Maya Texturing 1: Intro to Texturing (Pirates Cove - Part 1)

Thumbnails 29 - 52

Form my initial ideas I decided to go with the New York subway as my environment. So these thumbnails are looking at the different parts of the subways and developing them with the ideas I already had.  I looked at the variety of different signs they have in their subways, the beams, the subway cart, stairs, walls, floors etc. All to make sure that at the end my environment looks as realistic as possible.

Film Review - Eraserhead 1977

Fig. 1 Eraserhead Film Poster

Director David Lynch in 1977 wrote, directed and produced his first motion picture Eraserhead. When Eraserhead was first released it baffled many critics but become a cult classic with its body-horror and mind blowing surrealism. “The central concept of boy-meets-girl-has-mutant-baby is still the subject of American Gothic nightmares and Lynch’s repertoire of soft squelches, thin skins, horrible blobs and panicky gestures remains an enduring archetype of puritan sexual disgust.” (Beard, 2006)

Eraserhead is set in the heart of an industrial centre. Henry is a printer who is taking some vacation time away from his job at the factory. When Henry returns home with his bags of shopping. His neighbour across from his apartment informs him that his girlfriend Mary X was here and that he has invited him to dinner with her and her family. He spends most of his days inside his bare apartment staring intently at the steaming radiator. That creates sharp and hissing noise’s which is continuously heard in Henry’s apartment. Within his apartment itself there are large clumps of grass spread around the room. As well as a dying plant sitting in a pile of mud on his nightstand. Also a framed picture of a nuclear explosion hung on the wall above his bed.

Fig. 2 Eraserhead Film Still

The evening strangeness grows from the time Henry arrives outside of Mary’s house. He is disturbed by the awkward conversation of her mother and the strange fits that Mary herself has. At the dinner table, Henry is puzzled by an emotional outburst by Mary's mother, the disconnected conversation by her father. And bizarre of all is the miniature man-made roasted chicken which kicks on his plate every time Henry goes to cut it. After dinner Henry is cornered by Mary's mother, who attempts to kiss him before telling him that Mary has had a premature pregnancy. A tearful Mary insists that the hospital does not know whether it was even a baby.

Mary and the baby move into Henry's one-room apartment. The baby is hideously deformed and looks nothing like a human. Henry and Mary constantly struggle with caring for their baby. A hysterical Mary temporarily leaves for home one night due to her inability to sleep with the whining baby. Left to care for the baby by himself, Henry becomes involved in a series of strange events these include bizarre encounters with the Lady in the Radiator, a sexual liaison with his neighbour.

Upon hearing the baby crying Henry retrieves a pair of scissors. He hesitates, then cautiously cuts open the bandages wrapped around the baby's body. Henry finds that the bandages were the only thing keeping the baby's internal organs together. The body splits open and the baby's vital organs are exposed. Rather than dying, the baby continues to convulse in pain, causing Henry to turn away in disgust. The last scene features Henry being embraced by the Lady in the Radiator.

Fig. 3 Eraserhead FIlm Still

There are many major themes and metaphors that make up the dark core of this film. Firstly one of the major themes that runs throughout the film is sex. And Eraserhead is filled with suggestive image of sexual activity and intercourse. The way that “Director David Lynch plays with a good deal of sexual imagery and the most likely thing that Eraserhead is about is sexual and procreative disgust.” (Scheib, 2010) With this Lynch was able to create a film that instils the fear of sex, with his nightmarish and haunting imagery.

Lynch has admitted in past interviews that the fear of fatherhood is an important theme in Eraserhead. The film seems to be shot around the horror of raising a child as well as being left with an unwanted child. In the opening moments we see what seems to be Henry, floating through space dreaming with some kind of sperm shape animal emerges from his mouth. This could be seen as a symbol of the birth of his child. Lynch has made the birth of a child which is usually looked upon as a joyous moment and twisted in into a horrible event. Eraserhead view on Birth and parenthood is well directed that it will send a chill up your spine.

Fig.4 Eraserhead Film Still

Another intriguing theme that occurs in Eraserhead is that of dark and the dark hold it has on our lives. It’s displayed throughout the film in various ways. The fact that Lynch Gothically shot his film in black and white adds to the feeling of decay. As well Henry’s apartment is filled with images of death. With rotten plants and piles of rotting grass spread around the apartment. In Eraserhead we see that sex has been depicted as more of a negative aspect of life than a pleasing one. He has done the same with death, turning it into something that Henry will find more pleasurable than his bleak life he was living.

