What does urban fantasy mean to you?
In my eyes, urban fantasy is quite literally a fictional place inhabited by a large population. whether it is set in a dystopian future, or on an unknown planet, the setting has to be fictional but somewhat realistic in comparison to just real world urbanisation.
The scenario
The target audience I am targeting this to will be people who live in the area and would like to re-imagine the landmarks of Milton Keynes and Bletchley in possibly a post apocalyptic, cyberpunk or even medieval style. The landmarks I’d hopefully be able to capture would be the Xscape, the stadium, the peace pagoda by Willen lake and the point as well as maybe some interior shots of Centre MK. It will be advertised through social media platforms based on the users current location. It will be a mix of real life footage and 3D animation. this is to strengthen my skills in 3D animation as well as strengthening my cinematography skills. The video can be experienced on you-tube so it can be accessed by anyone.
The Survey
As part of my research I sent out a survey onto the teams group for everyone in the year to use. it involved questions such as what they believe to be the most well known landmark of MK as well as what apocalyptic scenario they believe MK would be best suited for. Below are the responses gathered.
After the first survey, i recreated and improved it by adding further questions such as the style, any preferences and the audience. as shown below
From what I gathered, I came to the conclusion that the xscape is the most known landmark of Milton Keynes as well as the city being most suited in the event of a zombie apocalypse. with this in mind, I believe that it would be in the best interest to create the xscape in a post apocalyptic style.
2nd week
The Pitch
After my research i began working on a presentation for my pitch. below is the original version of the pitch before I presented it to my course leaders.
After presenting the pitch my course leaders gave me some feedback on the work I did, below is the feedback:
well done so far- Shown understanding of criteria, theme and understanding of the setting with research into the significance of Milton Keynes. Evidenced the research conducted and stated the sample. Justified reasoning for chosen project premise. Build upon the target audience profile you’ve begun to establish here as some parts and questions mentioned previously haven’t been considered but yet make for an excellent profile. -TC
With the feedback provided, I will target the weak points and ensure they are just as strong as the rest, such as the target audience profile.
Target audience remake
For my piece of work, I will target it towards students between the age range of 16-24 that have been living within the area of Milton Keynes for at least 10 years. that have an interest in a zombie apocalypse within a 3D animation style. It will be advertised through social media websites such as You-tube, Tiktok or Instagram due to its high amount of users within the specified age range. It will be used as a way re-ignite the interest of Milton Keynes in the younger population and induce ways for people to meet up with their friends as it will have a subtle metaphor of the activities that could be done around the area of Xscape.
3rd week
Energizer
The goal for unit 9/10 is to create a piece of urban fantasy media within the Milton Keynes area based on a chosen landmark.
My goal for today is to create concepts for the idea chosen.
Feedback of the idea
After speaking to my tutor about my idea he stated what could be done to help create a strong story for the piece of work. what he recommended was creating small pieces such as posters and flyers of before the place became overrun, pieces of equipment and military stations to lead into the idea that there was an attempt to tackle the outbreak.
The Production
When I began my creation of the project, I started by researching the layout of the Xscape as well as its measurements, I found out that the height of the building is 44 metres tall and combined with the map of the building I found on google, I will be able to create and almost perfect replica of the building. Below is the layout I used to help guide me
After I imported the image into Blender, I began work on creating a base plane to use, I followed the edges of the building, ensuring that the model was as close to real life as possible. I ensured it was symmetrical by using a mirror modifier, This allowed me to have an even plane. I then extended the edges and created the front plane. This would prove to be the most difficult as if it wasn’t perfectly round it would look unnatural. Once I completed the front face I added the two tubes and the screen at the front to complete the face of the building. I believe I could have improved the model by adding more detail to the screen by possibly adding a still image as well as adding the Xscape logo.
Next, I began work on the most difficult part, being the slanted, curved roof. To ensure that the roof was smooth, I had to make sure that both the front and the back of the building had an equal amount of edge loops to connect to, Otherwise it would be uneven and create visual problems when texturing the model. Below is the roof I created.
Afterwards, I seperated the roof from the rest of the model, I did this by selecting all the edge loops and vertices on the roof and seperating them by new mesh. This would allow me to create a seperate texture for the roof which would be used to add a derelict feel to the design. Before texturing, however, I decided to switch to Zbrush to create a quick but detailed model of a zombie in my style, I decided to take inspiration from the last of us zombies as well as the zombies from the new modern warfare 3 game. We’ve the inspirations in mind I created a zombie that had no facial features as to suggest that the disease has grown around it, taking control of its body completely, and where the zombie got infected or injured, there would be crystalisation to suggest that the blood would freeze as soon as it contacted air.
after saving the project and exporting it as a .obj file, I imported it into blender and then scaled it to the average height of a UK male; that being around 1.7m. Once imported I experimented with cloth physics to simulate ripped clothing on the zombies, however this proved challenging and would have many errors when I attempted to bake the physics, I believe this is due to the difference in poly count between the clothes and the zombie model, This is due to Zbrush creating high poly meshes whereas Blender starts with low poly meshes which can the be improved to high poly if the user requests it.
To finalise the product, I used the knife tool to create holes and cuts within the mesh to make it seem like the Xscape is falling apart. once I complete dthat I began working on the textures of the models, for the zombies I used a simple musgrave green texture to make it look like rotting flesh. For the Xscape, However, I created two separate textures, one for the roof and one for the sides, this is so the whole model isn’t a songle texture. for the roof, I utilised noise textures, wave textures, musgrave textures and brick textures as well as a bump modifier to create the illusion of a rusty metal roof. For the sides I used a glossy bsdf, wave texture, bump and reflections to make a glass styles walling like the actual building. I believed it went okay. Finally, I created a quick model of the Ifly zone at the back of the Xscape and completed my model to render.
Review of work produced
To conclude these units I believe that I did well in my modelling of the Xscape to a 1:1 scale as well as adding high detail to the zombie mesh. What I need to improve on is the texturing of the zombie as well as its animation, I believe those factors stopped the immersion of the scene.
