Discover how RAVEN was created entirely on home computers!
Part 4: Creating Environments
A great deal of the emotional tone of a film is expressed through it's production design, so it's important to have the action take place on sets that create and unify the look and feel of the finished movie. In RAVEN, we're shooting for modern goth/grunge, so our environments (an alley, a tattoo parlor, secret meeting rooms, catacombs and underground temples) all have to reflect the same stylistic urban decay.
In the beginning moments of RAVEN (and probably a few more as production progresses), I've been cheating with the environments by using digitally altered photographs as backdrops for the animated actors. But in order to free up the camera and allow it to move, pan and dolly within the set like a real motion picture camera, we need to have a 3D virtual set just like our 3D virtual actors.
SIMPLE SET DESIGN
Here's a simple set, The Alley. This was done using Poser, which is primarily designed for character design and animation but does allow for simple objects to be created pretty easily. The above photos show a before/after display of the set with and without the texture maps applied. In this case, the textures used are digitallly doctored photographs.
In the final film, we'll be using a forced perspective to make it look like the square on the left is actually an extension of the wall in the alley photograph. The green crosses are position markers for props that were imported into the scene and positioned within the set. Here we have some garbage cans and blood splatters.
MORE ADVANCED SET DESIGN
For the backroom of Poizon's tattoo shop, there were no existing photographs that suited the occasion. Plus, the set needed to be built in 3D to accomodate the multiple positions of the camera.
Above is a rough sketch of what the room should look like, inspired by the Sloth victim's apartment in SE7EN.
Rendered views of the 3D set. I am using MetaCreations BRYCE 3D on this project as well, a program that is designed specifically for terrains and landscapes, but the problem is you can't bring Poser people models into Bryce for animation, and you can't bring Bryce created sets into Poser. Bryce's primary application on RAVEN thus far has been to create moving clouds for backdrop elements.
The above sets have been created entirely within Poser, using texture maps and models created in other applications. You'll notice that Poizon is a fan of my other two movies, as well as some independent Goth bands I happen to like, BELLA MORTE and THE CRUXSHADOWS.
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