Historical Context pt.1

Progress Update!

I have been working on developing ideas for the historic context of my 3D educational short film. Firstly here are the aims and objectives I want to achieve this year:

AIMS

- Explore lighting and look development.

- To test the intersection between 2D and 3D (paintly texturing style).

- To investigate the production pipeline for short films.

OBJECTIVES

- Create dynamic and compelling light set ups for rendering that enhance storytelling and create 3D assets that resemble the correct period whill sticking to a unique style.

- To follow the production pipeline for short films to increase the quality of outputted work.

- Accurately portray a historical context in the medium of short film through look development and 3D iterations.

I started by looking at Ching Shih, a Chinese "Pirate Queen", who lived during the Qing Dynasty. She was a prostitute who became one of history's deadliest pirates, and commanded over 800 large ships at her peak. However, when her story came to the West it became messy and misinterpeted and because the orginal texts are in Chinese, I stopped persuing this idea.

Next I moved to Scottish history, for example the Battle of Culloden, then to how the stars were first documented. From there I started thinking more about how things came to be and was drawn towards Polar expeditions. Looking specifically at the British Antarctic Expedition and the deadly race for the South Pole between Captain Scott and Roald Amundsen. During this research I came across the HMS Erebus and Terror, and their navigation and exploration of Antartica before mysteriously disappearing. This sparked the idea to look at the people who first navigated on ships and explored the West. Who discovered Iceland, Greenland and North America. The Vikings.

I intially looked for specific people in the Viking Age to retell their story in 3D. First, I looked at Hrafna-flóki Vilgerðarson who was the second Norwegian Viking to arrive in Iceland. He travelled with three ravens to help him on his journey to Iceland, becoming Ravens-Floki. He released the ravens as he sailed. One of the ravens flew to Faroe Islands, one flew up in the air and back down to the ship but the third didn't return so it follwed the raven's course to Iceland.

I next looked at Leif Erikson who was a Norse explorer. He was the founder of Greenland and accidentally discovered North America when he sailed off course.

I also had a look at Norse mythology. The story of Tyr and Fenrir, where the Gods tricked Fenrir to be enchained for they feared him. Tyr lost his arm in the process. And the Yggdrasil and the Nine realms - the Norse Cosmos.

My research regards how history has been interpreted over time by different people. This is representation of how in art, the Viking Age has been presented. From early Icelandic Manuscripts to romanticism to modern day.

Further research into the project style has also been undertaken. Attending online events from Axis Studios. Which explored the relationship between 2D and 3D, making sense of the compositing aspects within this style.

From this, I tried to texture a goblin in a hand-painted style. Seeing if it was viable for my short film.

Painted in Substance Painter, I used one layer and a brush to hand-paint the goblin's face. I really enjoyed this way of working but on a large scale I knew I couldn't do this for every asset as it is a solo short film.

My solution was to generate the textures for the rest of the mesh with masks, generators and grundge textures. Then put the hand-painted textures on top, blending it in. Overall I think this effect worked very well.

Process: