Week 3 – Environment Design – Advanced Experimental Animation Unit

Unit 2.1 Advanced and Experimental 3D Computer Animation Techniques – Project 1, week 3.

As I have mentioned previously, I decided to go with the stylised art style. my whole environment should reflect that as well as my theme of ‘fear when young’.

Structure Mood board

The images below are my secondary research for the stylised house I wish to model in the animation. The dog house be of a similar style.

This style of building is interesting. I like the middle bottom and bottom left designs especially. This is considering their lack of the traditional vertical lines for the structures main shape. Their designs are unorthodox and unrealistic, due to this, they have much character instead.

*Figure 2.* Secondary research for style.

I especially like this image, as it has a lot of character. Even though it is a commercial building instead of a residential. I can take theoretical elements from this image, such as the screwed building shape. As well as take inspiration from the small details that help accessorise the image, for example, the electrical lines, balcony, rain drains etc.

Early Design and Silhouettes for the Main Residence

*Figure 3.* Primary research. Early thoughts about the house design through silhouettes.

Reference Research about Modelling a Stylised House

Figure 4. (Ogli, 2018)

Figure 5. (Kasrat, 2019).

Figure 6. (Stylised Station, 2020).

Figure 7. (Coes, 2020).

Exaggerated Surroundings Theme

In order to exaggerate the fact that the character is a small and vulnerable being in a new, large and unknown world, I want to incorporate this theme. From a certain low angle perspective, the surroundings look enormous and small at the top of the object, as though the camera point of view is extremely small in comparison. By utilising this theme in my animation, this should increase the symbolism of my ‘new life’ and fear of the unknown themes.

See the source image — *Figure 8.* Like how you see skyscrapers from below. The top of the buildings look much smaller from ground level perspective.

Everything looks larger than it is. From a low angle and perspective from a young being, that is new to life and everything looks enormous from her perspective.

Testing the Theme in 3D

*Figure 10*. Testing my theme in Maya. Different versions of building shapes.

Figure 11. Viewing the building representations with the character to compare scale.

Environment Designs

These designs have the previous ‘low ground perspective’ in mind, as well as the stylised theme in mind. The setting is evening, the exterior in a rural residence front garden. The weather is evening, overcast (blue toned and not high intensity lighting). The location is Britain in the countryside, a place with many natural sources of noise.

Fence Designs

Dog House Design

*Figure 15*. Coloured designs of the dog house and fence.

Main Residence Design

Garden Flora Designs

I designed the tree like this as I thought that a realistic tree with alpha map leaves would be too realistic to fit the stylised aesthetic theme. However, I would like to consider using alpha map leaves all well.

Colouring

Reference used: (Guide to Creating Color Schemes, n.d.).

I plan to have a colour palette with many shades of one colour. At least this is what I wish to try out so far. When I am doing the colouring I will experiment further. I plan to add materials to certain objects in substance painter such as the wooden fence, but have my colour pallet selected instead of the pre-sets or anything natural.

*Figure 19.* This is the palette I wish to experiment with.

art - Style identification – landscape graphics using single monochrome layers of the same tone - Graphic Design Stack Exchange — *Figure 20.* (Red Landscape Wallpapers – 4k, HD Red Landscape Backgrounds on WallpaperBat, n.d.).

This is an example of a similar technique, however this has more varied tones that compliment each layer. This image shows clear distinctions between foreground and background, while drawing attention to the places that should have the audiences eyes. This is a technique which I would like to try; using colour to focus the audiences eyes to specific objects.

References

Art Rocket. n.d. Guide to Creating Color Schemes. [online] Available at: <https://www.clipstudio.net/how-to-draw/archives/156922> [Accessed 25 March 2022].

Coes, D., 2020. Modeling a House in Maya. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1IMziCUJhE> [Accessed 25 February 2022].

Kasrat, E., 2019. Autodesk Maya Speed Modeling House. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhPLS9SCGI4> [Accessed 20 February 2022].

Ogli, I., 2018. 3D Modeling Tutorial – Modeling Stylized House in Autodesk Maya 2022. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecl5Z49Luts> [Accessed 23 February 2022].

Perspectivespring2013.blogspot.com. 2013. 3 Point Perspective. [online] Available at: <http://perspectivespring2013.blogspot.com/2013/03/3-point-perspective.html> [Accessed 25 February 2022].

Stylised Station, 2020. Creating Stylized Environments & Dioramas using Maya/Substance Painter. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGp3jmLCTw> [Accessed 25 February 2022].

Wallpaperbat.com. n.d. Red Landscape Wallpapers – 4k, HD Red Landscape Backgrounds on WallpaperBat. [online] Available at: <https://wallpaperbat.com/red-landscape-wallpapers> [Accessed 25 March 2022].