Wednesday, 12 May 2010

Pirate Ship Project

Initial Ideas:
I decided to make a pirate ship for this project because I thought it would be more interesting to create than an ordinary room or exterior environment. I was initially undecided between making it look realistic and making it look stylised. I eventually decided on the latter because it meant I could be more creative with it.

Concept Drawings:
I did a few concept drawings with a few different angles both in my sketchbook and in Photoshop, to give myself an idea of the style of ship and the features, of what I would be able to produce.


Texturing:
I created all my own textures for this project using Adobe Photoshop CS3. I experimented with all of the colours, sizing and fine details until I got them to the correct proportions for the ship. I am quite happy with how they look, I just think some aspects could look a little sharper with a bit more work.

Lighting:
I had a few issues with the lighting, and this would possibly be the more serious aspect of this piece that needs improvement. I like that I've made it a night time scene, however, the shadows are too harsh and it doesn't look quite natural. I need to soften the overall effect quite a bit.

Camera Ideas:


Initially I was going to have the ship appear to be moving as if it was in a storm, with some rain and even a few lightning flashes. However, due to remaining time on the project, I decided to just pan a camera from one end of the ship to the other. Even though it's not what I first planned,I think it still looks effective.


How I feel about the final result:

I like the final result and feel I did well in this project over previous ones. However, I would make improvements to this as follows: adjust the lighting, add a background and possibly add a few more objects, although that one is of less importance. I may even change the textures to more realistic looking ones at some point, as this would be a nice contrast against the current project, and would be nice to see how different they look.


Here is a link to the final video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOn165miWGE