Did someone say crowds?

OK, I was enjoying a pleasant walk in the Oboe district when suddenly out of nowhere this huge crowd of people appeared!

( Unfortunately Youtube's compression does't do the picture any justice )

So here are some stills with less compression:

If you study the picture more closely you may see characters intersecting each other (especially in the third example because I made it too dense), however most of the time it's completely unnoticeable due to the flat line art nature of the characters.

And no, I don't have a render farm up my sleeve. This is thousands of 3D characters in a scene rendered in a matter of minutes rather than hours.

So in the first example we have:

• just 1 mental ray rendered background (less than a minute)
• 200 frames of characters rendered in the viewport (another couple of minutes)
• 200 frames of shadow pass rendered in mental ray at half the resolution (20 to 25 minutes)

As you can see, it was only the shadow pass that took longer to render. However, for some shots you may get away without casting any shadows at all. And rendering shadows at half resolution seemed to work well, without loosing much quality.

At some point soon I will write up exactly how to do this.

Ethan Shilling

Envionment/Asset Design- The Percussion District- Conveyors and Machines

A key scene in Reds journey through the Percussion District is his landing and subsequent ride on a suspiciously xylophone-like conveyor belt. 

I wanted to keep the graduated length of the bars as much as I could in the initial designs. As you can see I tried a graduating effect on 1, using wooden Xylophone for inspiration. Design 2 was a more direct copy of the metal bars and the way you'd expect to see them on the instrument.

Sadly those earlier designs would have been overly complicated, especially when adding the machinery for Reds moments of peril. Drawing on the metal version of 2 I simply levelled out the bars. I then created a sketch of the conveyor with some of its machines.

With all these design factors in mind I felt the need to sketch out a little concept of Red in situ.

Oblivious

Finally here are the designs for some additional machinery. The first being a crusher of sorts based on the Timpani drum turned upside down, mounted in a frame of chimes. The second is a system of rollers made out of drums and driven by Tambourine gears.

Environment/Asset Design- Percussion District- Plot based Assets

More recently I have been tasked to create specific story elements as Red makes his way through the rather perilous percussion district.

Red's entry to the district is quite the terrifying scenic route as he's brought in caught on the end of a crane hook. Number 5 is the chosen hook style.

After landing on a girder Red finds himself dodging a swinging wrecking ball made to look like the end of a beater/drumstick. The chosen shape was 4 but needs modifying to have a more substantial cable than the feigned Piano wire I was going for.

After unsuccessfully dodging the wrecking ball Red is propelled into a new scene, landing dazed on a girder suspended rather precariously high up. I investigated different Percussion instrument formations. Including Glockenspiel Keys, Piano Keys and Xylophone keys. They need to be suspended by a single cable however to allow for Reds slapstick sliding off one end.

Here is the collection of smaller assets with modifications. The girder on a single suspension cable. The wrecking ball is now sitting on a musical note inspired chain (The little sketch to the side of the wrecking ball is what the single unit looks like)

The construction yard as a whole is a bit of a gauntlet. There is a conveyer belt on which Red finds himself dodging a sequence of Percussive hammers.  Below are some examples.

Environment/Asset Design- The Cello District- Signage

A few Cello signage designs. Red will swim into the district from quite high up, so the initial signs were little too short in stature. Number 7 of the taller set is the finalised design.

Environment/Asset Design- The Violin District- Carriage's and Caboose

Here are the orthographies for the Carriage designs, both interior and exterior

Below are designs for the Caboose that comes at the end of the train. Design 6 was the preference so I went ahead and created the orthographics for that as well. 

Environment/Asset Design - Violin Trains and Carriages

Red makes his way through the Violin District by train, so aside from the Engine there also ended to be carriages. Below are some of the initial interiors. And the development of Interior 1, showing both the interior and exterior. 

The scene in which Red finds himself aboard is slightly abstracted, and the carriage 'draws' itself into existence, so below we have the purely outlined version followed by the full colour version as the train pulls away. 

