Japanese Winter Scene
July 22 2018 - July 29 2018
This was a week-long project where I got to experience and experiment with the Maya engine. I used the engine to create a Japanese Winter scene with a picnic table, a concrete border, a fence, and a cherry blossom tree.
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Creating this scene was my first official project as a student at Full Sail University. I was tasked to create a Japanese Winter Scene using the Maya engine and to then import the scene into Unity with a camera, music, player movement, a snowing particle system, and color-changing lights.
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For me, this was a simple but very fun project because I have always absolutely loved Japanese Cherry Blossom trees so making this little scene was relaxing for me to make something with one of my favorite trees in it. That might sound a little silly, but truthfully, it was just something to really help me get into the flow and mindset for the project that I wanted to be in.
Skills Used
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Maya
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Unity Engine
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Microsoft Visual Studio
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C#
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Asset Integration
Postmortem
Q: What challenges did you overcome?
A: I did feel challenged experimenting with a new engine I had not heard of or used before, being brand new to the world of game design, but I felt I got through it with my passion to pursue the career of game design and my curiosity in really learning and understanding how such amazing worlds could be created. And I wanted to be able to do just that myself.
Q: What challenges did you fail to overcome? How did this affect your project?
A: Truthfully, the only challenge I couldn't quite overcome was my laptop. Every time I'd get so far into the scene the program or my laptop would crash and I'd lose everything and have to start over. Eventually, I had to ask for an extension on the project and switched over to a desktop I luckily had access to at the time. I guess you could say I overcame the challenge by switching to the desktop but the laptop itself was the real challenge and sadly, in this situation, it could not be overcome, just replaced. Granted, the only effect it really had on my project was that it wasn't done exactly when asked. However, it was turned in much earlier than the new deadline I was given as I did stay up for 14 hours straight to work on it from scratch on the desktop.
Q: What could you have done to avoid these issues?
A: In hindsight, I guess if I had made a back-up every so often of the scene I wouldn't have had to start over, but I think at that point I would've been creating and replacing back-ups every 10 minutes.
Q: What are you planning to do in the future to avoid issues similar to these?
A: In the future, I planned only to use Maya on a computer capable of running it without crashing every 30 minutes or less.
Q: What is something related to the project in terms of progress or productivity that you were extremely pleased with?
A: All humor aside, I felt the progress and productivity I was capable of creating within the 14-hour all-nighter I pulled was kind of amazing. When the program kept crashing I was honestly scared it would take me over a week to complete the scene after starting over for the 4th time from scratch. I was amazed I got it done as quickly as I did to keep myself from falling behind on the assignments that followed.
Q: What is something related to the project that you feel could have gone better?
A: Truthfully, in this situation, humor or not, technology was the only issue.
Q: What is something related to the project overall that you feel went well?
A: In the end, I was, and still am extremely proud of what I was able to create. I made a 3D asset on my own in a new engine I'd never used, as well as importing it into another engine I had never used, and scripting for the first time in my life. This was the moment where I was hooked on my career path and where I was officially on my way to achieving my dreams.
