The City in The Sea Rough Soundscape...

http://www.zshare.net/audio/86116319676735a0/

This is the link to a rough version of the soundscape i've been working on for The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe. It includes my chosen voiceover as well as a variety of sounds and instruments from Soundtrack Pro on the Apple Mac computers. So far, i'm fairly pleased with the soundscape as a rough version, although feedback would be muchly appreciated. There are still many areas of improvement and refinement, in particular the second section of the soundscape where the mood and tone of the piece turns quite dark; I feel this is a little too repetitive. I would like to add some trembling/rumbling sounds to give the piece more bass and atmosphere, as well as some more background sounds to add to the feel and atmosphere of the piece. As a rough and start point though, this soundscape along with the voiceover is definitely giving me a lot of ideas in terms of pacing, movement and shot types i could use for my final product.

Music/Soundtrack Research... Pirates of the Caribbean...

So i've been trying to get an idea of the type of soundtrack i wish to use for this piece, and i was racking my brain for films and animations that stand out for their soundtracks, particularly with a dark mood and feel. Pirates of the Caribbean came to mind, also because of its influences of water/sea in the soundtrack. Although they all sound quite epic and adventurous, there's moments in each of the songs below that feel perfect for the mood and tone of my own animation. I can definitely see this soundtrack having an influence on the mood and feel of the choice for my own soundtrack, especially considering it was composed by Hans Zimmer, who needs no introduction. The beginnings are particularly strong, and something i wouldn't definitely like to do with my soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAxQ6n9dgUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbX6RfAhfag&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suOmiBXmJOA&feature=related

Pillar Textures Test 0.2...

Here's some more test textures using the same crosshatching texhnique with a biro...

Another Voiceover... Two Different Versions...

I received another shock today when i opened my inbox and found another voiceover reading of the poem 'The City in The Sea' by Edgar Allan Poe. There's two different versions in this mp3 file which means i now have 3 different voiceovers to choose from, lucky me!

http://www.zshare.net/audio/86040481479dfb9c/

A big thankyou to Robin Bowerman...

Pillar Textures Test 0.1...

So Phil suggested i model a basic pillar in Maya and apply some of my biro etchings to it as a test to see what the texures would look like. This set of textures are based on a closed crosshatch, medium cross and open crosshatch; i have tried various different bumps. The first pillar is the result of adding a Tiff file as a texture which gave a really cool metal mesh style. The second texture has no bump map. The third has an inverted bump of -5 which gives a pretty cool wire-like effect. The final three pillars have various bumps on from 0.4 to 1 to 5.

The City in the Sea Voice Over...

Here's a voiceover i received today after sending out a few emails to voice over artists from http://www.voiceovers.co.uk/, just in case any one else wants a voice over for their transcription. Patrick Luntz, who's done voice over work for radio broadcasts, documentaries and DVD Roms, was quick to respond, and seemed interested in the project; and before i knew it, i received an mp3 file in my inbox.

So here it is

http://www.zshare.net/audio/86002801949c66e5/

A big thankyou to Patrick Luntz for taking the time to produce this voiceover for me!

Phil's Tutorial Feedback...

After another really helpful conversation with Phil today, i seem to be getting on the right path and heading in the right direction with this project. Here's a list of points and research areas that Phil brought up during our discussion:

City Design - Looking into gothic revival architecture and underwater environments like kelp forests and coral reefs. Also he suggested looking at Strawberry Hill, a prime example of gothic revival architecture.

Texturing - Create some basic pillar and gothic architecture in Maya, then create various tiles of biro etchings to see what works well as a texture on the models; also playing with the lighting settings and bump maps etc.

Voice Over - Find a suitable voice over artist to suit the tone of the poem and use that to understand the mood, tempo and movement of my environment.

Sound - It would also be suitable to add a sound track, possible some sort of music, but i'll definitely need some suitable sound effects to match the tone and mood of the piece.

Another point Phil made was labelling each section in logical order, to show the progression of my work.