Final Video

Rationale

I created a designated training area for the vikings to learn to fight with dragons, for the film How to train your Dragon. It depicts what appears to be spacious clifftops surrounded by fog with a chain barrier and elements of viking life. My setting is based post-film, after the vikings of Berk have befriended the night fury and the other dragons. The area caters for both vikings and dragons to practice fighting and train themselves.

The settings for How to train your Dragon reflects the environment during the time vikings existed. Although Vikings originated from Scandinavia, the author of the original novel, by Cressida Cowell, stated that was based on her birthplace in Scotland. This gave me a starting point of consideration for constructing my scene. I based my cliff faces on photographs of Scottish landscapes and the architecture and weaponry on historical paintings of vikings.

The original filmic style was influenced by video game aesthetics whilst maintaining a sense of real life. I tried to mimic a similar style, through realistic geometry sculpture and architecture fused with a sense of surrealism (often evoked from video games) through the position of a sky high cliff surrounded by mist.

To create a scene with a similar style How to train your Dragon, I was constantly referencing different elements, aspects and scenes from the film. For example; I created a stone with inscriptions of training rules and a code of conduct in the old norse for the area, which reflects the stone that protagonist Hiccup writes on when teaching the citizens of Berk about dragons. I also looked closely into the braziers from the opening attack scene of the movie, and replicated those as light sources for my scene. The wood-work and architecture I examined from the bridges in the village of Berk, and the chains from the fighting arena the young vikings used for their examinations.

The camera shots of the settings in How to train your Dragon is similar to that invideo games, giving point of view shot or an establishing shot whenever the viewer is introduced to a new scene. To help reinforce the coexistence of the vikings and dragons, I decided to start with an establishing shot that morphs into a point of view camera shot from a viking rider, without any visibility of the dragon itself. It appears as if the viewer is exploring and examining the area, then flies away into the sky for flight training.

As for music, I chose to use a song from the original How to train your Dragon film soundtrack "Ready the Ships". This song evokes a sense of pride and honour, which I believe suits a training scene. I also added in subtle sounds to give a sense of presence to the setting, for example dragons roaring when passing the stables and dragon wings flapping when the action of the camera gives a sense of flight.

Overall, I attempted to design a new scene which aesthetically keeps with the original film through a process of analysis, creation and reflection. I explored and implemented a range of Maya techniques to create an accurate mood, texture effects, lighting and overall atmosphere whilst staying true to the How to train your Dragon camera work.

Video Trial

This is an initial experimentation video I rendered of an older version of my model, to help gain a better understanding of camera pace, cuts, pans and placement. I believe there are areas that need slower pacing, to allow the viewers to focus more on detail and some rotation that appears slightly distorted and unrealistic. I will continue this process of render and evaluation to attain better results and a nicer video sequence.

Render Problems

I have been having trouble rendering my scene lately, due to its high poly-count of 15 million faces. After vigorous research and help from the teacher, I managed to solve this problem through a number of changes:

•  editing the fog fluids
• reducing the number of faces on the chains and mountains
• ridding of some unnecessary lights
• altering the position of the ocean 

Now instead of it needing around 7 days to render, it only needs 7 hours and has a poly-count of approximately 400,000.

Animatic

Here is a animatic I created to give myself an indication of timing and the narrative-

Atmosphere

I have been experimenting with fog and lighting to get an ideal atmosphere similar to How to train your Dragon's-

Smothering Smokebreath 

I decided to create the fog using maya software render settings as opposed to fluids, because they made the file exceedingly large and slow. I feel it gives a good sense of depth, similar to that in the movie-

I also have been experimenting with light; which proved quite challenging at first, as alot of them appeared to reflect the fog causing extreme brightness-

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But I managed to find one that works with the fog and not against it. I also added a couple of green and blue ambient lights to fit the How to train your Dragon colour scheme better.

