in the toon shading.