Rationale

The historical place that I chose to recreate for this assignment is Angkor Wat, a large religious temple located in Cambodia. Through extensive research I decided to focus the walkthrough of the space on the large scale and grand nature of the building. To do this I used very cinematic, low angle camera shots that moved slowly through the space to allow the viewer to soak in the environment and observe all the small details of my model. The first two scenes are evident of this and reveal more and more of the model as it progresses through. Ending with the final scene of the sun setting represents its transition from being a Hindu to a Buddhist temple which it is now at present.

The colours of the temple itself were inspired by traditional Hindu art which are normally very brightly coloured. However, since the temple had no traces of human dwelling when it was first rediscovered, I thought it would be more appropriate to fade these colours out for a more aged and almost abandoned feel. With the music I wanted to capture the atmospheric presence of Angkor Wat so used a combination of relaxation type music with general wind and bird environment noises.  As the building was a temple for worship and dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu, the relaxation feel to the audio brings the whole animation together to equally represent my depiction of what Angkor Wat was like in its glory days. 

Final Video

Without audio:

Initially I wanted to have the text angled to look like it was within the same 3D space as the model, however, I was unable to successfully achieve that to the standard that I wanted. Instead of having the text look really shitty I settled for having the text flat but still move with the model which was easier to produce.

With audio:

What I had in mind for the audio of this piece was to purely have atmospheric and environmental sounds so to couple with the style of the camera shots. I found a relaxation type music that was very atmospheric. The relaxation basis also works well with the fact that Angkor Wat is a temple of worship and dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu. 

Overall I am very pleased with the final outcome and how it represents my interpretation of how Angkor Wat once was. 

Font and Final Text

Hindu writing

Fonts to choose from:

Final text

I decided on Kogaion SC as the font I wold use as it uses a comfortable amount of flourishes that is present in the Hindu writing and within the Angkor Wat model while still being structured and strong. Since this font is hard to read in bulk text I accompanied it with italic open sans. This also enables a title as a summary as the body text bellow, therefore if a viewer cannot read the entire text, they can just read the emphasised title and understand what it is trying to say. I will make sure that there is enough time to read the text, however, people's reading speeds vary so it makes sense to accommodate the later just in case.

Matte Painting Background

Background test in Maya:

I tired to use a file to put as the ground texture on the mental ray sun and sky lighting pack. Unfortunately it didn't like this at all and just extremely pixilated the image no matter how big it was. My reasoning behind trying to do this was that I wanted to keep the sun in the background and have the light effect the matte painting in the same was as the model. From here I made the decision to just composite the background within after effects then animate it to mimic the sun setting as I couldnt find any tutorials to help me solve my problem.


Matte paintings used:

Used for the clouds

Background hills in final scene

It took some time to animate the clouds in the sky to make it look like it should be there, rather than just plopped in the background and left there. There are subtle horizontal movements of the clouds as well as them following the positioning of the camera.

Lighting

I decided on using the mental ray sun and sky to light my model as this produced the most realistic final product. The lighting pushed my model even further and really highlights the textures on all the surfaces. I am extremely happy with how this looks but will still need to do some post-production editing in after effects to take it to the next step.

I really enjoy how the light creates an even more realistic look to the ZBrush projected detail on some of the blocks.

It add a bit more depth to the final scene I decided to show the sun setting and how that affects the look and shadows of the building.


At this point I also edited the gamma input to up the contrast and make the model look less washed out.

Testing is global illumination made any difference to the model

Without global illumination

With global illumination

More Texturing

I had to go through and UV map then texture a lot of parts in my model which was quite a lengthy process. This also included going back and forth between the photoshop file and maya to get the colour and opacity of the sandstone texture over top just right.

Final tower texture

 I added some extra little flourishes on the tower so the gold parts were a little more exciting.

Tower with all textures applied

I made the executive decision to cut out the third scene from this animation for two reasons. One, it was getting quite lengthy and although I was told that it wont matter too much if I go over the 30 seconds to to the nature of the slow camera movement I thought longer than 40 seconds was getting a bit excessive. Two, I wanted to be able to create a bass relief of the devatas on ZBrush but since the first two attempts I did with projecting the ZBrush detail did not turn out perfectly like the original I thought it would look silly if I even tried to do it. I also didn't want to settle for the devatas to be drawn on the texture as that defeats the purpose of the scene in the first place.

