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September 13, 2004
The Making of the perfect Christmas Tree
It's Christmas at Kat Caverly Studios
The whole studio is a buzz with Christmas. We are making a list and doing things twice! Everyone is involved as we prepare to make the best Christmas e-greeting ever.
I decided to be the one to create the perfect Christmas Tree.
This animation will feature an illustration of a Victorian parlor on Christmas morning, with a traditional tree decorated with beautiful ornaments. These ornaments and the lights will actually be photographs and the special ornaments will feature the technology of Object VR (virtual reality), all built and coded using Macromedia Flash.
I decided to create the tree using a 3D program and after days of research, ended up using XFrog. To create the look of the branches and needles of my precious spruce, we travelled to Central Park and did a detail photograph of a blue spruce leaf, on location.
I used Photoshop CS to create the texture map and after days of testing, arrived at the solution for the look I wanted!
Because I am using both a full image in a 800x600 pixel animated e-card, and close-up inserts for the Object VR, I needed to render two different resolutions of the tree model. Once the background illustration is complete, I will use LightWave 8 to light the tree to match, if needed. Mostly I plan to make any adjustments using Photoshop CS.
There will be an animated angel who brings the room to life. Snow (of course) and roaring fire in a fireplace and we are producing arrangements of timeless Christmas music to complete our scene.
One of the things I love most about designing greetings cards and e-cards, is that I get to totally immerse myself in the holidays 3 times each year. I love Christmas so much, I have decorated my office with my ornament collection. I have over 100 ornaments and growing!
Posted by photocartoonist at September 13, 2004 11:42 PM