Tuesday 26 October 2010

3 Days to go!

The countdown continues and I began today with the intention of sticking to my 'schedule' but this didn't go as planned.

I first decided to create a pumpkin in max, export that, then import it into UDK.  How hard could that be right?  Wrong (sometimes it feels like I'm the only one to have problems with computers and software).  So I created my pumpkin, all be it very basic and no carved face but hey, it was just a test to see how to export and import.  So after I added my materials I exported the model and tried to import it into UDK.  The model appeared perfectly.  Woohoo!  I thought then I realised that instead of the 3 materials slots I had assigned only one appeared :(  I still have no clue what I did wrong but after spending too much time dwelling on that I decided to re-organise my schedule and get other things done.

4 Days to go!

So, I'm cutting it extremely close here.

I've spent the weekend bringing my building up to scratch and I think it looks quite cool now. This was I had by the end of Sunday:



Tuesday 19 October 2010

Blocking out my halloween house

I finally got around to posting on the WoLD forums to enter myself into the challenge.

Having already cut down my aims and objectives for this project I thought with the limited amount of time that I have left that this would be acheivable (see my post on the WoLD forums).  But after reading a reply from someone I have decided to reign back totally on any scripting and focus on creating a really visually attractive environment. It's sad because I was really looking forward to creating all of those effects but thinking realistically I probably won't be able to get it all done before next Friday :(  But it's all good experience and I have learned from this that if I intend to make a map for a contest with a month's deadline don't start it halfway through the month.  I should have time to go back to this map early next year and start the kismet and matinee sequences to really bring the map to life so I am looking forward to this.  Luckily for me I am happy with the interior layout so all I'll have to do is the kismet and matinee work.  But now back to the present...

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Halloween's approaching!

It's been a busy time for me over the last week.  Moving back to the original project I was hired for and yes, doing overtime (again!).  But this will not deter me from continuing to build my portfolio.  Right now I'm considering entering the WoLD Halloween contest.


I've thought of an idea and will be using UDK.  As this will be the first time I use UDK I will be creating an explorable environment rather than a gameplay map.  However, I do intend to improve on the visual quality of my level by making long corridors more interesting by using a variety of materials, effects and more meshes.

Sunday 10 October 2010

Ruins of the Mayans: Quick-Point Postmortem

Well I have finally gotta to the Beta stage of my map (Hurrah!).  I'm having a few teething problems with publishing the map (mainly materials missing GRRR!) so I have decided to look into this a bit further down the line, but for now I'm happy to stick some screenshots of the Beta version to my map on my portfolio site and upload a video later in the week.

As I have learned a hell of a lot on this project I thought I should take some time to reflect a moment on what went wrong and what went right in a quick-point postmortem.