In my designing the absurd class, we have been talking about the basics of product/industrial/regular design. Specifically we have been talking about Rowena Reed Kostellow and her "rectilinear forms." These are forms that use a dominate, subdominant, and subordinate shape to create dynamic compositions.
I was thinking about how to practice this exercise, while also creating a compelling scene. So, for this assignment, I wanted to create ruins that remain from a civilization that use these shapes for strong structures. So, I went into Maya and crafted 10 rectilinear 3D geometries. I assigned these to all have 3 Different textures, named after their role in the shape.
I was able to import these into unreal, size them up, and lay them into the ground to make something unique and dynamic. Scale was important here, but I already had huge mountains. Because of this, I made the rectilinear objects the size of larger homes. I think the scale worked out nicely.
I also added a large, rotating monument that appears to be working compared to the rest of the society. I purposefully made these prisms as well as the triangle is often stronger than the rectangle and may have some avenue to remain functional all of these years.
For these, I didn't get too dynamic, as I was unclear as to how to use the sequencer, but I started to get the hang of it over time. All of these framings rely on the rule of thirds:
The first places the character on the left third, and the right third is covered by a cactus that is very close to the camera. This was done to provide depth as well as balance out the part of the frame that would usually not have as much action going on in this style. The sweep then brings the monument into the center frame. This provides a sense of the vastness and scale of the area our character is walking into. As for the timing, I wanted to play with that more, but was really struggling to get actor movement working (couldn't get a reference to a target point no matter how hard I tried), so I kind of guessed. The final decision was made based on computing capacity and with the thought of a landscape demo.
The second puts each character on a third, with an OTS of the main character looking up at the panda person. The animation I chose for this scene was that of an injured walk. Going from struggling to seeing someone sitting on top of an ancient architecture creates a power dynamic in favor of the panda. I chose the OTS as a way to introduce the arrival of our other character. They would notice each other long before they got close enough for the third frame to exist, so this will allow her to slide into the frame and draw attention to the distance they have between one another. Unfortunately, I could not get the depth of field to work, otherwise I'd have played with it.
The last has both characters straddling the right third, but occupying their own vertical third of the frame. This gives us a dynamic framing where we can see the full size of the architecture she sits on, while also really leaning into the power dynamic between the characters. Our hero is small, injured and low to the ground. Our other character sits high above, unbothered, and clearly physically capable. It also implies that she arrived first, since she had time to get up there. While I struggled a lot with lighting, the darkness around the main character pulls attention to the panda, who would be talking in this part of a scene.
I spent a lot of time on this scene. I wanted to learn more about the tools that we available to me. I started with a heightmap from Greece, this game me jagged and large mountains, that I then re-structured and smoothed down to create something cool.
Some new techniques featured in this would be: