The City in the Sea Final Animation...

Transcription DVD Showreel...

Transcription DVD Showreel from Ethan Clements on Vimeo.

Underwater Particulate Matter Technical Paper...

Underwater Particulate Matter Technical Paper

Making Of... The City in the Sea...

The City in the Sea - Making of...

Texture Tests...

Scene Modelling Renders Thus far...

The City in the Sea Pre-Vis...

The City in the Sea PreVis from Ethan Clements on Vimeo.

Cathedral Interior... Development thus far...

Here's the further development images from the interior of the cathedral... i'm still working on the lighting and need to add the extra details to fill the scene like seaweed, barnacles, limpets, algae, particulate matter and textures.

Cathedral Interior... Lighting Tests...

I decided to head into uni today and make the most of an opportunity to have a quick chat with alan in the 11-12am slot. This was the perfect opportunity to discuss the best way of adding effective and visually pleasing lighting into my scene, which had failed to do thus far. Fortunately, alan was just uploading an old bonus tutorial for spotlight settings to the tutorials blog, so he was able to point me in the direction of this video as well as give me a quick run through with some extra tips and hints. Using the tutorial and alan's advice, i was able to produce much better results straight away and with a bit of tweaking here and there, i think the lighting is on its way to achieve the visually pleasing fantastical imagery i'm hoping for...

Transcription Update...

So here's the update on my progression for the production stage of the transcription unit:

I'm looking into adding lots of little details like barnacles, polyps, corals, limpets and slipper limpets to my scenes... Here are a few of renders so far with lots of work still needing to be done...

I'm now trying to use reference images to find out how and where these different details would grow in my scenes. Here are just some of the reference images i will be using:

 

Alongside this, i'm also looking into underwater particulate matter to create the dust and particles found underwater... Here's my progression so far, i will be able to tell how well the particles are working when i do some test batch renders for the scenes, but so far the stills seem to give an impression of snow which isn't what i want...

i've gathered some underwater lighting image references together for my meeting with alan tomorrow, i'm hoping to resolve my lighting problem and come out of the meeting with some visually pleasing results. Some other areas i would like to discuss include how to achieve high quality results from the establishing seaweed and kelp shots, the best way to model broken columns/buildings without looking too CG, animating schools of fish using dynamics, wrapping limpets and barnacles around geometry and the best way of achieving visual pleasing underwater gowths.

I'm currently working on modelling other scenes for the animation as well, expect further posts on the progress of these soon (If i don't save over them like i did this morning)...

Cathedral Interior... Theatrical Lighting Tests...

Since Tuesdays tutorial with Phil, i've been trying to figure out the best way of adding theatrical lighting to this scene. Phil explained that it needn't be realistic because this is a CG world, so we can exhaggerate and manipulate the elements of realism, mainly for visually pleasing results and visual aesthetic. The type of dramatic and theatrical lighting Phil suggested referencing was woodland as it has similar breathrough light beams from the trees that i aim o achieve through the cathedral windows. So a couple of problems i have at the moment involve the fog which makes normal lights struggle to to be seen and also Mental Ray will kill me on render time, so i haven't got the added lighting benefits that poses, which seems to be the main choice for most under water lighting tutorials. However, i decided to import my searchlight scene from the narrative project and use the light beam from that which seems to have a visually pleasing effect on th overall scene. At the moment it still needs a lot of work because i've kept all the settings the same from the searchlight scene. The light beams are actually cylinders with glow, but the object is hidden meaning that only the glow is rendered.

Dolly Zoom Stairs Scene...

Here's another scene i've been working on... I aim to use a dolly zoom to create a distorted camera movement, i'm hoping this will add to the atmosphere, mood and tonality of the shot...

Progression Sheet 23-02-2011...

To keep myself aware of the progression of my Maya scenes, i've decided to use the progression sheet that i developed for the narrative project. It also serves as a professional documentation which is visually pleasing for anyone following the blog and my progress. It's definitely something i think everyone should be using for their own personal use...

Texture Columns... Further Texturing Tests...

Cathedral Interior... More Underwater Fog and Lighting Tests...

Some more experiments with the lighting and underwater fog for my scenes...