Current WIP

I've been trying to improve the themes and compositions of the pieces. Improving on themes like crime and authority. Building on new themes like poverty and consumerism. Also trying to develop better foreground/background aspects of each piece.

Improving Themes

Lately I have been trying to incorporate corporate themes that would stand out to the viewer. Some themes that are strong within these pieces are a sense of confinement while others could be a sense of authority like police officers or hints of crime. Some of these details could be graffiti on the walls, security cameras, bars on windows, and some more defining theme details.

Texture Progress

Changed the original texture pack I was going with. I thought it was too consistent and not grungy enough so I went with more of some modern day textures so it looks like people just built over the old technology. Here is the progress so far with the textures, still working on them but this was just a text so see what materials worked with what objects. Some models aren't as detaield yet so some are still in earlier stages. Next update will have more progress with the modeling and the lighting.

Renderer

So I decided I will render these cinemagraphs in mentalRay. The lighting and shadows are still place holder with colors and angles, but as of now I'm just texturing and bringing in the models into each scene. Here is a progress shot of the alleyway.

The shadows are still too dense and very hard but for now everything is still being tested out compositionally.

Modeling and Texturing

Recent work has been modeling assets for each of the cinemagraphs. I'm trying to go for very geometric or smooth shapes for the overall style of the models. The texture style is going to be very mechanical with a layer of age and grunge too it. Here are some models I have been working on.

Cyberpunk Cinemagraphs

I decided to change my thesis direction and focus more on environment design. With this new direction I've decided I want to create three cyberpunk styled cinemagraphs that will each have they're own unique setting and animations. 

A cinemagraph is essentially a still image that has looping animations within it. These animations can be as simple as wind blowing through hair or a car passing by. I feel that these animations added to the still images add another spectrum of interest within the image itself.

So far I've been playing with the what the lighting might look like within the scene and how it will blend with the other colors like other lighting, 3D models, textures, etc. The models are still very simplified within the scene and these tests are mainly for lighting tests mostly.

Garage

Alley

Subway

I've decided that I want to produce these shot within Maya. The rendered is still being decided on, but the options I'm considering are Arnold, iRay, or mentalRay.