Unit 9-10 Final Evaluation
How has your diorama/level met the needs of your audience?
During the initial outline in my proposal where I spoke about what my diorama would include I made a mention of implementing a dark atmosphere that would present a depressing time in western history that would grab an audience of 15-20 year olds attention and generate a mature audiences interest in my diorama. Whilst I believe that the creation of the majority of my assets spoken about within my proposal I have not been able to capture the dark and depressing atmosphere that I first envisioned, one reason for this being the reason that I am just not experienced enough in producing environmental art pieces whilst another being the fact that with the approaching deadline and difficulty being found in texturing I decided to in the end keep it simple and just give it a texture that suited the assets and presented a realistic and graphical environment although my audience may not be too interested in it due to the absence of some of earlier asset outlines such as a totem pole which I have excluded from my final product due to time constraints. Overall my chosen audience may not be as enraptured as I first envisioned them being so but in the end they may just end up glimpsing over it for a short period of time before moving on the the next art piece.
How did your audience research inform the development of your idea?
For my audience I decided on an age range of 15 – 20 as I wanted a diorama that could appeal to a mature demographic and to start off my research for this group I viewed multiple sources that featured charts presenting musical interests, favourite colours as well as statistics on what games they play alongside their favourite film genres. The research conducted informed me what features would gather their interest in my diorama as the chart presenting the favourite film genre interests motivated me to choose a graphical art style as one of the preferred film genres is animation and so this led to me focusing on a similar art style.
I also researched which genders prefer playing games the most and this helped to influence the development of my final product as it showed me whether I should aim my diorama towards a female or male audience and with the percentage of gamers being mainly male approximately 54% I have chosen to aim my product towards them after conducting this research whilst another reason for this being that I share the same interests as this group due to being included among them and so I know a few aspects of my diorama that will have to be included in order to draw their attention and gain their interest in my product.
In my final phase of audience research I created a profile board which includes all of the brands, games and interests of my gender and age group, I chose to do this as my last phase as throughout my diorama I was made to study my audience briefly without much time to spare and so the creation of this profile allowed me to quickly pick out what it is my audience is interested in and how I can use to the best of my abilities within my diorama, the creation of this profile board led to the layout of my colour as well as the inclusion of multiple assets most notably the tipi which was inspired by the inclusion of Red Dead Redemption 2 on my profile board.
Review your research and final product and identify how it reflects the identified characteristics and contexts of a 3D/2D diorama or Level.
For my research I went through a wide variety of areas such as creating moodboards, a mindmap as well as including a video featuring a hand crafted diorama for a triple A title. All of the contextual research I have conducted reflects the identified characteristics of a diorama as I have viewed multiple examples of professional products whilst I have also created a series of mood boards featuring development dioramas that showcase test pieces as well as final products and I have even included dioramas that you would see in museums that have been hand crafted using miniature models and hand painted textures and assets. I have spoken about what my diorama can include after conducting all of my research where I have attempted to produce a faint outline of my upcoming design.
The research that I conducted around this sector of the project has all remained relevant and provided me with a large amount of references that I was able to use during the creation of my final product.
From what my research shows I can see that a diorama is the majority of the time presented in self enclosed space that can be either internal or external though there is a visible end to the piece and you can see where it stops. Despite conducting this research I did run into some altercations during my ideas generation where I created very large environment pieces that did not fit the definition of diorama and so to fix this I went back and viewed my research that showed me what the characteristics are and how they are best presented.
The final product that I managed to complete in an old western theme reflects on the characteristics of a diorama as I have designed it in a dome like environment that is self enclosed as an external piece that allows you to see the end point as well as the starting point whilst the perspective I have given it allows you to view the entire scene without having to strain yourself by searching through an overly large conceptual art piece.
Reflect on your learning and skills – What you have done and why you have done it?
Throughout the course of creating my western themed diorama and close up individual asset I made a multitude of decisions that impacted the outcome of my project that have developed my skills and taught me new lessons in creating environment art and conceptual environment pieces.
For my main idea I decided to create a diorama set within the great plains of the old west in north America that featured a flat landscape that would allow me to place multiple assets that represented a Native American campsite. I came up with this idea as in the old western theme Native americans are utilised greatly as they are one of the main inhabitants of this area within the time period and have also been underrepresented in modern day productions despite Red Dead Redemption 2 which featured a large community of natives and helped to inspire my product through the tipi and campsite designs. I also have a great interest in this group of people as I find their way of life in an area of industrial modernisation to be unique and somewhat rebellious due to their unwillingness to conform and adopt western technology. Despite mentioning my wish to incorporate a flat terrain onto my diorama I have since gone against that original thought and instead used a mountain range in the background as I struggled with creating a perfectly flat base around all sides for my diorama. For the ground I have made it appear as if it has been violently torn from the surface and ejected into the air as the dirt is serrated and jabs out with multiple sharp ends whilst the sides of it are engraved with stone imprints that were previously below the dirt before it was ripped out and the reason I made it appear like this is because I wanted my diorama to have a unique appearance to it and didn’t want to have a flat base that just appeared dull and unoriginal and so applying this sketch to my dirt has given it a far better appearance and is one of the features that I have favourited from this project.
For my individual asset I made the decision to design a detailed tipi concept that would grant the audience a closer view at one of the main assets of my 2D diorama whilst I have also chosen to present this one due to its prominent presence within the western genre and most commonly being associated with the western genre with a presence in almost every old western production created. With my tipi i used a variety of colours which I have done to make it stand out more and appear as a true resemblance of an old native american tipi that is reflective of the time period. Unlike in my final product for my diorama my tipi does not exclude line art and the reason for that being is that since it is a close up image I decided to keep it as neat as possible and let the outline remain so that the tipi would look properly organised and placed.
Sum up your ongoing evaluations/opinions/reflections that you documented during the project.
Throughout this project I have left lengthy annotations on the screenshots that describe the process I have gone through and how I achieved the outcome, alongside this I my evaluated research contains the information that led to the development of my final product. For each section I have kept my written work relevant and consistent that consecutively evaluate the progress I have made on each part of this project, I have been critical of myself and spoke of what I like and dislike about my work as well as listing what it is I need to improve upon whilst also pointing out what it is that I believe I have done well. This self criticism has led to improving the overall quality of my work throughout the course. The annotations I have typed out are informative and tell the viewer what current process I am going through as well as stating what it is that will be occurring next in the development process. Overall I have consistently given myself critique whilst informing the viewer what it is that is occurring on screen whilst listing my own views of the work I have produced on this project within the western theme that we have been assigned.
What do you feel has worked well and what did not work well? What could you do to improve your work?
Throughout the development process of this project I encountered many irregularities in my work that hindered me or allowed me to proceed without difficulty, the first area of my project that I believe worked well was the way in which I have conducted my research for my idea and my audience, these were done through the creation of mood boards and mind maps as well as viewing multiple online sources that presented charts, graphs and information regarding the area that I had to study. This research gathered gave me a suitable understanding of the project and allowed me to formulate an idea for my chosen audience that would appeal to them whilst keeping the idea interesting and giving me room to develop it further. Another aspect of this project that I believe went sufficiently well is the development of my detailed individual asset which for this I chose to design a tipi and for this design I created a fairly simple yet realistic tipi that fit within the theme and gave the audience a closer look at how I envisioned my project, though despite this I do believe I could improve on it if I were to apply a further texture to it that would allow me to void the line art and just have it appear with texture only.
Despite being relatively satisfied with the outcome of my final product I do a feeling of discontent towards some aspects of it which includes the base texture and the design of the dirt and water, to improve these I would utilise different textures and implement highlights that were more befitting for what I had in mind as although I have the graphical appearance that I was seeking I would still like to have applied a more painterly feel to some of my assets as I believe it would have made my diorama look much better than it is in its current state. One area that went well for me was the design of the mountain range as I wanted to use a flat colour that gave it a graphical texture that made them interesting and eye catching for my audience which I do believe I have achieved, to improve the overall appearance of my mountains I have used a layer mask that adds a mist over them which adds more atmosphere into my diorama. Along with the mountains I also like the way in which I have designed my firepit as the texture I used for the flames and smoke makes it seem as if it is truly burning and lighting up the campsite, this asset is one of my favourites and is one that I took enjoyment in creating despite my crippling interest in the theme. Among the aspects that I view positively I include my tipis within as well because during the initial process of designing these assets I assumed they would not hold a great amount of detail and would look stale within my scene but after applying a texture and implementing some detail onto these tipis they have come out looking reasonably well and act properly as the main focus point of my diorama.
Finally another aspect that I like is the design of the rocks that I have placed within my river as they reflect the references I utilised whilst fulfilling their purpose without any risk of being mistaken for any other asset that I may have been using them for instead.
Overall to improve my work I need to focus more on practicing with environment design and create large conceptual pieces that thoroughly present an idea, alongside this I need to experiment more with textures and working without line art so I can get a professional looking concept that utilises all of my skills though some still need to be acquired before I am able to become skilled at environment art.
Reflect on peer and tutor feedback.
Throughout the interims I have received feedback from both my peers and tutors which has led to me improving the overall quality of my work whilst learning new techniques and ways to perform certain tasks. One word of advice that I received was to utilise a flat texture for my diorama as it would give me the graphical appearance that was present in my reference image, following this advice I was able to create a texture that fit my diorama and gave off the impression that I was after.
Some more advice revolved around my brush settings which led to me using a smaller brush that gave off a more skinnier appearance to my sketches and allowed me more flexibility in designing concepts that I was previously struggling with.
More advice included the layer settings which upon receiving this feedback led to me utilisting this feature to implement the bumpy texture that is seen on the base of my diorama within my grass and rocky dirt.
What have you learned during this project?
One thing that I have taken from this project is how to sketch a background concept including a mountain range as although I am still not up to scratch on foreground sketches for environment pieces my mountain design is one that I am satisfied with and genuinely happy with its overall outcome and the way in which I have designed these mountains has been learnt from tutor feedback where I was advised to draw them as if they are receding in the distance so it makes my diorama seem larger than it really is, alongside this I have also learnt an efficient way of texturing an art piece as my previous method was not efficient and led to an uneven mess which can be seen in my ideas generation but the new method that I have acquired on this project has been learnt through using the polygonal lasso tool which allows me to colour only inside a selected area, this made texturing my diorama much easier and led to the final out come which can be observed now.
Although I have since lost interest in the theme due to my lack of interest in the old west I have still learnt valuable lessons from this project which I can apply in the future and despite finding a lot of my outcomes unsatisfactory from what I previously had in mind I now know what it is I need to improve upon and can focus on these aspects and improve so that the next time I create a diorama I can appear more enthusiastic towards the outcome and gain more satisfying results, before achieving this though I will need to practice more on applying textures and practicing on environment design.
Level 3 Games Development Spencer Lee 