chosen environment

So it was agreed that we should set our mine in a sandy and rocky desert landscape. I think this was a good choice as this particular environment has so much potential for realistic and interesting lighting.

Sand and Snow concepts

Here are two quick concepts I created to demonstrate the look and feel for either of the two settings. Personally I do not have a preference, and it really does depend on which will be "easier" to accomplish. The problem I have with setting the environment in snow (although it would look awesome) is how much tougher creating the snow would be. I would want it to contain the shine and feel that snow truly has, and at our current stage I really do not believe this to be possible. As a group we are I believe siding more with sand, but we've still got to give it a lot of consideration.

desert, sand dunes & rock

ice snow mountains & glaciers

environment research

I shall post useful photographs from the internet using google images to present environment research from both an icy and sandy desert landscapes. This will form somewhat of a mood-board and will help us decide what environment conditions to choose.

the environment & setting

We should probably start to decide whether our mine is located in either an Icy or a Desert environment. Personally I would like the mine to be situated in a dry sandy desert environment as I believe there are far more lighting issues with an Icy environment. I would suggest that we light our environment during either sunrise or sunset. Also known as the Golden hour or sometimes the Magic Hour in Cinematography. It is the first and last hour of sunlight during the day. Lighting is softer, diffused and warmer in hue, and shadows are longer. The high contrast between highlights and shadow will aesthetically enhance our 3D environment and I believe this method will make our environment more interesting to the viewer rather than lighting the model during "mid day" when there is not much shadow to define the form of our model.

the story

I really love this story Andy, you have obviously become quite attached to this project and have put a lot of thought into the story. This is really helpful as from this we can now have a clear picture in our minds of the look and feel of our environment. I think coming up with an imaginative backstory will help us a lot in terms of what we want to include in the final product. I would suggest however that we focus on the mine itself and its surrounding environment so as not to become overly ambitious and make too much work for ourselves.