Fig.5 Eraserhead Film Still

Eraserhead greatest achievement is showing the audience that good and evil in everyone and everything. Lynch was able to do this with some wired and disturbing images. But the most important part of this film is that “The audience is forced to see everything they fear become objects of love and everything they hold dear twisted into something unrecognizable.” (Cruz, 2010) The Thing with Lynch’s Eraserhead is that everything in this world had two natures.

Lynch is a master at creating images and scenes that are impossible to explain or even understand. “Eraserhead was David Lynch’s first feature length film, and it’s the real thing: raw, uncompromised, more visceral than anything he’s done since.” (Kermode, 2006) Making Eraserhead a film that is impossible to forget quickly or even to forget at all.

List of Illustrations

Figure 1 - Erasorhead (1977) Erasorhead Film Poster.

http://www.myuca.ucreative.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=null&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_13549_1%26url%3D (Accessed on 03/01/2011)

Figure 2 - Erasorhead (1977) Erasorhead Film Still.

http://lagraphicdesign.wordpress.com/category/movies/ (Accessed on 03/01/2011)

Figure 4 - Erasorhead (1977) Erasorhead Film Still.

http://cinemastu.blogspot.com/2010/03/eraserhead-david-lynch-1977.html (Accessed on 03/01/2011)

Figure 5 - Erasorhead (1977) Erasorhead Film Still.

http://boards.theforce.net/your_jedi_council_community/b10008/28312518/p1/ (Accessed on 03/01/2011)

Bibliography

Beard, Steve (2006) Eraserhead (Review).

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=14647 (Accessed on 04/01/2011)

Scheib, Richard (2010) Eraserhead (Review). http://www.moria.co.nz/fantasy/eraserhead.htm (Accessed on 04/01/2011)

Cruz, Jose (2010) Eraserhead1977 (Review). http://classic-horror.com/reviews/eraserhead_1977 (Accessed on 04/01/2011)

Kermode, Jennie (2006) Eraserhead (Review). http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?id=7331 (Accessed on 04/01/2011)

Figure 3 - Erasorhead (1977) Erasorhead Film Still.

http://www.blueseek.com/jump2/?affiliate=7926&subid=13777_&terms=mortgage%20refinance(Accessed on 03/01/2011)

Film Review - The Tenant 1979

Fig.1 The Tenant Film Poster

Director Roman Polanski completed his trilogy of films about social isolation and paranoia with his 1979 film The Tenant. All three films tell the same story of that which seems to be a well-balanced individual who has some kind of well-buried psychological problem. With the individuals ending up being driven to lose their sanity as a consequence of their growing suspicion of those who surround them.

Polanski stars as Trelkovsky, a Polish-born French Citizen, who is moving into an old apartment block in Paris. He then learns that the pervious tenant, Simone Choule, leapt from the upstairs apartment windows in an attempt to commit suicide. Learning this he feels compelled to visit her in hospital. At the bedside of the dying women he meets Stella. He claims to be one of her friends. From Stella he learns some facts about the personality of Simone. When Choule sees Trelkovsky standing over her, she seems to recognize him and lets out a scream of Terror before dying.

Fig.2 The Tenant Film Still

Returning to his apartment Trelkovsky is warned by his landlord not to make any noise at night times, but every movement he makes, the neighbours knocked on his wall demanding he be quiet. Trelkovsky does everything he could to keep his neighbours happy but they continue to treat him with contempt and hostility. Because of this he suspects that they may have driven Choule to commit suicide. Believing that they are doing the same to him and with this in his mind he starts to imagines some bizarre things.

He sees the other tenants standing motionlessly in the toilet room opposite his apartment window and he finds a hole in the wall with a human tooth concealed in it. With time he begins to take on Choule’s personality traits. At first they are simple little things, like smoking Choule’s brand of cigarettes and it extend to even cross-dressing. Trelkovsky was convinced that his neighbours were determined to kill him by driving him insane. Eventually with the loss of his identity and his obsession with Choule leads him to the recreation of her suicide attempt. Awakening in the hospital, he finds himself wrapped up in bandages and when he opens his eyes he sees Stella and himself standing over him. Exactly as it was when he visited Choule in the hospital at the beginning of the film, he opens his mouth and lets out a chilling scream.

The Tenant is short on your typical horror movie action with no monsters and little in the way of suspense, both of which are seen in most horror films.  Polanski’s film is not operating on the kind of fear that these films exploit - the fear of death. Instead The Tenant focuses on a much more disturbing fear, the loss of identity.

