Work placement - Week 1

Week 1 - Interactive Systems Studio

The key aim of this year's Work based learning module is to find a work placement in the gaming industry, or in an industry affiliated to it, in order to gain precious experience in every of at least most sectors of our studies.

I have managed to gain a 3 month work placement with Interactive Systems Studios (ISS website) from the 1st of January 2014 till the 31st of March 2014).

During this time, as a placement Junior artist, I am working side by side and under the direct guidance and supervision of Paul Watson, the studio's 3D artist.

In my first week, I have been "gently" introduced to the gaming industry, by having set a task of producing a modular race barrier for the iOS game, the studio is working on at the moment.
I was asked to take this simple model through every step of the design process in order to learn exactly what an artist is required to do, when being part of the game creating process.

So, the steps of the design process are:

1. Concept art - create a 2D visualisation of what I think the final product should look like
2. 3D modelling - using 3D Studio Max, build a 3D model of the concept done in the previous step
3. Create a UVW map for the model -  using various options provided by the software (e.g. Flat mapping, Normal mapping, quick peel, etc), unwrap the model and get it ready to be textured.
4. Optimise the model - make sure most of the polygons used are 4 sided (ideal situation), remove unnecessary polygons/edges/vertices, in order to keep the model with the minimum information necessary for the right output. ( as long as all the shapes and details aimed for are visible, some polygons will not be necessary).
5. Create a texture for the model - using Photoshop, create a texture for the model. This can be done either by importing real life images and applying them on the appropriate layers, or by painting the desired textured.
6. Apply the texture to the model in 3DS Max
7. Import the 3D model into the game engine used - in my case, the model was imported into Unity, to make sure it looks right in the environment. Tones and values might need to be adjusted, once seen in the actual game engine. 
8. Put the model onto the platform that it will be used on (e.g. iPad) - again, colours might look slightly different once exported onto an iPad, so again, values might need a slight adjustment.

I had to create a piece of geometry which, if tessellated, will look like a race barrier. 

Images are shown below:

initial concept art for the bareier

Final product. Same element was copied and tessellated. One was given a white texture, and the other red.
For saving memory (as the game is aimed at the lowest spec devices - Iphones - I have given as much detil as possible through texture. All the detail was added through light and shade created in the texture map.

Different angle of the same race barrier.