I gained a lot of technical experience as well as personal experience I can use in every day life from working on Nyx. Some lessons I learnt from working on Nyx is don't be afraid when designing the level to make it more interesting. Always work on the function of the game before making it look all pretty, and to always work in a collaborative team.
When working on the design of the level and characters, I didn't want to have the standard zombie horror game. I wanted something that hasn't been done before, so after weeks of compiling ideas me and the team came to a conclusion. Being stuck in an underground abandoned lab where you have nothing but a flashlight and must survive the horrible experiments that happened. The aim of the game was to make the player feel lonely and helpless while at the same time have a good plot.
Modelling was the most enjoyable part, and I went all out with the modelling. By the end of the fifth week I had modeled the entire level with over 90 props. Modelling in low poly is challenging as you have to be careful about topology and edge flow, but nothing a few normal maps can't fix ha!
Texturing was very tedious and was probably the time I had a little less motivation when it came to Nyx. I pulled through as i didn't want to fall back on work and let down the team, learning the correct way to put UV maps is a good lesson. There are many ways you can place UV maps, it all depends on how you're going to texture (repeated textures etc).
The lighting for Nyx was very challenging since our games main mechanic was using light to fend off the enemies. Keeping the draw calls low while also having good lighting was the most challenging part of this project for me. Being unable to bake lights in to the level to save memory and create more interesting lighting was challenging.
Scripting can be another course it self when it comes to game design, especially with AI (I attempted to make an AI). I do admit that when a script works it brings you great joy and boosts your confidence. Scripting simple trigger zone was easy enough, but to get a functional AI working especially of AAA quality is the hardest obstacle we couldn't overcome.
All in all this was a great project to work and learning many things from it was awesome. I can use the skills and lessons I've learnt from this on future projects and life in general. If I had to do this subject again i would work alone on a much smaller project that i can handle, here are the final screen shots for Nyx.
