Week 11

 This week I continued to build more scenes in Blender. I started with a simplistic farm setting which will be displayed as the narrator describes the empty towns. Again, I used simplistic shapes and low detailing to replicate the nostalgic feeling of old kids animations seen in my influences page. This is also beneficial for rendering as the scenes will only be seen for a brief time in the film (2-3 seconds) and wont waste time rendering high detailed assets when they wont be showcased. One issue I ran into during this process was the way the textures were displaying in Blender. This was because the UV mapping interface was different to Maya and took some time to figure out. I overcame it by using several different tutorials and online resources.

Next, I modelled the interior room where most of the animated shots will be. I created a simple Bed, Shelves, books, toy robot, bedside table, rug, curtains, lamp, and windows. Creating cloth in Blender was slighty more challenging than in Maya as the physics and and animations were different than what I have experienced with Ncloth. Following several tutorials I was able to create a realistic cloth texture and shape using Blender's cloth and rigid body physics. 

Additionally, I modelled a simple town front / façade. Following the same methodologies explained above, I used simple shapes and textures. This scene will be shown in addition to the farm as a brief world building tool where narration will take place. I added in my clown creature to this scene to see if an element of eeriness would work here. Although it did look creepy having the character in the scene, it seemed forced and out of place. I attempted to make this feel more natural by adjusting and keyframing the lighting. I animated the lighting settings of the dynamic skybox by having the scene go from a blue dusk to a black night. The lamp-posts in the scene would then turn on the illuminate the town assets in a orange / yellow low light. The idea behind this was that so when the scene turns dark, I would place the characters into the scene, then when the yellow lights slowly turn on a glimpse of the creatures would be seen. I did a test animation of this and liked the result. Once I have more modelled monsters to animate i aim to make this scene convey a more eerie tone. 

Finally, I returned to the house exterior scene to finish the detailing. I added to the foliage by adjusting the texture and colour properties. I then modelled and added the windows with adjusting alpha values for the glass. I implemented several different lights into this scene to trial which lighting setup would work the best. The skybox was set to a light purple-blue hue to create the midnight look im aiming to achieve. I then added yellow lights for the interior of the house for contrast. I think this was the best option to complement the scene as all the necessary details are showcased while looking visually appealing.