TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5 – Digital Art by Christian Hecker

This time we have some movies that, from my point of view, are quite underrated. First of all ‘Mission To Mars’. It doesn’t get good reviews and overall it doesn’t seem to have a lot of fans. I, for my part, really really like it. The visuals are amazing and show a Planet Mars that looks real to me. some really beautiful matte work in it. The other one is Disney’s Treasureplanet. This movie is visually so inspiring and unique that i wished it would have a higher ranking within all these movies Disney made over the years. There is this one scene when they leave the spaceport and these flying whale like creatures fly along with the ship. I truly love that scene. But enough intro talk for now…

*Not listed by favourites.

Mission To Mars

A lot of folks don’t consider this movie to be a rather good one. I loved it from the first moment on. We get to see some amazing Mars vistas! The ideas in the movie are quite cool too. There are some really good moments. Especially the one where they try to rescue Tim Robbins character in space. Or when they discover the survivor on Mars. I like these movies that try to make you understand that we have absolutely no idea what’s possible out there. It inspires imaginaton.

Mission to Mars on IMDb

The Fly (1986)

Holy crap. When i was younger, and saw this movie the first time, i had nightmares! David Cronenberg is well known for his sort of weird movies. His ‘Naked Lunch’ for example… so many weird visual ideas! But the design of the ‘Brundle Fly’ at the end of the movie is so amazingly disgusting and yet fascinating. It makes you want to close your eyes but you can’t because you cannot beleive how ugly that thing looks! The movie as a whole is pretty fascinating. The whole picture of how our main character begins to change/transform. Fantastic!

The Fly on IMDb

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow

This one is almost an art movie. Pretty much everything is CG and very high quality. The actors really master the fact that there is almost no reference to see except the green screen. That’s quite an accomplishment. On the other hand it’s good to see a fantastic Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and a (even if she’s normally not my case) quite sexy Angelina Jolie. Great camera work… amazing things going on… great design… a must watch!

Sky Captain And The world Of Tomorrow on IMDb

Disney’s Treasureplanet

Probably one of the most underrated movies ever! The richness of ideas and beauty in this classic book adaptation is unbelievable! All characters are lovely and even our hero kid is not the usual jerk they try to make us feel sympathy for. Visually it’s quite a feast, full of creative energy and a recommendation for some good inspiration!

Treasureplanet on IMDb

Fahrenheit 451

One of the movies the words ‘scifi classic’ were invented for. Now this movie, after a story from ray bradbury, really manages to picture a very desperate future. I just recently watched it again and must say that the topics covered in the movie are still very very prominent. The government basically tries to control the population by literally making them dumb mindless androids though controlling the media. I also had the opportunity to watch a lot of tv lately… and dear god… no wonder people become more and more stupid these days. Amazing.

Fahrenheit 451 on IMDb

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)

I couldn’t even describe how much i love this movie. Yes there are many versions of that story but this movie tells it best from my point of view. From minute one i love the atmosphere it creates. The acting is so good and believable. Really love Donald Sutherland in this one. The visual style they use to show the transformation of the people into these hive controlled zombies is just crazy. I would so freak out if i would see stuff like that. The movie never goes too far though. A balance act that so many movies fail to manage. This one gets it perfectly right.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers on IMDb

End of part 5. This part again contains some of my all al alltime favourites. Especially the Body Snatchers. I’m so in love with the atmosphere it creates. Never had a similar experience in another movie. More stuff to come… stay tuned! =)

Regards

After a short break i’m back to continue this little series of posts. Again we have a few classics as well as a very low budget production with ‘Primer’. This movie is amazing and deserves a high recommendation if you have the chance to catch it somewhere. We also have some classics like ‘The Abyss’ and ‘Planet Of The Apes’. These movies shouldn’t be touched ever. ‘Planet…’ already got a remake from Tim Burton and it’s not a very good result in my opinion. Nothing can replace that fabulous Charlton Heston in the original.

*Not listed by favourites.

