Here’s a glimpse of how the Moon model looks. I’m concentrating on the starfield here, the lighting, color, and the chunkiness of the form.
May
31
2008
31
2008
OG’s BLOG
A BLOG by ARTIST and WRITER STEVE OGDEN – NEWS, VIEWS, and STUFF I LIKE
About Me
Steve Ogden
By day, I'm an artist at Firaxis Games. By night, I write, draw, animate, and anything else I can think of. More info HERE.My Projects
-
-
-
Powered by WordPress | Theme: Aeros 2.0 by TheBuckmaker.com
That moon is looking Great!… I love the lighting you did to it. Much more character in these.
Thanks, Jason. This feels more like an illustration to me – at least it’s more what I would do if I were doing this as an illustration. And I think that means I’m doing something right…
I’ll second Jason. I like the more stylized direction you are going, especially with the characters. Are you planning to throw away all the refinery models like the ones featured on the wallpaper?
Thanks, Jake. Actually, I’ll be throwing precious little away. Several people have wondered aloud here whether the ships and the architecture will fit with the “new” look, but it was the overly-serious or un-stylized Cassie that didn’t fit with the architecture and the ships.
I’ve said that Moon Town is like Battlestar Galactica crossed with Wallace & Gromit, and that’s really what I’m after. You know in W&G, the characters are super-stylized, but the environments and props inhabit this world that’s sort of realistic but sort of cartoony. So the ships and the refinery fit right in there.
That said, in the wallpaper refinery shot, it’s those mountains that really stick out to me as not belonging. They need to be much more simplified ala the new silhouette of the moon. Least, that’s the way I see it.
Hey Steve, I really like it, but the starfield background blue is maybe a bit too bright?, but I mean my monitor is ancient and my settings a bit high up. so it could look completley different over here to yours, I know that my newer monitor over there –> looks a lot different…but its just that when you think of space you think of dark, I dont know…
Have you read about The Uncanny Valley? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uncanny_Valley
Was a very interesting read.
Not talking about the realism of the space background though…but the feeling it generates. But I mean I need to see the sequence also…
Hi, Michael
Yes, I’m intimately acquainted with The Uncanny Valley. We are always dancing around that territory in computer games. Given the chance, I push my designs away from it. However, most of the artists I know seem to be charging headlong for it, sure that they’ll be the ones to get to the other side.
As for the blue starfield, I know sci-fi is supposed to be all about black backgrounds with tons and tons of tiny white stars, or the occasional nebula to give it some varietal color. I just thought I’d try something different, and I have to say I’m digging it. Hopefully you’ll get used to it…
I really like the blue background,
and the moon looks great.
I’ve got a bit of trouble focusing on the moon in this shot though, I think it might be the motion blur of the stars, cause I keep looking at them instead of the moon.
I don’t think the way the ships look will be a problem with the characters, the ships are already very stylized, but I get a very different feeling of scale from the new characters, so I keep wondering what they will look like next to a ship.
Steve, no I’m not attacking the stars themselves…I really love those. I just meant a darker blue. I just had a look at the Clangers moon and they seem to have gone with a black background so I understand if you don’t want to go down that road because it’s a similar style to Clangers.
—
I’d never heard of The Uncanny Valley. What I don’t understand is what happened to stop motion, and what happened to people using real paint to paint a painting with. I don’t know if I ever told you, but I really don’t like raytracing at all. And yet I’ve been doing it and continue to do it…I wonder if I should see a doctor.
But there are probably rational reasons why I’m here…lol
And yes, agree with Sardtok about the motionblur taking me out of the moment, very difficult to describe.
Sardtok – (I keep wondering what they will look like next to a ship.)
Me, too!
Oh, I see what you mean, Michael. In truth, the starfield background is supposed to be the deep blue of the background of the site (like it is HERE) and you can see in the movie just how washed out it got. I may need to go back to Sorenson3 to eliminate that washing-out, but the H.264 compresses things so much better…
BTW, what’s “Clangers”?
“Clangers” was a UK children’s programme based on a small moon. The Clangers were small knitted creatures which used swanee whistles to speak, there was a soup dragon, a music tree… well, I guess you had to be there… It is looked upon with affection by people of a certain age!
Jahnocli – Wow. Thanks for that…
Steve!…that’s one of the best episodes!…lol. Glad you found it, we had a thunderstorm today (which is very rare for round here) and so only just back onto the computer now.
I had major problems today with relaxing but powering down the computers I think helped…I think I should totally remove myself from the computer more often, dear lord!…i just find it all really difficult to let go of…and yet its so beneficial to go away from it..