Cheating to Win

Obviously, when taking on such a huge project as single handedly making a feature length film, you have to take every shortcut you can. I just discovered an amazing method that will speed a lot of stuff up.

I was at home this weekend at my parent's place, in the heart of the Appalachian mountains. I am using many of the visuals and textures of the area as a reference for Akazawa. After all, Akazawa is what you might call a "fusion film." An anime-inspired animation, that takes place in Japan, created by a guy who has never been to Japan, with Russian elements, and American elements, for a Western audience (and I hope an Eastern audience as well).

Much of the Appalachian plant life and outdoor imagery is very similar to some of the mountains of Japan. While the Appalachian chain is much older, the similarities between the plant life and valleys surrounded by mountains and hills are striking. I will find it interesting to see if anyone picks up on this as well.

Anyway, back to my main point: a new shortcut in the creation of my visuals.

Akazawa takes place in a valley, surrounded by mountainous terrain, covered in woods. Much of low lying Akazawa is farmland, with the town itself in the center of the valley along a river. Across from the town is the lowest part of the valley, which is covered by swamp.

Swampy landscape needs lots of haggard trees, grasses, and plant life. In November when the story takes place, this would be mostly brown and gray, dead, but with traces of color from the various deciduous plants that don't loose their leaves. Just like some of the plants back home.

I spent about 4 hours on Sunday picking plant stalks, holding them up against the blue sky, and shooting photos of them. Later, I can take these into photoshop, create an alpha channel with them, and also hand texture the color map by painting over the photo-realistic section of the photo. I want the textures to look real, but very painterly. This way, I'll have the real silhouette of the plant, and the real colors, but I should be able to build several hundred "cards" in 3D, or simple poly shapes with a plant texture mapped onto them. I will easily and quickly be able to build landscapes that are covered with diverse types of dead and haggard plant life, which should give this film one hell of a spooky atmosphere.


Will post some tests later, too tired to even think about it tonight.