Final Piece

The creation of this piece was an exploration of the digital workspace, and the stages of 3D graphics. My intent was to show the many ways an idea can be brought to life through computer graphics, both 2D and 3D by progressing from concept art into a 3D model.

This development was driven by the interesting concept of archetypes, a concept that shaped the way I brainstormed the design of characters/creature ideas to be made into a 3D model.  I chose a creature design over a character design as I believed it would achieve bringing a fantasy idea into a 3D reality greater than a person design. 

Conclusion

to conclude, the final outcome of this piece has both its strengths and weaknesses, I am very happy with the overall appeal of the helmet model both the texturing and mesh came out as good as I could hope for a first independent project on this scale. Something I struggled with is adding life to the creation, whether its through the textures or the mesh, something about the beetle doesn't come across as a living creature, If i could redo anything it would be the eyes of the bug, I would chose to not paint them on but to build them on, but due to complications I had, I couldn't think of a better solution without having to redo the UV mapping or risk breaking the asset.

Another weakness to this piece was the decision to model the two items separately, the two pieces ended up no connecting as I would hope, making the beetle look like it was wearing a helmet instead of being part of it. The reason I chose to do it this way was because with my lack of 3D modelling experience found the concept of modelling two items easier and less risky.

I do think that the final outcome for this project, is very different to what i had in mind at the beginning, which is a negative. I do believe if i hadn't changed direction of the final outcome, I would not have achieved my goal of creating and finishing a final piece.

After completing this piece I now have a greater confidence and understanding of the 3D workflow. As i predicted, the techniques used to create the model will affect how difficult or possible it is to get clean and nice textures through UV wrapping, having now done that process it will be something I will be ready for in other projects. I believe I was successful as controlling risks and making sure there was enough room for error during the entirety of this project, despite having issues that could have been resolved with more file backups. I am very happy with how I manage to deal with the issues I did run into, as I managed to resolve the ones that caused the most complications.