What I have learnt from all this
COMMUNICATE
Communication is the biggest and hands down the most helpful tool used in collaborating, especially when making games. Even when I was not caught in the miscommunication errors, I still witnessed how it can break a group apart and effect others. Not communicating not only brings setbacks, but also break trust and ultimately can ruin the development in the long term. Its why I always made sure that my leads and level designers were always aware of what I was doing and I would also ask what they would be doing too.
Optimisation
This was a completely new thing to me and became my biggest enemy in the process of making this game. Optimisation can happen through various methods, which in my case was to make sure to keep an eye on the poly count when creating new assets in a game. Game assets, especially when they are so small should not have so many polys, and especially when making a level itself, the map should not be high poly when there are going to be assets inside, and I should consider different textures or bump maps as a solution.
Resources
As I have more knowledge of Maya, I still used whatever resources I had, such as Blender, to get the job done. As this was one of my biggest obstacles and Blender wasn't something I could used for AAA standard work, I still attempted to learn what I could from online sources and from my teammates to help me get the jobs and tasks done that were needed. I also didn't let the fact of me not knowing how to texture properly stop me, as I am not experienced with texturing well, however I was still able to execute my tasks and ask for help when needed. One last thing is that being unsure of something isn't the end of the world, your team is another recourse you can use! If you aren't sure on something, as a teammate or even a lead for help and that's the rule I promised to follow when making this game.
