Week 3 - Building the Block Out

Nearing the end of last week I began creating a block out of my scene in Maya using the main concept piece and combining other research materials to help expand the scene. At first I found it difficult trying to plan the layout of of the scene. In my research images of the city environment in the film it's big and vast, that was what I wanted to stay away from when blocking out my scene. I wanted my scene to take place in a closed off area. At first when planning I started out with a T junction design and I was trying to compact the scene as much as possible. In the end I closed off the T junction and went with the path going more of a right angle.  

Figure. 1. Block Out Environment Maya 2014

Expanding from from the original concept I've taken elements/segments from my research images I've already collected and new ones I'm finding constantly and trying to bring these into the scene I'm developing. In the scene I've added a fast food store where I'll have the store made from wasted fast food packaging. Recently while researching I came across these images of actual fast food shops. One of the buildings is in LA and the other is in Amsterdam, they are both from the same food chain but their designs are completely different.

Figure. 2. KFC Building LA

Figure. 3. KFC Building Amsterdam

To me there shapes and design resembled of their product packaging from that particular fast food chain, in figure 3 above the store looks like it's made from a chicken bucket. This helped me in developing the fast food building by expanding from that and adding other fast food packaging for example a kids meal box and a fizzy pop cup and straw. Next door to the fast food joint I'll have a posh restaurant. From one of the screen shots I captured from the film I found a building with draws coming from the upper floors. I decided to use the draws as a balcony where the rats can eat and dine from outside in the restaurant. While expanding the scene I'm always thinking about how a rat would live in the world and how they would use every day objects.
The other key landmark in my scene is the cafe which will be located in the centre of the scene. The main body of the cafe is made from a cooker and have the lower level of the building look like a traditional cafe with chairs and tables. The original idea of this building came from one of the research images from the actual film. As you can see in figure 4 behind the close up characters the building made from an oven, In the model I'll stick to a very similar design and look to this reference.

Figure. 4. Flushed Away Movie Still

Image Reference

Figure. 1. Block Out Environment Maya 2014

Figure. 2. KFC Building LA http://www.laweekly.com/publicspectacle/architecture/?topic=2369089&page=2 [Accessed 03.02.14]

Figure. 3. KFC Building Amsterdam http://www.flickr.com/photos/harry_nl/2374266321/ [Accessed 03.02.14]

Figure. 4. Flushed Away [Movie Still] [Accessed 22.01.14]