Four Redux - Biolab Walls Redesign Progress

  Coming back to my old work and upgrading it has so far been an enjoyable exercise in design techniques. Transforms, textures, warpings and UVs, all sorts of tricks have been used to give a serious touch-up on what I have previously built.

  The most engaging stage so far has been trying to keep the look authentic while also making a distinct style. The laboratory run by Smithston-Wessex, the megacorp funding an expedition to a far-off planet, is clean, slick, but this hides the more insidious nature of their work. While it might be a little safe to design a sterile look for one of my major forays into environment modelling, the uncomplicated nature allows me to focus on clean design. Which, with that mastered, can be a springboard for more daring aesthetics.

  I have brought the environment forward in time a little. Looking back on my references, I was always inspired by the styles of the late 1960s and mid 1970s. Too contemporary for the original Star Trek, a lot more in line with Space 1999 and 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

  The new design however might have creeping elements of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which developed its style in part from the visual re-imagining given to the original Star Trek series for its films. What I mainly took from this series was maybe the cleaner, rounded styles (which was popular in the Sixties) but definitely the large bands of fluorescent lighting. Along the ceiling and stretching from bottom to top, this design choice is really good for giving an illuminated feel to a room. A little impractical if you're actually within the room as it basically has you staring into a fluorescent light wherever you look, but definitely a feature emblematic of the era's science fiction film and television.

  I did not want to go overboard with the creep towards the 80s. Although it is going to be interesting to combine this with the Ridley Scott-esque corridors of the base since I made a few subtle changes to the shape of the doorways and window openings. Not that I'm too worried, I considered redesigning the doors anyway.

  True to form, I'm not done yet with this style - apart from the obvious bits like the need for a ceiling and a floor, I want to remake the doors to the isolation chambers (as well as the isolation chambers themselves) in that tapered peak threshold but in a way that is far more in line with the aesthetic I am going for. What I have in mind is to adapt the panelling already used for the door and window to fit the door to the isolation unit, which might need more bulk as it is supposed to be more heavy-duty than your typical base door.

  Could be adapting what I have, could be I design new geometry for it. But it will be enjoyable.

  For now I have decided to focus on the biolab itself. In a sense, it is my "hero" environment, where most of the project takes place. The corridor, which in previous efforts was designed as if it were a focus, will come later as it can be attached to the windows looking out into the rest of the base.

Mock environments, locked doors and reflected, polarised or shuttered windows could be used to make the base appear much larger than it really is.

  And just as a demonstration of the difference, here is the biolab design in the first attempt, with a few props, a door and a window to give an idea just how much of an overhaul this has been. To say it has been significant however I believe is an enormous understatement.

Personally I can hardly tell these are intended to be for the same room.

Four Redone: Building a Better Base

  The last couple of weeks I have felt invigorated to return to developing my first proper story. Which so far has played out in the for mof a revision to the environments I had designed originally. With confidence I've found I am much more confident creating detailed models while also playing around with tricks to get the look just right. Right now the main work has been on the texturing for leather and some of the walls. Some of these kits were arranged to share textures for ease of rendering.

  It has also been a time for inspiration. Today came flooding with ideas on what the chambers such as the biolab could look like with a little bit of polish and planning. I had strong inspirations from 2001 A Space Odyssey with this approach, which could give a lot more character to Ceti Base's airlock and layout even if the design will also be staying mostly true to that 1960s and 1970s space aesthetic.

This time around I definitely plan to add a few more doors so the whole place doesn't feel like a series of tunnels. Maybe some furniture for the airlocks like spacesuit racks or some corridor furniture like trolleys or scattered cables. I'll look into that. For now the priority has been on a look for the rooms themselves.

I'm planning to keep at least some of the basic layouts.

New Designers: Final Submission

Year 3 Major Project: Four from Mark Stamp on Vimeo.

A bereaved scientist finds love again far from home, but as he comes to connect with this new lease of life the company's plans must force him to let go.

Four: New Designers Approaching

New Designers is but a few days away, but this blog has been quiet so to alleviate that I present a few stills that I have prepared.

  Rendered in full HD quality, and what I have has been tested in a video sequence. Getting everything right and keeping everything clean well however has been nothing short of a monolithic task. This project started a long way, back, as far back as September and to see the outcome now feels exhilarating as the home stretch presents itself.

I also took some time to build a business card. Nothing too flashy, gets the job done rather nicely though.

Four: An Adult With Polish

  With progress done om the environment model I went back to the animation sequences. With the time that I have available I feel I can definitely push out some much cleaner and more lifelike animations. Currently building a library along the way. It won't translate easily into the juvenile - who has a very different style of movement - but the groundwork should speed up the pace.

 A rather diligent cutting of the animation down to four minutes has been a struggle, as there is always that question of what to keep and what to remove. But after some thorough examination, and the sacrificing of a few details here and there which in a number of cases could be supplemented by visual information, the video flows a little more succinctly and fits within that alotted time frame.

Four: Animation and a New Laboratory

I've been working to improve the animations for my project. Feedback has it that where the most improvement is needed in when Four runs or walks. However one of the larger complications has been that in order to smooth out the way hands moved about, the control around the wrist was re-parented so that it moves with the base and not the torso.

This has the added advantage that she can more easily grasp things, and the hand stays in position better when Four is stationary, but it does mean that all the hand positions need readjusting.

