Finding Altamira
A nightmarish dream for a little girl leads to a herd of bison stampeding into the house at first light.
Storytelling ideas often need explorative solutions to translate the idea from the 2D board to the 3D space, this is exactly what I was charged with for Altamira. I lead the pre visualisation and worked closely with the supervisor.
I built a simplistic bison along with a Chapman crane. A film shoot with live animals, especially ones as large as bison, requires extensive tech visualisation to make sure the shots can be captured while keeping both the bison and crew safe.
The sequence was animated in Maya and transferred to Houdini for scene setup and lighting. The lighting was all about what the viewer couldn’t see, so I tried to get shapes on the walls to further push this nightmare.
Storyboards can sometimes be little more than simplistic doodles, but on Altamira I was fortunate to receive a set of beautifully drawn boards, with clear direction, framing and even lighting reference.
After the previs asks were completed I moved onto a very interesting modelling assignment, the head of lady liberty. Working from the concept art, I started to rough out the face.
Lining up a series of images, helped me to reference her from different angles and ensured a much more accurate facial construction.
Modeling such an iconic object meant the likeness would need to be very accurate as almost everyone has seen her either in person or on film. I gathered the strongest pictures representing the best possible angles.
The extra details were modelled as normal, once the face was captured everything else fell into place.
The final texture was comprised of a series of projections in Maya and Mudbox. Photoshop was used for final touches and grading work.