Patterns
Like most of my ideas, they come to me in the most peculiar ways. The idea and style for Patterns popped into my head abruptly when I was fast asleep. I sprung out of bed and launched myself at the computer excitedly sketching out a quick and dirty storyboard. VERY dirty. After all, I was barely awake.
I poised the idea.. “Dude! I just got a great idea!” …And I set the project in motion. Literally. This is basically a story of a cube from death to life back to death. To go along with the fact that this style is something completely new for me, I am using this project to illustrate my skill set. Modeling, overall design, color composition, character animation, lighting, perspective, and more. Basically, everything (except for possibly sketching). So without much ado, on with the show!
So. A little history behind that render: I originally started this project back in December of ’09. I had only started my journey into the 3D realm possibly a month or two beforehand. Had never done any 3D modeling previously so I wasn’t exactly sure that I knew what I was doing. I was having trouble progressing much further on the project than what you see there. I was convinced that, for the type of lighting I wanted, I would need a more powerful machine. I was attempting to use Global Illumination with animation and I was getting artifacts all over the place; It was a mess. So I put it on the back burner. Eight months and a much more experienced Jordan Cain later, I come back to it only to realize that it wasn’t my machine that was at fault, it was how I set up the lighting. Although, the upgraded machine certainly helped.
I learned a ton over those 8 months. I found out that I didn’t even need to use the GI module. Simply a backlight, front-side light, fill light, and an HDRi reflection map, and presto! Studio-like environment. And very fast render times because of it.
Oh, quick note: The rows of cones behind the “Odd One Out” titles are there to use as perspective markers. I intend to use that space for some industrial looking models. Maybe pipes with steam coming out, or oil derricks. Naturally their actions would be synced to the music as is everything else.
I may need to push the background models back a bit more to give the sense of distance. But as you can see, while the primary action and focus is in the foreground, I still intend to have a living background as well. Those little added details aren’t necessarily needed, but simply having them there brings the scene to life.