Josephdyegamesdevelopment.files.wordpress.com



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UAL Diploma Creative Media Production

Student Name: Joseph Dye

Pathway: Games Development – Year 1

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Figure 1 A 5 minute render from the front of the console. Rendered using KeyShot, textured using Substance Painter.

Unit 5 Investigating Audio Production and Technology

Unit 6 Investigating Visual Production and Technology

Unit 7 Investigation Interactive Media Production and Technology

Contents

Chapter 1 – Week 1 4

The Project 4

Introduction to 3D 4

3D Games Cartridge 12

Console Brand Presentation 14

Industrial Design Homework 15

Chapter 3 – Week 3 18

3D Gameboy 18

Introduction to Sound 29

Current Consoles 30

Chapter 4 – Week 4 32

Introduction to Sound 32

Concept Art of Console 33

Scriptwriting 34

Chapter 5 – Week 5 36

Sound 36

Model Creation 39

Chapter 6 – Week 6 57

Video Creation 57

Evaluation 63

Video Creation 72

Figure 1 A 5 minute render from the front of the console. Rendered using KeyShot, textured using Substance Painter. 1

Chapter 1 – Week 1

The Project

Our project for this term is to create a design for the next generation of consoles with the class being split up in to groups and each being assigned a company that we would be producing the console for. I was placed in to a group with Barry and Charlie, and we were assigned Nintendo as our company. After being put in groups we were shown a PowerPoint detailing important games consoles that were released and we were told to consider the ethos and design philosophies of the companies.

Introduction to 3D

Adam introduced us to 3D by opening the software we were going to be using (3DS Max) and explaining the basics of the software to us. We were shown how to configure the software settings, navigate the viewport, how to create a cube and how to UV unwrap the object and then texture it. After being shown these things we were tasked with creating a box that had the dimensions of a Gameboy Box and then texturing it to look like a box for our games from Term 1.

The first step in completing this task was to change the measurement system from imperial to metric. To do this I clicked on the “Customise” button on the naviagtion bar and then clicked on the “Units setup…” option.

I’ve worked with 3DS max for the last 6 months and have used Blender – a free alternative – for a few years before that. As such I didn’t learn much from this introduction but I did find the task quite fun.

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A window appeared and I selected the radio button labelled “Metric”. In the drop down menu next to that I set the units to millimeters. I also clicked the “System Units” button and changed the option in that to millimeters.

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The next step was to create a box with the correct dimensions (126, 126, 24). To do this I had to go to the panel on the left, ensure the create tab was selected and then select “box”. I changed the option to “cube” and then click and dragged on the viewport to create a cube.

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I then selected the “modifiers” tab (the one next to the create tab) and set the correct dimensions in the “parameters” section.

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I typed the correct dimensions in to the length, width and height boxes to make the cube the correct dimensions.

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I centered the box by pressing “W” (the hotkey for the move tool) and then typing (0, 0, 0) in to the boxes below the viewport.

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The next step was to unwrap the box so that I could export the UVs for painting. Before doing this I had to convert the box to an “Editable Poly” which allows me to add modifiers to the object and allows me to manipulate verts, edges and faces. I did this by right clicking on the box, selecting “Convert to” form the menu and then selecting “Editable Poly”.

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Then, in the modifiers tab, I clicked on the drop down marked “Modifier List” and typed “unwrap”. This selected the “Unrwap UVs” modifer from the list which allows me to – as the name suggests – unwrap the objects UVs. With the modifier added I scrolled to the bottom of the panel and under the “Peel” section I selected the second button (named “peel mode”).

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Selecting this option made the UV editor window appear. I clicked on the “Tools” option in the menu bar and then selected “Render UVW Template”.

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A window appeared and I set the dimensions of the UVs to 2048x2048 and selected the “Render UV Template” button.

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This caused yet another window to appear. In this window I clicked on the save icon and saved the UV template to the disk.

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To create the texture I opened the template in photoshop and added what I wanted to each face by placing images inside of the green boxes.

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To apply the texture to my object I pressed “M” to open the material editor, dragged a standard material into the view and then double clicked on the “Diffuse Color” node. Doing this caused a window to appear and I selected “Bitmap” from the widnow and then navigated to my texture location. I rotated faces so they were the right way up on the box.

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This added a Bitmap output node to the view and automatically connected it to the Standard material shader. To get the texture to show on the box in the viewport I had to select the “Assign Material to Selection” and “Show Shaded Material In Viewport” options in the ribbon.

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I’ve used 3DS Max for the past 4 months and Blender – a free alternative – for two years before that. As such I didn’t learn much. The things covered in the lecture were very simple, but very important since you can’t even begin to model without understanding how to move around in the viewport, how to configure your settings and how to move, rotate and scale objects and selections. Any 3D project in the future will require performing these functions so I will be applying what I “learnt” very frequently.

Chapter 2 – Week 2

3D Games Cartridge

Screenshots didn’t transfer from google docs to Microsoft word. Will redo the screenshots.

In this lesson Adam told us we were going to be creating a 3D model of a Sega Master System cartridge and then he began a lecture to explain the tools that should be used to create the cartridge. Since I have some experience with 3D modelling Adam allowed me to begin modelling the cartridge while he was giving the lecture to the others.

I grabbed a few reference images off the internet and began to create the model. I started with a box that I dragged out to the rough shape of the cartridge – I wasn’t precise with the dimensions as Adam told us not to worry about it. After creating the box I converted it to an editable poly and then began to add edges for the ridges on the front that wrap to the sides. I added these edges by placing a single edge using the swift loop tool and then splitting them into more edges using the chamfer tool twice.

I then selected placed two edges on the back of the object to mark where the ridges stopped on the back. I then selected the correct faces and extruded them to a level of 0. I set 0 since the extrusion would cause odd results otherwise. Using 0 means the new faces are created but they aren’t moved at all. I then selected the faces on the sides of the objects and scaled them inwards, then selected the faces on the front and back of the object and scaled them inwards too.

