Pre-production dev diary
💡︱Week 1: Ideation Methods
Our focus for the day was to explore the process of concept development and the importance of the preproduction stage. We talked about how essential innovation is across a variety of fields, not just the arts. We educated ourselves on different brainstorming methods and how to develop our creativity into ideas.
This method involved the idea of creating a wide range of options that can be further slimmed down in later stages. Linking to the course we could come up with 100 original game ideas to spark new ideas that could be developed.
This is useful as we push our imagination to its limits and provide ourselves with lots more inspiration that can be sparked throughout the whole process.
1) 100 ideas
2) Body storming
Brainstorming involves discussing or jotting down a scenario or idea and breaking it down through a problem-solving process to explore the various aspects of it. This method is useful as it allows us to further develop established ideas and explore them on a more deeper and insightful, this is particularly useful when it comes to games as we can further explore the environment, assets or game mechanics. Brainstorming can also include physically acting out our ideas.
3) Brainwalking
A great opportunity for the participants to get up and move, maintain energy levels, and mix things up just enough to prevent the entire group from becoming stuck for too long on the same one-way route with no clear exit or U-turn. Simply saying, "Go outside and look around!"
4) Brainwriting
Brainwriting is a creative technique that allows for idea generation through a structured collaboration where members of a team can contribute ideas. Each participating method will write down a summary of their idea or solution on a paper, these are passed around allowing the next person to build upon the idea and add their unique perspective and ideas to it. After this process is repeated several times, the papers can be collected and openly discussed further allowing the ideas to be developed or modified and also combine the ideas of several different people to reach the best possible outcome. This method is particularly useful as it provides everyone an opportunity to participate in a less intimidating manner as well as ensuring that everyone's ideas are considered.
5) Sketch Storming
Similar to brainwriting however instead of a summary being written, a sketch is drawn. All these sketches can be then collected and discussed allowing for the best one to be chosen or for several ones to be combined.
7) Conversation
This is something involved in several of the other methods mentioned above because of its importance in the reproduction stage. This encourages engaging in conversation with your peers to discuss and exchange ideas allowing the others to provide their constructive criticism this allows for initial concepts to be refined and produce a more cohesive and successful game design.
6) What If?
This method allows us to further develop our creativity by continuously asking the question "What if" even for seemingly simple prompts/ This is useful as it can unlock new possibilities and solutions by allowing us to view a task from a simple but new perspective and promote innovation.
FMP Week 1: Ideas!
Using a whiteboard for the task we brainstormed game ideas, using the titles of "Theme", "Emotions", "Culture" "Character" and "Time Period" as different aspects of our game ideas. We added words, from nouns to adjectives, relating to our idea under the corresponding title, this allowed us to further develop our initially simple ideas to more robust things that could be developed in the later stage.
1 Idea - Merchant Life
Theme: Prosperity
Emotion: Hopeful
Culture: German
Character: Pilot
Time Period: Industrial Revolution
Take the role of a travelling merchant as you ride on your horse or magic airship across a fantasy land.
Buy goods in one town or kingdom to sell in another.
Navigate through forests, mountains and dangerous storms.
Fight villains, pirates and monsters trying to rob you of your goods.
Upgrade your magic airship and horse to travel further, carry more goods and fight off stronger enemies.
2 Idea - DD Ship
Theme: Utopia
Emotion: Excited
Culture: Spanish
Character: Pilot
Time Period: Prehistoric
Take the role of a pilot who was sucked through a dimensional hole whilst carrying out the fly test, safely landing in an unknown world, populated with alien creatures.
The goal is to find the items needed to travel back to his homeland.
3 Idea - Kamran & Bilal
Theme: Dystopian world
Emotion: Fearful
Culture: Machine Civilization
Character: Android
Time Period: War between Humans and androids
As a cybernetic supersoldier created by the government, You are placed in hibernation with a singular purpose—to safeguard the world in the case of a catastrophic crisis, one that could destroy the entire Earth's existence.
The years rolled by, and the world changed beyond recognition. 11,000 years later, You wake up from your long slumber, into a world unrecognizable from the one you left behind. Earth has been ruined and destroyed by androids that had once served humans.
Your purpose is to eliminate all evil androids as the protector of the remaining humankind.
