From the beginning of January, the project started in a much more organisational and planning-focused phase before any major development work began. Myself and Indidana spent the first couple of weeks breaking down the overall scope of the game and discussing what would realistically be achievable within the timeframe we had available. During these early discussions, we looked at the scale of the project, the visual direction, gameplay ideas, and how we could divide the workload in a way that played to both of our strengths. This stage was extremely important because it helped prevent confusion later in development and allowed us to establish a clearer production pipeline from the start.

We decided fairly early on that Indidana would mainly focus on the programming and animation side of the game, as those were her strongest areas, while I would primarily focus on environmental production. My responsibilities included creating the majority of the props, building the main level, handling much of the environmental modelling, and producing the textures required for the world. Alongside this, I would also help with implementation and any technical art tasks that came up during development. Having these roles established early helped us work more independently while still contributing towards a shared final vision.

The first two weeks were heavily focused on preparation and organisation rather than practical production. During this time, we discussed references, gathered inspiration, and experimented with ideas for the overall look and atmosphere of the game. We spent time analysing visual styles from other games and discussing what kind of mood we wanted our own environment to create. We also considered how gameplay mechanics and level design would interact with the environment itself, which helped influence the direction of my modelling work later in development.

At this point, we also started considering technical limitations and production efficiency. Because of the limited timeframe, we knew we needed to avoid overly complicated workflows that could slow development down unnecessarily. This meant planning modular assets where possible and ensuring the level design could be built efficiently without sacrificing overall quality. Although this planning stage did not immediately produce visible results, it became one of the most valuable parts of the project because it gave us a much stronger foundation moving forward.

Once the initial preparation stage was complete, Indidana sent me the main character model so I could begin the rigging process. This quickly became one of the most difficult and time-consuming parts of the entire project for me personally. Prior to this project, I had very limited experience with character rigging, and while I understood the basic concepts in theory, actually applying them to a full character proved far more complicated than I originally expected.

Initially, I believed the rigging process would take approximately one to two weeks to complete. However, due to my inexperience and the amount of technical issues I encountered, the process ultimately lasted closer to four weeks. A large portion of this time was spent troubleshooting problems rather than making straightforward progress. I encountered issues with joint orientation, control setups, skin weighting, and deformation errors that repeatedly caused sections of the character mesh to behave incorrectly during movement.

One of the biggest challenges was learning proper weight painting. At first, movements looked extremely unnatural, with parts of the mesh stretching or collapsing in unrealistic ways whenever joints rotated. Fixing these problems required a huge amount of experimentation and patience. There were multiple occasions where I had to completely redo sections of the rig because early mistakes caused larger issues later in the process. At times, the process became frustrating because progress felt very slow, especially compared to the initial timeline I had planned.

Despite this, the rigging stage became one of the most educational parts of the project overall. Because I had never fully rigged a character before, I was forced to learn quickly and adapt to problems independently. Over time, I became much more confident using Maya’s rigging systems and developed a stronger understanding of how professional character pipelines function within game development. By the end of the process, I had gained experience with joint hierarchies, IK and FK controls, skin binding, and weight painting optimisation. Although it took significantly longer than expected, completing the rig successfully felt like a major milestone within the project and gave me a much greater appreciation for the technical complexity behind character animation systems.

After the rigging process was completed, I shifted my full attention towards environmental production and level creation. This stage felt much more natural to me because environmental modelling is an area I already had more experience and confidence in. I began constructing the main structural elements of the level, including the floors, walls, and larger environmental pieces that would form the foundation of the game world. Once the base environment had been established, I moved onto producing the smaller props and assets that would help make the space feel more believable and visually detailed.

Compared to the rigging stage, I found the modelling workflow significantly smoother and more enjoyable. Creating props felt far more intuitive, and I was able to work at a much faster pace. I used modular workflows wherever possible to maintain consistency across the environment and improve efficiency during production. Reusing certain asset structures while creating variations allowed me to populate the level more effectively without needing to individually build every single object from scratch.

However, while the modelling itself came naturally, I encountered major difficulties during the texturing phase of development. Although I was confident creating the meshes, I struggled far more with making the textures visually appealing and stylistically cohesive. I felt that I lacked some of the artistic finesse and natural eye for colour and surface detail that Indidana had when producing visual work. Because of this, texturing often became a much slower process than modelling itself.

A large amount of time was spent experimenting with different materials, adjusting colour palettes, and testing surface details to try and create textures that suited the overall style of the game. There were many instances where textures initially looked too flat, unrealistic, or visually inconsistent when placed within the environment. Achieving a balance between stylisation and readability became one of the biggest artistic challenges I faced throughout development.

This stage of the project forced me to improve areas of my workflow that I would normally avoid or spend less time on. I started paying much closer attention to how textures contribute to atmosphere, how lighting affects materials within the environment, and how smaller details can make scenes feel more immersive overall. Through repeated iteration and feedback, I gradually improved my confidence with texturing and became more comfortable refining assets until they felt cohesive within the game world.

As development progressed further, communication between myself and Indidana became increasingly important. Since we were handling different aspects of the project, it was essential that both the gameplay systems and environmental assets worked together correctly. We regularly tested the game build to identify issues related to scaling, navigation, collision, animation integration, and overall scene readability. These testing sessions helped us catch problems early and allowed us to make improvements continuously rather than leaving everything until the final stages of development.

Another important aspect of the project was learning how to manage time more effectively. Because the rigging stage had taken far longer than initially planned, I had to adapt my workflow later in development to ensure the remaining environment work could still be completed on time. This meant prioritising the most important assets first and making more realistic decisions about what level of detail was achievable within the timeframe. In many ways, this became an important lesson in project management and understanding the realities of game production.

Looking back on the project from January up until now, the overall development process has been both extremely challenging and highly rewarding. While there were multiple setbacks and technical difficulties throughout production, especially during the rigging stage, these challenges ultimately pushed me to improve a wide range of skills across both technical and artistic areas. I developed a much stronger understanding of the complete game art pipeline, improved my ability to solve problems independently, and gained valuable experience working collaboratively within a team project.

Most importantly, the project highlighted the importance of adaptability, communication, and realistic planning within game development. Although many aspects of the process did not go exactly as originally planned, overcoming those difficulties became one of the most valuable learning experiences of the entire project.