The scaling of the sides worked well but it created an odd angle on the back of the object. I used the make planar tool to align two edges and fix the problem.

The next step was to create the protrusion on the back of the object. I placed a swift loop round the top, selected the face and extruded out the smaller of the two protrusions. I then placed a swift loop along the angle of the protrusion, selected the correct faces and extruded outwards. This created the larger protrusion.

Two uses of the connect tool created the geometry for the warning label on the back and I then selected the created face and used the bevel to create the height difference that can be seen in the reference images.

I selected the faces on the bottom of the object and inset them slightly before extruding inwards. I then place two loops and extruded the new face out to create the card that sticks out the bottom.

To create the holes for the screws I used the pro Boolean modifier with a cylinder and created the screws using a sphere.

At this point Adam’s lecture had finished and he set me the task of texturing the object while everyone created their objects. Before texturing the object I decided to use a turbosmooth modifier to create a more realistic looking object.

The only problem I encountered while creating the model was with a weird angle on the ridges on the back. I expected this problem since it was a result of scaling the faces inwards and it was an easy fix using the make planar tool.

After adding a turbosmooth modifier to the stack I added loops to the object to harden specific edges. After doing this I added an Unwrap UVW modifier and placed it below the turbosmooth modifier in the stack.

I decided to opt against doing a full unwrap on the object since I only wanted to do a quick texturing. I selected the two areas that needed detailed textures – the front for the name of the cartridge and the back for the warning – and I used a planar projection to unwrap them. I then left the rest of the faces as they were and placed them in the corner of the 0-1 texture space and placed two important islands in the centre.

I exported the UV layout, opened it in photoshop, created the texture and then applied the texture to the model using a bitmap plugged into the diffuse node of a standard material.

The tools and techniques used to create the model were simple but used very frequently when producing models. I will definitely be using these tools and techniques in the future when I want to create a model.

I’m quite happy with my model – the topology is very simplistic; the major forms of the object are accurate and the turbosmooth modifier makes the object look more realistic than it would if it wasn’t smoothed. The only part of the object that I’m not happy with is the texture. I wanted to create the texture quite quickly, so I didn’t unwrap the model correctly, or bother creating proper materials. I should probably go back and spend more time creating the texture for the model.

If I did create a new texture I would export the low poly model in to Substance Painter, bake normal maps for the object using the high poly model and then use Substance Painter’s built-in presets to create my materials. I’d use a smart material with a grunge map and AO generator to add scratches to the object to make it look more realistic. I’d use a alpha brush to add fingerprints in specific places.

Console Brand Presentation

Before even beginning to create the presentation our group decided to lightly research into the company first and then come up with a number of things for us to research in more depth. The things we came up with were the early stages of the company since the company was so different then to what it is now, the transition of the company in to the gaming market and the history of the company’s games. Researching these categories gave us a good understanding of Nintendo’s design philosophies and what they try to present themselves as.

After doing the research we focused on the most important points, made them as concise as we could and put them in to the PowerPoint.

In my opinion the presentation went well. We covered most of the important points about Nintendo in some depth but there were a few areas where we could have given more information. Feedback we received at the end of the presentation said that we hadn’t covered the Gameboy in as much detail as we could have and that we did not spend enough time talking about franchises that Nintendo owns. We were also asked what Nintendo means and we hadn’t even considered researching that. That’s a big oversight because the name of a company is an important part of how a company presents itself and might have given us insight in to the company’s philosophy. Nintendo means “Leave luck to heaven”.

Industrial Design Homework

Item 1: Edge of Belgravia Chef Knives

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I think these knives are good examples of industrial design because they serve a purpose and are designed to perform well at their purpose, but they are also beautiful. The knives have Ceramic blades which means the knives never need sharpening, are unlikely to chip (the blades are second only to diamond in hardness) and can be made sharper than traditional steel knives. This combination of aesthetics and utility is why I think it is a good example of industrial design.

These knives are iconic since they differ greatly from other ceramic blades on the market at a similar price point. Other ceramic knives pay no attention aesthetics of the knife, which means that while they may perform well, people may not want to buy them because of their looks. The lakeside knife shown below is similar in price to one of the Belgravia ceramic knives, but it is much less aesthetically pleasing.

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The knives are black, with a ceramic blade and a soft rubber handle. The knives have a straight spine and the cutting edge is curved up towards the spin. The handles also have a straight spine, but the lower of the knife is sharply angled. I like the design because of the contrast between the blade and handle shapes. Typically, you would expect the handle to be curved and the blade to be angular, but Belgravia have done the opposite and made the handle the angular part of the knife. The contrast is visually striking and not something I have seen before.

The knives are aimed at hobbyist and amateur cooks. With a price point of £200 for the full set – making each knife worth £50 – these knives are incredibly cheap for high quality construction and performance. The knives look elegant and futuristic and would fit well in to a person kitchen where the aesthetics of the kitchen are usually considered more important than the aesthetics of restaurant kitchen (you don’t find black granite counter tops in restaurant kitchens).

The knives have inspired some ideas for console designs. I could take the contrast between the blade and handle shape and try to apply that to the console in some way. Perhaps I could have a rounded console and a more angular controller, or perhaps I could try to make the console both angular and rounded at the same time

Item 2: Plumen 001 Light Bulbs

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I think this is a good example of industrial design because it turns something which has been criticised as ugly when compared to typical lightbulbs and turns them into something beautiful. The elegant design of the bulb will encourage people to buy them over typical bulbs since it looks so nice. This move will help to improve household energy efficiency and be better for the environment. These bulbs are iconic because they turned something that is said to be ugly into something beautiful without increasing the price majorly.

The bulbs have the usual white tubes seen on energy efficient bulbs, but they are twisted around each other to create an elegant, weaving design that is much more aesthetically pleasing than both typical energy efficient bulbs and original filament bulbs. I like the twisted filaments and the contrast between the black upper portion and the white tubing. It’s a striking design and no something you see on other bulbs (most either have no upper portion or have a white upper portion).

