Asset Management – Post Mortem

Individual Post-Mortem

What I learned most from this project is that having a solid preproduction will result in a great production process. Not all, but most of my projects had a strong foundation of preproduction documentation. Documentation ends confrontation, hesitations and any other issues that may hinder production. Methodologies were used and all documentation was handled by the Project Manager.  For this class project we did not have any of that. The project manager was practically shooting from the hip, there was no preproduction, and everyone had control over updating their responsibilities. If the first week was dedicated to crafting a game design document, art bible, and scheduled plan we would have a baseline and foundation to revert towards. The art I created was thankfully on point with the other artists styles. Since leads were not established and roles were switched, I did not take the initiative to craft an art bible. I did do a lot of research and created a plan for how I wanted to go about the power-up pick-ups. Since the theme had some relation towards arcade shooter styles, I decided to adopt some of their styles, which included emblems, rounds, and spinning golden auras. Everything crafted was ready to go for the team however, again without an art bible or GDD there was some disconnection.

Team Post-Mortem

Reflecting on what we accomplished this month was a much bigger step than what we did on our previous project as a team. Last project my artwork was never even implemented and I provided much high fidelity work. I believe switching to the alternative engine and using its blueprints really aided the developers because it provided a foundation. Even though the developers had a friendlier engine, they still lagged behind the amount of artwork and assets coming from the artists. Also, given the short time frame we had for the preproduction, there was never a created game design document and art bible, which made communication harder for the artist. Comparing to the previous project as an overall, all or most people have worked together and pulled their weight for a 40hr/month project. I feel if this project had more time and proper documentation upkeep and a preproduction, as a team we would have progressed better and smoothly.