Restaurant 1

I tired to add some style to it, but right now it still looks boring, I'll change the whole composition. I've been taking some examples from Chinese and Japanese restaurants.

Sketches for the first idea

Movement of the tight-rope walker

Tight-rope walker face

Tight-rope walker outfit 

Pogo kid

A restaurant

Possible ideas 1

First idea might look a bit banal, but when I thought about it more it looked like it just could work.

(Late evening, the environment is a luxurious restaurant with red carpets, paintings and wooden bar.)

1 Restaurant closes and it gets dark.

2 Suddenly some lights at the bar turns on and you can see few paintings on the walls.

3 In one of them is showed a tight-rope walker (a beautiful girl with a red dress and umbrella helping to keep her balance)- She starts moving; eventualy elegantly jumps right out of it out of.

4 A tight-rope walker sensualy goes down to the bar and sits down just like after a long day of work. That girl looks cold and just drained out.

5 Another painting starts moving. There is a boy with a pogo stick. He quickly jumps out of his picture and runs diwn to the girl. He looks like six years old, very childish and clumsy.

6 he tries to move the girl, but she just doesn't respond. He cant stay still and acts pretty anoying - throsd his stick on the bar, knocks his fingers to the surface of it rapidly, rolls his eyes all over the place, does strange noises, but nothing affects the girl.

7 A kid takes out some martini from the bar and gives a glass to a tight-rope walker.

8 She drinks it in one sip, hits the glas to the table, arogantly stands up and leasves the frame.

9 Kid calms down and hugs his stick like a drunk guy hugs a table...

10 Lights out.

Unit 4: Storytelling

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Story.

 

I've got a tight-rope walker, a pogo stick and a restaurant. Not quite something what I wanted to have, but I'll make it out. Since theres no brief yet I just want to start sketching.

Finished metro station

That is my final image - Metro station with some Renaissance inspired architecture.

The simple maya render looked like that

 

For my matte painting I used few really small details - abstract train cabin interior, few reflections and shadows in the back.



I used ambient occlusion and zdepth to increase the realistic feeling

Getting there

Since I still have some time tomorrow I'll probably add some benches and lamps. I also have to bevel, smoother everything and add the matte painting.

Pirate's Cove final image

I was making this a whole day and finaly I'm happy about the result.



Train texturing

Just getting done the train.



Metro station modeling progress

I will leave the closest train corner in the centre of the image that when I will add unusual distortion with photoshop it would look much closer than it is. I should also increase the size of the left platform just for composition.

The Haunting

The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris as Eleanor, Richard Johnson as Dr. Markway, Russ Tamblyn as Luke, Claire Bloom as Theo, Valentine Dyall and Rosalie Crutchley as Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, and Lois Maxwell as Mrs. Markway. The film centers around the conflict between a team of paranormal investigators and the house in which they spend several nights.

It was supposed to be  a horror movie, so to bring terror into a film there has to be some sort of element called fear. There has to be something there that is going to make you afraid of what is on screen. The house was supposed to be bad and evil, but where was that feeling? Where was that aura of terror? A few loud noises on the wall and a loose staircase is not enough to make most people nervous. "Robert Wise, the film's director, read the novel and optioned it for MGM, and used the skills he honed from his Val Lewton days to create a good old-fashioned ghost story where the unknown is more frightening than what is known" says Jonathan Stryker in horrorexpress.com. The two best scenes in the film weren't even of the supernatural, they were a runaway wife doing things that she shouldn't have been doing. Without resorting to clownish and over-powering special effects, director Wise manages to convey the fear of helpless humans when their minds and lives are manipulated by an unseen and unknown presence. There is doubt, then confusion, and finally terror.
The Haunting is also keen in its images: black and white make way to light and dark and smothering shadows. Robert Wise amps the suspense as the "presence" that is Hill House tightens its grip on the characters. While maybe the music is a little too shrill at times, seeing a door wide open when it shouldn't be is more unsettling than seeing a full-fledged ghost drenched in pallor, and the only thing remotely close to one is Mrs. Markway near the end. Lighted from below at a key scene, she might as well be one of the walking dead. The other thing is playing with mirrors - there are so many of them and you can see everything whats happening in the room at the same time.

Appellate Judge Mike Pinsky says (eptember 22nd, 2003 on dvdverdict.com) that Robert Wise, stripping down to basics between two grand musicals (West Side Story and The Sound of Music), operates much like Hitchcock does in Psycho. Both are keeping focused on the story, suggest more than you show, and let the camera carry the audience along. Wise knows when to move, tilt, and cut to create the strongest effect, A little sound and a lot of suggestion generate intense atmosphere, but never distract from the characters.









Darker metro

I added different textures flattened a whole image and overlayed different colours. I think that image fits the theme better now and looks more mysterious.

Metro colours and textures

I have to admit that right now I'm going away from the uncanny valley, so I will change the colorith into a colder one, still going to add some not working lamps and maybe sharper shadows would look better. (first one has all layers turned on) I really like the last one, but I think I still shouldn't leave it so abstract, so I will come back from the first to the second one just to repair the shadows next.

P.S. I just noticed that the last one also have something very interesting with the lighting on the right wall that I should leave.

Metro cleaning up the painting

I just tried now to clean up the most simple details. It took a while even if doesn't look like that, but after I finish this I will add the smaller details and textures. Also it is easy to notice that something is wrong on the right side, I'm really strugling with the perspective now too.