The audience for these bulbs are those who care more about the aesthetics of their home than their energy bill. Most people use energy efficient bulbs because it is better for the environment and because it reduces energy costs. The people who refuse to use energy efficient bulbs often claim that they are ugly and would rather have more aesthetically pleasing bulbs than a lower energy bill. This bulb targets these people by offering a much nicer design than any other bulb on the market. The design is very elegant – not incredibly noticeable but it makes a big difference. These bulbs reflect Plumen’s philosophy of providing “energy efficient and beautiful light solutions”

The bub has inspired me to try and create a more rounded/flowing design rather than a boxy design with sharp corners.

Chapter 3 – Week 3

3D Gameboy

I was given the task of creating a Gameboy using reference images found on the internet. Finding the reference images was simple; all I had to do was search google for “original Gameboy all sides” and the first image result returned was perfect for what I wanted. All sides of the Gameboy were shown I this image.

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After saving the image to my hard drive I opened it up in photoshop and split each view of the Gameboy into an individual layer by using the marquis tool. After putting each image on a sperate layer I placed each image in the centre of the layer and then exported each layer as an image.

Now that I had created my reference images I needed to add them to my scene. While Adam showed us a method using a cube to display reference images, I chose to use planes since that is what I would normally use. In front view I created a plane, changed the dimensions to the same size as my image (963x830) and then scaled the plane down. This maintains the ratio of the image so that it does not get distorted when shown on the plane.

The next step was to centre the plane in the viewport by using the move tool and entering (0, 0, 0) into the three boxes located below the viewport. I then moved the plane quite far back so that it would not be in front of the camera when I orbited with the camera. The distance I move it back does not matter since I will only be using the reference images in orthographic view.

Once I positioned the plane I edited the object properties to turn on “backface culling”. This means that when I try to view the plane at an angle greater than 90 degrees from the direction of the normal, I will be able to see through the face. This allows me to see the back reference image through the front reference image (and the left through the right and so on).

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To get the image to show on the plane I opened the material editor, added a standard material to the workspace, double clicked on the diffuse node, selected bitmap from the options that appeared and then selected the correct image. I then clicked the “Assign Material to Selection” and “Show Shaded Material In Viewport” buttons in the material editor window.

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To create the remaining five planes I go in to the hierarchy tab and set the pivot point of the plane to the origin. This allows me to rotate the plane to new positions rather than having to move and then rotate the plane to face the correct direction.

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With my reference images set up I create a box in front view and drag it to the dimensions for the reference image. I then switch to left view and make the thickness correct.

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I leave the box a little bit thin since I will be extruding the protrusion in the next few steps. With the box matching the rough dimensions of the Gameboy I begin to add the largest and most obvious details first. The first thing I begin to add is the speaker in the bottom right. I create a cyclinder in front view, rotate it on the x-axis and then scale it to the correct length. I select the faces on the end and extrude them slightly. I scale in the new face and use the flow connect tool on the newly created edges to create a curve and the end of the cylinder. I then rotate the cylinder in the y to match the angle of the speaker.

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There speaker has six holes so I need another five of the cylinder. I could hold shift and use the move tool to drag instances of the cylinder in to the correct place, but I use a different method. The spacing between the holes is very precise so I use the array to create five more cylinders with the correct spacing.

I go to “tools” and select “Array…” from the drop down list. A window appears and I select the preview option and then use the Incremental sliders for movement to position the cylinders correctly. I make sure the “Type of Object” is set to instance. This means any changes made to once cylinder will be applied to all. I press apply and the additional cylinders are created in the correct locations.

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There is a segment in the middle of the cylinders that was place there when the cylinder was created (I forgot to set height segments to 0) and so I enter edge mode, double click on the loop to select it and press control backspace to dissolve both the edges and the vertices. Since they are instances the loop is removed from all cylinders.

I now need to create the bend on both the cylinders and the box. I attach all the cylinders to the box and then use a slice plane create the edge that acts as the bend boundary on the cylinders and the box.

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I then detach the cylinders and select the bottom four vertices of the first cylinder. I then use the soft selection tool with adjust fall off to create a bend on the cylinder. I create the bend on the cylinder first since it is easier to get the bend on the box to match the cylinders than the cylinders match the box. I pull the vertices back and this bend is mirrored on the other cylinders since they are instances of the original cylinder. Then pull the bottom right vertex of the box backwards to match this bend. I chamfer the bottom right edge to match the reference image after doing this.

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The next step is to use the pro-boolean tool to cut the shape in to the box. I attach all the cylinders together and then select the box, selected the create tab and switch to the “compound objects” panel. I add a pro-boolean and select the first cylinder. Since I attached the objects it selects all of them. I convert the box to an editable poly again which collapses the pro-boolean.

I use an extension named “Vertex Cleaner” to delete the messy vertices the Boolean tools always leave behind. It deletes 77 vertices.

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The next thing I want to do is add the indentations where the buttons are located but the object is too low resolution for me to use a pro-boolean without any errors occurring. Instead I will start on the back of the object.

I start by using the slice plane to mark the bottom edge of the extrusion on the back. I use the slice plane to create the top and side edges too. I select the faces and extrude them out to match the reference image and I pull the bottom edge of the extrusion up slightly to create a bevel.

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The next step is to add the indentation that marks the gap between the case and the removeable cover. I use the swift loop to add the edges for the indentation which keeps the front face clear of edges. I chamfer the edges I create to split them in to two and create faces for me to extrude inwards. I select the faces I have created and extrude them inwards. After creating the inset I add swift loops so that I can create the ridges seen on the gameboy’s back.

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I select the new faces I have created and extrude them with a value of 0. This creates the new faces but doesn’t move them. I then select all the faces facing the back and move them in slightly. I then select all the faces facing the side and scale them in slightly. When scaling the faces I make sure to use the selection center as the origin.