District 9

This movie, VFX wise, ranks right up there with Avatar for me. The whole integration of the aliens into the real life footage looks so amazingly good. It blew my mind! I also find the whole scenario pretty realistic. Maybe not the action parts. But definitely the concentration camp like institutions and how mankind would handle such a delicate situation. Of course the design is amazing and makes this movie a must watch for every scifi fan.

District 9 on IMDb

Children Of Men

This movie is quite a love affair too. Clive Owen should have gotten an oscar nomination for his part. There are so many amazing scenes where my jaw constantly drops to the ground. Especially the scenes with no cuts in them. Alfonso Cuarón really manages to create such a realistic futuristic atmosphere that really reminds you on the Half-Life 2 game/universe. To me the look of that future is a very sad picture with only a few shiny spots. But also a future that could be very true some day.

Children Of Men on IMDb

A.I.

Now that’s a movie that can make me cry everytime i see it. Yeah i’m a whiner. :D The delivered picture of mankind is a very sad one. But, like in so many other pictures, too true. It’s certainly not the most amazing movie but as you follow our main character on his search for the blue fairy… and when he finally finds her… dear lord. Time for tears. Some might argue that the last 15mins of the movie are too much and i can understand the concerns from a storytelling standpoint. Nonetheless from a scifi fan standpoint the final minutes make the movie really interesting. Again the design is outstanding and the VFX surely are an eyecatcher. I’m still wondering how the movie would have looked and felt when Stanley Kubrick had finished it and not Spielberg. I think it would have been a bit more distanced and less hearty.

A.I. on IMDb

Planet Of The Apes (1968)

The good old planet of the apes. Well these days i often think they should place a camera in a mcdonalds restaurant and just film 70mins in there. Viola… planet of the apes. But seriously. This movie is amazing. How weird must it have been for Charlton Heston when he read the script. The good thing is… he did the movie. He made it feel believable. He sold the idea. A classic!

Planet Of The Apes on IMDb

The Abyss

It’s weird how i don’t have a connection to the director James Cameron like i have to Steven Spielberg or Ridley Scott. It’s hard to describe. But when i watch the Spielberg movies i somehow have the feeling that it’s all familiar. And Ridley Scott is the visual style that gets to me. That’s not the case with Cameron’s movies. From my point of view he doesn’t have a particular good camera work in his movies. Or the stories themselfes aren’t very surprising. I don’t feel home in these movies and nonetheless his movies rank very high in my list. The Abyss is a great example for that. I really really love the idea of that movie. And with the recent oil platform problems… i wished our aliens would come up and kick some ass.

The Abyss on IMDb

Primer

A low low low low budget movie about time travel. The ideas in the movie are quite cool and make this movie definitely worth a look. No amazing CG, not the most amazing actors and not the best camera work. But the idea works! It’s amazing.

Primer on IMDb

End of part 4. This part contains some of my all al alltime favourites. Some movies will influence me in every project. More stuff in a few days. =)

Regards

Valis Licentia

This picture is the perfect example of the famous ‘creative spark’. I never had the intention or plan to do a picture like this one. I never had a concept to this one in mind. I just sat down and worked it out. Everything fell to its place by accident when i was playing with the Vue 9 pre release version. Out of nowhere a creative flow started to happen.

It basically started with trying and playing with Vue again. Creating a nice mountain terrain and adding trees. Playing with atmosphere and lighting. This is actually how a lot of my personal projects come together and start out. Ultimately i had this nice mountain range, atmosphere and forest in front of me and thought… “yes… that’s it… go for it”. At this point no plans for a scifi setting. I also wanted a river in the scene. Some time went into the placing and adding and getting it right of the river part. Then the landscape part was done and i did a large multipass render of it. It took 18hrs to finish. That was early november i think. I really liked the result. The multipass also allowed me to extend the planning for the pic.

