Evaluation

This project was to create a diorama which suits a target audience of our choosing using the research collected depending on the type of diorama we chose. I decided to produce a horror style environmental 3D piece however I did not manage to achieve the horror style I aimed to produce, I did however create a rather gloomy style cavern which could potentially be classed as ‘horror’

This fits my target demographic as I chose the ages 15-25 due to the target audience of a horror film is based around these ages which is evidenced below.

My audience research didn’t necessarily influence the development of my idea due to already having the idea of producing a horror style environmental piece in mind even before deciding what I was going to produce as I have a slight obsession with this genre of game/film. However I did manage to successfully use the research to help me add certain aspects to my diorama to suit this particular target demographic.

After reviewing my research on Dioramas, I personally feel that my diorama meets the criteria of a Diorama as my interpretation of the definition found was to create a small scene to display a story of significance to the theme of choice. Below is the definition I found to evidence this.

From this project I have learnt a variety of skills which could potentially help me with future projects within Unreal Engine such as animation of sprite sheets which I used to create the flame for my lantern aswell as the production of rocks in a very simple way, however I will most likely never be producing a scene/diorama using rocks ever again as they caused a lot of stress for me during this project. Although I could easily do it again as I now know how to create these in a rather efficient way in very little time.

Alongside this project I also learnt how to use substance designer which is actually a very easy way of producing high quality textures which I will develop my skills further to help me texture my assets in the future.

Overall during this project I faced a lot of issues mainly non work related which did however cause my work progression to slip leaving me around 4 weeks behind due to mental health issues causing lack of motivation however I am working towards fixing the issues (AGAIN) and is working out rather well for me. Other than these issues I feel like the assets and diorama produced was a rather good quality considering I had to rush during the last week to actually finish my assets and build my scene within Unreal Engine including lighting and laying out the scene itself. I definitely will work on my time management in the future however I have been extremely efficient in the past with deadlines which tells me that this is just a fluke and will pass over time allowing me to work much harder for other projects.

My diorama although not perfect or even near what I aimed to achieve, I personally feel like I hit all of my target demographics interests aswell as produced a relatively good quality scene considering the time I actually had left over for myself. I will definitely work towards getting my work done on time in the future. I am however quite proud with a fair amount of assets in my scene including my pickaxe, lantern and minecart. The textures and geometry of these assets are some of the cleanest pieces of work I have made and are extremely low poly yet rather high quality allowing a realistic style when combined with textures and good lighting.

My peer feedback personally didn’t really help me during this project as all of my work was referred due to not having work completed as stated above which actually just demotivated me even more than I already was. However tutor feedback helped me a lot especially toward the end of the project as I was able to easily identify what was missing and how I can improve to actually hit the pass grade required of me which can be seen below.