Digital Environments

For this project, I will be creating a Digital Environment that has aspects of both character and personality derived from the exploration of the environment within the narrative. I will be able to develop my skills with the software packages I am familiar with using already and become more aware of the processes involved within the development of environments and backgrounds for digital media. This piece should aim to be between 30 to 60 seconds of animation, and must be in CGI, but can make use of a combination of 2D and 3D techniques and processes. I had three main ideas to base my digital environment concepts off of. I made simple sketches and notes to illustrate my current thought process.

 

My first idea centres around the concept of a Cityscape environment, bathed under moonlight and abundant with neon lights within a night time setting. I want to try and produce a mysterious feel with this environment, that hopefully allows a sense of wonder and exploration to build up as the narrative reveals the environment whilst we explore it together. Although it is a tall and mechanic scenery, I want to add subtle hints of life and natural elements to give the environment “character” by adding some contrast. I want the audience to believe that there is life that inhabits the environment. Subtleties such as this could include lights in buildings turning on or off. I want to also make use real world concepts such as the Doppler Effect with sounds and music, so that as sounds get closer they become louder, and as they move further away they become quieter.

My second idea is based off of a painting done by English Romanticist Landscape painter James Mallord William Turner. The painting is called Calais Pier, and illustrates a packet boat caught in a storm, whilst arriving at a pier in Calais , France with a crew of people on board. With this idea, I wanted to build a narrative using the camera techniques from an E3 trailer of ZombiU (a Nintendo WiiU console video game), and have everything in the environment stationary and allow the audience to learn more about the nature of the environment through a series of camera movements. The camera starts inside of the ship, eventually revealing a ruined ship interior before leaving one of the portholes and panning out to reveal stormy weather. The camera would then pan back further to a city with a Roman influence that has a plain view of this ruined ship in the storm. I wanted to make use of light, similarly to how William Turner does in his artwork, in order to produce a romantic mood from the environment.

My final idea centres around that of an underground city. I was looking at concepts from various media, such as the Goron City (an environment from the Legend of Zelda franchise), and the Underground City ( an environment used in the Notes from the Underground episodes from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003 Animated Series). Using these two specifically, I wanted to create a type of underground kingdom inhabited by a race of beings forced to live underground due to other circumstances. We would explore the environment together through camera movements, and learn more about who live there, why they live there, and maybe what clues can be found about their interests and their characters.

In order for me to develop the environment and develop the story more successfully, I wrote a character bio for each of the characters that are living in their respective spaces:

I used a small 3×3 grid with randomised character traits, items and environments in order to build these character bios. I found this helpful because sometimes when creating ideas, I force ideas that I deem to be good and immediately dismiss others that I feel may not be as strong. Because the traits are randomised, I’m able to focus on developing the story and ideas for the entire random concept.

After sharing my ideas with peers, I was able to earn some feedback and some possible ideas for me to incorporate in the ideas. Because I am still in the early stages of the planning process, it’s possible for me to make drastic changes without becoming too attached to the project. For the city idea, one idea I really admired was the idea of adding some means of public transport that is active in the environment. Specifically, a train that could run past during one of the camera shots. I liked this idea because I feel I need to add elements of life into the setting, to contrast the mechanic layout of buildings and neon lights. For the second idea, an idea for me to make the entire shot pan out from a painting on the wall at the end of the film, similar to the events that occurred in Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Although this may not have been originally how I was planning on bringing the scene to a close, I found it an interesting option to consider and a magical way to end the animation. For the underground city idea, it was suggested to me that I use some of the rocks and stalagmites formed at the top of the environment to form large enough structures that are able to produce bigger structures on lower levels such as: housing for the inhabitants of the underground city and other city structures. I found this an interesting idea as well because I did not have much inspiration in terms of visuals and shots for this idea at this stage, so imagining rocks forming and merging with other larger rock formations to produce habitable structures helped me for the next stage of the project.

This is my Project Plan. I created it so that I can try to keep on schedule with what needs to be done, and the order in which I will try to complete the tasks in preparation for the Summative Hand In for my final project. This is just a basic plan as I am unaware of what the future holds and how much time may be needed to dedicate to each of the tasks. Some tasks may be shorter than expected, some may be longer than expected.