I thought around a while and found that some sort of scifi haven/port for ships would be a cool thing. So i added the towers. The original idea was to add one much closer to the camera on the left. But that did not work out well and completely ruined the composition for me. So i decided to move it farther back. That way the atosphere had much more space to unfold its nice detail and lighting. And the eye has a much more pleasant view on the overall scene. I decided to add more towers in the back to get some more depth into the scene. Not sure if that works 100%.

The Photoshop work, or ‘post work’, included refining of the atmosphere and bringing out details that i wanted to pop a bit more. Since a lot of elements, like the towers, were added in the process i had to do some extra integration work to make it all sit right in the image. I also added some atmospheric beams to bring out the atmosphere. I think that works nicely.

Not knowing what i was going to end up with was a nice thing. Even today i made last changes to the pic. Now every pic should have some sort of message huh? I guess what the pic is trying to say is that even highly developed races should be able to merge their structures into a foreign environment without disturbing it. Something ‘we’ are not able to do. The towers in the pic certainly have a very industrial look to them. Nonetheless they’re able to keep the environment untouched.

Photoshop – Vue – 5000px wide

Plates and Progress & Print Details

Regards

Alright. Just for fun i sat down a while ago and compiled a list of Sci-Fi movies that are a great inspiration for me as an artist. This time we have quite some of my very favourites among them. On top surely is Event Horizon. Back then it blew me away. Especially its ideas and the gritty realistic look of it. The movie also has some very scary scenes in it. However… the inspiration is everywhere in this one. The Alien movies are amazing too. Again its the gritty design that really creates the love. Modern movies like Sunshine round things up nicely. A nice story, solid design and some really amazing visuals and scenes in the movie. Big love.

*Not listed by favourites.

Alien (1-3)

Not much to say about Ridley Scotts Alien. The Alien ship and the interior design… Classic. James Camerons ‘Aliens’ delivers less horror but some great action and more stunning visuals. Again concept work from Syd Mead. Again a big love! David Finchers Alien 3 sets itself apart from the other two. It’s much more quiet but goes down the horror tracks again. Love the design and feel again. Great acting work. Less is more in part 3. Part 4… well… it’s entertainment… but nothing original from my point of view.

Alien – 1979 on IMDb

Aliens – 1986 on IMDb

Alien3 – 1992 on IMDb

War Of The Worlds (Original & Spielberg)

I have always had problems to compare these two movies. I couldn’t say which one is the better movie. Both of them have their shining moments. Of course the VFX of the Spielberg movie are just amazing. But that also works for the old movie. There are quite some cool scenes in the old movie that could have never worked in the modernized version.

War Of The Worlds – 2005 on IMDb

War Of The Worlds – 1953 on IMDb

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

This is one of the movies i could watch over and over again. I really love the characters and, of course, the whole premise. Spielberg said he couldn’t do such a movie in that particular way today anymore… and i believe him. Good he did it back then. It got some really amazing moments. Just to mention the UFO chase sequence at the beginning. Or when the little boy gets kidnapped by the aliens. That’s a very scary scene. Or when the UFOs and aliens make contact with us at the Devils Tower. Just plain epicness! Everything works so well. Richard Dreyfuss makes it all even better. I love how he plays the character. Another all time classic.

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind on IMDb

Event Horizon

Now this here is a love affair. I couldn’t even begin to explain why i love this movie so much. But yea well… certainly the whole design plays a very big role. Also the whole idea behind the story. That the ship went somewhere and came back with some sort of soul. The scientific background sounds very appealing to me. It still works scientifically! We never traveled in a way like described in the movie. Who knows what happens when we do? Where do we land? Of course it’s fiction… but still… a big love.

Event Horizon on IMDb

Worlds Collide (1951)

Another old time classic. For its release time definitely something really special! If you are into old school Sci-Fi style illustration… then this i, s a must see.

IMDB:
Worlds Collide on IMDb

Sunshine

This movie doesn’t have a lot of fans somehow and i don’t know really why. The VFX are great… the story really exciting… and the whole presentation is just eyecatching. Besides, the acting of all the cast is very believable, solid and good. And dear god… the finale… with that music part… goose bumps all over me every time i see it. I saw it in the theater and i’m glad i did. I love this movie.

