Monday, December 10, 2012

N420 Final Project



Capstone Interviews


5 questions with John Richard Hestor:

1.       Why did you choose this for your capstone project?
I have a desire to design games for a career.
2.        
      What are some changes that you had to make between your original idea and what you are presenting today?
I had to change the level floor plans a lot due to the narrowing size of the map. The level takes place in a tower and it gets smaller and smaller as you go up. So I had to scale down the size as I went.
3.        
      What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?
It’s only helpful if you follow it and pay attention to where it’s going.
4.      
          If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?
I really wish I would have devoted more time to promotional material. I spent all my time working on my level up until the very end and here I am, but I don’t really have a way of telling people I’m here.
5.        
      What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?
Don’t overestimate how much you can get done in your plans. Scale it back if you need to.

5 questions with Xian Guan:
1.        
     Why did you choose this for your capstone project?
I want to be a character modeler.
2.       
         What are some changes that you had to make between your original idea and what you are presenting today?
I had planned originally to make the Ice King and Bubblegum Princess from Adventure Time, but the characters where too cartoony.
3.      
         What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?
I over-planned my timeline for about 120% of what I really thought I could get done in order to get close to the 100% I wanted to get done.
4.      
           If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?
I wish I would have had time to do the scene differently and I wish I would have blocked out a simpler scene for rendering and setting things up.
5.      
          What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?
Watch out for project scope creep.



5 questions with Nate Moody:
1.        
     Why did you choose this for your capstone project?
I wanted to develop this set of skills for my projects.
2.      
          What are some changes that you had to make between your original idea and what you are presenting today?
I wanted to have more of my work colored but had to cut back due to lack of time.
3.        
      What is your opinion of the timeline for your capstone? Was it helpful or a waste of time? Why?
My timeline changed all the time so I didn’t stick to it.
4.        
       If you could change anything about your capstone, what would that be?
I wanted more physical material for my presentation, but had to scale it back for budgeting reasons.
5.      
         What advice would you give me in planning for my capstone?
Do something you’re really going to enjoy working on.

 What I learned:

I’ve been to several capstones in the past, but I usually take something away from them regardless. It was good to do the extra credit because it made it a bit more interesting getting signatures. It was kind of like a scavenger hunt. The interviews we’re a bit of a pain, but I enjoyed them. One thing I did decide to do differently was to put a little more thought into presentation. A lot of people I talked to had wished they’d done more and I think it also helps to pad your capstone a bit. It did seem to help draw in the onlookers. Also, a lot of people didn’t have business cards this time, which was kind of annoying. There were a couple of things I would have liked to have followed up on but didn’t get a way of seeing more of in the future.
  
And on side note: I was a little peeved at the faculty guy going around handing out pens butting in and cutting me off when I was trying to ask someone about their project. Freakin’ rude! As a result I never got to ask the questions I wanted. And the catering for capstone was disappointing yet again. You’d think the school could spring for a couple sandwiches.

Mostly it’s always good to compare to see what other people are doing to help you gauge what you want to accomplish with your own capstone.

No comments:

Post a Comment