For each idea, I drew up some storyboard panel sketches to represent some possible shots and camera angles I could incorporate into the final film. I decided to think ahead of time for the camera shots and possible camera angles as this would make the process a bit easier when the time comes to block out the scene in Maya and finally begin to create the digital environment. For the first idea, I focused mainly on using 1 point perspective to sketch the buildings and cuboid structures into the shot so that the composition of the shots would become more interesting. I also want to try and experiment with the cameras in Maya to allow the eyes to perceive the buildings as these huge powerful figures, and try to illustrate the menacing nature of the city. For the second idea, due to it being based off of a still environment, I drew a few stages of the motions the camera is going to make as it flows through the environment and reveals the status of the environment. For this idea, I hope to make varied motions throughout a single camera shot – no camera cuts. This being because I feel that having camera cuts in the film would break away from the magic of the concept. The third idea being based underground would have a lot of shots the explore the vastness of the space, taking advantage of high angle shots and wide views that allow the stalagmites on the cavern walls to loom down in the foreground, and the far background spaces to become lost in darkness.

 

I took a shot from each idea to produce a concept sheet that I could possibly work towards to choose a final idea. Using Photoshop, I was able to produce these early concept sheets by adding possible lighting angles and a grey scale colour scheme:

By this point, I found myself gravitating more towards the Cityscape at night digital environment idea. The references that I had, as well as the development that had gone into this idea so far seemed to be the strongest. In terms of Concept Art and Visual Referencing for the buildings, I looked at the video game “Kingdom Hearts 2”, where the style of bright neon lights within a dark city originated from. I also looked into the visual styles of domestic settings for houses and smaller spaces from another video game called “The Last of Us”. I also looked into using 1 Point Perspective to draft up a piece of Concept Art using media techniques for both settings that appear in my environment.

 

The next stage for me is to create a storyboard for my chosen idea, in order to develop the story further through the use of interesting camera angles and other story telling techniques.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS;

– Establishing shot of city with buildings looming over the camera. The buildings have been placed this way to give this dominating presence to the city and introduce a menacing quality.

– Cut to shot of the main street of the digital environment.

– Camera pans upward whilst aiming down the same street in the environment, revealing more depth to the city and more details on the much closer objects and buildings.

– Camera dolly’s back through a hole in a wall.

– Hole in wall reveals a new setting, with signs of a person who has recently or currently lives there.

– Cut to a series of newspapers and articles on a wall that reveal a more dangerous nature to this environment, and raises questions as to who put these newspapers on the wall, and for what reason.

– Cut to a shot of arrows and a quiver, referencing the battle ready nature of the character who inhabits this environment.

– Cut to a cigarette in an ash tray with residual smoke emanating from the embers in the ash tray.

– Cut to a television on a static channel.

– Camera shot panning from left to right, reaching the doorway before zooming in to the door.

– Camera dolly forward into the door before fading to black.

 

After creating this storyboard, I noticed that there are some changes that should be made. This being due to how much time the film is supposed to be, what can and should be cut out, and what can be rearranged for the better. The vision in my head for this idea illustrates that the order of revealing items when we reach inside the apartment should be changed. I want the cigarette burning to be the first object focused on after establishing the surroundings, followed by the television, and then the newspaper articles on the wall. I decided to cut the “warrior/archer” aspect from the character, thus allowing me to cut the shot of the arrows and quiver on the table from the scene. I felt that although it was a character trait I was excited to use, it did not actually take the story further – for this specific project brief anyway. It was precious time that could be spent longer focusing on another aspect of the apartment to bring out the character traits. Here is the current up to date version of the storyboard, with camera movements added:

 

After creating the storyboard, I then began to pre-viz my digital environment, in order to map out the areas and produce visual concepts in Maya of what the environment will look like. Using the camera sequencer in Maya, I set up shots based on the camera movements I planned out in my storyboard. Whilst creating the cameras, I felt that there should be some shots added into the sequence, to help the “flow” of the animation, and set the cityscape scene a little better. I inserted shots 1 and 2, to show off some of the other parts of the city I had modeled. These parts of the city will have their own qualities that help to describe the nature of the city.

