Narrative Project: Development of the Ravine

  Today I looked into some progress with the ravine, the main location for the events in the narrative animation. This went though a couple of iterations as it initially got very complex, so I looked into some advice into how I could simplify the design. For this I went largely back to basics with the shape. Speaking with a first-year the thought occurred of giving the ravine more space in the middle, in order to give the camera and the fish room to move about without an ever-present opening above.

  There is still a little more work to do with this. As I might give the ravine floor more depth and see what I can do with the ravine mouth. But the important part right now is the bowels of the ravine, as that will be where the second fish spends most of its time.

   The concept art I am working from included rocky outcrops, another thing that could be added to give us room to work. It would also give a platform for plant life as the thing about a ravine is it is a very steep drop to the bottom and there might be little place for plants to settle and grow. Developing this will be my next step. The other thought was closing off the ends, especially as that is what the ravine does on the surface, and right now it seems a little jarring that where the crack is closing, the tunnel is just as wide as it is in the middle.

  To get a sense of scale I brought in some of the blocked out plants of the last version of the model and set them somewhere. The fish will be smaller than these so the camera could find itself very close to the walls.