Moba FMP Week 14 - Health

PLEASE READ THIS. IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT MY HEALTH PROBLEMS THIS YEAR

It's been a long time since an update. And this has been for very good reason. In this blog post I want to explain why there hasn't been many blog posts and what has been going on with me.

During my FMP, infact during the entire Third Year, I've been suffering from a currently unknown sickness. Last week I was recovering from surgery that was meant to fix me. But it didn't, and my doctors still do not know exactly what is wrong. I've been spending this whole project bouncing from doctor to doctor trying new medications. And that's had its toll.

Because of this working has been really hard. I've been trying my hardest but I have to deal with constant chronic pain, lethargy, sleeping problems and headaches. The doctors still do not know what's wrong with me. I had exploration surgery to try and find out the cause. All I know now, is that I'm sick for the long term. Something is causing me reoccurring infections both inside and outside of my body. I could talk about these things in more detail but trust me, you don't want to know. I've chosen to focus on my health rather than the project, which is the smart decision. I take it easy when I have to, I relax, I try not to stress. This means that for many days I've only been able to work 1-2 hours, if at all. I don't want to use this as a big excuse but I've needed this recovery time. Actually I most likely needed more. This has slowed my project down immensely.

One of the things I wanted to discuss was how I planned this project for this eventuality. I knew I was sick while planning my FMP. I was expecting to get worse, or to visit hospital or have tough recovery times or stress. All of those things happened. So it's really good that I planned this project in such a way. I planned the project to work in dividable sections. I could take time away from any section and if I worked them correctly I could still complete the project. And its working. Despite all of this, I'm only around one week behind. If you consider the week I took off work entirely for my surgery, and that I've only worked a small fraction of the hours a day I want to, that's amazing. I'm really proud of myself for that. The way I've managed to work with much less time on the table I think is impressive.

It's been a real task to make the most of the time I have. It's been important to me to make assets and texture in a time efficient way so that I can construct a complete project with a fraction of the time. And its worked. I've had very little work time wasted in this project. Every asset made has been used, and made to work. If I spent hours on assets that were to be scrapped, I would have lost maybe weeks of work time. Even if the project as a whole is sparse, I'm immensely proud of the time management and planning it requires. (so hopefully I still get good marks for that, eh)

So my project is still going. I'm only a small part behind and I want to finish it. I really like how the project looks. It might not be technically impressive and I fully know at this point, I might not even get many marks for it. At this point, that doesn't matter. I want to finish this project. I want to make it something I can be proud of. I wont have all the bells and whistles. I wont have nearly the animation I wanted or even touch many stretch goals. But I will have a stylised project that looks beautiful and is complete. I won't settle for less.

Below is a large amount of screenshots of the level as-is.

My next step is finishing the second Core, a large asset that has to be well painted. Next I will create particles and animations to make the environment feel more alive. I'm so close to a practically finished state.

A big thing I've had to think about recently is whether or not to defer or redo the year. It might be smart. I know this sickness has effected my previous style matrix projects too. I know I won't get the best marks ever. I like my project, I like what I've been doing but I do understand that from an academic stand point it wont be all that. But right now, personally. I don't want to take that route. For one, I might still be sick next year. If it's the things my doctors think it might be, currently undiagnosed so I don't want to post all about them, I might be like this for the rest of my life. I would defer the year only to struggle again with more stress... I can't see myself coping with that. I know it might not be the best decision but i want to finish. I want to prove that Oli Smith can work despite overwhelming odds. Despite this constant pain despite being both constantly tired and unable to ever sleep. I may very well change my mind, and that's okay too. Right now, I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of what I've done. That means more than any marks ever could. I can imagine myself looking back at this, perhaps during job interviews and coming up with a plethora of things I've learnt.

#fmp