From the desk of Renee Dunlop, Alias Artist October 20-24, 1997 Monday, October 20, 1997 Well, it’s Monday, and I’m here to spend another week watching something like a TV scene that doesn’t do anything unless I tell it too. You see, I work on the backgrounds for the game, and they stare right back at me all day long as I tweak and adjust everything to get it just right. I work on Alias, a high end 3D program, the very same software used in Jurassic Park, The Mask, and Toy Story, to name just a few. Right now I’m working on the Hydra Cave Exterior, and I’m trying to get the colors and lighting just right. Tuesday, October 21, 1997 So, its 9:30 in the morning, seems to be my usual time of arrival. I always have good intentions of getting here at 8:00, but I just don’t seem to work that way. I work into the evening, usually staying until at least 7:00, sometimes as late as 10:00, so… I still get the backgrounds done even though I’m not a morning person. When I use to freelance, (I own my own Alias system), I would get my first big creative burst of energy at 1:00 in the afternoon, and again at 10:00 at night. Hours like that don’t fit too well into the work-flow though, so I drag myself in here at the awful hour of 9:30 AM. The first thing I do in the morning is check my overnight render, which is what you call the picture file that the computer makes. I let the computer "render" everything I have done the day before overnight so I can see what changes I need to work on first thing. It can take several hours to do a full render, and you don’t have that time to waste during the course of the day, so you let the computer work while you sleep. Sleep…. Don’t say that word right now…. Wednesday, October 22, 1997 9:45 AM. The lighting seems to be coming along fairly well, but it has changed the way the shadows fall across one area of the scene. That is an important part of the scene, and it can’t be obscured from view, it should actually be a focal point. To fix this, I’ll need to move and add some "geometry", which is the term used for objects that you build in the scene. Of course, when you move this here, it means that this over here gets a shadow on it, so you have to move that. Now this isn’t quite right, but I won’t have to move it, just beef up the diffusion on it so it stands out more. But now the color theory isn’t quite as satisfactory, so I need to adjust this….and darn, now the texture map I painted for the ground is no longer projected in the right places and….Oh, sorry. Was I talking out loud again? Thursday, October 23, 1997 9:15 AM. Well, the render is coming along nicely, now. I repainted the ground texture, and adjusted some of the objects. I gave the lights a real subtle blue-purple shadow to compliment the gold sunlight I used in the scene. The contrasting colors gives the scene a rich natural look, without making it look gaudy. Some of the textures have become a little stretched over the objects, so I’ll have to adjust some of the geometry to make it fit better. Friday, October 24, 1997 9:15 AM. OK, the design is looking pretty good now, time to show it to the Art Director. This is the scary part. This is the day when you find out if Friday means you have two days off, or you’ll be in over the weekend. The day you’ll know if all your hard work paid off. The day when…. You get the idea. Well, I’ll be in for a little while over the weekend. It could be worse,
and there is a good Japanese restaurant in town!! |
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