Specialist Project Intro and Proposal

For my specialist project I have decided to model an off-road racing buggy, mainly because I wanted to have a go at modelling a vehicle and thought this would be a particularly interesting vehicle to do. To go with the buggy I'm going to model a small garage/shed which will be filled with car parts, old garage equipment and oil cans and such. My idea, along with how I plan to do it is explained in more detail in the proposal that follows. I have also created a Gantt chart, detailing the distribution of my time throughout the project.

Specialist Project Proposal

For my specialist project, I have chosen to focus on designing and creating a vehicle, along with a diorama for it to feature in. The type of vehicle which I have decided on is an off-road racing buggy, with the diorama consisting of a small garage containing car parts, general garage equipment and shelving featuring trophies and other such items. The main reason I decided on this for my specialist project was that I had never previously attempted to model a vehicle, and thought that by doing so I could gain experience in this particular area of modelling. Creating the vehicle will hopefully allow me to build my knowledge of this more specialised area of modelling and also give me an idea of whether or not this area is something which I would like to stick with later on. The diorama for the buggy should also allow me to continue to grow my skills relating to modelling various different sizes, shapes and complexities of props. While the final appearance and quality of all of the models is obviously an important factor at the end of the project, the main outcome that will tell me whether or not I have succeeded will be if I feel I have gained enough experience with regards to vehicle modelling to allow me to model more vehicles successfully in the future.

The majority of the photographic reference that I will use for modelling in this project will come from the internet as first hand reference for the buggy will be difficult to come by. Along with the photo reference I will use reference of off-road buggies which feature in other games including the DiRT and MotorStorm series. In order to give me a better idea of how I should model my buggy I will attempt to find out additional information about other buggy models, such as those from other games. I will look to find out various modelling techniques for different parts of the vehicle along with rough tri counts which I will aim for with my model.

The methodology for creating my specialist project will centre around the use of several programs with which I am already familiar. Maya will be used to create all the meshes which will feature in my final piece and to UV all of the meshes ready for them to be textured. The texturing will be done using Photoshop, with the texturing mainly consisting of images obtained from the internet and photographs taken by myself. I will also likely use XNormals to create any normal maps for any parts of the diorama. The final renders of the buggy with the diorama will most likely be created by moving all of the meshes with textures into Unreal Engine.

In order to make this project run smoother for myself I have decided to split up my time as follows. The first two weeks will consist of research into possible tri-counts and techniques for creating my models, as well as reference collection consisting of image collection both from the internet and first hand. Weeks 3 to 6 will mainly be the actually modelling of the meshes for the buggy, garage and any props within. Week 7 will consist mainly of UVing although it is likely this will begin earlier if the modelling is completed sooner than expected. I will then give three weeks over to texturing which will ideally give me one week, week 11, in which to give the final polish to my work before the first hand in date. The final week will consist of making any improvements to my work and to fully writing up the final document.

Overall, the main thing that I am looking to gain from this project is experience with modelling vehicles along with a better idea of whether this area is something I would wish to focus on again at a later date. I will know whether or not this project has been a success if at the end I feel I have gained enough knowledge in vehicle modelling to feel comfortable doing so again. I also hope to further improve my abilities with prop modelling and gain a greater understanding of Unreal Engine. The main way I will collate the knowledge I have gained in this project will be with the Post-mortem right up at the very end of the project. In this I will evaluate how smoothly the project ran as a whole, what limitations I faced and how I overcame them and whether or not I believe what I have modelled is of a good enough standard to give me reason to work in this area of modelling again in the future.