Production Principles – 3D Story Worlds

Padlet Link: https://padlet.com/pclarke04202011/jud0o0garuuv88da

For this rotation I was thinking of creating a town for rats and mice and looked at ‘The Great Mouse Detective’ and ‘The Tale Of Despereaux’ for references. These are far more complicated than what I, as a complete beginner 3D artist, can include in my diorama but they’re great to look at for inspiration. I’ll be using Blender as I find it easier to use than Maya.

Below I’ve attached some of my inspiration images that are also on my padlet (none of which are mine). I’m quite apprehensive about attempting 3D so I chose simple pipe shapes that I should be able to make in blender after spending some time learning it. In addition to this, I included some grungier, darker pictures to compare and contrast with the brighter ones. This allowed me to begin experimenting with palettes and visuals.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I’ve put some palettes I made in coolors.co below:

• 

• 

• 

• 

I really like all of these palettes, and found it useful to look at several different atmospheres that I can create using colour. The first few I tried were darker and dirtier, looking quite sewer like, but pretty unappealing. Therefore, I looked at a lighter and overall brighter one (which is the biggest picture shown in the gallery above). I loved this and certainly want to use it again, but it wasn’t quite getting the nightlife mood I wanted. Finally, I landed on a red, pink, and blue colour scheme I loved and took forward into my diorama sketches.

Diorama Concept Sketches

I created some concept sketches for what sort of diorama I could make.

I wanted to go for something with a good mixture of round and straight edges. The first sketch I created was inspired by a regular living room, but I thought that the sofa may be too complicated for me to make, not to mention the window. Next, I tried out some pipe shapes that change in size from small to big, like a cocktail glass (top right) but I didn’t think this looked very cohesive. After that I tried creating a selection of pipes, which I ended up developing further as I thought it was the most visually pleasing, but I also tried out a nature inspired concept (bottom right). To me that was quite boring so I went back to the pipe one.

Next, I created a more developed diorama and tried out different positions for the pipes, adding a manhole cover in the center of the ‘room’ for more visual interest. I love the colour palette I chose here, and experimenting with other palettes on coolors.co was incredibly useful. I found this palette gave my piece a city at night vibe that I love and contrasts well with the classic grunge-y appearance of pipes in media.

3D Diorama

I’ve never worked in 3D and didn’t know anything about it before I started, so this was a huge challenge. However, I think it turned out really well! One thing that didn’t go very well was the lighting- I couldn’t figure out how to get a sharp, reflective look on the pipes so the pink lighting is quite subtle and I think it would have looked better if it wasn’t. In contrast, I think the overall composition is quite nice, especially for my first 3D piece. I thought adding a brick texture for the walls and floor would set the scene better, letting viewers know that this is an underground set of pipes, so I edited a free to use texture by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash to make it dark blue in order to fit my colour scheme. If I were to do this again I’d work on making the details, such as where the walls don’t match up exactly in this piece, neater. I’d also want to try more complex shapes.

• 

• 

Final Reflection:

Note: this is the same writing from my final production principles PDF.

Overall, I think my work for the 3D worlds rotation resulted in a solid outcome that hit all the brief specifications, but could have been more refined and detailed. Looking at some of the tutor’s examples, and my classmates’ work, I can see who excelled in 3D and how I could have used more defined, complex shapes to add more dimension to my scene. However, I’m happy with how the colour and lighting in the final diorama came out, and I think it provides a convincing atmosphere and final touch to my work.

I’ve never worked with 3D software before, so I found the entire process a huge challenge. Having to learn an entire new software and discipline in less than a week was difficult, and I feel that despite working to a strict plan of when to work on different things, I could have benefitted from spending more time learning the software even if it resulted in a less detailed final product. On the other hand, I do like how the piece came out, although it would have been beneficial to spend more time experimenting and creating rather than learning a new software.

My concept for this piece was brightly coloured tunnels and fictional mice cities, which I’ve always loved seeing in animated films like ‘The Tale Of Despereaux’ and ‘The Great Mouse Detective’. It was a fun, but ambitious, concept that I only half achieved. It would have been lovely to see miniature 3D mice in my scene in and around the pipes, but I should have realised my skillset wouldn’t allow me to achieve this and scaled back my ideas. However, the pipes turned out pretty well, as did the colour, so those aspects of my concept were successful.

My overall experience was good, yet challenging. There are several areas I feel I could have improved upon if I had more experience working in 3D, but I came out with a solid product that hit the brief and looks fairly good, although it could certainly be more detailed.