Environment/Asset Design- Violin District/ Clarinet District- Signage and Trains

I've been creating a few more assets. mainly signage for each district, below we have some for the industrious Clarinet District. below that some signs for the Violin district. Finally i have been revisiting the Violin Trains based on the previous feedback. I tried out another colour palette for it as well.

Environment/Asset Design- The Overture/ Oboe District -Signage

Below are signs for the exit to the Oboe District, via a Gondola on a waterway. The initial designs were based on real canal ways where the tunnels were quite often a hole in a wall. Meanwhile the  secondary designs I've created are more tubular architecture that can be seen from all sides.

Some additional Overture Signage ideas.

YPGTTO / Colour Design

The colours of the individual districts comprising the Kingdom Of Sound

The colours for the inhabitants of the Kingdom Of Sound

Environment/Asset Design- The Oboe District- Gondola's and General Signage

Some initial Oboe/Gondola idea's. I'm not entirely sure about the shapes. but the Oboe's long tubular element proved difficult to turn into the streamlined Gondola shape.

I've completed some general shapes for signage perhaps to be found mostly around the Overture. Next I'll be creating shapes tailored for specific districts.

Environment/Asset design- The Overture- Mapping

I've rather created the following to help me find some logic in the vast space that is the overture. The multilevelled space was difficult to picture when there was no clear-ish plan of what it may look like.Using my earlier Overture design, I've made a stab at a map (below) as a vague top-down guide toward major pathways, platforms and staircases. I've envisioned that perhaps the Overture is a cavernous half circle shape, like the orchestra footprint and run from there.

The 2 tone elements represent walkways/ bridges that migrate from one level to the next. the transparent part disappearing towards the upper/lower levels.

 Ground floor                                       First Floor

Second Floor                                       Third floor

Sum of all levels

Base design of the Overture

Below is a new concept of the space as seen from round the back of the sphere. Next I'll be investigating some more of Red's POV. In particular all the signage/ departure boards and the map of the Kingdom.

Environment/Asset Design- The Overture

I've gone back and re-coloured one more Overture scene to fit the latest colour adjustments.

I have also been trying to create a series of columns and supports suitably musically themed to hold up the varying floors, bridges and walkways to be found round the overture. The small grey silhouettes are side views of each structure. I tried to imagine 5 with more levels, rather than having everything aligned like the previous designs. (I'd need to create a proper orthographic for this one.)

I've designed a few lift fronts ready for Reds slightly chaotic exit from the Overture, heading for the Flute District. 

Environment/Asset Design- The Overture- Assets

Below are a few Overture assets. Some are new designs and others have featured previously in Overture concepts. 

The greyed silhouettes are top down views of the structures for additional clarification (5 is a particularly complicated structure to convey!)

As the Overture has been described as a Terminal/ Spaceport/ Station I made a list of things you may find in such a place, on that list was seating. I imagined a few benches dotted about and perhaps some individual seating for feigned cafe area's perhaps? 

Among other things I though it may be useful to investigate more complicated structures within the Overture 

1 features in my previous Overture Concept art. I imagined a sort of multi floored cafe/ dining area. Each level perhaps housing seating, or conversely it could be a glorified staircase.

2 was another multi floor structure concept. Where I was playing with levels using music sheets.

3 was an interpretation the treble clef, reimagined as a baggage claim conveyor belt. Or perhaps an ultra twisty escalator coming up from the level below?

Environment/Asset Design- The Overture- Concepts

I personally still wasn't happy with my colour choices for the Overture, so I've revisited the environment (again) and tried limiting the colour options to- Charcoal,  Ochre and the Cream (With pitch black line art.) The script calls for a monochrome environment, baring resemblance to sheet music, but I felt a mid tone might be necessary for distinguishing foreground and background features.

I've begun by recolouring the Overture reveal scene (having never been completely happy with it.) Below is a Comparison between the previous and latest. Which do you prefer 1 or 2?

1

2

Using 2's colour scheme I've investigated a new POV of the Overture.

Environment/Asset Design- The Violin District- Trains

A few more Train designs, exploring longer streamlined shapes.