Here is the video for my Personal Case study that I need to submit for this unit. It summarises all the work I completed during the Development Practice Unit, as well as what I learnt.
You can also download the video here: https://falmouthac-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/r/personal/jw257187_falmouth_ac_uk/Documents/James%20Waters%20Personal%20Case%20Study%20GDD710.mp4?csf=1&web=1&e=FPia5D
Video transcript
The transcript for this video is listed below.
Introduction
Hello, I am James and I am studying for a Master’s degree in Indie Game Development at Falmouth University.
I work as a graphic designer, although I have been interested in making games for quite some time.
I joined this course so that I could explore game design and development further, as well as acquiring new skills that could help me advance my career, as well as my creativity.
Everything I completed so far
Introducing RI sessions
During this unit, I completed two rapid ideation sessions.
RI Session 1
In the first of these, I set myself a SMART goal to build a working game prototype within two weeks.
I used several ideation techniques to develop a concept for this prototype, including the Cut-up technique, in which I cut up and rearranged headlines from newspaper articles;as well as Osborn’s brainstorming technique and Rhode’s sketchnoting method.
I am new to game development, so I used online tutorials to develop the skills required for this project.
I gained some experience using scripting to create in-game behaviour, and interactions between the player character and the environment.
I used my existing animation and illustration skills to create a 2D sprite for the player character, as well as the environment for two basic levels.
Although I developed a better understanding of the Unity game engine, the resulting game prototype was incomplete and full of glitches which I did not have the technical knowledge to resolve.
RI Session 2
For the second rapid ideation session, I wanted to rejuvenate my 3D graphic skills and I set a SMART goal to do this by modelling and rigging a character in Blender within two weeks.
Unlike the first session, I settled on the concept for my character very quickly. I chose to model the Curupira, a creature from Brazilian folklore who protects the rainforest.
I designed and illustrated my version of the character, before building it in Blender.
To build the character, I used Darren Lile’s online course on Character Creation in Blender to guide me and I managed to successfully model and texture my Curupira character.
However, I spent too much time on the more minute details of this character model and I soon found that I was running out of time.
I found myself rushing through the last stages of the project and when it came to rigging the character, I was unable to bind the model to the rig and the project ground to a halt.
Although I did not complete everything I intended, I at least had a complete character model that I could continue to work on and eventually use as a portfolio piece.
Key research findings
During each rapid ideation session, I explored two Agile frameworks of project management and assessed how efficient they are and how much they facilitate reflective practice. For the first session, I used Scrum and for the second, I used Kanban.
I then compared both frameworks to determine how effective they were. As I worked solo on both projects, this would be a key factor when comparing the two frameworks.
I found that Kanban was a lot more efficient for doing solo work as it is less role-orientated and has a more flexible workflow. While Scrum clearly favours smaller teams over big teams, it also favours small teams over no team at all.
Managing a Scrum workflow during a solo project of just two weeks proved to be very intense and I found that over time, I had to modify or scrap various aspects of the framework.
I found Kanban to be a lot more flexible and I benefited from using a Kanban board on Trello to visualise my progress.
SMART goals
Moving forward, I have set myself three SMART goals that I will look to fulfil during the next unit of this course.
The first of these is to investigate and research three possible career paths within game development which match my skills and interests by the end of three months.
The second goal is to develop my understanding of 3D graphics within Blender and to successfully complete: modelling, rigging and animation by the end of the next unit.
And my third goal is to assess my critical reflection according to the reflective domains – cognitive, procedural, affective, dispositional and interpersonal. I will do this by using the corresponding blog tags during the next unit.
As I was documenting my work, I came to recognise the importance of considering internal and external circumstances that may affect my progress. I want to continue this in the next unit.
Thank you for listening.
References used in the video
The following references were used in this video.
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