What Are We Even Doing Here?
Let's take it from the top, shall we? Let me talk about what this film is even about. I'll try not to go into too much detail about its origins, because I can cover that more specially during later topics. But I'll cover where the idea came from and what it is now. This idea came about in two stages, both in very similar ways.
Back in 2013 or so I couldn't sleep one night, which isn't as unusual for me as I'd like. In this instance, I was letting my mind wander. Then suddenly I had an idea for an adventure story like the shows and movies I had grown up with but don't really see as much anymore - a story about a hero setting out to go somewhere and find something. I developed this idea for several years, building out its world and writing a story bible. I even started making it a film at one point. I got far enough along that I made 4 rigged characters and the environment. But I got busy with my career and shelved it, though I continued to work on the story.
In early 2018 I couldn't sleep one night and let my mind wander. I had been feeling a little creatively stagnant, having been promised several exciting projects at my job at the time only for them to fall through, leaving me with nothing terribly exciting to do. Suddenly I had an idea for a minute long test film I could do to try and reinvigorate myself. I imagined a creature I had been thinking about for some time sitting in a ruin of some sort. A single flower petal would float into the scene. The creature would approach it, examine it, and it would fly away. That was basically it, but I wanted to push myself into new territory, to play around with the Redshift rendering engine and become better at cloth dynamics and volumetric lighting inside Maya. So, for three months I rigged and modeled and textured and animated. What I ended up with I named "Forlorn".
Forlorn from Alex Keller on Vimeo.
In the end, it wasn't much. I focused most of my effort on getting the cloth right. It's not terribly impressive to look at, and I have a lot I would change, but it was a start. I decided I wanted to continue this story, so I started planning. I took the world I had built back in 2013, changed some things around, simplified some pieces, and attached it to what I had made in 2018. What I was left with was what I realized I wanted the whole time. Something dark and foreboding, but also with a sense of fun. And so, in the summer of 2018 I figured out the story - a lone hero in a long dead city must recover something from the creature from Forlorn and get out alive. That summer I also began teaching myself how to use the Unreal Engine. I was also fortunate enough to work on an Unreal based project for several months in the fall, and now I will never go back to traditional rendering. With story and tools in hand, the process began.
Back in 2013 or so I couldn't sleep one night, which isn't as unusual for me as I'd like. In this instance, I was letting my mind wander. Then suddenly I had an idea for an adventure story like the shows and movies I had grown up with but don't really see as much anymore - a story about a hero setting out to go somewhere and find something. I developed this idea for several years, building out its world and writing a story bible. I even started making it a film at one point. I got far enough along that I made 4 rigged characters and the environment. But I got busy with my career and shelved it, though I continued to work on the story.
In early 2018 I couldn't sleep one night and let my mind wander. I had been feeling a little creatively stagnant, having been promised several exciting projects at my job at the time only for them to fall through, leaving me with nothing terribly exciting to do. Suddenly I had an idea for a minute long test film I could do to try and reinvigorate myself. I imagined a creature I had been thinking about for some time sitting in a ruin of some sort. A single flower petal would float into the scene. The creature would approach it, examine it, and it would fly away. That was basically it, but I wanted to push myself into new territory, to play around with the Redshift rendering engine and become better at cloth dynamics and volumetric lighting inside Maya. So, for three months I rigged and modeled and textured and animated. What I ended up with I named "Forlorn".
Forlorn from Alex Keller on Vimeo.
In the end, it wasn't much. I focused most of my effort on getting the cloth right. It's not terribly impressive to look at, and I have a lot I would change, but it was a start. I decided I wanted to continue this story, so I started planning. I took the world I had built back in 2013, changed some things around, simplified some pieces, and attached it to what I had made in 2018. What I was left with was what I realized I wanted the whole time. Something dark and foreboding, but also with a sense of fun. And so, in the summer of 2018 I figured out the story - a lone hero in a long dead city must recover something from the creature from Forlorn and get out alive. That summer I also began teaching myself how to use the Unreal Engine. I was also fortunate enough to work on an Unreal based project for several months in the fall, and now I will never go back to traditional rendering. With story and tools in hand, the process began.