Building Alliance - Reflection:

This blog will contain my reflection of the Building Alliance project, how I thought it went and what we could have done better as a group and how I could have done better personally.

Aims of the Project:

The aims for this project were to create a game choosing between 3 different briefs. Our group chose to focus on the impact of microplastics on the human food chain and the game concept of having a tower defence game located in the body. We wanted to show the microplastics attack the towers in the levels showing how microplastics have an effect on our bodies. This is a group project where we were a 4 person team where we needed to create assets for. 

Key roles and responsibilities:

For our group project we needed to give each other roles depending on our strengths and weaknesses. We discussed it as a group and decided that Seb would be our director as he thought he would be able to lead the team well, trying to include each others ideas whilst also making sure that the work was consistent with what the brief was asking of us. I would be the 3D artist as 3D is one of my strengths as I have 3 years experience with 3D and I feel more confident in my ability to use 3D software compared to creating traditional art. It would also be useful as I have experience with using Unreal Engine so I would be able to help with the Unreal Engine work at the end of the project if we had time to put it into Unreal to see what we have made. Francis was our 2D lead as we wanted to use his skill in 2D for our project as quite a few in the team weren't as confident in creating artwork so we decided to use his skill set to our advantage. Edward was our research lead so that we could get the research we needed for the project. 

Overall reflection of the Project as a Group:

During the start of the project we worked well together when coming up with ideas that we could do for the brief we had chosen and when creating the concept art for it. As the project went on our time management started to affect our ability to work together well as we all work at different times which meant that even though we all managed to do our own work we all finished them at different times which made it harder to keep the project running smoothly. When a task needed to be past to the next person but that person wasn't ready for the next set of tasks it made it difficult as they were still finishing the tasks they had before so it was hard not to make them feel overwhelmed with tasks so sometimes others needed to take over certain tasks to make sure no one was overwhelmed with their task load.

During the project there could have been better communication sometimes as some of the members talked more consistently than others so it made it harder to talk to them to find out about how their work was going as they didn't reply to messages and sometimes didn't come into lessons either. As the project came to a close it made it much harder to find out whether they had finished the work tasked or if one of the others in our group needed to take it over as we were hardly getting replies from them and we couldn't ask them in lesson as they weren't there.

At certain times during the project there was some confusion over who was creating certain assets for the project. At one point our director had asked us to put all the assets we had on the onedrive we shared however when I went to put the assets I had made on there I saw a file already there for the same enemy. I made sure to double check with the director that I was suppose to be doing that model as our director had given a list of assets that needed to be completed and I had offered to take on those models as I had finished the other work that I needed to complete. This left me confused as to why the model had already been done by someone else and having better communication to who was doing what model would have saved us time as two people wouldn't have been spending time doing a model that the other person has already done. 

Self-Reflection:

I felt that I was able to contribute my ideas to the project and I wanted to stay up to date with the progress of the project and even though I felt that I worked at a slower speed with my tasks than others in my team did, I still felt that I was able to keep up to make sure that all of us were getting tasks done at similar times. With creating the 3D assets that I was tasked with I left the UVing of certain models till last minute as I don't feel as confident with UVing as I don't have much practice with creating UVs. I didn't get to practice UVs much on my college course as its not something we focused on so it is a skill that I am still learning and will continue to learn. I did contact our director who has more experience with them to have extra guidance which shows that even though I did try to complete this I still found it a challenging task. During this project I found that I had valuable skills that others in the team didn't have so as the project went on I could support or take over tasks that others struggled with or needed help with. This was helpful for when we had tasks that others felt more comfortable to work on so I would take over tasks that others struggled on that I found much easier so it felt that I was a good asset to the team.

During the project I felt that the communication with the director was quite easy as they replied to messages quite quickly and when giving ideas it felt like they took everyone's opinions into account when making discissions. Being more familiar with the director made it easier to work more collaboratively together making the idea generation or decision making much easier. However when communicating with other members I found it more difficult as a lot of the time I worried that I came across as blunt or demanding when I didn't mean to. When asking for updates on certain parts of the project that others were working on before I was suppose to take over worried me as I just wanted to make sure they were done in time so that it left me time to work on them without me having to rush them before the deadline. Communication is something I struggle with and is partly due to my Autism however I am working on getting better at communication and it is something that I have been getting better at over time with the support I receive. 

During one of my tutorials I had with my tutor I had explained that the way that I work for doing idea generation or creating artwork is easier and quicker for me to do in 3D. With their advice I was able to create most of my work in 3D which helped me to create the work I was being tasked with much quicker and to a better standard of work. This allowed me to show my strengths in 3D when producing the assets that I was tasked with by my director. 

I feel like during this project I have developed skills that I have used during the project and have been able to learn new skills and apply them to this project such as developing my skills with UVing with the help of my director and I learned how to create shaders in Unreal Engine when I created both our cel-shading and outline shaders. I will use these skills in both future solo and group projects when creating assets whether it is for assets made in maya or whether its projects where we are using Unreal Engine and we need certain shaders for a certain look to the game.