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.

CREW!

I'd like to introduce our crew for Zohar HaNegev:

Melissa Davidson

environment modeler

Melissa Davidson grew up in Ontario, Canada, where she developed a love of art very early on in life. She would eventually earn a degree in computer animation at Humber College in Toronto. Since then she has been working freelance on a number of projects including providing art direction and animation consulting on a couple of indie video games which will be released later on this year.

Melissa's Website

Di Ye

environment modeler

Born in China, with a degree in International Business, Di Ye made her way to San Francisco in 2008. Over there she has been pursuing her MFA degree in Visual Effects at Academy of Art University.

Di's Blog 

Eric Montero

texture artist

An accomplished painter, draftsman and animator. Eric Montero was one of the few to be awarded a full scholarship to the Vancouver Film School in 2004. A master of anatomy and body dynamics, this modern renaissance man practices theatre acting and operates a dentist clinic in his spare time.

Eric's Website

Michael Fallik

director, creator, lighting and rendering

Born and raised in Israel, Michael Fallik trained at the Camera Obscura School of Art in Tel Aviv, Vancouver Film School in Canada, and is currently studying for his master’s degree in animation at the University of Southern California. He has worked as a storyboard artist and cinematic director in Singapore, and has animated and directed twelve animated shorts, including the award winning The Heart Collector in 2005. In 2007 he was awarded a certificate of merit at the Annie awards for contribution to the ASIFA Animation Archive in Burbank, California.

Michael's Website

There are still spaces open. For more information, see http://www.michaelfallik.com/city/crew.html

Layouts

The second run of the layouts are complete. Modeling starts today.

Below are the layouts of the three sections, without any text. Click to play each quicktime.

Zohar HaNegev Overview

 

Zohar HaNegev Top Floors

  

Zohar HaNegev  Lower Warrens

 

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.

Pictures of Yaffo

A few more pictures from the weekend, from the port city of Yaffo (Jaffa). More than other cities, Yaffo embodies the combination of the ancient, the rather new and and augmented. The city itself is dived into two sectors:

Ancient Yaffo

Modern Yaffo

Auto-Iris

The film is meant to be carried by it's environment. Since it would be rather still, the lion's share of the movement will be from the camera and from the light. I've set my brother's camera to Auto-Iris, which means the camera adjusts to the light automatically, not unlike the way our eyes work. When a bright spot takes up most of the frame, everything else becomes dark. When the light switches off, the eye adjusts itself to the darkness.

Below are some simple reference videos that I've taken in my home in Israel. I will later attempt to simulate these lighting effects, whenever a window is opened or a light is switched on and light floods into the the dark abandoned room. Sans the purple streaks.

Reference Photographs

In the past few weeks, I traveled to several cities in Israel, taking photographs of the architecture that I would like to reference in the film. Below are just a few of the photographs from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Jerusalem

 Photographs by Michael Fallik

Tel Aviv

Photographs by Michael Fallik