Moodboards

With my chosen story sorted, I then began to create some moodboards to help me gather my ideas together and get some inspiration for what I wanted to create. As I am adapting the story, it's no longer going to be set centuries ago in China, but more modern, somewhere around 1900-1910. As the husband has to go off and find a fox coat, I thought it would be best suited if they lived within the woods/forest themselves, and thinking about it, Red Dead Redemption, the video game, even though not set within a forest, has that wilderness feel to it. It was also set around the 1900's and looking into it further the clothing (being something that I will have to create for my characters) was a simple design yet quite appealing. I started looking at cabin designs and came across a wide variety, below are just a few I picked out with reference to some of the game assets within Red Dead. Right now I like the idea of having a porch and if I could start off the scene with this I also wouldn't have to worry about modelling the inside. I need to decide on the age of the cabin itself, I know it won't be brand new and pristine but I don't think I want it neglected and worn out. What was interesting to see what that there were either log cabins or wood panes. I think the older ones (older era) would have wood panes, I'm assuming these were easier to obtain and put together rather than actual logs.

The surrounding landscape is something I will need to design and actually isn't as simple as I thought. Just having a flat surface will make it too boring, you need the different levels in the ground to make it that more interesting, but also to break up the eyeline. The density of the forest is something else I will need to decide on, the more trees and foliage I have the longer it could take to render. I'm planning to get one of my friends to model the trees for me as he's working on his environment portfolio, so this would give him a good opportunity to create more assets and to a different design than just realistic. I will need to come up with some environment designs and concepts but I think it'll be easier to try and work it out within the storyboards first, as I can try and get an idea of how it can be set up with the other characters, objects etc. The images that I have chosen are all very green, but I think depending on what lighting I have, this can change quite easily. Also for the majority of the time the forest won't be seen from the tops of the trees, so this would also take out some of the green.

As I need to create the clothing for my characters, I looked at the style during the 1900's, quite simple yet very distinctive. The man will be quite easy to achieve, I just need to think about the woman. If she were to have a long skirt that would involve create a piece of geometry and also colliders to be attached onto it. I could get away from doing this, it would just depend on the camera shots. If her legs were to not be shown when she moves (not that she will be moving much anyway) I could get away with not having to create colliders. The last time I tried it was within the game module, and even though it worked, it wasn't as fluid as I wanted it and seemed too much like cardboard rather than fabric. It would be nice to try and give it a go again, but obviously if she is only going to be seen for not even 2 seconds walking, I could just try and use clever composition and camera movements.