The cliffs I created still did not appear to match the look I wanted to achieve; nor matched the How to train your dragon's environment. So I explored this further, and found a better texture mapping type to suit and give a more realistic believable feel to them-

Camera fly through

 This is the sequence I plan on having for my camera fly through. The camera will mimic the motion of a trainer flying in and landing on the land cliff, then stroll across the bridge analyzing the main features of the area that are the stone & brazier, weapons wall, dragon stables and safety chains. The trainer will then speed up and fly away.

storyboard

camera sequence

Sky

I chose to get rid of the physical sun and sky attribute I had, and replaced it with an image backdrop of clouds. I felt this would help give a better sense of depth for my scene, and reinforce the fog-like atmosphere I was creating. I now though will need to add ambient lights around my area, as there is currently no indication of sunlight.

large surround of my scene

Development

Here are some screenshots of the development of my scene. All elements are now added, it is only a matter of touching up and creating the camera fly through to explore the scene. 

I created the wooden arches and chains using a mixture of polygons and a chain generator that I found using python script. I took reference to the chains used in the How to train your Dragon Battle Arena- 

As for the Brazier, my original design had two miniature ones situated at the edge of the cliff face. I decided though after analysing more scenes from the film, that in wide open areas Berk often had just a large Brazier to light the area. I also felt it suited the cliff area better.

The rock I created holding inscriptions for the rules and code of conduct of the Training area. I loosely based it off the stone Hiccup writes on whilst teaching citizens of Berk about dragons-

The weapons rack allows the vikings to borrow the communal training equipment which consists of an ax  sword, shield, and bolas. I referenced viking weaponry from historical paintings and previous research as well as the weapons from the How to train your Dragon film.

This bridge leads the trainees from the landing cliff to the main training area. Originally I designed it not to have side poles and a rail, but after watching more scenes of How to train your Dragon realized most of their high bridges have them. It would be extremely unsafe otherwise.

Music

For my camera fly through,  I have decided to use music from the How to train your Dragon movie soundtrack. This will help entive the viewer and reinfore the How to train your Dragon theme. After listenening to the songs I have narrowed it down to a few options that I believe enhance the mood of my scene:

"Dragon Training"
"The Dragon Book"
"Focus Hiccup!"
"Forbidden Friendship"
"Test Drive"
"Dragons Den"
"Ready the Ships"
"Battling Green Death"
"Counter Attack"

They can each be found here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23LvPOCU508&list=PLA212A6139481A024

Meeting with Durgesh

I had a meeting today with Durgesh as I was having trouble the size of my scene. He helped me change some settings and remodel my cliffs to give them a lower polygon count. Also recreated my caves to a seperate polygon because holes in shapes are bad! (@.@) 

Visual Referencing

Whilst working on my scene, I have been constantly referencing and rewatching sections of How to train your Dragon. This way, I can keep developing my scene to as similar an aesthetic style to the film as I can. In particular, I have looked at certain elements they use that I am creating /or replicating with a different purpose to better suit my scene. For example braziers, fire, bridges, etc.

bridge

brazier

weapons rack

weapons

fire

Development

I have now created and incorporated the wooden arches and chains that surround the cliff area. I also created a new brazier, that better fits the How to train your Dragon aesthetic style.

Development

Here I have made a bridge allowing the vikings to access the second cliff platform, and stables for them to keep the dragons inside-

Bump Mapping

I decided to add a bump map to help give a more realistic 3D aesthetic to the rocks, similar to How to Train your Dragons style-

I also created the second cliff as part of development-

Scene Development

 Here is the development of my close up training area scene. Once the back cliff and landing cliff are created, I will add them to the composition. Once that's complete, I can import my elements I have created that make up the overall scene. 

In terms of surround scenery, I plan on adding a HDR image to disguise the ambient space.

day

evening

development

Terrain

Here is a screen of the rocky terrain I have created for the top of the cliff-

Gate

This is the gate I created for the entrance of the Dragon enclosures as part of the training area-

Wooden Bridge

Here is the wooden bridge I have created to allow the vikings access to and from the training area-

Cliff

Here is a singular cliff I made as the close up of where the training area is located.