Developing my Scene...

Just another image of my woods scene in development...



I've added a pathway and ground texture using basic planes to see how they look in my scene. I'm also ging to edit the planes and make the surface look more uneven and natural. also, i've added a torch next to the wheelchair which is barely visible, but i'm aiming to have a light coming from the torch to make it look like it's on, and make it more noticable... i added another mist effect in Photoshop, just trying different techniques out to see what looks best. The scene's coming along nicely...

Concepts for my final idea....

This was what Phil helped me come up with for my final piece in Friday's lesson. My original composition and perspective were quite flat so this whinding pathway seems to do the trick much better, leading the viewer's eyes through gthe woods. You can also identify the foreground, mid-ground and background fairly easily...

Phil then took the concept to the next level adding some hue/saturation and rough details to create a more refined concept. I really like the feel of this image, there's definitely something quite unsettling. But Phil also felt that the image needed more meaning and storyline hence the briefcase in the image... since then i've been thinking about adding more elements to the image to create a story. i've decided to use the tracks on the path as in the image and add a torch, dog lead and another set of footprints. I feel these are small elements that the image needs to give it some extra story without taking it too far... I will post some more concepts soon, just continuing with modelling my scene...

Modelling Trees and Texturing the Wheelchair...

I say modelling trees, but actually they're just cylinders with a tileable bark texture on... however i will need to modify some of them and bring in a few other types of tree to create more variety... i must say though, i was quite surprised at the quality of the trees just using a texturea nd bump map, they look fairly realistic and considering my scene will be quite dark, they should look even more realistic....



I've been texturing the wheelchair slowly but surely. some parts have needed actual tileable textures, other sections were created using lamberts or blinns... i haven't put too much detail into the textures and colours because, as you can see, a lot of that detail would be lost and time would be wasted... i feel the mist works well here, a thick load at the bottom of the image and then it dies of towards the top... i did see sam's model too, which uses 3D clouds as fog in Maya, but im fairly happy with the technique ive used in Photoshop, so im just going to keep working on that to find the best end results...

hopefully as i begin to bring the ground in and a path, the model will begin to take shape and it won't look like trees and a wheelchir floating in mid-air...

Wheelchair Maya Model...

This is the model of my wheelchair for my scene, i still need to add some more details and make some changes, but its coming along quite well i feel. It's also allowed me to try lots of tools and techniques alan has showed us, on my own...

I also managed to find a decent fog and mist tutorial for Photoshop. It's pretty basic and simple, but i think it works... i did try some fog effects in maya itself, mainly using the spotligt, but i wasnt too happy with the renders, so i think Photoshop is the best option...

So, i added some extra details and just finished tidying the model as a whole... i feel it's ready for texturing which will hopefully bring it to life. Although, i don't want to be spending too much time on the texturing because a lot of it will be blurred by the mist...

Halloween...

Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher film set in a suburban town and was directed by John Carpenter. Halloween is highly regarded as a classic among horror films, and as one of the most influential horror films of its era. In 2006 it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being, ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.’ It was produced on a budget of $320,000 and grossed $60 million at the box office in the US, becoming one of the most profitable independent films. The movie originated many clichés found in low-budget horror films of the 1980’s and 1990’s, however, the film contains little graphic violence and gore. Critics have suggested that Halloween and its slasher successors may encourage sadism and misogyny. Others have suggested the film is a social critique of the immorality of young people in 1970’s America, pointing out that many of Myer’s victims are sexually promiscuous substance abusers, while the lone heroine is depicted as chaste and innocent. While Carpenter dismisses such analyses, the perceived parallel between the character’s moral strengths and their likelihood of surviving to the film’s conclusion has nevertheless become a standard slasher movie trope. The plot begins on Halloween night 1963, when six year old Michael Myers murders his seventeen year old sister, Michael is sent to a psychiatric centre under the care of child psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis. After eight years of treatment, Loomis believes Michael is nothing less than pure evil. As Loomis and his assistant go to take 21 year old Myers to court, after an additional seven years, Myers steals their car and escapes. Loomis decides to find him at all costs. Michael returns to his home town and pursues a bunch of sexually promiscuous teenagers, now wearing a white mask to cover his identity. They end up babysitting later that evening and due to a series of misfortunate events, Michael kills them one by one, except Laurie Strode, the most innocent of them all. Left with the two children, she ends up running from Michael, seemingly killing him twice, once with a knitting needle and the other time with his own knife. This is when the audience begins to believe he is a supernatural force, as he recovers both times to continue pursuing Laurie. She sends the children to find help, which comes in the form of Dr. Loomis, who shoots Michael numerous times, knocking him over the balcony. He turns around to comfort Laurie, before looking over the balcony again to see that Michael’s body has disappeared.

