Sorry to disappoint

Regretfully, I have made the decision to move on from the level. It will not be finished by the end of the month and I would be remiss if I thought otherwise. The work put into it thus far will not be in vein for I will use the assets created to compile a small scene in which to present the characters.

I will finish the level, albeit once I have finished University and I'll probably still update this blog. There is simply no point in rushing the level for the sake of it being done. I have lost focus - this is a character project and I am a character/prop artist. I lack the mental fortitude to deal with the technical side of environment art. I have learned an immense amount about UDK and environment pipelines in the last month but I'm only half way there and there are still massive gaps in my knowledge. There is no doubt in my mind that I could be an environment artist if I was diligent enough - but the crucial point to make is that it absolutely and unequivocally makes me miserable.

I am an artist, I love to be creative and slave over a piece of work pouring love and attention to detail into every part. I love putting on some music and just getting lost in the process of drawing/painting/sculpting. I enjoy 3D modelling because it is hands on as is texturing and if I'm honest I can even get on board with uv unwrapping because I find arranging uv's to be an art in itself. However I would rather not work in this industry if that job consists of planning environments and all the restrictions that entails. It's depressing because it's close to what I want to be doing without actually being the thing I desire. I'd rather do something wholly unrelated to art in that case.

I need a portfolio at the end of this year, and the third year has left me no time to produce a concept art portfolio so it needs to be 3D art if I want a job. It just so happens that I have nothing worth looking at in 3D - hence why the quality of this FMP is of the utmost importance. To that end, I need to focus on my strenghts (characters) and stop this level. It would take months to finish to portfolio standard. I could rush it just so it is done, but that eats into character time resulting in everything being sub par quality and I end up with a completely useless portfolio.

Quality not quantity has always been my motto.

I do not regret the ambition to take on such a project but I'm not stupid enough to continue wasting my time.

This has been a tough decision to just up and leave a project I have spent a month on but it is time to cut my losses.

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 Here's the last of the screenshot dumps for the level (until after Uni) - The next lot will be character related. I anticipate increased productivity from now on!

I was messing around with speedtree as a way to quickly implement background trees in the distance.