"Monkey's Uncle" - Set Design 02

Well things are going very well on the monkey front, I have resolved the aforementioned problem with the monkeys animation sets and i have a new selection system to help speed up the progress! i have also just today worked out how to blend different shaders depending on their distance from the camera AND customizable ramp skydomes that dont affect Final Gather renders. (wow was that a mouthful!) For those of you that didnt follow the link and investigate the monkey rig i am using for this piece, here is a pic of the smoothed model so you can finally put a face to the project.

I think the main reason this rig appealed to me was its strikingly simple design, no bells and whistles, a well made rig to be sure, but unassuming and original.

Here is a pic of the environment in its prerendered wireframe beauty; one thing you can probably see straight away is my emphasis on smooth curved arching lines in the design that could have been drawn by a confident hand. Another thing to look for is the light icons near the tree, they are fill lights so that the shadows of the main (sun) light arent too dark and obsuring of the tree's details. Animation scenes are lit in much like an indoor theatre, or a movie set; with spotlights, fill lights etc.

And here is the establishing shot for this short as far as i have worked out. (Things i have worked hard on here: the soft rim illumination and shadow on the hill under the tree, the "Super Mario-esc" rocks to the left and the flat pastel mountain in the distance. now if you can believe it, the mountain and the hill in the foreground are actually coloured with the same shader, but they are behaving differently due to their distance from the camera (this is still exciting news for me as i just worked out how to do it!).

So as you can see there have been developments in the background department and although i havent posted animated footage, many hours of work are going towards getting the animation to where it has to be.