4 Idea
Theme: Action
Emotion: Secretive
Culture: Machine
Character: Test subject
Time Period: Modern day
Take the role of a test subject in an experiment studying superhumans after years of torment in the name of research, left bruised and vindicative. A sudden accident in the laboratory provides the test subject with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for escape.
During gameplay, you are tasked with carefully manoeuvring through the lab, avoiding guards and security measures.
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
This week we discussed how innovation is vital in many industries, not just the arts, and how to cultivate creativity. During the day, we focused on concept generation and the significance of the preproduction stage. We worked in the classroom individually and in groups.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
Overall I was fascinated about the content but found it frustrating to make notes quickly.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
The challenging thing was linking ideas from the board to create a game but being flexible and adaptable to work around task themes was good as it broadened my creativity.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
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Why didn’t it go well?
Things went well as the content was delivered in a way I could understand. Working in groups has some benefits too as it further helped my understanding, I learned from my peers and the work progressed fast. The thing I struggled with was making notes quickly before having to move on.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learned how to be a productive team member to benefit the working process and not to be the weakest link.
Action plan
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what would I do differently next time?
To liaise with my team members. To assess the timeline. Use reflective practice. To take my classmate's opinions into greater consideration.
📁︱Week 2: Game Design Document
Today's lesson focused on making a Game Design Document (GDD), providing an overview of the game and its different aspects. The image below showcases the first draft of a GDD made by the team. Examples of other GDDs by other groups are also shown.
In this lesson, we focused on making a Game Design Document (GDD). After a discussion with my group and coming to a consensus on what our game would be, we started to work on producing a GDD, outlining the content, intro, overview and more. The GDD is presented below.
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
This lesson was all about creating GDDs. We began by discussing our ideas for our game with our groups and then went on to create a GDD. We wrote paragraphs that outline the content, introduction, summary, and more. We worked in the classroom in previously set groups.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
I felt quite secure working with my team members as some of their thoughts or ideas covered my gaps in knowledge of certain things, for example by clarifying the task for me in a way I found easier to understand
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
Overall the working process went well. I felt that my comments were valued and were taken into consideration by my group. I appreciated moments when I asked them to be more specific so I could understand what they meant by certain things.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
Every member of the team was productive, participative and attentive to each other which was beneficial for combining ideas and sticking to the timeline.
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Why didn’t it go well?
Working within a group most of us had many different ideas that conflicted with one another that sometimes we couldn't agree on which led to misunderstandings and wasted time.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learned how working in a group can ease the workload as everyone has their strengths which can be beneficial in completing tasks by delgating specific tasks fitting to an individual's skills.
Action plan
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What would I do differently next time?
Taking into account the thoughts of others and being more proactive in sharing my thoughts and ideas based on the knowledge and evidence of my understanding of the content.
The work in progress Moodbord
Using ISolardies, I collected a range of images that provided me with inspiration for my sketching process. When choosing my images I arranged them to fit the style and emotion of the game me and my team had decided we will be developing. The following link leads to the moodboard:
The work in progress
Above are sketches of battery cells, trees and an oil pump. The designs are very different as the group was still roughly trying to decide on the theme and aesthetic of the game from sci-fi to fantasy so through my sketches I tried to create an idea of what we liked best and thought suited the project best by trying to create a design for a range of genres.
✏️ | Week 3: Early Design and Ideation
Shape Language
The starting segment of the lesson focused on the concept of 'shape language' and we explored how simple 2D shapes can be effectively utilised to symbolise and communicate the attributes of characters or objects. We engaged in an activity analysing the shapes a character is made of and how it relates to the character's personality or role. For example, circular-based characters will be seen as calmer or safer as opposed to triangular or more angled characters who will be described as more violent or aggressive.
Subsequently, based on this information we played around with shames utilising them to conceptualise and represent our unique characters, selecting a sketch of one of these to continue developing further.
Example of Shape language when designing more complex characters
Example of Shape language when designing more complex characters
In the following part of the lesson, using our selected sketch we delved further into the idea of shapes now exploring how we can manipulate their size, length and form to convey a certain persona. Using the same character we played around with adding and changing various details to see how impactful each is on the character design.
How to Draw in One and Two Point Perspective
How to Draw in One and Two Point Perspective
In this lesson, we explored perspective by practising one and two-point perspective drawing techniques. We started with a one-point perspective by creating a horizon line and identifying a vanishing point where all lines converge. Following this, I added a road and adjusted its position to align with the established perspective lines. To enhance the sketch, I incorporated objects that suit the scene such as trees and manipulated them to conform to the perspective. Furthermore, I made necessary adjustments to add depth and make the scene more three-dimensional.
For my two-point perspective scene, I followed the same steps, but this time, I had two vanishing points that extended towards the centre of the image where the main focus was.
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
During this lesson, we practised drawing both one-point and two-point perspectives. By following a set of rules for each perspective that can be adapted to add varying amounts of details.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
I felt quite secure and confident during the lesson, as I think my practical drawing abilities are a strength of mine. I was able to submit my work in time and receive some positive feedback that further helped boost my confidence.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
A good part of the experience was I was able to utilise my preexisting knowledge of perspective and implement into my practice drawings, this made the lesson easier for me to understand and participate in.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
I was able to be productive and stick to a timeline due to my prior abilities in drawing.
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Why didn’t it go well?
During this lesson, I didn't feel like I faced any difficulties.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
From the situation, I learned that recalling the things you have previously learned is always beneficial through practice as helps to consolidate your knowledge and ingrain it in your brain.
Action plan
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What would I do differently next time?
Seek more challenging drawing opportunities to further develop my abilities.
The work in progress
Above are some of my first sketches of the environment and structures. A temple or pyramid structure is something that my group had discussed so I made a variety of pillar sketches that we could incorporate into each and give us a rough idea of their aesthetic. I sketched some sky islands to assist a teammate working on the environment to help them with inspiration and provide them a good idea of the layout of the environment that the team had agreed upon.
Tutorial for Blenders
The left is one of my first experimental models using Blender where I practised creating a battery cell to try out the different tools and possibly plan how I could use each when modelling the actual assets.
For example, I practised making shapes and combining them to create a specific composition in this case a battery cell, establishing these simple skills made modelling in later processes easier for me.
The videos on the below list were very helpful tutorials that helped me learn how to model objects with Blender. I chose these tutorials because, although I had previously used Maya for modelling, Blender has some new definitions that I did not know about, so they helped guide me and I was able to draw comparisons through my established understanding of Maya.
Tutorial Blenders video
This video showcases different tools used for modelling and creating specific shapes showing me examples of each.
As I am used to Maya, this video-assisted me with setting up hotkeys to simulate Maya such as the transform tool, as this made the process quicker as it fit my preferences.
This video developed my understanding of the tools in a simple way I could understand and how each of these could be used.
This video showed me the process of UV mapping an object to create a flat shape to allow the texture to be added to it later and was very important during my modelling process.
🏛️︱Week 4: Game Pillars, Visual Identity, Emotional Hooks, Style frames
Game Pillars
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Exploration: Encouraging players to discover the detailed island environments of SolarSides.
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Atmospheric Environments: Immersive and visually captivating environments with different ways of traversing to get to your destination in the fastest time possible
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Physics-Based Elements: interactive elements in the environment, such as battery cells to refuel the ship which impacts gameplay.
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Clean Art: A clean and distinct art style that focuses on minimising visual clutter to encourage fast and fun time-trial gameplay
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
This week we focused on our chosen game pillars. We worked in a group to share our ideas on the environment, atmosphere, physics-based components and the best combination of these that will create a fascinating game.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
I felt a bit frustrated as my peers were coming up with ideas too fast, and it took time for me to clarify their ideas.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
Collaborative work was more effective as people came up with exciting ideas that I hadn't thought about. The hard part was unable to work at the same speed as my peers not allowing me to engage and find the right words to share my ideas with the group as much as I would have liked to.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
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Why didn’t it go well?
Things went well as my team members were very engaging, supportive and creative. The negative part is that the session felt too quick and didn't allow me to engage wth the task fully and record and make my own notes.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learned how to be a more engaging member when contributing to the working process.
Action plan
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What would I do differently next time?
To be able to jump in when things needed clarification for me to avoid misunderstandings as quick as possible.
The work in progress
Above are my sketches of a windmill, lighthouse, and various aspects of the environment. I tried to create a variety of designs for my teammates to choose from.
Art Style Research
I extended discussions with my group about the art style we thought was most fitting, a cartoon/anime look with simple but distinct features. I conducted some personal research to see ways this art style could be drawn in particular I focused on the recent Zelda games, particularly Tears of the Kingdom and I also looked at Tales of Vesperia. By analysing these two games I noticed that the environment had a simpler look with a few details for example ancient engravings on a rock. The colours used were vibrant and each aspect was very distinct from one another for example trees and shrubbery were very distinguishable from the grass. This made me explore a simple but clear look.
