Taking the proxy mesh from last week, I created a low poly but polished version of the models in Maya, and unwrapped it. Then I took it to Unreal, and rendered it.
For the VR Project, we were assigned the Lord of the Rings theme park as our target. My team consists of Megan Stoughton (Prop Artist), Jacob Brady (Tech Art), Nathaniel Benetatos (Animation), Beste Unlu (Character Artist) and myself, Anupama Narayan (Environment Artist).
Our research involved watching the Fellowship of the Ring, and picking out a scene we felt was appropriate for recreating in VR. After some discussion, we landed on the Weathertop scene in the middle of the movie, where Frodo Baggins is stabbed by the Morgul Blade, wielded by the dreaded Nazgul.
Our plan is to create the ruins of Amon Sul, situated atop a hill, which will form our primary environment. The ruins themselves will rest atop a hill that will itself not be navigable. For props, we have decided on creating Sting, a sword that Frodo eventually wields but not at this point in the timeline, as he only obtained it from Bilbo in Rivendell. But it's an iconic sword, so we're handwaving the plot for this particular scene. The Morgul blade, wielded by the Nazgul, will feature prominently as well.
We will also create the One Ring, which Frodo will slip onto his finger (something I believe will be handled by the animation department). After he puts on the ring, the scene will switch over to the 'unseen realm' where the Ringwraiths exist as hollow shades of the mortal men they'd once been. Though this last visual effect will, I believe, only be implemented if time permits.
My task for this week was the creation of a proxy Weathertop environment that will be scaled appropriately in actual VR. I rendered the environment in Arnold, just to see if I could get the atmosphere right, even though the actual lighting would be done in Unreal, by Megan Stoughton.
WIP Shot
For the subsequent weeks, I'll be creating a cannon diorama using the industry pipeline.
Primary Reference
Finale of the previous assignment. I textured the models in substance painter, created materials in Unreal, and rendered it.
For this week's assignment, we had to create a scenery using composition layout.
As it turns out, my subject matter fulfills two of the various layouts we were provided with - the Golden Rule (also known as the Thirds) and the Pyramids. For convenience sake, I have chosen the primary target composition to be the Thirds, as it's more accurate.
Continuation of the previous assignment. This time, I sculpted a high res version of the assets in my scene in ZBrush. I also fixed the camera angle from last week's assignment, so the details would pop out more.