Sunshine on IMDb

End of part 3. This part contains some of my all al alltime favourites. Some movies will influence me in every project. More stuff in a few days. =)

Regards

Alright. Just for fun i sat down a while ago and compiled a list of Sci-Fi movies that are a great inspiration for me as an artist. By inspiration i don’t always mean the whole visual style of a movie but also the atmosphere and the ideas behind the story. ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ is a good example. It may be an old movie but still widens the horizon with its ideas. This is part two of the list.

*Not listed by favourites.

Moon 44

One of Roland Emmerich’s early big budget films. At least back then. And certainly not a very good one. Except for the look and design. That’s what i like that movie for. Its dark gritty and industrial look. It also has some nice characters. Some real bad asses. I like to watch it every once in a while.

Moon 44 on IMDb

Total Recall

One of THE Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. And certainly one of THE Mars movies you should have seen. A very clever story, inspired by a short story from Philip K. Dick. Even though the original short story reads quite differently than the movie. The movie of course scores with some very great action pieces and great design. Even if the marsian landscapes were mostly miniatures i still love the camera flights right above and through the canyons. Like i read there is a new ‘Total Recall’ in the makes. This time closer to the original short story. It will be a very different movie. Surely as cool and interesting as the Schwarzenegger one. But less action.

Total Recall on IMDb

Startrek (All Movies)

If i would have to pick favourites then i would say the very first Startrek movie is a must watch. Again there were visual concepts from Syd Mead. ‘The Wrath Of Khan’ is probably the best Statrek movie of all times. Startrek 6 ranks pretty high too. I really love its cold war references and its very clever story. The newest addition and reboot of the series offers some amazing visuals too. All of them can deliver some nice inspiration. Of course the series had some weak movies too. Especially Startrek 5. But the painting work at the beginning looks nice in this one. Later when the digital age kicked in we got to see some nice battles. Startrek 8 starts with one nice fight against the Borg. So yes, visually i would suggest to have seen all of them.

Avatar

You’ve probably seen it. Inspiration wise it’s a must watch. The industry’s best concept guys worked on it. Visually it can’t get any better than this. At least not any time soon.

Avatar on IMDb

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

I admit it’s quite an oldie but its message is still relevant. It’s also funny because of the ideas they had back then. The VFX redefined quite a few things back then and did set new standards. The message basically is that we should keep an eye on what we as mankind do. How dangerous we as a species can be to not only ourselfes.

The Day The Earth Stood Still on IMDb

End of part 2. I think when you have seen and studied these movie you have all the basics you need. More stuff in a few days. The list is still filled. =)

Regards

Alright. Just for fun i sat down a while ago and compiled a list of Sci-Fi movies that are a great inspiration for me as an artist. By inspiration i don’t always mean the whole visual style of a movie but also the atmosphere and the ideas behind the story. ‘Children Of Men’ is a good example for a very amazing atmosphere and story. The visuals there are amazing too but aren’t the main drive in the movie. This list is not listed by first = best and last = worst movie. It’s just a list of movies that you should have seen if you want to do Sci-Fi based art nowadays. I’m a big big movies fan and a very visual person. So it’s a natural thing for me catching up ideas and influences, more or less intentional, from movies. So yeah…if you’re on the search for movies for a nice evening… then i hope this list will help you pick a few candidates that you haven’t seen so far. Feel free to post your thoughts on the movies!

*Not listed by favourites.

Blade Runner

What can i say about this one. It ranks in the definite top ten of my all time fav movies. The whole design and visual quality still works amazing and will still be working in 100 years. Ridley Scott is a true master to me. I even read the books that bring the story to an end The visuals from the movie made the scenes described in the books so dense. I really enjoy that universe. Even if i wouldn’t want to live in that world.