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The ridges are now complete, so I move on to some of the other details on the back of the object. I add the two indentations for text using the inset and bevel tools and I add the hole for the game cartridge using the extrude tool.

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I create the clip for the back cover by extruding three times. I move the first extrusion down, the second extrusion up and I leave the third.

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Because I planned my geometry out at the start of the project I knew I would need to have a clean face at the front for future pro-booleans. By leaving the front face as an n-gon I ensured that edge loops stopped before crossing the front face. This means I have enough geometry around the face to prevent errors, but a clean enough face to prevent complex geometry when the Boolean is applied and to stop the turbosmooth modifier from creating unnecessary hard edges.

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To create the geometry for the buttons I follow the same process as I did with creating the speaker. I add a similar object to the scene, modify its shape until it matches the reference image, position it correctly and use the pro-boolean to make the cut. I have to turn on the “no edge removal” option to prevent the Boolean from destroying my object. Vertex cleaner deleted 223 additional vertices added by the Boolean.

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With the Boolean collapsed into an editable poly I begin to connect vertices to stop shading errors from cropping up. I attempt to make as many quads as possible and once I have done that I apply a turbosmooth modifier and add supporting edges to sharpen specific corners. This is the end result…

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While completing this task I learn about the “Imprint” checkbox on the Boolean modifier when adding new operands. While trying to add the indentation for the d-pad I used this option to add edges to my object without cutting in to the object. This produced a much cleaner result than using the pro-boolean and game me more control over the geometry.

The only problem I encountered was a direct result of using the “Imprint” option on the Boolean modifier. As with all Boolean operations it produced some unwanted results. In this case it would randomly triangulate some of my quads which would cause shading and smoothing errors when the turbosmooth was applied. I overcame this problem by manually selecting the edges and then dissolving them using CTRL+Backspace. Unfortunately, there isn’t a plugin that can do this for me at the moment.

I can apply the use of the “Imprint” option in very specific situations. When I want to add edges to my object but a pro-boolean is too messy, or just not suited for the task and when using the cut tool does not give me the results I want. I can see myself using this option when trying to cut in to an object that has a curved surface.

Introduction to Sound

We were given a brief lesson on sound which explained the basics of how sound works to us. We were told how sound is created and travels (vibrations of molecules which propagate outwards) and what different parts of a sound wave mean for the final sound that we hear.

The pitch is the frequency of the sound wave which is the number of times the sound will repeat per second. This is measured in Hertz (Hz).

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The amplitude of the wave is shown by how high each peak on the wave is. A higher amplitude wave will be louder.

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Timbre is a word that describes the uniqueness of a sound since two waves with the exact same frequency and amplitude will sound different depending on the instrument they are played on.

Sound waves can have different wave forms. During the lecture we were told about three waveforms: the Sine wave, the Square wave and the Sawtooth wave.

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During the lecture we were shown what a 200Hz since, square and sawtooth wave sounded like. The Square and Sawtooth waves sounded similar and were much “harsher” than the sine wave.

Current Consoles

Xbox 1 - 8 Core AMD CPU - 1.75GHz

- 8GB DDR3 RAM - 2133MHz

- AMD GPU - 768 cores - 853 MHz

- 13.1 * 10.8 * 3.1(inches)

PS4 - 8 Core AMD CPU - 1.6Ghz

- AMD Radeon GPU - 800Mhz - 8GB GDDR5

- 500GB, 5200RPM HDD

- 12 * 10.8 * 1.5 (inches)

xBox 1 X - AMD Jaguar - 8 Cores - 2.3GHz

- AMD Radeon - 1.2GHz - 40 Compute Units

- 12GB GDDR5

- 1TB HDD

- Support for 4k - 30FPS

- 11.81 * 9.44 * 3.1 (inches)

-$499

PS4 Pro - AMD Jaguar - 8 Cores - 2.1Ghz

- AMD Radeon - 911Mhz - 36 Compute Units

- 8GB GDDR5

- 1TB HDD

- Support for 4k - 30FPS

- 12.9 * 11.6 * 2.1 (inches)

- $399

PC - Custom Built - Any GPU, CPU, RAM, storage combination

- More powerful system

- More versatile system

- More expensive system

- Variable dimensions - Smallest ~ (10.9 * 10.2 * 12.4) inches

Smaller consoles seem to work better than larger ones. One of the reasons people won’t buy a PC is because “it’s big and ugly” and there’s evidence of people not liking large consoles as there was a lot of public backlash at Microsoft for requiring the Xbox 360 to have a huge powerbrick.

We want to continue with the small console idea by building off something the size Nintendo Switch but we want to improve it too. The Switch screen is less than 1080p so we want to increase the screen resolution, increase the screen size and improve the controllers since they can be awkward to hold for a long time.

Chapter 4 – Week 4

Introduction to Sound

In our second sound lesson we were taken to a recording studio where Simon was going to show us the difference between different microphone settings. Simon set the microphone to each of its three settings (cardioid, omni and fig-8) and recorded us saying a phrase from 9 different positions. We were recorded from 6ft away, 18 inches away and 6 inches away from in front, to the side and behind the microphone. Unfortunately, the mic wasn’t working so we didn’t get to hear each recording but Simon did explain what each setting did.

Cardioid is a heart shape that comes from plotting a specific polar equation. On a microphone this means that it will record sound predominantly from the front, with a bit from the sides and none from behind.

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Omni means the microphone records sound from all directions and fig-8 means the microphone records sound in a figure eight shape around the microphone. This means the sound will be recorded from in front and behind the mic with little to none from the sides.

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For our recordings will want to use the cardioid setting since we want to record sound by directly speaking in to the microphone and we want as little background noise as possible. The closer we are to the microphone we are the louder our voices will be in the recording and the less background noise there will be.

Concept Art of Console

In the first lesson of the day we were tasked with drawing old consoles and controllers as quickly as possibly without lifting the pen off the paper. The idea was to get a good understanding of the consoles shape and design rather than trying to draw a completely accurate image.

