Envronment improvenments.

I haven't been working on my film as much
as I would have like to but due to dissertation
hand in approaching. But i have tried every
now and agian to do what i can.

So starting with below I really wanted to improve
the look of my environments and after some critique
I went back to basics on it. I looked at the ocean design
and realised what made it look so nice and 3D was the way
the waves were layered. I then though how can i use it for
the forest. As simple as it was i just stuck as a layer infront
on most of the tree and thought it worked.



Like the ocean layers, I Then did the same with
the image below. so far so good.



Finally after adding some deph to the grass and some
rim lighting around the trees, the forest really started to
come to life. Im very happy with the final image. There
may be a few nips that need to be tucked but I'm confident
about the out look of my film.



Now the only tricky part is the perspective shots. I done
a few tests before and tried to improve upon them. The
image below kind of works but the trees don't have the required look
I'm after.



So keeping with the old tree design, I worked on
trying to paint the lighting on the trees from a
perspective shot. Again needs alot of work.



Below is the Much improved ocean, with a nice
green/blue color tone to the waves.



I also blended a nice wallpaper texture to the
background to make the sky look more interesting,
plus it fits in with everything else having a texture on it.

Screenshot

This is a early test shots from one of the scenes
of the boy walking.

Ocean waves.

I decided to spend some time re-thinking the design
of the ocean waves. Starting with a basic swirly shape
I then varied the size of each swirl and direction.



I then started to animate the waves in after effects.



There are still a few things wrong about the
animation, which I tried to improve in this next
test animation. I attempted to add more perpective
aswell as better movement of the waves.

Envronment Designs three.

I finally put all the elements together in these two
after effects scenes and experiement wth the lighting.


The bushes have a wallpaper like texture on top. The
clouds have a subtile card texture with some painted
brush strokes that i applied to it, to give the clouds
some depth.

For the tree texure, I choose a real image of some
tree bark, that I think gives the trees a much better look.


These are the hills.



This shot I added some more trees. But after some feedback
I decided it would be best torethink the texture on the trees, aswell
as adding more greenery such as bushs and some plants.

Character Designs - The Boy

Originally i was going to use a real child's face
as the main design for the characters face with
permission from the child's mother. Unfortunatly
she pulled out of helping me without any reason.
I then moved on to making a 2D design for the
face and i'm happy with the final design.


Below are a few older designs. When I was originally
going to use my friends son's face I was going arrange a day
for getting various shots of his face and then editing his face
in Photoshop.

Envronment Designs Part Deux.

Here are some environment designs that
i had been playing. A few may look the same
as each other but they do have diffences.

This first one is the most recent design. it
was a test to get the layout of the 3D space
in After effects to look good. it needs some
more work like the background; maybe add
some mountains, more trees and even clouds.





This image was a test design of an an idea I had
of having the ground layered like pieces of
corrugated cardboard.


I then took the idea to the next stage and had
my friend Ben model the card in maya. even
though i could have easily made it myself with
real card and taken pictures, I wanted to have
more control over the lighting of the set piece.




Made in After effects i played with the perspective
of the trees, trying to achive a cran shot. needs more
work.



These next pics, were early tests for setting up
the layers in 3D space and adding some shadows.





I also placed the character design into the scene
to see what size he should be compared to every
thing else.

In the end I was happy with the bottom picture
as it suits the size of the character.

Character Designs - The Bird

Originally was going to be in my film but
decided not to as it seemed unnecesary
for the story as the dog should be the center
of the tension scene that shows up. However
I thought I would include the various designs
for the bird.