Gallery Set Up

Each of the 3 sections of Zohar HaNegev will be screened on a separate screen in a gallery. The screens will form an enclosed triangle formation, meant to give a claustrophobic feeling. The viewer will stand in the center of the triangle.

gallery setup

No matter the direction the viewer is facing, a part of the city will be seen. These screens are meant to be very large and give the feeling that the audience is actually walking through the city streets.

bird's eye view of gallery setup

The narrative audio track which describes what the viewer sees will be play from a phone, given the to viewer as (s)he enters the gallery space.

Upper Floors + (temp) Sound

Here is a playblasted walk through of my favorite section of the piece -- The Upper Floors. Modeled by Di Ye.

click to play quicktime

Provided are also hi-res renders. These screens may appear dark on some monitors.

Exterior + (temp) Sound

The Exterior sequence of Zohar HaNegev. Rendered with Mental Ray on standard resolution with low final gather and ray trace settings. At the moment a single frame takes aproximately 20-30 seconds to render on SD and about 1 minute on HD.

I have already done tests to resolve the flickering in this video.

click to play quicktime

Updated Lower Warrens Walkthrough + Sound

Below is an updated walkthrough through the lower warrens of Zohar HaNegev, it a simple playblast with a temp track. Professional actors are planned to record a better sounding narrative than the one in this clip.

click to play quicktime

Additionally, I've provided hi-res renders of the warrens. These were rendered with Mental Ray for Maya, and are using very low final gather settings. All shadows cast are using maps. I fear that the high amount of lights are slowing down the render times significantly. These renders may appear dark on some screens.

Exterior Lighting Test

The modeling for Zohar HaNegev is complete thanks to the hard work of Di Ye and Melissa Davidson. I am now in the process of optimizing the models, preparing them to be textutred and blocking in the lights.

Here is a lighting test for the first shot of the city's exterior, modeled by Di. I've lit the shot using Mental Ray's Physical Sky.

There are two problems here:

1. The shadows are too blue -- and I'm finding it difficult adjusting the color of the sky. 
2. Mental Ray seems to be using only 50% of my CPU power at the moment.

Hopefully I will be able to solve both of these problems soon. Please see the clip below:

click to play quicktime

Lower Warrens Walkthrough

Click to Play Quicktime

Here is a walk through of the lower warrens. Modeled by Melissa Davidson with additional models by Di Ye and myself. The basic lighting has been blocked out and a rough camera has been animated.

The camera was animated with the assistance of Craft Director Studio. Using their observerCam feature, I was able to control the camera in real time with a game pad and record the movement. The game pad is fully configurable, which allows me to set the controls to operate just like a first person shooter. The left analog stick is used to move the camera, while the right stick is used to look around. The shoulder buttons tell the camera to move up and down, and quick repeated taps simulates stair climb.

Official Website & Jobs

Zohar HaNegev's official website is now live at http://www.michaelfallik.com/city/.

We are also looking for environment modelers to help out with the project. Work is paid.
For more information please click here.