After doing this we were then taught theory about vanishing points and told to redraw the consoles using one or two point perspective. I chose to draw the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 1 using two-point perspective.

After doing this we were told to create concept designs for our consoles. My designs were heavily influenced by the Nintendo Switch and the Samsung Galaxy S8. I think these influences are obvious when looking at the work.

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After creating the initial concepts Adam showed us how to use the pen tool in illustrator to turn our concepts in to digital images and were told to create a digital concept using either Photoshop or Illustrator. I used photoshop since I am more comfortable with it.

By adding guides I created my digital concept to the exact dimensions that were decided upon in the design phase. Since my paper designs were fron the front and back view I found it very easy to transfer them in to a digital form. The design of the console also means it wikk be very easy to model using 3DS Max.

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Scriptwriting

To create the scripts for our videos we used Celtx which as an online tool that helps you to write scripts by making the formatting of scripts much easier. Using Celtx I can switch between five different formatting types with a single click which really speeds up the workflow. The formatting options available are for Headings, Shots, Characters, Dialog and Parentheticals. Th

When I was writing my script I started with the Heading formatting option. After giving my script a heading I described the first shot that would be seen and beneath that I used the Character and Dialog options to record what lines I would say.

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While writing the script I had to consider what points I would talk about since my video is only going to be 30 to 45 seconds long. In the end I focused on the obvious physical differences (the screen and the controllers) and other features that fit with Nintendo’s design philosophy that may not be visible (the new parental control system). Writing the script was a difficult task because it forced me to be concise with what I was saying.

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Chapter 5 – Week 5

Sound

Edward, Barry and I were taken in to the radio room by Adam to record our scripts. We were shown how to adjust the microphone to achieve the best sounding quality. We wanted the microphone to be directly in front with it being slightly above the mouth so that we had to look upwards slightly to speak in to it. This results in a clearer sound when speaking.

We were told to be close to the microphone so that our voice would be loud and so there was less background noise, and we were shown a pop filter that prevents plosives (like the letter “p”) from ruining the recording. We were shown how to use the mixer (for our recordings all we had to do was press stop and start) and we were shown how to monitor levels. When the recording starts we can look at the mixer to see if it is recording sound, and if it is then we can tell the person recording to being speaking.

Before beginning my recording, I read through my script for mistakes and I did a rehearsal with Adam, Edward and Barry watching the levels and listening to the sound to ensure there were no problems.

When it was time to actually record I had to communicate with Edward though the window using hand signals. HE would count down from three on his fingers and on one he would start recording. HE would then check if the mixer was actually recording and if it was he would give me a thumbs up to let me know I could begin speaking. During the recording he would make a circular motion with his hand if he heard a mistake in my speech and would ask me to redo the paragraph I had just spoken.

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The first recording didn’t take too long as my script only took forty seconds to say and I only had to repeat two paragraphs. I did have to do a second recording though because my script was waving about and creating background noise. I tend to use my hands when talking and doing this in a recording studio with a loose piece of paper in my hands resulted in a less than desirable effect. Adam gave me notebook to hold my script against which greatly reduced the noise made by the script.

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I had to help Barry record and so I used the same signals that Edward had used for me. Counting down from 3, checking the levels on 1 and giving a thumbs up if everything was okay. I could give Barry a signal if I wanted him to redo a portion. The recording device was simple so all I had to do was press one button to record and another to stop it.

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Having made the recordings I just had to edit them into a single track of the best takes using Audacity. I started by opening Audacity and importing both files.

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I then added a new track by going to “Tracks” in the tool bar and selecting “Add new”. This gave me a new empty track.

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I then listened to each track and selected what I believed were the best takes of each paragraph. I fond the best take of my second paragraph 35 seconds in to the recording. I clicked at the start of the take and dragged to the end of it. I then simply used the keyboard shortcuts of CTRL+C and CTRL+V to copy and paste in in to the new track I created.

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I repeated this process form every line I spoke.

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The final track was 1 minute and 10 seconds long. To make the file useable in Premiere Pro I clicked on the “File” button and then “Export” and then “Wav” which, unsurprisingly, exported my file as a .wav.

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Model Creation

The first step for creating my console was to create a box, set the parameters to the correct values (192x108x15), centre the box and convert it to an editable poly. I then selected one of the front edges, selected the entire ring and chamfered the edges. I set the number of edges to 10.

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To create the inset for the edge to edge display I selected a ring of edges and selected the connect tool. I increased the number of edges to 2 and set the pinch to – 95. I then chamfered the two new edges to create another two edges.

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I made a selection of faces on the front and then used the extrude and scale tools to create the shape I wanted.

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To make things easier during the texturing phase I selected the faces that make up the screen and assigned a material to them.

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The next step is to create the locking mechanism on the sides of the console that the controllers will slide in to. I do this by selecting the correct faces, extruding outwards and using a pro Boolean on a cylinder to create a curve on the extrusion. I then use the symmetry modifier duplicate the geometry from one side of the model to the other.

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I then used a series of slice plane cuts to create the shape for the slide and used the border select and vertex connect tools to create the correct shape. I used the symmetry modifier to create the same shape on the other side of the console. I had some shading issues on the curved part but I fixed the problem by reassigning the smoothing groups.

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At this point all the major forms of the console were created and only the minor details were left to add. For buttons I created an inset in the shape and then placed the button inside of the inset. The slight gap that will appear between the button and the console will look more realistic and just putting a button inside the object.

Creating the insets for the buttons is a simple task. I create a cylinder, position over the object and then use the cut tool with vertex snapping turned on to cut the shape on the cylinder on to the object. I then extruded the face inwards, duplicated it, scaled it in, and extruded edges inwards to create the button.

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I repeat the same process when I added the volume button to the object.

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I also repeated the same process for the cover of the SD card slot.

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The process for adding the charging port was similar.

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And I repeated the process for venting holes on the top of the console.

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To add the flip out stand I did the same thing I did with the screen. I added swift loops until I had the appropriate geometry, selected the newly created faces and used the extrude and scale tools to create the indentation.