Through my research I focused on the temple/shrine aspects of the games above noticing how clear the engravings and patterns were in each, to provide the ancient look but the rocks were simple often brown or grey with some texture. This is shown through my sketches where I mostly focused on having unique engravings in columns or pillars.
📝︱Week 5: Game Design
Today's lesson we focused on game design where we delved in deeper into the contributing elements of the process. We discussed things from players and assets to game mechanics and objectives or map boundaries and how we can manipulate each to create a cohesive game where all the elements intertwine in a planned and seamless manner to create more engaging gameplay and thus create a successful game. Focusing on the rules of the game we learnt how establishing this from early on in the process is very helpful as it helps other elements come together better such rules could include health bars, how many weapons you can carry, stamina, and map boundaries. Linking off the game rules we can develop these further to create assets, players, enemies, and objectives that make the game more detailed and enjoyable.
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
Following our lecture on game design, we incorporated it into our investigations of our concepts and game flows to weigh out the advantages and disadvantages and how we can design engaging environments and rules.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
I felt a bit frustrated as some words were used I didn't understand at first making the rest of the information difficult for me to understand and I needed further clarification from my peers later to fully understand the content of our group's discussions.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
I gained useful insight and knowledge of an important aspect of the game industry and what a career in it would entail. The negative aspect was the need for my peers to rephrase what they were saying quite often so I could maintain my understanding.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
Members of my group assisted me to ensure I understood what was being discussed by our group and the lesson.
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Why didn’t it go well?
The negative aspect was that I needed more time to process the information delivered during the lesson.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learned that I need more time for independent research to fill the gaps in my knowledge.
Action plan
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What would I do differently next time?
To be proactive in seeking help when I need it from my teachers and classmates.
The work in progress
Here I made sketches of a ship in particularly focusing on its wings, a ring-like structure/statue made of rocks, a statue of a guardian and a crystal rock.
Tutorial Substance Painter
The following tutorial demonstrates how to create stylised textures that resemble a cartoon/animated look.
This video guide showcases how texture can be used to imitate a Studio Ghibli art style as this is what my team had wanted for our project.
This video further devlops the idea of creating stylised textures to imitate everyday objects but in a unique cartoon style.
🗣︱Week 6: Formative
During this lecture, the students were selected at random by the teacher to take part in an ongoing review of the current final project. To demonstrate how far the work has progressed, we had to briefly introduce ourselves and our game concept, along with the name and plot
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
This week is a review week. Individually in the classroom, we talked about the things which had been done so far for the project. Reviewing the progress of our work through the interview.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
I felt quite comfortable discussing my work so far as the tutor's feedback allowed me to identify what could be done differently to improve our work.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
The good thing was that I enjoyed talking about the artwork I had done so far as I consider this a strength of mine and the way I contribute to my group. The inconvenient thing was that I wasn't able to see the progress my other team members had made on the project.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
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Why didn’t it go well?
Things went well because of the friendly atmosphere where emphasis was made on positive aspects rather than on the negatives. The lack of information on my team member's progress made me feel ill-prepared to discuss our project as I felt like I wasn't fully caught up.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I was engaged in an interview process which is essential in presenting your work, It helped me to build up my confidence in communication. Reviewing the progress of my work helped me to be reflective to see what can I do better.
Action plan
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what would I do differently next time?
To more actively engage with my team and update myself on what they're working on and how it is coming along so I can ensure I'm informed on how the project is coming along all together.
The work in progress
Here are sketches of a tree stump or log, a bucket, a chest, a sign and temple/pyramid aspects. I used blue to roughly colour in and shade some of my drawings as this fit the theme of our game project. I made several different sketches discussing with my team which they liked and what aspects they liked to get an idea of what should be included in the final models of the assets.
Tutorial Zbrush
Zbrush is a sculpting software to create high detail models, using the following tutorials i was able to develop my skills on ZBrush, and see how this can be incoperated in our project./ In particular this will be useful when creating ruins in the game, through scratches, dents, engravings or further details that would further enhance the theme we were trying to achieve.