Fig.3 The Tenant Film Still

The Tenant is Polanski at his funniest but Polanski at his funniest is also Polanski at his creepiest. And with this The Tenant is as rich in scary moments as it is in laughs which were often simultaneousness.  Also with this film “The horror is macabre, and provided in clearly observed bursts.” (Euker, 2003) This is surely Polanski’s style as it can be seen in his two films before Repulsion 1965 and Rosemary Baby 1968. There are several scenes throughout the film that Polanski declines to make sense of what is happening leaving the mystery unresolved. This could also be said to be a style that Polanski uses within his films. A great scene where this happens is when a ball bounces with supernatural uniformity before his apartment window. Examining it closely we find out that it is actually a human head.

Fig.4 The Tenant Film Still

Polanski was indeed a man with a troubled past and the fact that Polanski himself play’s the lead character in his film is revealing. He was someone who had a good reason to maybe be slightly paranoid or can even be said to be mistrustful and “His cinema has forever mirrored the many physical and psychological obstruction in his life” (Schager, 2003) One scene that stands out is the moment when Trelkovsky is asked whether “he will be entertaining ladies in the evening and making lots of noise”. Trelkovsky responds that he is not that kind of man. Well now we can see the irony in this scene because of course a year later Polanski fled the country, after being convicted of statutory rape.

Fig.5 The Tenant Film Still

The Tenant “is full of shock moments and builds to an incredible twisted revelation at the end” (Hill, 2001) which was all down to Polanski’s direction which was brilliant. He doesn’t rush anything, allowing the character to go about their business and then subtly builds in a growing sense of unease. Polanski has made the setting realistic with the fear built around things that are explainable or ordinary. But filmed in the right way have become frightening. Also along with inventive camera angles, the sense of perspective in some scenes and lighting all have made this film what it is.

“The Tenant is a fantastic paranoid delusion of a film.” (Hill, 2001) that is genuinely chilling, that creates this unbearable feeling of tension when watched.

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. The Tenant (1976) The Tenant Filmm Poster.

http://www.myuca.ucreative.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_gro

up_id=null&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCour

se%26id%3D_13549_1%26url%3D (Accessed on 02/01/2011)
Figure 2. The Tenant (1976) The Tenant Film Still. http://www.bloghorror.com/2009/08/tenant-el-inquilino1976.html (Accessed on 02/01/2011)

Figure 4. The Tenant (1976) The Tenant Film Still.

http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/2009/08/seminal-image-friday-2-frames-within.html

(Accessed on 02/01/2011)

Figure 5. The Tenant (1976) The Tenant Film Still.

http://sunsetgun.typepad.com/sunsetgun/three_obsessions/page/2/

(Accessed on 02/01/2011)

Bibliography

Euker, Jake (2003) the Tenant (Review). http://www.popmatters.com/film/reviews/t/tenant.shtml (Accessed on 02/01/2011)

Schager, Nick (2003) The Tenant (Movie Review). http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-tenant/641 (Accessed on 30/12/2010)

Hill, Simon (2001) The Tenant (Review). http://www.celluloiddreams.co.uk/thetenant.html (Accessed on 02/01/2011)

Hill, Simon (2001) The Tenant (Review). http://www.celluloiddreams.co.uk/thetenant.html (Accessed on 02/01/2011)

Figure 3. The Tenant (1976) The Tenant Film Still.

http://anotherfilmblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/the-tenant-roman-polanski-1976/

(Accessed on 02/01/2011)

Maya - Custom Fur's

Defult Fur with black Lambert .

Defult Fur with raytracing.

Low density render.

.

High density render

High density with scraggle render.

Clumping and scraggle render.

Baldness render.

 

Inclination render.

Roll render.

Polar render.

Maya - Intro to Texturing Using Fur Attributes

100% Bear Fur Without Shadows.

100% Bear Fur With Shadows.

100% Bison Fur.

50% Bison and 50% Bear Fur.

 

100% Sheep Fur.

100% Porcupine Fur.

 Fur example is 25% Bear, 25% Sheep, 25% Bison and 25% Porcupine.

  

Fur Type:- Polar Bear

 

Adding Length to Fur.

 Adding a black Lambert underneath.

Self Shade Darkness = 1

Self Shade Darkness = 0.8

Self Shade Darkness = 0.6

Self Shade Darkness = 0.4

Self Shade Darkness = 0.2

Fur Type:- Bear

Global Density 50,000.

Global Density 5,000.

Global Density 50,000 with UVs of 64.

Controlled density and baldness.

