Visual style inspiration
I'm going to try creating the environment using a glowing framework idea similar to Tron. To start with using see through objects and creating refraction effects. so as the camera will move through the animation objects will move in and out of distortion and focus.
Also testing moving images in textures of the objects. This idea will hopefully convey the ghostly electricity running through the environment.
The Glass Test
Starting with a Blinn shader (two simple directional lights and a ghost ship background image from blog of visual styles from my home page) showing the bending of the image behind using the refraction tools.
same setup without reflection on the shader
An Anisotropic shader, with reflection back and variety of surface thickness and refraction
From above and below the glass, with a slight blue specular colour
smoothing out the glass and putting two different textures on for the top thin layer of glass to the denser bottom
using the Captain's image to show the distortion and focus through the glass material
with no background but keeping the lights
Using the Pocket Watch Roman numeral X for a test render of the moving textures. Trying to represent a ghostly electricity running through the objects. The UV Map was imported into Apple's Motion and a "Liquid" particle emitter was used to create the effect. Rendering out Tiff images with transparency layer from Motion and then creating an image sequence in Maya for the texture.
Treatment
1877, the industrial revolution is powering the Empire, Spiritualism is at it's full height, science and psychology are battling to keep a purchase on sanity. The testing of mediums and psychics to prove or disprove their powers has increased to dramatic standards. Tried by physically connecting them to Tesla coils, this new method proved useful to reversing and drawing the power out of the realm of the dead. The Victorians, not wasting the opportunity are now powering their ships through space, discovering raw materials in the solar systems that could enhance the industrial revolution pushing the Empire towards a power race.
We join a Victorian merchant ship that has come across something never accounted for. A black hole. The vessel has been abandoned, leaving only the Captain and the medium powering it. The last few minutes of the Captain's life remain. From life to death.
Synopsis
This is the story of perception and psychology. The struggle to decide what is real, what is hallucination. Drawing on the rise of Spiritualism and the frauds that deceived, the understanding of the psyche and the fragility of the human mind. Illusion and reality, life and death.
Storyboard Points
- Darkness
- Pocket watch slowly spinning in space
- Disappears
- A gradual shape of the merchant ship appears (Glass texture - bending and twisting light)
- Camera moves through the glass hull
- Inside (still glass material but with moving textures - ghostly electricity) following a current leading
around the helm of the ship
- Camera arrives at psychic wired up to the Tesla coils inside the Faraday cage where the source of
power derives
- POV from psychic* viewing the silhouette of the Captain looking out the front of ship into
space/darkness
- Changing of colour signifying the emergency status
- (close up) Captain takes out pocket watch, looking at it then out at the darkness again
- Two Captains separate - One (original) clutching onto the watch not taking his eyes off the darkness,
the other dropping to his knees, releasing the watch as it dangles from the chain (swinging gently)
- Reverting back behind the Captain, watching the front end of the ship start to bend and the
light/image starts disappearing, as if the ship is entering a black tunnel gradually swallowing it up
- POV now on the outside watching the entire ship disappear
- The apparition of the pocket watch faintly appears and drifts, slowly spinning into darkness
* the psychic is completely unconscious if not dead. no intension of movement in this character
Foley:
- As camera moves through the hull (the actual structure) creaking or screeching sounds emanate. A cross between metal and glass. They could also contain ghostly voices
- faint ghostly voices, the odd single word made out here and there. (still considering what words)
- some kind of sound effect or instrument to depict the energy produced through the Tesla coils and running throughout the ship
Animatic:
Character:
The Captain: Images which are being used to model in Maya
Building the coat - started with half a sphere, shaped round to define the chest and back, then extracted down gently tweaking the contours of his body
more work needs to be done on details such as smoothing the edges and maybe giving the lower half of the coat a touch more flare
collar taking longer than anticipated, what with Maya crashing with the split tool
the legs - again the feet are re-modeled from a previous "dwarf" build
keeping the detail relatively simple. smoothing and bevelling certain edges and the plan is to make the surface double thickness so the idea that the captain is made of a glass shell. the textures will look like they are moving within the glass.
The Head
Rigging & Skinning
Even though the Captain won't be animated he is rigged and skinned in order to pose him in the required positions. Problems arose with the skinning as the coat is not symmetrical and lifting each leg pulled the lower part of the coat too far up and the skin weights of each side were affecting the other. I have split the Captain in half so each side is independant, this will allow me to use different textures to each side to represent a split personality within the piece. Once I had the legs posed I re-modelled the bottom of the coat. The intention is to seat him in an electric chair, this represent the tests done on psychics of the era.
Playing with moving textures, splitting the Captain in half and trying to get a colour balance
Environment:
Ship: The design will be based on the SS Great Eastern, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Recently watched a Time Team special on this ship, coincidently just after I was looking for a design of a Victorian vessel. This seems to tie in nicely with the concept of my piece. The SS Great Eastern was a huge design from a pioneering man in engineering and far ahead of it's time, but had a disastrous launch. This could be the magnificent concept of Brunel's but instead I could launch it into space (not forgetting this is all about the mind and hallucination, about bending the plausable)
not the Great Eastern but looking for something similar inside at the helm, more in layout than detail
To balance out time and to suit the abstractness on this whole project, I have decided to keep the modelling simple. The ship will now just be a shell, no interior will be necessary, like the pocket watch, the significance of the absence of the internal workings reflects the mind in hallucination, for instance it's not working properly and is part of the subconscious therefore cannot be seen. Just like a dream, in the waking state we only remember key features and hazy on the details.
Ship Build
using the diagrams of the Great Eastern I've made a basic model of the ship
I've shortened the vessel to make it more compact
and smoothed and hardened certain edges and tidied up the layout on board
Wave Build
I created a wave as if it were a sheet of metal (although it will have the glass material applied) cutting and bending it into a basic shape
bulking out and resizing the wave to create the sea around the ship
the ship will have the similar moving texture of the pocket watch and other props within the piece
the waves will also have moving textures but a contrast to the ship
the idea is to create something that looks odd at first sight, but gradually becomes recognisable
a glass ghost ship
the models will remain fixed, no animation will be used on them. the sense of movement will be from the textures. my intention is to use Motion's Moonlight particle emitter or similar which gives the sense of walking in the dark over terrain within a confined area of light.
texturing using Apple's Motion
fog
one surrounding fog and a denser fog to represent the sea
ship contained in a bubble of fog
wave lighting - a series of rotating lights was added and each one assigned a few waves each, the idea being that they would create the illusion of the waves moving
getting the textures and lighting balanced
textures of the boat almost look like the water is running off the sides
single framed images - trying to create an atmosphere
Props
Pocket Watch: The style of the pocket watch, simple and of the period. The watch is also to represent the mind and the hypnotic representation. As most of the other models will be basic glass shell like objects, the watch will have another level showing the mechanism.
Pocket Watch Build
Below
Side
Top without face & internal mechanism
With temporary face
adding the chain
trying the glass effect shader
defining textures and smoothing pixels
finishing face
applying textures to the rest of the watch
some animated renders to show movement through the materials and textures
FR 1
FR 2
Stationary
Lighting Tests
playing with light beams - this was made using volume light in the cylinder form with an inwards projection. the beams are passing through a simple double "glass" box and underneath fog, as seen in the image under.
using 2 beams of light through the pocket watch
adding a soft ambient light
addition of fog with the previous ambient light underneath
playing with the fog textures, subtracting the ambient light from underneath but adding a directional light from the side
the fog also giving off a soft blue/grey ambient light itself
light beam test on materials and textures, in the shape of hexagram and unicursal hexagram
balancing the textures with the lights
camera shot tests