I am more than happy with just the three scenes so looking forward to playing around with lighting next. 

ZBrush Detail

First Block:

The process I undertook for this section of the modelling was to find a pattern that I liked and create an alfa brush to use in maya

Original pattern

It took me a while to find the right way to do this process, which included adding more topology onto the original block in maya. However, I am amazed with the final look.

Normal map created

This was one of two normal maps that ZBrush produced from the model. The second was far less detailed and didnt even have the flower pattern on it at all. I have no idea why it looks so messed up or how to go about fixing the problem so I decided to apply this to the maya model and see what happens.

Projected onto maya model

Although this outcome is not exactly like the original ZBrush version, the basic shape and pattern is still visible so im very happy with how it turned out.

When I added the normal map onto the lambert, it was added onto all the objects that initially had the pink shader applied to them. This was not my intention but I really like the mini flower patters on the tower and this also cuts down the amount of extra modelling in ZBrush that I have to do.

Second Block:

Original pattern used

Block with patter on maya

Normal map from ZBrush model

Normal map projected on maya model

So this second attempt at creating a more interesting model turned out very different from the ZBrush counterpart. It was definitely not what I was intending but the final outcome makes it look like there are bricks which work well anyway. Ill be keeping it this way and (as you can see behind) will add it to other aspects of the model.

Texturing

Tower block colour

I decided to block out the colour on the model so I could get an idea of how the colours were working together and what each object should be coloured. This is the final scene showing a rough example of how it would look.

The colours I have used on the tower green and purple are  little too light and not washed out enough. For the pillars in this shot, I have used a slightly darker green which I feel works a lot better.

Edited tower texture

I am happy with the final outcome of the colours and where they are on the model. In some aspects I will add a bit more detail rather than just a flat colour, especially on the pillars and blocks surrounding the tower. 

Adding texture:

Creating More Details

My model that I have at this point is quite detailed, however, it is not close enough to the details shown in the current Angkor Watt building that I was wanting to portray. Due to the time it takes to model these aspects it was not realistic for me to do all of this detail modelling on Maya so it was suggested to me to take key parts of the model that will be shown up close into ZBrush. 

http://bestawards.co.nz/entries/interactive/roopadhyana/

This is a Massey student example of the effects you can get through importing an Illustrator line file onto a ZBrush model. This will be perfect to achieve the look that I want.

I am only going to apply this to:

• the central tower 
• second entryway 
• the pillars that are close up in the camera shot

Colour Palette

To get a realistic representation of the typical Hindu art style to embed in my model, I specifically used two example paintings of Vishnu himself that I collected through my research. Using the eyedropper I selected three main colours to use with one highlight colour (the gold). To emphasise a more worn down, abandoned feel that Angkor Watt gives off, the final colour palette is a more washed out/muddy version. I am happy with this selection and am excited to start UV texturing with them.

Final Animatic

This version is slightly longer, however, all of the shots will fade into each other which will cut down the time. Also, the initial shot will fade in from black hence the long pause at the beginning.

What I have changed, most significantly is the final scene. I felt the last shot in the previous iteration was lacking any kind of interesting aspects of the model. I decided to move the camera a little further back showing off the detail in the tower and how the roofs intersect with each other since I had put so much time into modelling them. 

I have also altered certain aspects of the graph editor to make the shots where the camera is moving more smooth. With this I have increased the curve of acceleration for the translation inputs to give a more immersive feeling, like you are slowly discovering the place for yourself. The first two shots have also been slowed down a bit to give the viewer more time to take all the details in. 

Modelling Details

Tower with detail

Close up tower detail

Bottom half of tower

Central tower with rest of the model

Detail progress

Final model

Final shot showing details

Animation Passover

Starting to Model Assets

Needed to start blocking out the entire scene so I could work on the timing and shots that I will use in the animation. After I have got the basic shapes etc. Ill go back in and add details to the parts that are needed.

Fully Blocked Out-