Reflection

I enjoyed the project for the most part. I was confident in my modeling abilities, but doubtful of myself as a leader. Some of what happened eleviated those doubts, while other things just hardened them. But, like most new things I take on, I came away with a better understanding of myself and my skills.
The main problem I had was with keeping my team busy. Two of them weren't around often, and one couldn't participate at all for about a week. Right from the beginning this caused much confusion and delays. I took it in stride, buckled down, and didn't waste time.
I caused a little bit of worry for the other leaders, mainly Dana, with what was a miscalculation and misunderstanding on my part. I had her worried that I may not get enough hours, but I got work done quickly.
Good stuff happened though. I was able to get the work divided evenly once everyone got in the same room for once. Also, once Chris was able to join us it eased the work load on everyone. Still, I received complaints from a team member that he didn't have enough to do, but work goes through fast with what we do.
A common topic that came up with everyone was that the project was not related to our course. It focused on modeling and coding rather than design. The blueprints and plans were already laid out for us. However, I disagree with this view on one note; we all went through the design process while we were discussing the simulation with our client. It's not a big thing, but everyone else seems to have forgotten that part.
All in all, the experience was beneficial to me, and I know I will carry on what I have learned into my carrer.

~Ian Chisholm

Slow week

Everythings wrapping up now, and the modellers are essentially out of work. We're here making tweaks and adjustments if they're asked for, but now there is nothing.
The highlight of the work week was pretty much the false fire alarm that went off Tuesday. It was a nice break for everybody except our schools guests. One of use did think they smelled smoke, but it was just someones coffee.
At the last minute though, I was informed that there was a problem with some of my models. This was 'through the grapevine', so I didn't know where the problem lay. I was later informed that it was an issue with the normals on the range, fridge and cooling trolly that I had been working on yesterday. I finished it up quickly once the issue had been confirmed.

Clean up

Had some problems with a modeller putting his textures where he felt they belonged as opposed to where the rest of the team was placing them. I moved them myself later, and noticed a couple of poor quality pieces. One I cleaned up simply by smoothing the edges, but the other (a life preserver) was just bad. Fortunatly, I had built a good one earlier in the month, so I upgraded it and put that in the folder alongside the other one. I then proceeded to improve on the visuals of my own models.

Animation and Textures

Today I animated all of the doors on the elevated deck. One of them had mistakenly been placed behind a pillar, so I corrected the issue. I also catalogued the timing of the animations to ease the job of the scripters when the elevated deck is imported into Unity.
I atempted to reapply the textures with relative success, but the windows are incomplete. I'll leave that up to Andrew as he created the textures, and would understand better how they were organized.

Textures and animation

Textures for the kitchen wares are done. I took the basic textures and added more details and grit to them where they were needed. I also animated the doors to the appliances, but later in the day discovered that the doors to be animated were those on the upper decks. Unfortunatly, the entire upperdeck had been combined into a single object, so I had to go with an earlier, untextured version that wasn't combined. I spent the rest os the day cleaning and reorganizing the hierarchy of the scene and setting it up to be animated. That will be tomorrows job, then all of my assets will be done for the time being.

Made up lost time

I came in on the 17th to catch up on some time I had lost on the Friday before. I made accessories for the galley like knives, bowls, spoons and cutting boards. They were also textured. The main galley equipment is ready for texturing also. I have a good stainless steel picked out that will take care of most of the texturing.

Progress and promotions

The visable crew members has officially been scraps as an asset to the project by the newly appointed project manager, Dana. I had finished the assets she sent my way through the pipeline, so my parts are wrapped up on time. I'll make sure the parts Matt, Andrew and Chris received are finished on time. I know most already are.
I began my next set of tasks on Thursday, 13th, before the deadline of the prior assets. A good chunk are already modeled, and I believe I can get much of it done in short order.
Andrew, Matt and Chris are doing great. Chris in particular has shown good punctuality with being at work.

May 7th

Cleared up a corruption issue with Matt's submitted work. He only did half of what he was assigned anyway. Chris is finally on the team and is hard at work. I'll probably be doing most of the texturing with him as he is on site. Andrew is working hard as usual, and pointing out that I had accidently assigned him and Chris the same work. Oops. That was cleared up in short order though. Things are finally going smoothly, and we should be focusing on Unity within the week.

May 5 - Feild Trip and Model Updates

Most of the team went into the city to get detailed photos of the kind of ship we're building. They got a lot of good shots of the fire fighting equipment. As for the Models; there is a basic crew member built that can be used as a base, the Captain is textured and can be touched up if time becomes available, Matt reports that the hull is done, and Andrew has a rough of the upper decks done so he's moved on to extinguishers and other fire fighting equipment. I'm going to Figure out what to assign Matt and myself next.

April 30 - Progress

Had a meeting with Matt and Andrew about their transportation issues and their workload. Rough models were completed for the upperdecks and crew. Scedualed a trip to the ship yards for Monday.

April 28 - Meeting

Ed came by and showed us blue prints for the kind of ship we would be creating. I Wrote a Gantt chart dividing the modelling work among the other modellers. Construction on assets delayed due to Matt and Andrew having transportation and communication issues.