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All the smaller details that need to be on the console like screws can be added using textures later on. At this point the console itself is done and that is left are the controllers.

We redesigned the controllers to fit more comfortably in the hand so they have a cylindrical shape for the user to wrap their fingers around (similar to the grips found on cameras).

The first step is to create a cylinder, scale it to the correct size and then cut it in half. I then extrude the front face forwards and to the side to create the basic shape of the controller. I use soft selection on the two faces on the back to create a curve on the top of the controller.

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I use the slice plane to create loops using the edges on the back of the cylinder and then use the cut tool in combination with a cylinder to create the correct geometry on the front of the controller. I connect the corners of the newly created face and extrude it in.

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I add the ridges on the back and holes for the back bumpers using the swift loop and extrude tools. Buttons for all holes are made by duplicating the faces to the element, and using the extrude tool to give them depth. Its then just a matter of simple shaping until they have the correct form.

The only difficult part was creating the analogue stick which was done by duplicating the face to element, scaling it down slighty, extruding it out and scaling it in. I then used the flow connect tool four times to add a curve to the extrusion and then extruded out the thinner part of the stick. I then scaled the front face out to 0 and scaled it out again before extruding it.

I then used the extrude and inset tools to create ridges on the front of the stick.

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The speaker and the inset for the back grip were created using the swift loop and extrusion tools. For the speaker I added swift loops for the shape, extruded in, inset and extruded out. For the grip I used the swiftloop for shape and extruded to 0 and then scaled in.

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At this point the low poly model was completed. Each controller came in at 1400 faces which isn’t too bad for a low poly model with curved edges and no attention paid to optimisation.

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For texturing I will be using the low poly model in substance painter but I want my models to have the look of a high poly model. I can do this by using normal maps but to create a normal map I need a high poly model. Creating the high poly model is simple, all I have to do is use a TurboSmooth modifier.

I apply the modifier and the model looks quite bad at first but with the careful placement of supporting edges I can create a model that looks much better.

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I do the same for the console model too.

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With the TurboSmooth applied my console has 1,024,640 faces and the controllers have 524,224 faces each.

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With the model complete the next step is to texture it. Since I’m using normal maps I don’t need to unwrap the high poly model which saves me a lot of work.

Unwrapping is a simple but tedious process. I start with an Unwrap UVW modifier on the console and apply a simple flatten mapping. I then select specific faces and use the planar projection to create the UV islands that I want.

The first island I create is the island for the screen. After selecting the faces for the screen I used a planar projection, then selected the edges on the side of the screen and marked them as seams before peeling the object.

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The back of the object is very similar to the screen so I use the same process to create the UV island. [pic]

I use the unfold mapping tool and the straighten selection tool to create an island for one of the rings of faces around the screen. It unfolds in to a straight line.

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I use the planar projection tool to create islands for the top and bottom faces.

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I keep using these techniques until I have completely unwrapped the model. One the unwrap is complete I use the Pack tool to place all my UV Islands in to texture space while maintaining perfect texel density. This does result in an inefficient pack.

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I manually scaled specific islands until I filled the entire texture space.

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I did the same thing for the controllers.

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My time in 3DS Max is done. The controllers are completely modelled and unwrapped, I will be taking them in to Substance Painter to texture them. The screenshot below shows the entire console as both a high poly and low poly model before I texture them.

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I gave individual parts of the model a material so that I can easily select those parts once I’m inside Substance Painter.

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Getting the files in to Substance Painter is as simple as exporting the object as an FBX file. I export the low and high poly models as separate FBX files but I end up only using the high poly file because of problems with the normal map baking process. These problems mean It will take more time to texture and render my model.

After exporting the model I open them in Substance Painter and set my workflow to Metallic Roughness and set the texture resolution to 2048.

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Since I don’t have much time left to complete this project I will only create very simple PBR textures. I go in to each texture set (texture sets are automatically created on model import from materials applied in the 3D program) and add a smart material that matches the aesthetic I like. In a few cases I adjust the values of the smart material to ensure the model looks exactly how I wanted it.

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This is a low sample render of my finished substance painter textures. To export the textures, I just right click on the object and select “Export Textures”. This saved all the textures to a chosen directory at whatever resolution I want.

The next step is to animate and render using KeyShot.

KeyShot is real time rendering software that has a unique animation workflow. Rather than messing about with keyframes you simply select the event you want to occur and enter the parameters for the event (the duration for example). This makes animations very quick to make.

I import my model in to KeyShot using the FBX file I created for substance painter. The model is imported with the materials from 3DS Max applied.

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I switch to the textures I created by using the material graph editor and dragging textures in to the material nodes. The KeyShot material system is quite similar to the one 3DS Max uses.

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After applying the textures a quick render produces this image…

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This is much better than the 3DS Max materials but it isn’t great mainly due to time concerns.

To create an animation I click on the Animation Wizard button which brings up the event list. I select a turntable model animation event and set the rotation to 360 degrees and duration to 8 seconds (This means I need 5 animations for my final render).

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I repeat this process with a number of other events and it doesn’t take long before I have 5 animations created. All I have to do now is render the animation. I set my max frame time to 10 (this means the total animation will take around 4 hours) and wait for it to render.

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The largest problem I came across involved the normal map baking process. This process would have saved me a lot of time but because I made a small mistake at the start of creating my model, my normal maps wouldn’t bake correctly. I could have used them anyway and tried to hide the visual artefacts but I already was going to have to use a low sample rate for my render due to time constraints, so I didn’t want to lower the visual quality of my model even more.

The other problem that I came across involved labels and alpha brushes not being applied in the final render. When rendering I disabled the rendering of labels which means all the buttons on my console aren’t labelled (they had white text on them e.g. A, B, X, Y) and the Nintendo Switch logo didn’t show up on the back of the console. I did a quick render to try and catch problems like this, but they went unnoticed since I saw a larger problem which involved the normal of the screen flipping.