 

We begin with a dominating shot of buildings looming over the camera, giving power to the city as an environment and is my way of trying to intensify the eerie nature of the city. I did this by disallowing myself to make a symmetrical composition within the camera shot – making some buildings closer up and some further away. The camera then cuts to an aerial shot of the city that allows a train to run past the camera. I am planning on modelling more carriages for the train, because I think it would be a nicer composition with a few more trains cars running by in shot. We then cut to a shot of a back alley. I have mapped out the areas in a specific way because I have a plan to utilise them in different ways. The aerial train shot will reveal more of the buildings in the background, as well as the town in the far distance. The back alley shot will reveal a quiet alleyway, accompanied by a club with a huge neon sign to contrast the grungy back alley environment. The final shot on the cityscape is the main street modeled from my Concept Art, which makes use of manipulating the focal length of the camera to create a “Contra Track” in reverse. Inspiration for this camera movement came from a scene in “Jaws” the movie, where the focal length changes around Chief Brody’s profile as he notices Jaws in the water. I did a short test, experimenting with the focal length abilities of the camera in Maya.

 

From this camera movement, we transition into the apartment, where we focus on key objects in the scene that reveal that somebody is currently living there. The idea behind this section of the film is to show that the character who currently lives there has just left the apartment. When we focus on the cigarette, there will be smoke rising of the cigarette and small embers to show that it was just lit. To save on render time in Maya, I will try to do this in post-production. When we pan across the T.V, it will initially be in static, but switch off as if somebody just turned it off. Then we pan across a series of newspaper articles posted on the wall before revealing the entire space. The camera will then rotate and fix on the door as it closes.

Here is the pre-viz Animatic:

 

After creating the Animatic and seeing the footage play through, there are some developments I believe are necessary to the outcome of the final project. One thing I believe should be tweaked is the length of time for some shots. The absolute limit I have is 60 seconds, and although I do not want to Digital Environment film to be too quick, I also do not want it to be too long. With the amount of time currently allocated to the clip, I feel that an audience may lose interest quite quickly. After adding in the textures, lights and details, I will render out another version of the film to refer to these adjustments. I could just be criticising my work much harder because the textures, lights and details have not been added yet. I also realised that if the T.V is supposed to be turned off, the television remote that is sitting right beside it will not help create that sensation. It will be highlighted as a flaw in my film, so I will move the remote to one of the shelves on the bookcase.

On to the development stages of my Digital Environment! After creating the Animatic, and seeing how much time I have left with the amount of work I have left to complete, I had to change my Project Plan gantt chart to update my to do list. Still to do left was complete the modelling for both scenes, the texturing added, lighting and camera techniques applied, and then finally to edit them all together in a compositing software.

 

I had completed an earlier version of my concept artwork, however it was satisfactory at best in my own opinion, so I felt that I needed to use other techniques to create a better version for the concept artworks, which is what can be found in the concept art section on this page. Whilst creating the updated concept artwork, I was also using up time to model different assets and the environments for both of my Maya scene files. I began with the indoor scene first because this scene has more models that I need to manipulate for the scene.

 

MODELLING

I thought about specific models that I can model to show that somebody lives in this space, or has recently been living in this space. One factor that I have wanted to portray with my digital environment from the start of the project, was signs that people actually live there. I followed a tutorial online to create models such as books – both open and closed – as well as a sofa and an ashtray. Using my own Maya know how, I have created other models to inhabit my indoor scene such as the television set above and the remote that accompanies it, modeled after a television set I have in my own room. I used a variety of different techniques to create these models, making use of the bevel tool, extrude tool and the boolean tool mainly. For the closed book, I modeled half of the book and pages, and performed a Duplicate Special operation, translating a duplicate of the book on the opposite coordinates of the first half of the book. This was an interesting find on Maya because I was able to model both the open book and closed book in a way that was new to me in Maya. I modeled a bookcase as well as other assets to fill up the scene such as a mirror and hook to accompany the hallway area. For the outdoor scene, I modeled a basic city street with a back alley setting that we could explore with the camera in Maya. Here are examples of models for my digital environment:

 

Using an early sketch for the project, I began to map out buildings, as well as the train bridge and train bank for some of the pillars to sit on to support the bridge. I started to add detail onto the skyscrapers by making windows and placing them onto the buildings. Adding other details such as doors and sorting out the issues with lighting on the high rise buildings. As time goes on, I’m sure I will think of more assets to build the scene with to really highlight the characteristics of each setting. Here are some of the development stages I took towards the scenes.

