Month: November 2022

Scene 1: Soldiers Standing guard.

Soldier POV

Camera tilts down towards gun that the character is holding. Camera then pans across to fellow soldier who is also standing guard of the building accompanied by 2 vehicles, a tank and an anti-air missile system.

Other soldier acknowledges POV soldier, and both give each other a nod of the head.

Soldiers then hear a vehicle coming down the road, and both then look towards it, camera POV pans back to the original location and views the oncoming armored vehicle.

Armored vehicle progresses up the road towards the camera.

Soldier who is inside the armored vehicle waves towards the camera as the vehicle passes the two soldiers and continues on.

Camera continues looking around observing the environment.

Loud explosion occurs and camera shakes violently, soldier then moves his gun to the upright position. and looks around.

Camera pans left towards the second soldier, who has now turned to the left and is witnessing the explosion go off in the background.

The light from the explosion gets extremely bright and the soldier where the camera is located raises his hand to cover his eyes as it gets too bright.

Screen then goes white, explosion consumes the location.

Scene 2: Soldiers discovered many years later.

Scene begins with a white screen left over from the previous scene, the words “30 Years Later” appear in the center.

White screen fades into the same area but it now looks destroyed and beaten down.

First person view showing the body of the soldier previously used as the POV for the previous scene. Time has passed therefore the soldier has a skull in place of his face.

The POV character moves his arms around moving the body of the soldier, lifting arms up and removing rubble from under the soldiers arm.

Camera pans to the right where it shows the other man in a poncho inspecting the other soldiers’ body Infront of the destroyed building.

Camera then changes to a wide shot of the whole area; this includes the destroyed vehicles previously seen intact. The wind is very strong in this area, and can be heard clearly throughout the wideshot.

Both men in ponchos in wide shot continue rummaging around the area where the soldiers are and after 10-15 seconds the scene fades out slowly.

I have created several prototypes for my animation, in this blog post I will go through some that I have made and have descriptions about them.

Vehicle Movement

In this video I am testing the movement animation for the vehicle I want to use, in the final piece this will be in the start of the animation, driving towards the main camera.

Intro to animation

In this video, the beginning of the animation is shown in its prototype phase with blockout assets for some of the models and no textures visible, this is so i can get a mainly complete idea produced quickly before I refine, model and combine everything together to create the final piece.

Intro to animation 2

After i made the initial prototype to the animation start, i carried on working on it, adding new animations and features to it, below are 2 versions that I made, the first being without textures, and the second having textures as it’s a test render.

I made this rendered and textured prototype because I wanted to make sure that it is all viable and works well together and that nothing sticks out over anything else, I also made it to make sure that I was able to create different versions of prototypes with varying level of quality/ completion.

My digital storytelling piece is set in a mountainous region of eastern Europe. It is very grassy despite being in the mountains and has a lot of snow due to the altitude.

The year of my piece is split between 2025 and 2055, a 30-year gap separating both parts.

The story has multiple humans in it, it begins with soldiers in 2025 and ends in 2025 with people who are similar to cavemen, forgoing off of the ground for berries and searching for animals to eat.

Theme

My story is about a group of soldiers which are in a nuclear strike against their location in WW3 before it switches to many years later when primitive inspired people come across them wearing animal fur ponchos and trousers Aswell as them holding bows and sticks.

My story is really an interpretation of Einstein’s famous quote about World War 3 and 4, where he doesn’t know what World War 3 will be fought with, however World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones. In addition to this it’s also about the fact that nuclear war will not be good for anyone or anything and that it would doom humanity.

“I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

In my Digital Storytelling piece there are not many characters, and only two types of characters, the first being soldiers, and the second being primitive inspired humans. Below is a rough overview of both types of characters and what they do in my animation.

Soldiers

The soldiers in my story are from a private military company, they have soviet era vehicles and have multiple outposts in the area that my animation is set in. They are quite ruthless and always get the job, whatever it is, done. They wear green uniforms with green helmets, and often balaclavas to cover their identities.

Primative people

The people who discover the soldiers after the nuclear blast are inspired by prehistoric humans with fur clothes and big boots, they have stick weapons and bows just so that it sticks with the theme of the story. These people have lived off the land ever since WW3 happened and they have very long hair because nobody cuts hair anymore at that point in time.

For my digital storytelling piece i will have a wide selection of assets that will be used, below is a list of the assets that I will be using throughout my animation and whether or not I made them.

Building (Destroyed and intact)- Self-made.

Soldier- Already made.

Weapon- Already made.

Mountains- Self-made.

Signs- Self-made.

Vehicles- Already made.

Nuclear Explosion- Self-made.

Primitive inspired humans- Already made humans, self-made clothes.

Spears and bow and arrows- Self-made.

Skeleton skull- Already made.

Sounds (wind, explosion etc)- Already made/creative commons.

References

Sketchfab.com (2022), (human skull). Available online: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/human-skull-47cc028cf6754cd8914e80447b94b39b Accessed online [2/11/22]

Quixel.com (2022), Environmental assets, Available online: Quixel Bridge – Manage 3D content and export with one click Accessed online [29/10/22]

Steam.com (2022), Weapons, vehicles & soldier assets, Available online: https://store.steampowered.com/app/393380/Squad/ Accessed online [28/10/22]

Idea 1

Digital Environment of a past battle between Japanese warriors, smoke billowing from half destroyed Japanese shrines. Samurais litter the country side with swords, and carts scattered around them.

Idea 2

Short animation in a digital environment where 2 primative human inspired people overlook the bodies of very futuristic soldiers with futuristic weapons laying around them and destroyed buildings with exposed insides stand behind them. This is inspired by Albert Einstein’s famous quote, “I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.”

The animation includes the primative inspired people wearing ponchos and animal Skin outfits that keep them warm while the soldiers wear camouflaged uniforms that fully conceals their bodies as well as helmets. The cavemen bend down to inspect the soldiers.

There is also multiple sounds within this, such as strong wind sounds that indicate the wind is quite strong, and possibly a hum. The environment will have a yellow or an off colour hue to demonstrate that nukes went off and that the world is still recovering from such a war. The environment will also include snow which is off colour too. I also intend to include a Geiger counter on one of the soldiers with the sound playing throughout the animation to indicate the radio activeness of the scene.

Idea 3

The final idea I have for this is an updated variant of idea 2, instead of futuristic soldiers, I wish to have modern looking soldiers. I also plan to have an intro section which includes the soldiers while they are alive, before nuclear war occurs and before this specific nuke goes off in the area of the story.

After I have this intro done then I will have a mostly similar layout to idea 2 with the primitive humans in ponchos looking at and searching the soldiers.