O'Rourks Neon Sign

March 6, 2011

O'Rourks is the name of the local watering hole, where teachers, students, and townies mingle in the pursuit of cheap beer and decent wings.

The neon sign was constructed in Maya, made by extruding a pipe along the path of the letters. Maya also allows the creation of a glow that nicely emulates the look of a real neon sign. DAZ is less flexible in this regard, so for many shots, the sign prop will not actually be present in the set, but will be added in later using After Effects.

Teachers at Bar

March 10, 2011

This is a mockup shot used to establish how the teachers will look in the bar set. From left to right, that's Rocio, Josh, and William. The final scene will have more people in the background.

This shot actually does contain a neon sign prop, so that we could get a sense of how things would look. In this case, the glow comes from red spotlights aimed at the sign, rather than from the sign itself.

The Spirit of Progress

March 14, 2011

This is the raw beginning of our Food Court set, which is separate from the regular mall set. At this point it was basically empty except for a large statue, "The Spirit of Progress", which was placed here largely to break up the view and to provide visual interest. Mr. Spirit is actually a Michael 3 figure, textured gold, holding the Pirate Map, which is also textured gold. The marble base was modeled in Maya.

Hastings University, Draft 1

March 24, 2011

Hastings University is William's employer, and thus the site for several scenes throughout Maria. This was our first attempt to create a set for use as an establishing shot. There are a number of issues to be corrected before it is ready to go, mostly involving textures.

Posters on Wall

September 9, 2011

We resumed efforts to finish the sets for Maria. While William's appartment was largely complete, there were still details that needed to be filled in. These three posters are for three stage productions hosted at Hastings University. Two of the posters can be seen close up in our blog post.

Food Court Progress

September 11, 2011

The Spirit of Progress indeed. Our mall food court has changed quite a bit since last time. We now have a handful of food outlets, including Leaning Tower of Pizza, as well as tables and chairs. We also have a new ceiling dome with skylights. The set was still not finished at this time.

Kitchen Corner Progress

September 11, 2011

This once-empty corner of William's kitchen now has a unit of shelves with a variety of food containers. We created a variety of original textures for the boxes and cans seen here in order to create "in-universe" food brands.

Chrisp-Cola

September 11, 2011

A closeup on the twelve-pack and cans of Chrisp-Cola from the kitchen. Chrisp-Cola is taken from our friend Christopher Paulsen's comic Precocious. Jess created the textures in Photoshop, using the comic panel as a reference. We assume its relationship with Coctab Cola is sort of like that between Coke and Pepsi. Whatever the case, William apparently drinks a lot of it.

Chubb Ziggurat Test

September 24, 2011

Chubb Ziggurat is one of the outlets in the mall food court. It's an HP Lovecraft themed ice-cream and frozen yogurt store. In the above "Food Court Progress" image, it would be just off to the right.

Jess assembled the backdrop and the sign from a few elements, including Liv Rainey-Smith's awesome Shubb Niggurath image (buy a copy from her!) At this point the restaurant facade itself was actually the same as the Leaning Tower of Pizza, and if you look closely, you'll see the menu is that of an Italian place. Those elements will change as production continues.

Hair Brains

September 25, 2011

Hair Brains is a new storefront for the shopping mall. It's like most other hair cut places found in a mall- expensive and trendy. Like some of our other storefronts, we decided to restrict the visibility of the store interior, thus reducing the total amount that needed to be modelled, as well as lowering the overal polygon count. Still, we wanted some visual flair, so we rendered out some "glamour shots" of some of the models we built for Dark Dungeons.