 

For the windows, I used Phong E materials so that they would illuminate in the scene like office buildings. I found the idea from a tutorial I was watching online about create Neon lights within Maya. It allowed me to be creative with the glow intensity and the incandescence of the material, giving me total control on how lit I want this portion of the environment. I modeled the section of the city that would be included in most of the shots throughout the film. I set up a boundary around the city, creating geometry that only fell within that boundary as to not create too much geometry, lengthening the texturing and lighting processes for parts of the city that might not even be in the shot. I had shots in my mind ready from the development processes up till now and upon reflection of the animatic, so I laid out the basic plans for the city geometry.  After laying out the basic plans for where the models are supposed to go, I began to work on the lighting and texturing aspect of the scenes. I worked on both of these tasks simultaneously, so I know what needs a texture because of how well the view port is lit in the camera.

 

 

LIGHTING

In terms of lighting, I made use of mainly area lights and spotlights for the outdoor environment, just to accompany the glow from the blinn materials that are placed on the windows and the neon signs.  The blinn material was the ideal choice for the windows because I was able to include Specular properties to allow for glossy finishes and shiny surfaces on the windows. For the neon lights, I used Phong E materials which allowed for a glow. The area lights in the outdoor scene were used to bring light to the environment. I have one spotlight and one direct light that act as the moonlight coming from the moon in the scene and a few other spotlights that bring light to areas in the alley scene and illuminates a section of the main street scene. One issue I originally kept running into was the background was very dark in the rendered shots.

I was able to fix this issue by increasing the ambient colour of the background map, which illuminated the other buildings that are in the backdrop, bringing that feeling that this space exists within a vast city. I was very pleased with this as once rendered, I think it was a very good application of the Phong E and Blinn materials that reflect light in the scene.

Here is the process of adding lights onto the windows and in the environment:

I kept in mind that the lights I am creating in Maya for the scene should accompany the Phong E lights, otherwise the environment is going to be too bright and overbearing, like this:

After adding the lights from the windows, I began to add soft lights that will accompany the windows as well as draw light from the moon. I used mainly area lights and spot lights for the exterior scenes because it allowed me to get a wash of light the covers a much larger area. It works for the effect I am going for which portrays this city shrouded in mystery, but abundant with lights and neon fixtures. This was inspired by the environment from Kingdom Hearts 2. Elements of the environment I was studying included some very low lit scenes and some abundantly lit scenes. There was a variation and a contrast between the two, which I believe allowed to contribute to the games success. Here are some examples of lighting process with and without lights in their portion of the environment:

There were sections that really required the use of lighting, to allow it to be seen in the environment at all. There were lights I added as well however, just to create an atmosphere within the environment, like the blue tinge I created by using a Spot Light.

For the interior scenes, I tried to create a less intense atmosphere, compared to the city outside. I wanted to create a more sombre tone to contrast the previous part of the film, so I used less intense lighting, and even used lights in the shade of blue to create a mellow tone. There are hard bounce lights placed at both doors in the environment, because I wanted light to beam in from the gaps between the doors and the crevices.

The lighting process was a gradual process. At some points that lights were not working to my desired effect as everything was still too dark to see any of the textures I will be placing on at a later time. I lighted before I textured so that I would know what needs more attention in terms of lighting and texturing and what does not. I used Area lights to portray the beaming areas of light that show up through crevices and doors, as I could manipulate how much of the room could be affected by the position of these area lights. I believe it did a great job as it does well to create the idea of another space, (the kitchen) giving off this intense light. This idea was reference from the The Last of Us concept art I looked at to create my interior concept piece. I liked how the lights bounced off of area in the spaces, and highlighted textures and assets for that space. Even though the game had to really make use of natural light sources a majority of the time given the position the characters are in, I thought it would be a great idea to apply to my own indoor scene.

 

TEXTURING

During a lecture, I was taught a way to use planes to create a background for an environment in a Maya scene file. I thought this would be a great idea to try and apply to my own environment, to give the city portion of the environment the illusion of stretching out much further than it does. For this to work, I thought that I should create a small but dense area where the animating of the camera and the environment will live. I looked for pictures on the internet of city backdrops that would fit the best with the mood I want to portray in my environment. This information became more applicable when I had a lecture on UV Mapping and Texturing. It involved using a program “UV Layout”, and I was able to cut open an OBJ file version of an asset within the program and lay out the maps in “UV Space”, of which I could then bring back into Maya and texture however I wanted to. I found this helpful as I was unsure of how I was going to texture my scenes and assets past lambert and blinn materials. When it came time for me to texture my scenes however, I was comfortable with just switching back and forth between the Maya software and the Photoshop software. I created some planes in Maya and arranged them receding backwards from the city environment. In Photoshop, I took elements from the background image and separated them on layers. I then made an Alpha Channel on each of those layers, so that I could see in the image when I saved the separate files were what I highlighted on the Photoshop layer and nothing else. I saved each of these images on the different planes I created in Maya and laid them out accordingly. The end result was not what I desired however. Even though I do need a still background, the camera will not always be in one place. It is going to move to different places, and I felt that a flat plane would not be best for this type of setup. The moon cannot be seen from some angles, and the audience will be able to tell if I simply duplicated the same building planes and placed them at all sides to form a shape. I scrapped this idea and tried the same concept with a curved background. I created a sphere, cut off half of it and then another section of that semi-sphere. After applying the same texture on, I approached a similar problem. The plane is too long for my image in the x direction, and not long enough to show enough of the background in the y direction:

I then tried using a full shape that has the city inhabiting the space inside with the texture showing on the inside also. I used a cylinder polygon to make the space to go around the city. This was going to serve as the plane I was going to texture with my image file. I applied a lambert material to this cylinder and from the menu within the available textures checkered box, found my city texture. This was the way to go because with some adjustments to the UV mapping in the UV Texture Editor, I could fit the entire texture onto the map the way I want it to. I used Cylindrical Mapping for obvious reasons:

 

Using textures in Maya as well as taking UV snapshots of UV Maps and editing them back in Photoshop was the process I used to texture all of my assets and scenes. I found this procedure easier compared to using UV Layout, because it was an easier process in my eyes as it was one less program I had to work with.  After editing the maps in Photoshop, I opened up Maya again and applied the texture as a file for one of the materials. Here are some examples of the textures I used for assets and the scene environment:

I made use of textures I found on the internet, as well as image and concepts I either already own or painted into Photoshop for the texture. I tried to keep my textures varied, as well as exciting whilst also trying to relate in some way to the research I did.  The outdoor scene in terms of textures makes use of darker and cooler colour tones, which are contrasted by the bright lights. I did this because I thought it would be an interesting twist, and a creative angle to work from in regards to my digital environment. I took inspiration from a concept art piece for The Last of Us. The interior maps in the game focus on having ruined spaces that are dirty because of the nature of the game. This highlights the severity of the situation the characters placed in these environments were in. Although the character I imagined in this scene will not be going through the same type of trauma, I did want the space to portray some sense of severity with the textures and state of the apartment. The indoor scene is supposed to represent evidence that a person occupies that space, and has just left. To make sure that it’s clear to the audience that somebody occupies that space, after laying down the basic texture, I sullied them by painting some grey over the tops of the surfaces. This was to make it look like the space is being used to some extent, as well as a reference to the research and experimentation I did in preparation for the environment. I took the concept of sullying the environment for spaces in the outdoor scene. As you can see above, the UV Texture Map for the Pillar has evidence of weathering on it. Whilst looking at examples from The World That Never Was”  from Kingdom Hearts 2, I used ideas for textures and concepts in my own environment. I noticed that some buildings have repeating patterns on them and some have flat washes of colours. I found myself using less patterns as often. I am just using Kingdom Hearts 2 as a reference after all. The main inspiration I took from the game was the idea of high rise buildings with bright neon lights and open areas. For this project, I wanted to work in a slightly different manner for the textures, meaning that I would have liked to go beyond my own current skills. I had recently discovered bump maps and applied it to the texture for the ground so that it is not flat. This would also allow it to appear 3D in the render process. I also used a Bump map for a brick house texture that I included in the outdoor scene. This was also done for the same reason. The neon signs and lights had no textures on them whatsoever. I merely used the Phong E materials because the lights would only stop the camera from seeing the textures anyway.