I did learn something during this project since I had never modelled a screen before. Modelling the screen itself was easy but figuring out how to actually create an emissive screen that actually was an interesting challenge. I eventually had the idea of putting a second plane behind the glass of the screen and applying the emissive shader to that. I’ll be using this technique in the future whenever I model an object that has a screen.

I like the design of the screen itself – the wraparound screen gives the console a modern look that the Switch doesn’t have (the switch has huge black bezels on the screen) but I dislike the overall shape of the model.

The original designs had rounded handles at the sides as well as at the back. Whilst my model has the rounded back it does not have the rounded sides, and this makes the controllers look like bricks almost. This happened because I was careless with the placement of supporting edges when applying the turbosmooth modifier. I should have either chamfered the edge on the low poly model or placed the supporting edge much further away.

I am happy however with the overall quality of the render despite the lack of alpha brush details, low sample rate and simple animations

Chapter 6 – Week 6

Video Creation

Creating the final video required me to use Adobe Premiere Pro. I opened the program and imported all my renders in to the project. I did this by clicking “File” then “Import” and selecting the files I wanted. The videos appeared in the lower left panel.

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I did the same for my final audio track.

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You might notice that the audio track is 1 minute 13 seconds when I’ve got only 48 seconds of video. I’m working on creating the final video while I render another 25 seconds of animation (this render will take 2 hours and 30 minutes).

With the files imported I double click on them to bring them in the Source window.

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I then select the film icon and drag the video on to the timeline. I do this for all my video clips.

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I tried to use a smooth camera the entire animation so there would be no abrupt transitions but unfortunately there are two instances where the camera jumps from one position to another. To mask these transitions I use transition effects.

Using a transition effect is quite simple. I just go top the effects tab, select Video Transitions from the drop down list and drag an effect on to the timeline. I choose to use the Paint Splatter wipe since it matches the paint splatter image shown on the screen of the console.

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Adding the audio is a more complicated task. I start by double clicking the audio file to open it in the source editor but rather than just dragging and dropping the file in to the timeline I select in and out points on the track.

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I then drag and drop those marked selections on to the timeline. I space these segments out to make sure they match up with the footage as well as possible.

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I dragged out one frame of the footage for 4 seconds because I thought it fit the dialog well. I did this by scrubbing to the correct frame on the timeline, right clicking and selecting the option “add frame hold”. I then went to the toolbar and selected “Clip”. In the menu that appeared I selected “Video Options” and then “Insert Frame Hold”. This added the selected frame to the timeline for 2 seconds. I dragged out the frame to 4 seconds.

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Once my final render is done I will drag it into the timeline and apply a transition effect.

I also decided to add some backing music to the video since it sounds quite empty. I found a royalty free song licensed under Creative Commons which allows me to use the song as long as it is not for monetary profit as long as I credit the creator. The song I chose was called “Tenderness” (, 2018)

The final video is now complete but I need to a title screen to the start of the video. I create a title screen by clicking “File”, “New” and then “Legacy Title”. This window appears.

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I dragged a black box to act as a background, and put text on to the box. The title doesn’t look nice but it does show the relevant information. The created title screen appears in the project assets as a 5 second video clip. I shift all tracks 5 seconds down the timeline and add the clip at the start.

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All I have to do now is export the file and upload it to YouTube. In export settings I select the H.264 codec and use the 1080p YouTube preset. I name the file and select export.

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Evaluation

The task for this term was to design the next generation console released by Nintendo and create a promotional video for it. I had to design the console on paper, turn those designs in to a digital concept, model the console in 3DS Max, write a script, record the script and edit a turnaround and the script together for the final product.

One strength of my model is how clean the high-resolution mesh looks. When compared to a low-resolution mesh side by side it shows that the high-poly object just looks better. This is because there are no jagged edges or completely straight lines on the object. Everything is smoothed and one element flows in to another making for a much more realistic, and interesting to look at object.

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Another strength of my final product is the quality of the final render. Every render made in 3DS Max used a simple spot lamp to illuminate the object and this creates a bland, uninteresting image. There are no reflections, no interesting shadows and the lighting is too harsh. By using KeyShot I was able to light my object using an HDRI which provides soft, realistic lighting, interesting reflections and interesting shadows.

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One other major strength of my final product are the textures used. By creating materials using substance painter the look of the console is improved greatly even if the materials were quite simple. The PBR textures mean that light reflects realistic of each part of the console depending on what material it is. On the parts where I used a plastic material the light will reflect as it would off plastic, taking in to account the roughness of the surface and any surface imperfections I might have added to the console. This looks much more realistic than the simple diffuse texture I would have applied if I had used 3DS Max.

This is particularly noticeable on the controller grips which are completely flat but reflect light in a much more interesting way due to the textures.

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One weakness of the final product are the animations of the camera. While I could have used KeyShot’s animation system to quickly create complex animations I decided not too because I was running out of time and knew that my final render would take over 5 hours so I didn’t have much time to spend adding the animations. That being said I don’t think my animations would have been too great if I had spent the time on them since I haven’t used KeyShot for animation frequently as I generally only use it for still renders.

Another weakness is the final shape of the controllers. If you look at the concept images you would see that the controllers were originally intended to be much more rounded but they came looking boxy. This is at odds the rest of the console which tried to be much smoother and more rounded than the Nintendo Switch.

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Another weakness is the back of the console which looks quite bland. The stand and bar speaker on the back do help to break up the shape but there should be additional detail. If you look at a Nintendo Switch you’d see the Switch logo and additional writing on the back of the console. I did try to add a logo to the back of the device but when rendering I forgot to mark the box that would render labels. By the time the render was done 7 hours later it was too late for me to do another one. This mistake also means the buttons on the controllers lack labels too.

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Another weakness comes from buttons on the controllers. My concept images were not specific on the positioning and size of the buttons so I had to make that decision while modelling them. This resulted in the buttons being too far down on the controller and being very small. If I could I would move the four buttons upwards slightly and increase the size of each button. I could have avoided this problem by being more precise when creating concept images.

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Pre-Production

During the pre-production phase I created designs for the console that I ended up modelling. I started with quick line drawings of other consoles to familiarise myself with the shapes of successful and moved on to line drawings of my console design. I then turned these in to more realistic looking drawings using one and two point perspective and I turned these designs in to digital concepts using Photoshop.

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I also created a script for my final video that included all my lines of dialogs and basic camera instructions.

Production

During the production phase I modelled my console using 3DS Max and made use of the TurboSmooth modifier to easily produce a smoothed high-poly object.

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I unwrapped the model using 3DS Max and exported the model as an FBX in to Substance Painter. In Substance Painter I used a metallic-roughness workflow to create realistic PBR textures that reflect light more accurately and more interestingly than a simple diffuse shader inside of 3DS max would.

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I put these textures in to KeyShot to create real time rendered animations using KeyShot’s event driven animation system.

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I also recorded the script I wrote by using the Radio room’s sound proofed room and recording equipment. I was helped by Barry and Edward who ensured the audio produced was the best it possibly could be.

Post-Production

In the post-production phase I edited the recordings in Audacity to produce a track that used only the best take of each line I read. I then used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit the audio and video together to produce the final product.

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When starting this project my goal was to create a realistic looking console that utilised Substance Painter’s PBR materials to produce great looking textures. I think I partially succeeded in this goal since I was able to use Substance Painter to create opacity maps for the speaker mesh which looks very nice in my opinion, but I also failed to create a realistic looking material for the control stick and buttons. I think part of the reason for this failure is poor UV mapping on analog stick which caused extreme stretching on the sides and as such I had to avoid detailed materials.

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With the console I wanted to create something that built upon the Nintendo Switch by upgrading some of the hardware that I don’t believe belongs on a modern console. The theme was to create a more curved/flowing console than the switch which was quite boxy. The main influence on the console was the Samsung Galaxy S8 as I tried to produce a screen that looked like the S8’s which wraps around the sides of the device slightly to produce a screen that looks bevel less.

One interesting and different part of my console is the screen since there are no other handheld consoles that offer displays so large and with such small bezels. The Nintendo Switch had a low-resolution display with very large black bezels which did not look like they belonged on a modern console. My console removes the bezels which increases the screen size by 1.8 inches while maintaining the same overall size. There are only a few mobiles that feature such a screen so that makes the console unique.

Another interesting part of the console are the controllers which were heavily inspired by the grips found on cameras like the Canon DSLR. These controllers are different to the Nintendo Switch controllers which were flat on the back and not very comfortable to hold and they are also different from the handgrips on controllers for consoles like the PlayStation or Xbox.

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During the production phase I encountered a problem with the normal maps I baked for the console. These maps would have allowed me to use a low poly model while having it look like a high poly model but I made a mistake earlier on in the development of the model and this prevented the normal maps from baking correctly. The problem happened because I created my low-poly model, unwrapped it and then duplicated it so I could make a high poly version on the duplication. At some point I ended up changing the overall shape of the high poly object to the point where it did not match as closely to the low-polys shape as I wanted. This meant that there was a obvious visual artefact on the console that would have been quite obvious even when textured. Fixing this problem would have been easy, but quite time consuming so I decided to continue with the high-poly model instead.

An area of personal development is with time keeping since I have badly underestimated the amount of time I would need to complete the project. At the moment it is 2AM on a Friday because I left many things to the last minute and I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to edit the audio and video clips together in Premiere Pro. I’ve learnt that the instant gratification of putting doing work to play games is not worth the amount of stress caused by then having to do that work at midnight. In the future I will try to do work when it is set, rather than leaving it until later and leaving myself with the monumental task the day of the deadline.

An area of development would be my confidence with Audacity and my improved understanding of sound. The whole process of recording sound and then editing it in to a useable track taught me a lot about how sound works and how I can manipulate it to get the affects I want. I can see myself using these skills to produce voice overs for games in the future and I believe doing this would further my understanding even more.

An area of development would be my improved understanding of tools within 3DS Max. While working on this project I came across a setting for Boolean operations called “Imprint”. I’d not ever used this option before but I discovered that it will allow me to cut edges in to an object without removing any geometry. The uses for this knowledge is limited but I can see myself using it in the future when trying to add small details to high resolution organic meshes.

Another area of development would be my understanding of vanishing points and how to draw using one and two point perspective. Before coming to college I didn’t know what a vanishing point was, and couldn’t have even attempted to draw something using two point perspective. I can see myself using this knowledge in the future when creating concept designs for game props as the drawings gave me a much better understanding of my model and what I needed to do to make it.

Practice makes perfect and even the small amount of time I spent using KeyShot to animate my model taught me a lot. Usually I only produce still renders using KeyShot but seeing how easy it is to create animations with KeyShot means I will try and create animations of my future models instead. I hope to be able to create more complex animations using KeyShot in the future. I avoided using paths in KeyShot while working on this project but in the future I will try them out.

I was given 2 pieces of feedback from Casey and James when they looked at my digital concept.

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My final model is quite different from the original concept but I did use the feedback for the concept when making my model. Casey suggested I should make the colours brighter and while I made the base colour of the console black I did combine her two suggestions of texturing the screen and adding colour by texturing the screen with a colourful image. This has many effects, one is that it brightens the overall console, turning it from a black, “edgy” console in to something more family friendly which reflects Nintendo’s philosophy and secondly it creates some very interesting reflections in the ground plane.

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I did agree with James’s advice about the right hand side controller. I intended to have the analog stick on the bottom and the buttons on the top on the right controller but when modelling I forgot about doing this until it was too late. I intended to create the base shape of the controller and then duplicate it so I could add the buttons in different configurations, but I ended up duplicating it after adding the buttons which is why the buttons are in the same position on each controller. I really should make notes about what I want to do before I start modelling because I forgot to do multiple things on this project.

Video Creation

Here is the YouTube video…

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