Battle for Terra

I recently watched Battle for Terra, an animated film about an alien race who have to fight for the possession of their world. I was more interested in the design of this animation, where these aliens live are within extremely tall trees, which in fact resemble mushrooms. Originally I had planned to create tree houses in which my aliens would inhabit, however carving into the trees/mushrooms could be another possibility. These trees are actually made up of several of different branches, all intertwining with one another to reach the top. In comparison to the aliens themselves, the trees are absolutely huge. The circumference around just one of the branches can accommodate a whole alien family on the one level. It's a really lovely concept as you get a real feeling for the size of the place and how many aliens actually inhabit this area.

I decided to draw up some quick ideas of having my aliens houses carved into the mushrooms and have come it realise it is a much more interesting idea. The only worry I have is the poly-count we have been assigned. My original plan was to do both the interior and exterior of my environment, however I may have to adjust this - this would have been the case even if I went with the treehouse idea too. I will try and keep my design neat and simple and only have one room accessible within the mushrooms, however I still want to be able to have the person walk around their village/part of their village.

This is just a colour alteration I produced using the layer filters to change up the colours. Obviously I will do the final thing a lot more refined, but at the minute the colours I'm leaning towards are the blues in the middle image. The idea for my scene is to be in the evening so the mushrooms will be glowing, so this is quite a nice colour to start off with. I will have to see other possibilities and what I am able to achieve when texturing.