Blade Runner on IMDb

Outlander

Oh what can i say about this one. Most of you probably don’t know it. To me it’s a pretty unique one. Generally it’s quite a cool mix of fantasy and scifi elements. It got quite a cool style going in it. The VFX aren’t always top but the ideas in it are kind of cool. And i like Jim Caviezel as an actor. I should watch it again some time soon.

Outlander on IMDb

2001 & 2010

Granted… 2001 is a pretty boring movie. Nonetheless i decided to put it into the list since its visuals and camera work are still high end and a good guide for anyone who is attempting such movie projects. 2010 on the other hand has more action and a particular cool design. Syd Mead hits my taste with pretty much everything he does when it comes to concept work for movies.

2001 on IMDb

2010 on IMDb

TRON

I said it so often in the past and i will say it again now… i want an honor VFX oscar for this movie! Back then they denied the VFX nomination with the argument that they did it all with computers and that’s ‘cheating!’. Now today you cannot even fathom how important TRON was back then. And beside that there aren’t that many scenes in the movie where computers were involved. A lot of things were done by hand in very very tedious procedures. Of course the overall design, again with the help of Syd Mead, helped to make it look so crazy unique. And it got Jeff Bridges in top shape and Bruce Boxleitner. I love both of them in there.

TRON on IMDb

Starwars (All 6)

Of course parts 4-6 are the better ones. Nonetheless i would always recommend to watch the new episodes too. You ask why? Well… the design and look. These movies are so good sources of inspiration. If you want the heart then go for the parts 4-6. If you want some hi-end scifi/fantasy inspiration… go for parts 1-3. To me personally the city of Coruscant is a big source of inspiration and ideas. As some of you know i’m a big megacities fan and love to create these too. And i can tell you that it’s a massive piece of work to get something like that together. The Coruscant from episode 2 and 3 looks just amazing and always serves as a fantastic reference whenever i try to create something sci-fi city like.

Alright… end of part 1. I think when you have seen and studied these movie you have all the basics you need. More stuff in a few days. I have quite some movies left. =)

Regards

Hadley’s Hope

What if kinda sorta maybe Hadley’s Hope in ‘Aliens’ didn’t explode and developed its colony further? But yeah you could say I fell in love with the city I created in ‘Phoenix Rising‘. Since I have built me quite a nice plate in Vue, I had to take another visit. And it could become more in the future. I’m sure you don’t mind as long as some stunning vistas like this one are the result of these excursions. Again I’m wondering why I’m into such megacities. I’m very interested in technology, where it took us in the past and where it may take us in the future. Maybe that’s a reason.

When I started this one I didn’t have a real plan. I was just playing with atmospheres and clouds in Vue and found a nice point of view on the city part we see farther in the back of my ‘Phoenix Rising‘ picture. Started to add more details to that area and moved objects around to find a good composition. Lots of smaller testrenders happening in that stage. When I had arranged everything to a point of satisfaction I started play with the lighting. I really wanted to make it look somewhat photoreal without to lose the usual tension and contrast that I usually get into my pics. I eventually became undecided between a more natural lighted sunset with the light source behind the camera and a real devilish/hellish red backlit situation with the sun shining directly into the cam.

I stuck to the backlit setup because of the tension it created in the scene. Nonetheless I had a problem with visible detail. Since it all was pretty much in shadow. But I wanted lots of details visible! What I did was rendering both lighting situations i had in mind. The one with the sun behind the camera captured all the little details I wanted visible. I took that render pass and layered it above the backlit version and started work both together. That’s a technique I use whenever I want more detail in certain shadowy areas. Of course you can also use the multipass possibilities of Vue to fix those. It all depends on what you want to achieve.

In the end I managed to get a pretty decent result together that can walk hand in hand with my ‘Phoenix Rising’ project. It shows another side of that megacity. A bit darker and dense… almost like you could swim through the atmosphere. Another view I would die for to see for real.

