Construction

Documentation and a look into the process of building Nouve Forme. The animation was created and rendered in Blender, with post-production and applications created in After Effects.
The project evolved from my observations of Prato’s streets, and the way in which light affected form and texture. This formed my initial inspiration for the project, which then developed into a deeper investigation into the survival of old materials against the integration of newer elements.

A note on inspiration: Caravaggio’s “Medusa” , was a significant point of inspiration for this project, the use of chiarscuro to create depth and a dynamic composition was a driving factor behind Nouve Forme.

Image from www.sothebys.com.

Initial experiments with texture in Blender, using geometry nodes to build bricks.

I then began to work directly with images taken of various textures and materials in Prato.

The next step was to begin experimenting with UV maps in combination with geometry nodes.

Developing bump maps for all the image textures.

Bump maps allow computer software to displace an image based on light and colour.

First animation tests, exploring how light interacts with the textures. Experimenting with render speeds using Cycles as the render engine within Blender.

This led to displacing textures using nodes, this was a very taxing process on my computer’s RAM.

Setting the scene and lighting, creating physicw and cloth simulations to give the effect of the brick curtain.

Setting camera tracking and path, ensuring the animation itself runs smoothly and at the right velocity.

Animating assests within the animation, setting keyframes and moments of interest. Ensuring lighting and composition is dynamic. Balancing between quality and RAM speed of computer.

Was not satisfied with the lighting, so constructed a studio set up to achieve some reflective light and attempt to ground the installation a little more.

Stage left view of the setup before final renders.

My workspace while producing final renders, windows showing dope sheet, wireframes, assest files, render preview and shader nodes. The total render time for the major animation came to 13 hours.

Ella Doyle 2023. COL3002: Survial. Nouve Forme