June 2021 – charlievitamB

Unlike that I knew very quickly from the beginning what my set is gonna be, I actually struggled quite a bit with finding a prop/graphic to do for this set.

Also this special coffee filter. I even emailed a coffee museum in Vietnam to give me more information about the coffee culture at that time(to which they didn’t reply).

My notes from Claire’s talk… seems like my ideas are all a bit irrelevant (as in they are not a story point or anything), which got me considering something else.

Researching on a bidding website. I stated looking at certificate and seal that kind of stuff because the story is essentially about power and they are really good representation of that.

And a chat with my friend Henrike inspired me to think about the murdered weapon. (It was her idea but she didn’t end up doing it so I stole it) However my concept isn’t set in a war, a piece of actual weapon might be a bit out of place. I had to think about other ways to kill king Duncan.

Meanwhile, I have been thinking about improving the set. When I handed for the last unit, the staircase still looked weird. So I did some more research on it. I like how they are very intricate but in order to create a more airy and ‘transparent’ feeling I decided that the steps won’t be solid.

I had this staircase from 3d Warehouse as a reference, but started building my own because I didn’t think the shape of this one would fit in my set. But when I actually put it in, it looked really good!

And while I was looking at my old research for the set, I notice in this photo that there’s a lamp, and it came to my mind that one can use the fragment of glass to kill people. (OK I sound like a sociopath but it’s all for the project)

I then started more research on the lamp. It was introduced from the Europe but became really common in China too.

The kerosene lamp with Chinese style design

Photo bashing: I was thinking that it has to be portable so the character can carry in around, and the body is made of porcelain, there’s drawing on it so I can play with it.

More about the different parts and how they come together.

Glass texture test- In reality the glass shade wouldn’t be that clean because of the fire, so I tried to achieve a similar effect by texturing the glass.

For the drawing on the body, I chose this one Chinese ink piece of birds waiting to catch their prey, inspired by the lines from the original play. Also I was thinking that later in the story Lady Macbeth is trying to clean the blood on the lamp, and would mistake the drawing as the stain that she can’t wipe away.

I added the fire and rendered the model! During one session, Steve mentioned that the lamp gets very hot and the flame is quite unstable so I was thinking during the shooting (especially when people are carrying it ) this might be replaced with electric light or CGI

Putting the prop in the set: I tried photoshop and it didn’t work… so I ended up putting a picture of the set into Blender and render it. Blender did the job nicely.

Then I started adding more details in my model. The dressing is actually a pretty importance part of a shophouse. I sourced some furniture at the end of unit8 and managed to find some similar ones in 3D warehouse.

I also started building the front. I’ve been thinking that the unique part about the shophouse is actually the front, the façade and veranda, and it’s a shame not having them in my set. Also, Claire has been saying I should just add it, so people would have an idea how people move in and out in this house.

I did some research on the shops in that era.

I didn’t have time to put in too many details but to enhance the idea of the house as an organism and the naturalistic style of it I chose floral patterns to put in the set.

The shop, it’s supposed to be much more cramped with goods on the shelves and things hanging around, but I didn’t have the time and the model is getting super heavy for my laptop to handle.

I actually had built a front separately at the beginning of the project, but later decided to just make the back.

I know the shopfront design in my research are really fancy, but those in my chosen location are actually quite simple. I just replicated one of them, which is a bit boring, but to actually design something from scratch might be too ambitious.

I painted and added signs on them in photoshop. Not too bad!

Also if you’re wondering… The houses on the two sides are just pictures I found. On set they are probably gonna be built as flats, so we can get the shots of someone entering the building, mixed with shots from the location. (I actually wish I could look into location adaptation for that)

And I adjusted the backdrop after Claire’s talk, made it about 5 meters apart and lined up the horizon line so there are no ships in the sky. But this picture is taken from very high above, which isn’t quite the view I want. In reality, there’s gonna be a bit of woods/plants outside the balcony as well to cover up the backdrop a bit.

Walk through of the set in sketchup

Presentation Download

People liked it and Claire approved my red ‘stain’ idea, which made me really happy. Contextualizing the set/prop has always been something I enjoy doing, but yeah Claire said she was a bit worried that it’s too ambiguous, and so I found it difficult to be at the mid-point of being too obvious and too ambiguous. But it seems that it worked well this time.

Am I happy? Yes. Especially with my prop, I manged to find something not too basic, involved in the story and has different stages which I can play with. Also I think I did a pretty good job in Blender as a beginner! With my set there’s obviously more to play with but for now I’m really happy with the renders and they really convey the delicate and mysterious feeling I aimed for.

Forced perspective model: this is such an interesting and useful technique to learn!

And finally, fair well Macbeth, it’s been a fun journey!

Month: June 2021

Unit9 Reflective blog