Splashpage 01

User Interface Exploration

Development Paintings Set 2

Oracle of Smoke

Not related to the project at hand, just a final render for the character model that is being used as a motion capture puppet for an adv 3D production class. The entire model and design turned out much better than expected in the end ^^

3D Visual Development 01

3D visual developments as of now. The final visual style of the game hopes to emulate a papercutout/watercolor hybrid style, and this animation can be seen as a testbed for visual ideas. Some of the stuff we have in here looks like a real good foundation for the visual impact of the final game level.

Lighting and Rendering Test 01

Rendering is one of the most baneful process in an animated production. But it is a process you have to go through before seeing the fruit of your work. Here are some lighting test rendering for the Project Memorabilia Prologus. Pardon the pixels because I interrupted the rendering halfway as I only need to see the general visual look.

Scene 01 Shot 02: Ringing Bell

             Lense Exposure                                 Indirect Sunlight

Scene 02- Clover Reacts

Lens Exposure, Ambient, UVed

               Indirect sunlight                                        Low Specular

                    High Exposure

Room Scene

                     Normal                                              Focal Blur

Entrance Shot

                Exposure Lens                          Indirect Sunlight, Low Gamma

          Indirect Sunlight, Normal

City Scene

                           Indirect, 2.0 Gamma

Teddy Scene

               Exposure Lens                                            Sunlight

Unicorn Scene

                       High Light                                           Low Light

Porcelain Age Visual Exploration Paintings 01

Project Memorabilia Prologus BETA

This is a draft to Project Memorabilia Prologus.
The animation is still rough and some models are still missing. Hopefully, it can be complete by end of April.

Small Scene Render

Looking great. There are certain things that could of course still be added, of the top of my head: Rugs, Wall Mirrors, More types of chairs, paintings, kitchenware, fans both for the ceiling and on the tables, more bookshelves, a trunk/case for stuff...

Well..in due time...

Doodad Sets: Bathroom and Extra Furniture Tests

These were completed some weeks ago, forgot to post em here. Guo Jun will be using them together with a house for an animation set, and I'll be playing around with texture and painterly styles on these props to see what could look best for the eventual game.

Clover Rigging and Rendering

 

Clover Rig Test

Clover Render Test

Crafting Lives: Characters for Project Memorabilia Prologus

Characters are one of the most important essence in an animation. Their purposes are not just to drive the story forward, but also to bring life into the world the animators have crafted. They are the avatars of the world the animators want the audiences to see. But they are not the world, they are living beings that should stand on their own. 

The animators have to find a fine balance between visual designs and art style in designing a character. Too much details, and it'll overwhelm the audience. Too little, and a character will look bland. A good character is one that does not feels like a mere decoration, but a life that can stand one its own. When the audience look at it, they have to be captivated, they have to be intrigued. And when an audience is keen enough to want to know more about the character to care about it, you know that a new life is born. 

Project Memorabilia Prologus chronicles the Courier's first encounter with Clover -- a girl who will play an important role in the main animation for our FYP project. Wihtout spoiling too much, I will give an abridged version of the roles of the characters in the Prologus. 

Our protagonist, the Courier, is a nameless individual whose purpose in the animation is to resolve metaphysical anomalies he encounter in his travels. 

His pet cat, Ringer, has the ability to transform into various object such as a clock or an umbrella. Besides serving as a utilitarian object, the cat serve other important purpose such as helping the Courier in solving the anomalies he encounters. 

Clover is a girl who has been living alone in her home, waiting for her mother to return. It was not known how long her mother was gone. But until the Courier arrived, she has never speak to anyone. Still, she don't take to kindly to a stranger entering her home. 

Courier & Cat

Clover, the Girl from the House

Bedroom Doodads 01

Low Poly Doodads for a Bedroom, these certainly took awhile longer than the previous set, but, its good enough for now.

Interior Doodads Set 01

Low Polygon Models for an interior doodads set, we'll be using them for a test level.

On The Porcelain Age

THE IDEOLOGY OF THE PORCELAIN AGE

The Crafts and technology are not separated…the craftsman who creates is intimate with the technology of PRODUCTION…there is a focus on the utilitarianism of the arts as well; see Russian constructivism.

Art serves to promote and center the ethical positivism of its existence through the augmentation or birth of a myriad OTHER industrious forms of which the society focuses itself on; humanism in its form is expressed through the technological achievement of the everyday man, and the craftsman, artist, and inventor are frequently overlapped; there were no WORKERS, only apprentices of a craft, and the production line is seen as something to be automated and an utterly worthless human endeavor. There is a need for mass production in export, but it is looked down upon as a menial and ugly labor and best suited for imported labor or the use of Furnace Machines and Automatons.

Art serves as a seed, a painting should be used and appropriated in the ornamentation of technology, a sculpture as the product of an intimate technology of production that is well understood and practiced by the craftsman, so that he may apply what he learns into the creation of other technologies or pieces of craft.

THE CITY AND ITS INHABITANTS

Above: A typical household usually had a bottom floor for the selling of goods, and a workshop for the production of goods for export. Many were raised in such an environment from birth, and the city government freely gave grants and generous schemes to its citizens toward such a venture.

The City served as a harbor capital, it was known as the finest crafts city of the Empire Age, and prided itself on the exporting of masterful, beautiful works of technology and industry. Of its 3 Million Inhabitants, more than half of its households engaged in the crafts and industry of production, and its reputation as a central hub of the utilitarian application of the arts attracted constant talent from across the empire, architects, engineers, metalworkers, and of course, the artists, painters who yearned for the chance of patronage by the top industries and companies within the cities, so that they may decorate in ivory, rare paints and oils, gold and silver, their wondrous works of technology which had started to spread across the empire.

Of note was its use of coal, steam, and the fabled electricity that sparked a revolution and will to imitate the glory of the harbour City and its technological marvels, clothed in the finest gold, silver, and silks. Even when mass production was kept to a minimum, the sheer amount of people and households engaged in  self production and the strive for excellence and beauty in their own homes and personal workshops, ensured a certain quality. Many households, from humble beginnings, could one day rise into a famed workshop of its own right, and the citizens sent their children to the academies of industry, craft, and paint for free so they would continue the cities proudest of traditions; the marriage of the Human Spirit, Art, and Technology.