8 second flythrough

Just a quick 8 second zip through the living room and into the bathroom. By no means the final visual style...but it allowed see how our environment would look like skew and distorted:

Kali flythrough from Mark Grossi on Vimeo.

Mark

Early textures and lighting

2 early 3D screenshots:

Mark

A long delay....but we have work to show

The project is well underway now. We've been busy working away on the environment and character, and fine tuning the script and storyboard.

Here are the final interior textures:

Mark

Maya Update

I've started to flesh out elements of the bathroom. Still in the early stages, but I'll add more details as the week goes on then try out some camera and texture tests.

Mark

Maya Model of environment

Firstly, I'd like to say a massive thanks to Michael Wilbourn for helping me get the Maya model properly up and running. Check out his blog at: http://michaelwilbourn.blogspot.com/ for all manner of masterful Maya jazzery. He's also an ardent Mortal Kombat fan.

The model is going to retain very simple geometry - the magic will come from the textures. Currently working on building a toilet, as a friend rightly suggested that having a dank, dilapidated bathroom would be more effective than a kitchen.

So far I have the window, table and medicine cabinet built.

I'll try to get the preliminary storyboards up by the end of next week.

Mark

Website idea

We're planning on having a website for the project. However, instead of it being about the actual animation, we've decided to create the business website for the pharmaceutical company behind 'Kali'.

Embellished information, propaganda and corporate confidence are the name of the game. There'll be links on how to use Kali, reviews from 'clients' and spin doctored news reports.

It'll be in the same vein as Verhoven style media satire and absurdity (but probably nowhere NEAR as genius).

Still, we can try.

The 3D cube spins constantly, photos fade in and out & lines dash around all whilst a sultry futuristic female voice introduces elements of the site.

For those interested in the name of the company:

- Omni Consumer Products (OCP - Robocop).

- Pharmakon - ambiguous Greek term for 'cure' / 'poison'.

- PCP - Good old Angel Dust with its hallucinogenic, anaesthetic & 'stimulating' properties.

Mark

Poster Idea

Mark

Sketches and ideas

Tom

Environment, concept & thought sketches

A mixture of pencil, water colour, pen and ash pieces.

Mark

3D room in After Effects

I decided to go ahead and create full wall textures for use in an After Effects test. This is to gauge how feasible it would be to implement our idea in this fashion.

There'll be more After Effects tests along the way before we start building in Maya.

The colours I changed to inspid yellows and muddy browns for that lugubrious 'Giallo feel' (I'm sure Argento would be proud.....or possibly wouldn't care). Music is 'Welcome to Videodrome', from the soundtrack composed by the incredible Howard Shore.

3D room test from Mark Grossi on Vimeo.

Mark

Constructing a physical model

Stage 4
Printed out a poor quality wallpaper texture I had made, soaked it in water then (placing and tearing) applied it to the walls. Dripped Raw Sienna ink into parts to create a stained effect. Picked away the edges.

For the floor I layered old dusty paper over the texture then hot glued a piece of old jumper to act as carpet (hand-fulls of dust and grime were applied liberally).

Stage 3
Glued a layer of ripped "cardboard fluff" on top of the texture. Layered handmade paper on top of some sections then painted with acrylic. Once it dried I took a craft knife to sections; exposing the texture and emphasising depth by painting certain areas.

Stage 2
Printed out the high-res textures I created in Photoshop, then glued them onto the wood.

Stage 1
Cut out 4 pieces of wood: 3 walls & 1 floor.
Firstly, I apologise for the poor photo quality. I decided to go ahead and create a physical layout of our environment. Although I hadn't sketched any ideas, I had the colour, style and feel strongly fleshed out in my head.

Above all else, this is to help us picture how we'll animate our character within the space and to act as a guide when we progress further into development.

Mark

Environment layout

It all began with a late night in bed on a winter's evening. Feeling the effects of one bottle of personality too many, I sunk into my bed with 'Cluster 71' by the genius German experimental enthusiasts, Cluster, in my earphones.

Although roughly sketched, this is the exact layout that continuously popped into my head when listening to Cluster. My brother is currently drawing up 'proper' plans for the structure; I continued on to develop the room with permission and input from the rest of the team.

The idea was to keep it claustrophobic - creating an 'animal in a cage' existence for the protagonist.

Mark