Blog Post #12 A Retrospection on the Semester

This semester could’ve been more effective, if I had focused my scope earlier on— and stuck with it. Let me explain.

First off, my Milestones changed drastically— twice. First, I was planning to do pretty much all of the lore, design, and programming for Pareidolia’s vertical slice— starting from no experience in digital design and programming. The Milestones, early on, were not realistic. I had set myself a week to do the alla prima mechanic; I had no idea how to effectively achieve that.

My ideas were explorative, and, I’d say, quite innovative.

From near the beginning of the semester, I knew, theoretically and conceptually, how I would go about the alla prima mechanic— take the tutorial of Viewfinder in UE5, socket the “camera” to a refraction trail, and combine the effects. That is still my plan. 

But looking back, rereading all of my blog posts, the apparent ignorance of the learning process betrayed, well, ignorance. It had been so long since I started learning something new in a new epistemological category that I didn’t know how to approach learning this. I approached this as a project— without knowing the base information necessary to achieve any of it without directly following tutorials. 

And I changed my scope. As I said, twice.

I don’t regret that.

I definitely grew as a character modeler— which was my ultimate focus— and I acquired a broad base of surface-level information on other subjects. But, moving forward, I want to learn more of the “programming” (blueprints) of UE5 to achieve the alla prima mechanic. I just grabbed a blueprint course on Udemy for Cyber Monday discounts. It has tutelage on blueprints, generally, and also teaches how to apply those learnings to four different types of game projects. I am excited to start it. Two of the projects— a space shooter and a 2D dungeon crawler— could easily (hopefully) be co-opted into my Crossed Stars space shooter RPG idea. And it’s all in UE5, so I can learn the basis of blueprints, while applying it to Pareidolia and Crossed Stars. 

I had some technical difficulties. A lot of lost work caused by programs crashing, or not backing up files the right way, or files being corrupted, meshes forming holes in them— but I don’t resent it. I’ve learned how to avoid those technical errors going forward, and have become adept at the digital pipeline. 

Where am I going, prospectively?

My focus for next semester’s Seminar project is designing a playable version of the alla prima mechanic. I will go about this intentionally. I will follow the blueprint course, becoming familiar with UE5 blueprints; I will consecutively deconstruct the Viewfinder UE5 emulation tutorial; I will then learn how to make a refraction weapon trail in AfterEffects (I’ve done some research on this; it shouldn’t be too difficult); I will create a very limited, simple, colorful backdrop for the alla prima mechanic to affect; I will socket the Viewfinder effect to the refraction trail; I will troubleshoot.

I am also going to be looking into getting a grant so that I can stay in town over the summer and continue working on this project. 

I will create a concise GDD/pitch for the project, and reach out in our Discord servers, requesting help on it from any eager potential contributors. I’m not sure what areas of work that I will be requesting help with; I will define that clearly. 

I have come a long way. There is much left to be done. 

We are just beginning.