Wednesday 6 November 2013

Online Green Light Review: Space and Environments - Secret Lair

2 comments:

  1. OGR 07/11/2013

    Some very evocative thumbnails and a thoughtful take on the 'secret lair' aspect - turning it into your Queen's holiest place - so therefore, her most private and intimate, where she goes to commune with her gods. A couple of things to flag up; the first being that the majority of your thumbnails are expansive, master shots, which maybe of issue for 2 reasons; one, they may work against you communicating this environment as 'of your character' as opposed to 'just scenery' and two, inevitably, when you come to translate your designs in Maya, you might find that the bits you're detailing and really finessing are ultimately too far away, leaving you with lots of Maya rocks in the foreground... I suggest you get 'inside' the holy space and pull up a little closer to the principle areas of interest in your next set of thumbnails. In terms of the hero prop, in truth, right now, they all seem a bit 'unheroic' in terms of their status and their relationship to the lair. You might want to think of the object has having especial ritualistic importance; for example, were you to determine a ritual in which a sun beam is somehow captured or refracted, maybe your Queen has a holy object that participates in this, or facilitates it somehow? You're going to have to work hard to ensure that your sanctum doesn't fall into the trap of simply being a dark cave, and that you resolve ways to enrich it in design terms. As I type, I'm reminded of your decision re. the Pit and The Pendulum to put those red cracks of light around the circumference; perhaps, when the sun aligns and enters the chamber, a similar phenomenon happens wherein hitherto unrevealed cracks in the chamber's walls are filled with light - the cracks actually being diagrammatic depictions of the seasons, or the Neolithic calendar - or a star chart, or... anyway, you get my drift. Even though you've worked hard to establish the precedent for your world in terms of real world research, a little sprinkle of Spielbergian nonsense wouldn't do your world any harm...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Phil :), I agree I think I was still in the mindset of exploring the whole environment rather than the actual area where the communication with the gods would happen. Yeah my hero prop's where kind of not thought through, I'll probably start again with them. I agree with 'Speilbergianing' it up more, but due to it being in the neolithic times that kind of restricts my technical elements, maybe I'll think more closely in the magical elements and thinking about what they would use in the 'ritual' of talking to the gods. Thanks fore the advice and ideas :)

      Delete