Week 5

Situation:

- Find out the best way to link texture scaling to camera zoom in Unreal Engine.

- Look into procedural city generation that fits well for our project specifically.

Task:

- Research LOD for textures/materials.

- Research procedural techniques and provide an overview of possible approaches with pros and cons.

Activity:

- I have looked into mipmapping. I found out how it worked and when it is applied. I was then asked to look at the mipmap options of Unreal Engine and if I could make a detailed description of what each option does. Some options were more intricate than others, which required me to do more in-depth research.

- I did a bit of general research on proceduralism and tested some stuff in Houdini.

- I discussed some artistic choices made by the team and gave feedback where I could.

- I discussed the concepts made by the designers and looked for solutions where I found issues.

Result:

- I made a research document where all of the research I did on mipmapping and the options within UE has been documented.

- I unfortunately hadn't made much progress due to lack of time and will continue this next week.

- First I discussed the use of details, textures, and shapes within the 3d models of the buildings and how well they would translate to the camera angle and distance we wanted to go for. We discussed having different zoom levels or camera angles to better show off the city but decided it would best to stick to one angle of the camera that can be zoomed in and out of to a certain extend. I also had a bit of a discussion about the icons made for the UI and how they could be more readable or better fitting in the style of our game. I personally mentioned that I wasn't too sure about the colours used for the icons and how I prefer a more equal colour look for our game. This is still to be discussed further.

- This was about the road structure and layout of the city within a grid layout. We also talked about specific location based challenges that takes inspiration from real-life locations and how these locations could be transformed into a grid system. This was a little difficult, because a hexagon grid won't always allow for straight lines in certain directions. Some sacrifices must be made.

Reflection:

- I didn't quite understand the issue at first, because I thought I had to research mipmapping in general, but the more specifically wanted to know about the mipmapping options in Unreal. I ended up doing research on both and I learned a lot so luckily it wasn't a waste of time.

- I spent a lot of time on the other task as well as helping out with the discussions that I didn't spend much time on the procedural technique research.

- With all the discussion this week I was definitely able to get my views in, but there are still some decisions that need to be finalised. Once we do we can finish up the stylesheets and concept documents.