👨🏻︱Week 7: Production Techniques
This week we discussed the project management of teams. We discussed how the success of the group can be dependent on the group you've been placed with. We talked about some of the problems with working within a group this included people not having the necessary skills or a similar skillset to you or other members and how that can contribute to a project being unsuccessful. Another contributing factor is the team's leadership, sometimes changing the project when a considerable amount of progress has been made. We talked about the importance of communication and delegation, ensuring that all the members of a team are working on the task that best highlights their skills and allow them to contribute to the team but also how even when working on different aspects consistent communication is needed to happen to ensure everyone is updated on the progress. We talked about meetings and how these can come in different forms to achieve different goals.
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
In a classroom we went through a lecture where we explored the different types of individuals in a team and the difficulties and how to overcome them when it comes to working in a team so we can avoid failures.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
Sometimes it was difficult for me to understand some of the vocabulary being used by the teachers and this affected my understanding of the lecture.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
For me, it was good to understand the different team dynamics and helped my understanding of a future career and what things can be done to tackle obstacles when it comes to difficult or unsuccessful teams. Some of the content of the lecture was hard for me to understand because I didn't understand or had never heard of some of the words being used.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
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Why didn’t it go well?
Things went well because I was able to link the information to my own experiences of working in a group, about the difficulties that can be faced and what can be done as this is something I had seen before and was able to understand, but also developing my understanding of it will make my future work in teams easier. Some things didn't go well because I didn't understand some of the words and this meant my understanding was limited.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learned about the importance of teamwork and leadership and the qualities and skills needed for both. We learned about the different forms of communication through meetings the idea of delegation and the breakdown of a larger task or goal into various manageable tasks that can be given to people based on their character type or unique skills.
Action plan
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what would I do differently next time?
Next time after the lecture I can search for the words I didn't understand and either simplify it or ask someone else to simplify it in a way where I will be able to understand the information. I can also ask my classmates to explain the lecture to me in a simple way.
The work in progress
With my group, we decided the assets we wanted were a column to go in the temple, a bridge and a landing pad. I began to develop my sketches after conferring with my teammates and utilising their feedback to edit any sketches they liked and combine their favourite elements. I developed the sketches using colour and shading to add details that would help me when converting them into 3D models.
Using Zbrush I was able to sculpt the above models, I created scratches and other marks and a rough and jagged look when creating the rock and pillar models. I was able to also utilise skills from the videos I watched previously in order to create a wooden texture on a signpost.
📚︱Week 8: Documentation and Scheduling
Our focus for the week we learn more about project plans, particularly the parts of documentation and scheduling the project. We learned about the different ways we can document our work and the do's and don't's. We looked at how keeping the documentation clear and simple throughout is important, so using headings and section overviews or using a bullet point format when appropriate and how this can make the documentation process better.
Our team was introduced to the software Trello. This allowed us to streamline the scheduling of the project plan to ensure team members were able to convey to others what they were working on and what they needed to do. It provides an easy way to delegate responsibilities and track progress to allow the project to move through different phases through the creation of boards, lists and cards that help with organisation and collaboration.
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
We looked at breaking down our project into tasks that can be scheduled to create a timeline. Looking at different structures, we saw a range of ways to map out a schedule for us to work on and ensure all the tasks needed for the completion of a goal are met before a deadline.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
The amount of information although useful felt very overwhelming as there were many different things I had to learn in one go. Also similarly to other weeks, with so much information also came a lot of words I didn't understand which made me feel confused.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
Once again the amount of information and new vocabulary was overwhelming and it made the experience bad as I didn't understand many things. A good thing about the experience was learning about things I can do to make the project easier and more successful.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
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Why didn’t it go well?
Things went well because I was presented with a varying amount of information and advice, particularly with the different structures that can be used to break a project plan this allowed me to choose something that fits my work style best. Things didn't go well because some of my understanding was cut because of my limited vocabulary.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learnt about different documentation and scheduling methods and which of these could fit my work style.
Action plan
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what would I do differently next time?
Next time I can look over the content again and break it down into simpler information and maybe try to experiment with some of the techniques being discussed to see if they work for me.
The work in progress
The above images are my 3D models of the assets for the game. Using Blender I made a low poly model of the assets, exporting these objects to Zbrush to make them more high quality with details in high poly. Lastly, to create texture I used a Substance painter and used the baking tool.
