Offered without comment. HDR lighting images from sIBL Archive.
Actually I’ll make one comment: some things are just easier to achieve using geometry rather than texture maps, not to mention looking much nicer and using less verts to get the job done.
I recently learnt that Blender’s Cycles renderer can do negative light. It’s as simple as setting a negative value for Strength in the Emission node. Light energy is sucked out of the scene by an anti-light.
In the examples, the anti-light is red. Add “negative red” to white and you get cyan (the G + B left over from subtracting red from white). Over on the left of the first image, the black object is blocking the red anti-light on the right, thus creating a square patch on the far wall which not cyan.
In the second image, negative red plus red results in black. Negative red on green and blue does nothing (the object is casting a shadow by blocking normal white light being emitted by the cube it’s inside). Negative red on purple is blue, negative red on yellow is green, negative red on pink is light blue.
I don’t know specifically what use I have for negative light in this cartoon, but I’ll invent something to make use of it.
Meanwhile, I’ve simultaneously solved a big production design problem and rediscovered the possibility of making something really whimsical at the same time.
I was struggling a bit with the idea of how to architect Ktish’s house, how to divide the space up, how to light it, etc.. then I thought – what if it’s just one space, but it can be repurposed? I mean, this planet he’s staying on is meant to be extraordinarily high tech. Given that it’s animated, and given that animation is such a beautifully adept medium for fanciful ideas, why not go all the way into Jetsons territory and have things sliding in and out of the walls as he needs them – including the front door. Don’t even explain or try to understand how the underlying machinery of it all works: aim for something provocatively and gleefully absurd. (You know, like a cartoon: from Invader Zim to Tex Avery at MGM – take your pick.) It’ll set the tone for that kind of weird stuff in later editions, especially if the technology starts to play up.
There’s another tone I want to set in terms of the visual storytelling. I thought I knew how the short was going to start but interesting ideas keep appearing at the beginning – beginnings are temptation-filled places, I’m discovering. However, after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, THX 1138 and the 2010 restoration of Metropolis (all classics and all highly recommended) I feel like I want to try something a bit avant garde and abstract as well. I’m a lapsed demoscener from way back – interesting procedural visuals coupled with awesome music are part of my subcultural DNA. So maybe this short’s going to start abstractly instead – entoptic phosphene visions and thoughts/mood as audio of Ktish as he’s meditating, trying to get calm and collected in anticipation of..
Well.. that’s a couple of episodes away. Hopefully I can show you what that’s all about by this time next year. I’m aware that I need to keep things interesting and entertaining, but hanging everything off the narrative plain wasn’t working. I’ve got an end state for the story but in terms of saving cats and heroes with a thousand faces.. I think I just want to point Ktish towards the end state and let him, the other characters and the universe decide how the hell he gets there.
There was an interesting moment in Woody Allen’s Sleeper where Woody’s character has a goal (get to the Resistance!), and he’s escaped the immediate danger of being caught and brainwashed, but there’s no obvious way for him to achieve the goal. No path to take. No allies. We’re unprepared for what comes next. That whole “what the hell is he going to do now?” moment I found really intriguing. There was a gaping void of anticipation because I didn’t know where he was going next.
It was so unfamiliar, being off-track like that. Disoriented and uncertain at a narrative level.
And I really liked that moment.
Stuff like that is a big reason for me to watch older movies – people make discoveries and have happy accidents in the earlier stages of an artistic form, but those things get forgotten as a Way Of Doing Things ossifies into place. The customary practices in any medium or artistic technology are in flux in its later early stages and audience expectations are both less set in stone and much broader – the vanguard adopters come up with all kinds of interesting experiments. This experimental stage is the stuff I love. I personally don’t care if it’s not as polished or coherent or polite – what it is, for me, is bloody interesting. So much cool stuff gets forgotten. It’s awesome living in the Information Age where so much old cinema is freely available to pick over and learn from, not to mention listening to DVD commentaries where film makers talk shop.
