Environments

3 | environments

Introduction

This project will create an environment, part one of a project that will combine with an entity in the next project. Although this requires the artist to think holistically about how environments and entities work to create a coherent whole, the skills and workflows for each are unique enough that we must focus on them in turn.

Like Daniel and Kike when they interpreted the gravity-challenged world of M. C. Escher’s Relativity in 3D model form, we choose a focus on spaces, architecture, nature… anything other than the people, animals, or machines that occupy these.

M. C. Escher, Relativity, 1953
Daniel M. Lara and Kike Oliva, 3D model of Escher’s Relativity, 2000

Objectives

After completing this project you will be able to:

  • use the frame output of Maya to create a moving image
  • plan an animation project from concept art through final render
  • use the language of cinema — both the jargon of the industry and the semiotics of storytelling
  • understand the use of different kinds of image maps to achieve texture and complex material expression
  • use sky and light modeling functions to achieve natural lighting effects
  • create just enough of an environment to allow a camera to interpret it as a possible world
Sidebar