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A look into SOME of what I do at work
Mar. 29th, 2007 10:53 pmI'm mostly an animator, but sometimes I need to CREATE the assets that are to be animated, or create the backgrounds that the is used to animate against.
Here is one of the backgrounds I created today.
Behind the cut there is an animation that starts with the final image, and then builds from the ground up to the final image again (PLUS A NEW EXPLAINATION OF ALL THE STEPS).
Here is the final image in still form.
( Sin City meets Dark City meets 300 background step by step )
1. Final Image
2. Black background, just to start with. Since the final image is supposed to be "dark" it's good to lay things out on a BG that's similar.
3. So I started with the clouds, and increased both it's brightness and contrast. I wanted a very stark sky with dramatic dark AND bright white clouds. I also used the Burn Tool to really push the dark sky areas as well as help push the depth of the cityscape.
4. I then searched for a picture of a city street that wasn't recognizable, with a lot of perspective, and alot of sky. Also not too busy or cluttered.
5. I cut out some buildings that were dark and used them to continue the perspective backwards. (you can see why I used the burn tool on the cloud layer so that your focal point would follow the perspective of the street and buildings.)
6. I then tried to make the city feel a little more mixed with corporate city buildings, and some gothic buildings, plus I wanted the cityscape to fill bigger, so adding buildings blocked from view added the depth and made the city feel like it receeded back farther than the viewer. I duplicated the buildings to make three, and colored and scaled them to receed as well.
7. I then increased the contrast of the foreground buildings to match the buildings from step 6. I wanted everything to be very stark.
8. I added a solid layer of cyan, changed the layer mode to "color" and then took the opacity way down. Adding a color layer over everything helps tie all the different elements together. Even if it's just a light yellow tint, or a cyan tint, it makes everything fit together.
9. Then I added a darker blue solid color layer, and did the same thing. I actually erased some of this layer towards the center of the picture so that the outside of the picture/buildings closest to the viewer would be darker. Making objects that are closest, darker, helps the viewers eyes look past them and follow the buildings and street into the distance.
10. It gets a little complicated here. I selected everything (ctrl+A) and then did a "copy merged" (SHIFT+ctrl+C) then pasting it. It's like taking a snapshot and flattening everything into a layer that sits on top of everything. Then I blurred that layer a little. You'll see why.
11. Then I desaturated that blurred layer completely.
12. I then changed that desaturated layer's mode to "Overlay." What this does is takes all the shadows, and highlights,and blurs their edges. It keeps all the detail, but makes the light and shadows "diffused."
13. Last step is to take the opacity down of the "diffused" layer. Also I erased a little of the layer around the the elements that are closest to the "viewer" so that that detail would be sharper, and the detail in the farther elements would be more diffused, just like how the human eye works. It looks more like a photo this way as well.
And voila! A simple (ha!) city scape.
I left out a few minor steps, and changed the order a little to match the animation (ie, the cloud layer was actually done AFTER cutting out the city street).
Let me know what you think!
Here is one of the backgrounds I created today.
Behind the cut there is an animation that starts with the final image, and then builds from the ground up to the final image again (PLUS A NEW EXPLAINATION OF ALL THE STEPS).
Here is the final image in still form.
( Sin City meets Dark City meets 300 background step by step )
1. Final Image
2. Black background, just to start with. Since the final image is supposed to be "dark" it's good to lay things out on a BG that's similar.
3. So I started with the clouds, and increased both it's brightness and contrast. I wanted a very stark sky with dramatic dark AND bright white clouds. I also used the Burn Tool to really push the dark sky areas as well as help push the depth of the cityscape.
4. I then searched for a picture of a city street that wasn't recognizable, with a lot of perspective, and alot of sky. Also not too busy or cluttered.
5. I cut out some buildings that were dark and used them to continue the perspective backwards. (you can see why I used the burn tool on the cloud layer so that your focal point would follow the perspective of the street and buildings.)
6. I then tried to make the city feel a little more mixed with corporate city buildings, and some gothic buildings, plus I wanted the cityscape to fill bigger, so adding buildings blocked from view added the depth and made the city feel like it receeded back farther than the viewer. I duplicated the buildings to make three, and colored and scaled them to receed as well.
7. I then increased the contrast of the foreground buildings to match the buildings from step 6. I wanted everything to be very stark.
8. I added a solid layer of cyan, changed the layer mode to "color" and then took the opacity way down. Adding a color layer over everything helps tie all the different elements together. Even if it's just a light yellow tint, or a cyan tint, it makes everything fit together.
9. Then I added a darker blue solid color layer, and did the same thing. I actually erased some of this layer towards the center of the picture so that the outside of the picture/buildings closest to the viewer would be darker. Making objects that are closest, darker, helps the viewers eyes look past them and follow the buildings and street into the distance.
10. It gets a little complicated here. I selected everything (ctrl+A) and then did a "copy merged" (SHIFT+ctrl+C) then pasting it. It's like taking a snapshot and flattening everything into a layer that sits on top of everything. Then I blurred that layer a little. You'll see why.
11. Then I desaturated that blurred layer completely.
12. I then changed that desaturated layer's mode to "Overlay." What this does is takes all the shadows, and highlights,and blurs their edges. It keeps all the detail, but makes the light and shadows "diffused."
13. Last step is to take the opacity down of the "diffused" layer. Also I erased a little of the layer around the the elements that are closest to the "viewer" so that that detail would be sharper, and the detail in the farther elements would be more diffused, just like how the human eye works. It looks more like a photo this way as well.
And voila! A simple (ha!) city scape.
I left out a few minor steps, and changed the order a little to match the animation (ie, the cloud layer was actually done AFTER cutting out the city street).
Let me know what you think!