Anyway. If I can successfully pull off a moment or two like that as an amateur animated film maker learning the craft, I’ll definitely be happy about it. 🙂
I currently owe the pre-production sketchbook three pages of material. Better get to it. Even if it’s just one page and not three, one is greater than zero.
So I’m behind a few pages in the production art sketchbook and I’ve been playing around in Blender plenty. Not quite the plan I had.
There’s no real news on the pre-production front – I feel somewhat out of my depth with set design (I’m more of a character guy) so it’s pretty slow going. I’ve started rewatching the following movies for inspiration while searching for elements of a look:
As prep for the production design stage, I’ve read through Freehand Drawing & Discovery (a great book about sketching) as well as Architecture: Form, Space and Order (also a great book about architectural principles).
Just have to keep working at it, really. Having the faith to spend enough time to allow hotter/cooler ideas to germinate and sprout from the lukewarm ones, not getting discouraged or intimidated or even despondent, that’s what it’s all about now. Everything is slow going the first time around.
This is a bit of concept art from today. The snout’s too long so I won’t be using it as a model. But I did manage to get that distinctive bunched up flesh happening over the mouth and under the eyes towards the muzzle, so that’s good. Not sure if other marsupials have that but mulgaras (and for that matter quolls and Tasmanian devils) definitely do. Cats kind of have it.
So yeah, I’ve been drawing. I’ve fallen a bit behind the schedule I wanted to keep to – I wanted to churn out two pages of stuff every weekday plus maybe four to six pages over the weekend. It just hasn’t turned out like that – life makes other plans. Not that I’m bitter about it. I expect it, even. The weather, young nephews coming to visit unexpectedly,
Still, I’ve got through a few pages this week. Still need a lot of practice. More practice! I’ve got a 60 page sketchbook to fill up with stuff. Maybe by the time I get through that my drawing will be a bit more confident. Maybe.
It occurred to me today that this is the part in the project where I attempt to upskill the crap out of my drawing and sketching skills. I don’t think I need to get into fine rendering techniques but at the very least I’ve hit a distinct lack of visual ideas and drawing seems like it will help.
I look at it this way: my drawing hand is currently kind of stupid at drawing. It’s panicky, vague, uncertain and not at all confident – the stupidity is more stupefaction, I suppose. Situational stupidity with inexperience and rustiness at its root. If I draw and draw a lot, my drawing hand will get more assured, smarter, confident.. that kind of thing. Probably stronger for the practice too.
I mean I’m not saying I’ll ever be absolutely stunning at sketching and drawing – it’s enough for me to be adequately good, whatever adequately good turns out to be. Let’s say if I can sketch a design or idea well enough to get it into Blender and model it, that’s adequately good.
In terms of art direction I’m going to be looking for elements and shapes and patterns and so on that’ll bring the look together – a visual language, I suppose. It feels like this is the sort of project that wants a visual language. The notion that it’ll come with a lot of work is more a thing of faith and trusting the process than cold hard fact at this point. If I keep drawing I’ll find what I’m looking for – but I have to get drawing before I have a chance of finding it.
Lucky I don’t draw with my left hand, though – I’ve got a recently acquired spinal condition which means I can’t feel my two little fingers so well from time to time. It’s why I gave up playing musical instruments.
Going straight to Blender is not an option. Trying to build something for the first time out of vertices or even sculpting it from scratch is anywhere from fruitless to downright irritating. So, once again, I’m going to use Blender as a carrot – the goal is to fill up a 60-page A4 visual diary with concept art, sketches and other stuff. Until the book is full, no more Blender.
Hey, it worked for the conlang stuff. 🙂
I’m also thinking about a more permanent title for the project. One that doesn’t belong to anything else. Gotta stake out that name space. When I find that title I’m going to be changing the blog URL and killing all the links. You have been warned. 🙂