📊︱Week 10: Presentation Prep
Our focus for the week as our project is coming towards the end was about presentation and what we need to do to have ourselves ready to perform the next week. The template of the presentation prepared is shown below. We discussed how to work with our team to collect information and present clearly through our PowerPoint to discuss the aspects of our game the process and the final goal.
The work in progress
The examples of work done by me for the presentation are shown above. The first image is my thumbnails which represent my vision of the game environment chosen by our team. The second image is UI which explains how the game will be played. The third image is an icon of the island. The last image represents Project Pipeline helping understand the icon's meaning.
🎤︱Week 11: Presentation case
This week is presentation week to review the teamwork done so far. The presentation of work was done to the whole class including the tutor. I made sure that the layout of the presentation in slides looked neat and professional. The members of the team: Kamran, Selya and myself took part in the spoken presentation of the game we are producing. We used our slides on the board which included sketches, written explanations, 3D modelling and short videos of the game so far to support our presentation. At the end of our presentation, we took into account the feedback given by the tutor. We had a lot of positive feedback about our game idea, especially the sketches done with multiple ideas of a particular asset. We also had an opportunity to look at the presentations of other students to learn from them to see what are we missing and we filled the gaps.
Reflective
Description
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What happened?
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When and where did it happen?
This week, I took part in a team presentation in class where I had a role to talk with my team members. We were presenting our work in producing our own game using slides to support our talking. In the end, we had an opportunity to hear feedback from our tutor.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
I was worried about our presentation of how well it would be. I was also worried about being confident enough to get involved in the spoken part of the presentation to be understood by the audience as I make some mistakes in pronouncing some words. The reassuring thing was to get positive feedback about the presentation.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
The good thing was to be involved in spoken presentations as it helped to build up my confidence in communication. The overall feedback about the presentation was good and the progress was agreed.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
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Why didn’t it go well?
In my opinion, the presentation went well because we worked as a team and were supportive of each other. We valued the ideas of each in producing our work. The multiple images of a particular asset also benefit our presentation in a practical aspect. If I could be more confident in writing and communicating skills the presentation could be better.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learned how to work in a team and felt more responsible for not letting down the others. I was involved in a new experience such as a presentation and it helped me to build up my self-confidence.
Action plan
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what would I do differently next time?
To practice talking in front of an audience to develop self-confidence and self-esteem.
︱Week 12: Project Review
Reflective
Description
In this project so far I have had to overcome many challenges, particularly with my limited vocabulary and communication skills however through the lectures on teamwork I found this to be slightly eased. Also being taught a bit more about scheduling and how to timeline our project plan was useful to me as I was at times overwhelmed by the content and my busier schedule. One thing I was happy with was the ability to develop my skills in new software for example Blender and Zbrush. Additionally, the opportunity to work in a larger team was insightful to me and taught me new things and how to adapt to new situations and also used my team to get feedback so i could improve my work which was useful for me whilst working I think improved my sketches and models.
Feelings
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What were you feeling during the situation?
I felt overwhelmed at times because of the volume of the content being presented that I often had difficulties understanding and would have to spend lots of time looking over after. However, I was also excited to work with new people and learn new skills, the people I worked with were very nice and helped when I came to them asking for help and I would extend this to them when they asked for my help. Being part of such a collaborative process was very enjoyable and I felt like we made lots of progress together that we couldn't have achieved if we were working independently.
Evaluation
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What was good and bad about the experience?
Being able to collaborate with people to improve myself and my work was very good and i felt like it imitated what working in the industry would be like. However having to initially put myself out there to my group and adapt my communication to a new scenario was difficult, especially working with new people as sometimes our conversations were delayed or i didn't fully understand what someone meant and would have to clarify.
Analysis
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Why did things go well?
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Why didn’t it go well?
I think things went well because i became more proactive in asking for help when i needed it from a range of people. However, things didn't go well because i felt a drop in my confidence because of my limited skills in writing or talking which made it difficult for me and other members of my team.
Conclusions
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What did I learn from this situation?
I learnt more about the process of working in a team and being able to see and the apply the information taught to me about teamwork and leadership and adapt to fit my team to allow us to work efficiently and ensure everyone is doing tasks that fit their abilities to ensure the group's success.
Action plan
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what would I do differently next time?
Next time i would spend more time reviewing my past lectures and try rewriting them to be more simple and fit my level of understanding so i felt more confident to work independently without the constant need for assistance particularly when clarifying certain definitions.