Vue – Photoshop – Wacom – 4000px wide

Vue Approaches & Print Details

Two versions of wallpapers in the pack: 1920×1200/1080p – 1680×1050 – 1280×1024 – 1280×800/720p

Regards

Com-cept 14

I finished this quite a while ago and finally i got it onto my page. All the time i was thinking about what else i could add to make it even more interesting. Stuff like that can be a trap. Instead of realizing that the pic is pretty much done you keep thinking and thinking. In the end this is a rare pic to find in my gallery. I can’t remember many night scenes i did so far. It’s not that it’s difficult to do them. Somehow i’m more the evening or morning type with my paintings. This picture here has quite some nice details and atmosphere. Could be a scene straight out of Total Recall or Blade Runner.

Regards

THE ABYSS

Here we have a picture i created last year for an experimental shortfilm by Chris Bouchard. He’s the guy who made that fairly successful ‘Hunt for Gollum’ LotR fanfilm that created quite a buzz and generated millions of hits. However… what he needed were a few backgrounds and i tried myself on some. We also used my ‘Epica‘ painting, with quite some extensions, as the general background. This picture here was not used like intended but still found it’s way into the film. I really like this one a lot and it’s my favourite of the ones i created. Maybe because it reminds me of that famous Blade Runner scene at the end of the movie.

CLONE Shortfilm Here

Before/After
View from the back

Regards

Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising is without doubt the largest personal project i ever did so far. The project involved in depth work with Vue 8, Photoshop, After Effects and minor sound editing. The techniques i used were basically digital matte painting oriented and involved camera mapping, editing, motion tracking and of course 2d and 3d work.

In the beginning i was thinking about how i could top the success and personal achievements i got out of ‘Gates To Elysium’. That was late May 2009. That picture was able to gain itself a CGChoice Award on CGTalk and that means a lot to me especially motivation wise. But the question still was how i could top that. And by that i don’t mean prizes or awards. Would i be able to create a similar good or even better piece of work? Something that would satisfy me on all levels…?

November 2009 i started to play with an idea without actually thinking about making this my benchmark for 2010. I fiddled around with Vue since i knew it would play a significant part in the upcoming project. I tossed around some objects and soon packed the scene full to the brim with stuff. Since i still am not the brightest light in 3d modeling i worked much like in the last years project and used parts of the DAZ 3D Cityblocks to arrange me the scene. Again i took lots of the models apart and reorganized them to make the buildings look the way i wanted. Knowing that quite some Photoshop work would be laid on top of it all. Vue already started to act up because of the load. So i decided to leave that behind and concentrated on the atmosphere aspect of the scene. I already had a really beautiful cloud setup and lighting. I knew i had to do something with it. Soon after that i felt a deep pain in my brain when i saw the needed render times for that atmosphere. I started a test render for those clouds and the atmosphere and it took ages. I did the render just to see how it would look in the end. I were like 60-70hrs when it was done. And the clouds still looked nice on 5000px wide.

February 2010 i picked up the project and really started to work on it. Building up the city elements and experimenting with the tons of ideas i got when i worked on it. Finding the right position for the camera wasn’t an easy task here. I already was playing with the idea of making a camera mapping animation out of the project. Friends are calling me ‘sick’ and ‘lunatic’ now. But that’s the price you pay. If i would have known how much work i had to invest… i guess i would have stopped right away. But i didn’t know and when i was already working on it… i wanted it to be done right.

Early March was the time i started to render the final parts for the Photoshop work. Starting with the atmosphere and the background city. The atmosphere and background elements were rendered on a slightly higher quality than the foreground elements since the lighting and clouds needed to look good. Without too much noise and everything. It was a painstakingly 90hrs render. It took me 5 days to render it. Thank god for the resume ability of Vue. But it was worth the wait! When it was done i had really good multipass material to work with. All the other foreground elements were rendered in roughly 30hrs. Light and atmosphere did not require super high settings so i turned those down a but. All of these renders were done with multipass options. The ultimate freedom for the Photoshop work.

With the main renders done i started to stitch everything together in Photoshop. That was the easiest part. I already had several hours into the Photoshop work when i accidentally overwrote the Photoshop file with all the layers. §”4%&=? awesome! In the end i would say that it was good. I had the chance to redo some of the work steps and saw that i also had an alternative way to do certain operations. That lead to a better picture quality in certain areas of the sky. Nonetheless i wasn’t happy when i found out that my PSD was ruined. That was the first time something like that ever happened to me. Normally I’m very careful with my PSD files.

With the Photoshop work going on i discovered possibilities in the picture that i had to take. So i dug out Vue again to add even more details. Again multipass was helpful to easily place the new elements in the picture. The ultimate freedom! The Photoshop work was a lot of fun and seeing worlds building up in front of your eyes is always very satisfying. I was thinking about the fact that i really would love to see this in moving pictures.

I also thought that i must be crazy. All the ideas i had in mind for an animation. All the time i would need to realize these ideas! Yes, crazy! However! Late march i started to play with Vue and made first experiments with a possible camera mapping animation for the picture. The picture was pretty much done, except for some stylistic things and very small details.

Now camera mapping is not a thing i would say I’m an expert in. I’m not exactly firm in 3d modeling and kept the ingredients from the original Vue scene pretty much untouched in Photoshop. That means i did not add extra elements to the buildings etc – i only added things within the actual building shapes. Always keeping in mind that i ‘could’ be doing an animation of this. To have worked that way really helped me with the camera mapping. Nonetheless i had to take the painting apart again. Foreground, background, middle pieces etc etc etc – so that you would be able to see what actually is behind the big towers. All these textures demanded extra attention and a lot of extra work. That done i could concentrate on the ships!

In April then i was in the middle of the animation work. Man how much time went into the rendering of all the different passes. Not to mention the test renders! Not to mention the disk space needed! I rendered everything in uncompressed AVI format. 5.6gb for 40 seconds of film in 1920×1038. And i had to split the renders in the middle because when i rendered it in on task it produced a weird error and played the movie not like it was supposed to. So a lot of stitching of movie files going on. Not to mention that After Effects can be a true pain to work with. Tons of crashes! But somehow i got through.

Early May i was pretty much done with the animation itself and saw how i could get it polished perfectly in After Effects. I wanted to add a bit of dirt to the lens and found some helpful tutorials on YouTube. The internet generally is amazing for tutorials… even for video stuff.

With the animation done i got back to the painting and refined a few more things on it. That makes it look a tiny bit different than the animation. Nonetheless i’m very happy with both results and never thought i would be able to pull all that off.

While ‘Phoenix Rising’ is the actual project name i found it interesting to give the city a name too. ‘Hadley’s Hope’ is of course the name of the camp on planet LV426 in James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’. I liked the idea of taking that camp and its story out of the ‘Aliens’ context and wondered how that colony would/could look after 1000 years.

Oh a lot of text and it could be so much more! Hope you enjoy the picture, the animation and the whole world you can discover! It was quite a journey to explore and create it! Ultimately it does satisfy m on all level. It’s again a personal achievement i never thought i would be able to pull off. That’s a good thing.

Special Thanks: http://www.greendjohn.net for his awesome music! His piece ‘Windcatcher’ was perfect for my project and conveys exactly the atmosphere i wanted.

Hope you guys enjoy this shorty. For me this is a special animation since so much time went into it. It was the most complex endeavour i ever did and it was worth it!

5000px wide – Photoshop – Vue – After Effects – Infinite Number of Hours

Print Detail: http://projects.tigaer-design.com/phoenixrising/pr_details4print.jpg

Plate: http://projects.tigaer-design.com/phoenixrising/plate.jpg

Download – 720p – Quicktime – 94mb

Download – 16:9 – 720p – Quicktime – 107mb

Online – Vimeo (HD)

Online – Youtube (HD)

That said… i hope you guys enjoy the Wallpaper Pack. 1680×1050 & 1920×1200 version of the scene. Have fun with it!

WALLPAPER PACK

Thanks for your attention.

Regards