Blog 8

Week 8: This week was the week of the alpha presentation. We were required to present our level to demonstrate our progress up to this point, our lighting, our models and any texture work that we had done so far. For the presentation I focused on assembling my level in Unreal and arranging the scene as close to the film as I could. I hadn't done any texturing for this module by this point as I have been focusing on getting the props modeled and UVd for the presentation.

I decided to use PowerPoint as my format for my presentation. This is because we only have five minutes to present our work and opening the Unreal engine would have taken up at least two minutes of that time which I couldn't afford to waste. I began my presentation stating that I had changed the functionality of my room. In my last presentation I made my room for a third-person shoot-em up, however there would be no purpose for a player to go into my scene if it was that sort of game. So to remedy this problem I kept my game theme the same, however I made it so that my room would be used for the "hacking" function that is used in many of the other Matrix games. The hacking function is what the Matrix games refer to when inputting cheats to the game. This is commonly done by selecting the hacking function on the main menu and putting in codes. I want to expand on that and instead of going into a  screen, the player will be taken into my scene, to input the commands. The player can click the relevant "action button" on Easter egg objects such as Morpheus's glasses to activate cheats like "infinite focus" then they could go into the "tech room" and input codes on the computers for extra cheats. I feel that this makes the room more plausible.

I continued by explaining my two shots that I would like to take, and my reasoning for picking those particular scenes. I picked to shot in the meeting room to show the symmetry in the scene, and the exacting nature that the machine influence would have on the Matrix. This shot demonstrates this point more then any other in the film. The scene is perfectly symmetrical except for the two characters in the scene, who do not need to be symmetrical as they are organic and are no longer in the grasp of the machines influence.

The second shot is in the "tech room" from the tech desk angle. The reason that I chose this shot was because it contrasts the first shot so well. The rooms are pretty much identical, however the "tech room" is completely cluttered with equipment that the characters have brought in. This completely eclipses the mechanical precision of the room and makes it near impossible to see the grid pattern that runs throughout the rooms. This room sums up the human influence on the matrix, although the humans are the protagonist side of the film, they are essentially invading and messing around with the Matrix and its mechanically minded layout; and I belive that this shot makes this point evident.

I went on to show some props that I have made to give an Idea on my progress and talked about some of the lighting issues that I would encounter in these scenes. For example, in the first shot the only lighting source that can be seen is the for lamps that are placed on the walls. However there is a large ambient light coming in from the center of the room, This would suggest a light source however there is no source scene, nor is there any room for a light source that would be big enough to produce that amount of light. I will have to place an ambient light in the scene without an necessary prop to emit the light.

After talking about the lighting I began explaining what I needed to do next. My main priorities are now to texture everything, light everything and possible re build the level.