Here are examples of the interior scene after being both modeled and textured:

In terms of this being my first time texturing, and involving myself within this industry workflow, I am quite pleased with the way the textures turned out.

CHANGES TO CAMERA SEQUENCER

As the project developed, I found myself agreeing with my reasoning behind getting rid of the shot that included the train riding past. I felt that the animation would have been long enough as it is already, and now, it allows me to transition from the outdoor city environment, to the indoor apartment environment after making use of the rule of three.

SEQUENCE:

– Shot of buildings that are looming high above the camera, giving power to the buildings and allowing them to represent a menacing nature. The moon can be seen in the background, which adds to the ambiance of the environment.

– Low angle shot of a back alleyway, revealing some of the nature of the city. This including bright neon signs representing openings to what one might refer to as club environments.

– Establishing shot of the city using a camera truck backwards whilst manipulating the focal length, revealing more of the space around the buildings and adding to the ambient nature provided.

– Cut to a single camera shot that manoeuvres around the apartment environment, revealing individual objects as the camera moves. It starts with focus on a cigarette in an ashtray, then a focus on the television, then it runs over a number of posters that highlight the dangerous nature of the city before revealing the entire living area. Then the camera rotates on the spot towards the front for, of which we see close as if somebody had just left.

The biggest change I made to the camera sequencer was taking out the train shot. It was a little disappointing to remove this scene, but I made the decision for the good of the film. It does not advance the narrative in any way. I only placed the scene in there to lengthen the size of the film which may not have been the best creative decision.

By setting up the camera shots separately in Maya for the City portion of the environment, I was able to cover multiple area of the city to create more of a narrative. Having one single shot for the Apartment portion of the environment allowed me to create a sense of mystery, raising questions that ask if a person lives there? Why do they live there? What are they doing there? Always trying to provide a reason for the placement of models and placement of lights and reasoning for the colours.

Here are updated versions of my animatic. I have rendered them out into the outdoor scene and the indoor scene so you can see them as separate pieces before the final film. They also represent where my project is at the moment and I may make subtle changes before rendering out the final piece.

Animatic (Exterior)

Animatic (Interior)

 

– FINAL RENDERED SHOTS

After some added tweaks here and there to my film after the updated animatic, I finished my digital environment piece and was able to render it out in Maya:

The image of the city environment on the left was taken at one frame where the focal length was altered the way it was in my film. Using Jaws as a reference to create this shot was one of my favourite parts during the project. Animating the focal length on the camera whilst the camera was panning also forced me to model the city – and everything that was in this shot – to the camera. For this environment, I chose very dynamic angles for each of the camera shots. Low shots that give power to the environment, sharp camera changes and uneven pacing for the time between the cameras. Even by relating my work to the different researches, I wanted to make this environment my own. The addition of the highrise buildings that go off into the background are reminiscent of my London upbringing. For the image of the apartment on the left, I wanted to create an environment that contrasts the last scene entirely. Whereas the the city scene was loud, both in terms of colour and sound design, I wanted the apartment to be quiet, and reveal a softer tone to the film. The single camera movement that moves throughout the apartment without any camera cuts, and moves slowly to portray a mysterious nature. This is the main reason that the camera focuses on individual objects before focusing on the entire apartment space. The development process has enabled me to get to the point where I have finished the film to a degree of satisfaction.

Here is the final cut of my Digital Environments project: