Fantastic Voyage: 01 Fern Scene - Test render

I want to try and create atmosphere within these shots and for the whole animation to have an atmospheric feel to it, with the first render i felt the fog was too thick so I turned it down for the second render whilst also altering the composition of the fern within the shot.

I want to create a feel like a big light source through a paper like they would traditionally to create shadow puppet animation and similarly in 'The Three Brothers' animation in harry potter, but Im not sure how to achieve this, I may have the main light source flicker almost like it is a candle that is lighting the whole scene as this will also go alongside the burnt landscape visuals. I will be using after effects to make ashes too arise around the landscape to help reinforce the burnt landscape.

Fantastic Voyage: 01 Fern Scene - untextured playblast

Playblast of the scene introducing the fern, where in my animatic it was a long pan of the trees I wanted to make it more dynamic going through the scenery to then introduce the fern. There is a scene before this with the narrator talking introducing the scene, I will focus on that scene next and focus on getting my pre-vis movement done over the course of the next couple of days :)

Fantastic Voyage: Maya Experiments with lighting and shadows

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Intro to Rigging & Constraints: Eyes & Spine

Intro to Rigging & Constraints: Feet and Legs & Leg Piston

Fantastic Voyage: Spore Scene Re-colour

 

Changing the spore colour to the original colour that I had at the begging with the yellows

Fantastic Voyage: Storyboard/narrative Revised

 

Going back to my  narrative I have decided to make this animation based on ferns after forest fires and how it can life back to an environment these are called bracken ferns. So I have changed the colours to represent the changes in environment. 

The major differences is the narrator (the silhouette's hands at the beginning) is shown in the beginning scene talking about the forest fires and he blows the fire out to then follow the ashes from the flame into the scene. The fern that is shown in the early scenes will be changed to covered in ashes to represent its fight for survival with a lonely leaf sticking out of the pile.

The rest of the animation will stay pretty much the same apart from the ending with the ferns growing back from the ground to then zoom out to reveal a landscape full of ferns and giving life back to the environment. I want the narrator to end the scene as well. Therefore I will zoom far out to reveal a landscape and his hand come over as it goes from a burnt landscape to a green luscious landscape with him talking about how it brought life back to the earth.

Although this is quite rough it gives me an idea for a script and this now allows me to start production in Maya, a few scenes need a bit of work to how they are going to look in terms of colour as im not sure on the purple of the spores and how the sperms are going to look too. 

I was looking at how objects are represented in the three brothers and I may just silhouette the spore and the sperm with a strong light source behind them and use a morphing method for the close up of the spore into a gametophyte and then the style will change when the environment changes at the end into a more magical environment. Although if people think the purple works and the style will be more consistent like that then I will keep them as they are feedback is more than welcome.