  One update that might have slipped is an improvement to the scale of the rooms. Everything was a little large and off-scale so one of the challenges has been to compress a few things so the environment feels less cavernous. This may have a knock on effect in that Four would need to be smaller. Part of what I learned while researching for the project is that grubs can be much larger than the insect they grow into, likely because the fat and material they store up is also what keeps them alive during the energy-intensive metamorphosis project. It might be a simple case of not making the size differences as drastic but at the same time, Four isn't a low-level predator, and animals whose shoulders may reach the waist when on all fours can stretch taller than an adult human when they try standing on their hind legs.

Four: More Prop Progress

  I've spent the last week building a number of props that will be scattered about the laboratory. While they add to render times, they are necessary components to sell the world.

  Also to sell the world are some features to dial back some of the sterility of the locations. Interest elements like pipes and a new feature to the ceiling were installed to make the place feel less eascetic. One of the intentions for a final pass is a layer of dirt and grime, partially achieved by the ambient occlusion from the pipes and tables but more still needs to be added to make the whole thing convincing.

  Also to sell the world: Some experimentation with photogrammetry and more general texture maps to sell a convincing texture for the world being built. This experimentation has so far been interesting, I was surprised at some of the difference it makes to making an object convincing.

Four: Making Clutter and Props

  The last few days the design priority has been in prop-making.to give the biolab a lived-in look.

  There are still some props that need making - binders, dossier folders, perhaps a camera, Alfonse's experiment, post-it notes, perhaps items like used TV dinner trays or cups of soup. Built into the coffee cup is a particle emitter that when rendered would resemble steam. One of the rops I've entertained is an ash tray in David's office; this could be used as a means to convey that David is overworked, having to take cigarette breaks to get though the day. However, the idea of the decontamination unit that connects the lab to the corridor was to imply that the lab needed to be sterile and clean of foreign contaminants. Food might be passable but smoking in his room also feels like a stretch.

Making food to actually go on these trays might be too much. It might be that all I need to do to convey that the scientists have been eating is empty TV trays that have been stained by what was on them while they were eaten.

  Looking at the time period, what might have best suited the lab in terms of lighting fixtures is a tube of flourescent light that circles the room. This differing setup shoudl contrast the room nicely with the corridor outside.

Lab Toys

Playing about with some techniques to represent glass mostly, but after a pause, things are moving along.

For the prop department, one of the things needed was some lab equipment, so to work my way back int oa routine I started simple: Test tubes, petri dishes, pipettes, tube racks and finally a microscope (though while the base is finished, the model still needs some serious shader work). Other device considerations planned but yet to be designed include a crucible and some scales, which will be scattered about the workspace.

It was exciting designing these as I was reminded of science classes back in school, an interest in science has been part of the inspiration for Four overall so it was good fun designing some of the equipment that I've conducted experiments with..

Four: Lighting Continues

  Lighting setup for the main room is almost done. I plan to transfer the setups that have been created  (as well as a few of the assets that needed their UVs improving) to the other scene files in order to save time as the rooms do not change that much.

  To save on materials, some texture files were combined using a layered texture plugin that with some alteration to the UV layouts allow for multiple models to use one material easily, saving on using repeat materials and repeat colours. Getting a better handle on the surface shader also made its installation much handier, and the effect I can get out of it feels much more natural.

  Like with other assets, the lights will need to be grouped with the model, so that when the scale of the model changes, they change to remain in place. What I'll still need to keep in mind is how much will the various lights change as they are re-positioned and re-scaled. A final outcome is close, just a little more time and attention needed and I should be ready to start on final compositions.

Four: Corridor Lighting

  Much of yesterday was spent on animating some of the final scenes, which means that to an extent, act 3 (where we see the adult) has a functional set of animations.

  So today's priority was lighting. This however turned into more work than I initially anticipated as in order to shave off render times I considered looking where I could optimise my scene. Presently my shaders were monochromatic - I would create a single shader for a specific colour, but this proved inflexible and I ended up building up a number of shaders with the same settings just different shades.

  I was able to replace some of the shaders using maps created in Photoshop, which I am considering fleshing out with textures to make the materials feel more like real materials and less like plastic. While other materials use a blinn, the white panels use a mila shader textured to come across more as leather, using similar properties to Four's skin due to leather's properties.

A warmer grey for the bulk material of the corridor appears to work more with the aesthetic I am aiming for. Aside from a number of hot-spots, the lighting in place (area lights positioned opposite each other) works to fill out the scene.

Strangely the frame above took considerably longer to render than the corridors, Four's teeth also appear to be reflecting the light of the surface shader used to represent the sunlight. I could disable it for when the camera switches to this shot as the effect is almost obliterating the sight of her teeth.

Four: Polished Pre-Vis In Progress

 The last couple of days have been busy ones. With the bulk of animations ready I took several hours to re-compose all the audio recordings I had into a more flowing picture, with some additional sounds gathered on Freesound.

  The tunnel segments were added so as to build the scene for the final composition, as there is one moment where Four leaps off a wall, it was vital to get the position of the wall and Four's feet right, requiring the full geometry.

  A re-synced animation is currently in the works, but should not take much longer than a couple of days to construct ready to send off for batch rendering. As of this post, the animations I have more closely fit with the soundscape, all that is really required is for some of the last animations to be built, some expressions added and to finish off some of the textures.