WIM Reflective Statement

For this project I decided that the low angle exterior shot was more ideal in presenting my chosen environment ‘Isaura’. When thinking about the scene I realised I would have to reposition some of the buildings for my hero prop (the temple) to be in more of a prominent position. After quickly drawing out the revised scene I was then able to clearly identify what would be the matte painting and what would be modelled. After I was able to create influence maps of more in depth research, for example I wanted this scene to clearly show the Shinto influence from the archways to the shapes of the roofs. Alongside this, looking more into the stain glass for the temple with the different shades of glass panes.



Then I was able to move onto the production design, where I took each of the objects out of the scene. This allowed me to get a better understanding how each of these structures can be modelled as previously it was just a one-sided view. Whilst referencing the production design, I created the orthographs. This took a little while to do as it is something I have never drawn before but after the first couple were completed, I was able to easily draw the rest. Shortly after when reviewing how the final scene would look, I realised I needed to drop a prop as the scene would become to busy and over crowded, therefore I chose to drop the crane as I believe it did not hold that much importance compared to the other props.



Next, I took my orthographs and put them into Maya to start modelling and laying out the UV’s of the buildings, I started with something easy which was the lamp post and then moved on to more of the difficult structures. One mistake I made was leaving my hero prop until last, this was because if I was unable to get the project done on time it was a structure that held the most importance in the scene that would not have got created. When I finished modelling, I found that I feel a lot more confident using the Maya software and I have also been able to solve quite a few of the problems I encountered myself.



Then I had to bring the scene together by importing all of my structures and scaling them up or down depending on what size they had to be. Then adding a sky dome and directional light to create some simple shadows alongside adding shaders for block colours. I found this a really simple thing to do and that led me to quickly move onto adding the textures. I did this by taking a UV snapshot of all of the UV’s then opening them into Photoshop to add smaller details for example the wood grain and roof tiles. Even though it was a simple process I did find that it took a long time to get them completed and put on the models. Therefore, I ended up rushing the rest of the project like the matte painting which was really simple and not as detailed as I like. If I had more time I would go back and recreate some of the textures, alongside experimenting more with the lighting to make it more dramatic. By doing this and adding more to the matte painting, I believe it would help in improve the whole outcome of the final render.