Development Week 3 (27/03/17 - 02/04/17)

As discussed by our sprint meeting this week, me and Tom will finalise the asset list with Excel in a graph format, and I will also finish an anti-gravity version of the track this week in synergy with the programmers' code. I initially made the anti-gravity map blockout in 3ds Max, tracing over a birds-eye view of the map with a spline object.

The much more detailed asset list in a graphed format is also complete! Depicting important information like polycount for each model, texture size, MoSCoW, etc. This is incredibly useful for when I continue my environment design work, as I'll know exactly what assets I have to work with using a full comprehensive list.

Testing fitness for purpose- I compared all of my content I have so far to what it is required to achieve in the game. For example, my track is successfully a big loop which is able to be driven around at a high speed using the programmer's driving code. As an additional necessity, the track is to the correct scale in regards to both the speed of the gameplay and size of the model.



Why decisions were made and outcomes of decisions- I made a decision this week to go back and work on a previous sprint, using a more refined tutorial to recreate the track to work with anti-gravity has put me behind from where I'm supposed to be on the task board and backlog, however this will have a much more positive effect in the long-run. The fact the track allows for banking brings around a lot more possible track combinations, and it's easier for the programmers to create code for it as before this stage we were pondering where anti-gravity should be a big mechanic we should continue to pursue, so it works out for the better in the end.

Explain how any research or planning supported development- I performed research into an official tutorial by (Unreal Engine, 2014), demonstrating a much more useful way of creating a spline track, allowing for anti-gravity segments that my current track code does not allow for, following a suggestion from the programming team. While this took up a great chunk of time this week, in the end it has paid off well in regards to me now having a fully-finished anti-gravity track layout!

Explain how monitoring time, risk and quality- For this I used our task board, risk management checklist and quality plan checklist to check whether or now I'm on track for my work. And following these I am overall on track with my progress regarding time, as I'm creating a set amount of content each week and roughly am where I predicted I'd be when I started planning. Likewise, following Marshall's risk and quality plan checklist in the sprint session, I am following professional practises with my work, mitigating risks like creating regular backups on each day of work, in order to ensure as little as possible is lost if any files become corrupt.

Explain how collaboration is helping- I did research for other group members showing collaboration, such as sending this tutorial by (Filipowich, 2017) to one of the programmers who was struggling to create AI in the game. Likewise, starting next week I will be creating some environment models alongside another 3d modeller in our group who is currently slightly behind, in order to speed up the rate of production when it comes to content in our game.