I was confident I has seen Halloween before, but it turns out I hadn’t. I think it must have been Halloween Resurrection, which was similar to the first film. I have to say, I did enjoy this film, but the stupidity of the characters, as well as some errors in the film, left me frustrated. This level of stupidity has now become a trope in the hybrid genre of horror comedies. This film did have me hooked from the beginning, where the very first murder occurs and the pace of the film seems to be consistent from then onwards. There were some typical thriller moments like the hedge scene and the washing line scene, which, added to the supernatural elements that Michael brings, creates a great suburban horror film. We’ve seen it in Nightmare on Elm Street as well and the idea of a ‘perfect’ neighbourhood being tormented has become a horror cliché after the success of films like these. Although, it was slightly humorous seeing Michael survive so many times and watching the teens get slaughtered, the mood somehow still remains serious.

The Stepford Wives...

The Stepford Wives is a 1975 film based on the 1972 Ira Levin novel of the same name. It was directed by Bryan Forbes and remade in 2004. While the film was only a moderate success at the time of release, it has grown in stature as a cult film over the years. The plot follows Joanna, her husband Walter and their two children who move from New York City to the idyllic Connecticut suburb of Stepford. They soon find that the women here all look ‘perfect’ and are obsessed with housework, but have few intellectual interests. The men all belong to the clubbish Stepford Men’s Association, which Walter joins to Joanna’s dismay. After feeling lonely in her new neighbourhood, things start to look up when she makes friends with another newcomer to town, Sloppy, irrepressible Bobbie Markowe. They make friends with another woman who turns overnight from a languid, self-concerned tennis fan into an industrious, devoted wife, which leads Joanna and Bobbie to start investigating with ever-increasing concern. They begin to search other houses around town, and when Joanna, who is an aspiring photographer, wins a prestigious contract with a photo gallery, she can’t wait to tell Bobbie. However, she is shocked to find her freewheeling and liberal friend has abruptly changed into another clean, conservative housewife. Joanna visits a psychiatrist at the insistence of her husband and expresses her belief that all the men in the town are behind a conspiracy of somehow changing the women. The psychiatrist suggests she leaves town until she feels safe, but when she returns home, the children are missing. In an attempt to find her husband, after a violent, physical scuffle with her husband, she visits Bobbie who she believes is caring for them. Desperate, she stabs Bobbie with a knife revealing that she is actually a robot. Feeling she will be the next victim, Joanna sneaks into the mansion which houses the Men’s Association to find her children, but chances upon the mastermind of the whole operation and eventually her own robot-duplicate, which has soulless, black, empty eyes. It is then suggested that the duplicate strangles Joanna, before the final scene which shows all the wives, including Joanna, shopping in a supermarket wearing similar long dresses, large hats and saying little more than hello to each other. The shot focuses on Joanna’s now finished eyes. Stepford Wives, for me, was too repetitive and long, which meant by the time we reached the good bit at the end, I was already frustrated by the rest of the film. Maybe it was the slow pace, in an era when the audience expects fast and snappy cuts. However, I did enjoy the intensity of the ending, in a film I felt was lacklustre apart from the great sense of eeriness it posed.

Dead Of Night...

Dead of Night is a 1945 British anthology horror film made by Ealing studios and its various episodes were directed by several different people. The particular episode we watched was called 'The Ventriliquist's Dummy'. The story follows an unbalanced ventriliquist who believes his amoral dummy is truely alive. Tnroughout the story, we are never fully sure whether the ventriliquist is crazy or whether the dummy is actually alive, and by the end, we're not even sure if the dummy is real. Although it was only short, I really enjoyed this story because it reminded me of the many adaptations i've seen. I particularly liked the way we are never sure whether the dummy is real or not. But, i find it a shame that i've only seen this story after its adaptations because it felt like it reminded me of the classic ventriliquist dummy stories i've seen, when in acual fact, this was the original.