Film Review - Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Fig.1 Film Poster

Director Roman Polanski’s film Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is a psychological horror film which took the horror genre in a new direction. Rosemary’s Baby was Polanski’s second horror film following his first Repulsion (1958). Both films are about a mentally unstable, sexually terrified women left alone in her apartment. Focusing on the horror’s of apartment dwelling. “Roman Polanski made this gripping film which scares the audience through clever direction and storytelling and without the traditional horror movie "monster".” ( Hill, 1968)

Based on the novel Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (1967) “in Roman Polanski’s hands becomes a multi-layered, seminal horror film that exposes collective subconscious fears and cultural anxieties” (Valdez, 2009). In Polanski's psychological film there are such topic's that are touched upon  such as Satanism and motherhood making this film even more intriguing to watch.

Fig.2 Film Still

The creepy, eerie Gothic film is about a young couple moving into a  New York apartment and planning to start a family.  We first meet Rosemary and Guy as they are planning on moving into a large, rambling old apartment building in Central Park West that looks as if it is falling apart around them.  We find out in the beginning that the previous tenant of the apartment died mysteriously. So right from the start there is an unsettling tone to this film. They slowly and reluctantly become friends, with the overly-solicitous and intrusive elderly couple next door.  The following events slowly unfolded  through the eyes of Rosemary the naive young wife. Guy is an ambitious actor who will not stop at anything to make it to the big time, even willing to bargain with the devil and betray his wife. The true nature of what they have done to Rosemary is gradually revealed to us in the dramatic last 20 minutes of the film. Finding out that their neighbours are witches and that Guy has allowed them to impragnate Rosemary with the seed of the devil. Rosemary is trapped and alone forced to give bith to the spawn of Satan.

Fig.3 Film Still

In the final scene we see the triumphant of evil that is disturbing and can be said that “There is a certain touch of black humor in the proceedings that underlines the horror” ( Biodrowski, 2008) This is seen in the final scene when Rosemary herself and the audience actually find out that all the things that have happened to her were not just her imagination but that they were real. The baby is not shown but what we are given is a brief flashback to the red eyes that Rosemary saw in her dream earlier as well as being told that the baby itself is the spawn of Satan. Subtly it allows the audience to make up their own images/ideas of what it could look like. It could be said that the Rosemary’s Baby is actually a symbol of the Anti-Christ. Who will cause death and destruction to the world the total opposite to Christ. What is so chilling in this last scene is when Rosemary becomes one of them and even though she known’s that it is the Spawn of Satan her maternal instincts kick in. The film ending as we watch Rosemary rocking her baby to sleep.

Fig.4 Film Still

One thing that can be noticed is that “The film’s strength lies in the way that Polanski plays out the ambiguity in the drama” (Travers, 2005) The audience never known’s whether what we are seeing is real or just the hallucinations of Rosemary’s over-active imagination. In the end we are left with the conclusion that Rosemary’s experience were real after all.  Polanski film shows someone's experience of being paranoid and losing their sanity.  It is that well filmed that by the end the audience can understand how it feels to be paranoid just that little bit.

Fig.5 Film Still

Polanski’s Rosemary's Baby is one of those well-crafted movies that show the viewer that horror doesn't necessarily have to equate to blood and gore to be frightening.  

List of Illustrations

Figure 1 - Rosemary's Baby (1968) Rosemary's Baby Film Poster http://www.impawards.com/1968/rosemarys_baby.html (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Figure 2 - Rosemary's Baby (1968) Rosemary's Baby Film Still. http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/2010/11/02/million-dollar-movie-rosemarys-baby/ (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Figure 3 - Rosemary's Baby (1968) Rosemary's Baby Film Still. http://www.best-horror-movies.com/rosemarys-baby.html (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Figure 4 - Rosemary's Baby (1968) Rosemary's Baby Film Still. http://www.meetup.com/VegasArthouse/calendar/10060648/?eventId=10060648&action=detail (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Figure 4 - Rosemary's Baby (1968) Rosemary's Baby Film Still. http://www.damascusfest.com/en/film/details/Rosemary's++Baby/185 (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Bibliography

Hill, Simon. (1968) Celluloid Dreams. http://www.celluloiddreams.co.uk/rosemarysbaby.html (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Valdez, Ralph Anthony. ROSEMARY'S BABY. Rosemary's Baby - Film (Movie) Plot and Review - Publications http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Ro-Se/Rosemary-s-Baby.html#ixzz17QaUNali (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Biodrowski, Steve. (2008) Rosemary Baby (1968) – Horror Film Review. http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2008/04/film-review-rosemarys-baby-1968/ (Accessed on 21/12/2010)

Travers, James. (2005) Rosemary’s Baby (1968). http://filmsdefrance.com/FDF_Rosemarys_baby_rev.html (Accessed on 21/12/2010)