Hingeway Streets

Brief

To create a believable, urban environment, displaying the hallmarks of development over multiple phases of history; while still being in keeping with a fictional, and fantastical setting.

Medium

Computer generated three dimensional images, processed to resemble woodcuts.

Tools

Strata 3D 5, Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Illustrator CS.

Aesthetic Abstrace

The primary aesthetic goal for this project was to utilise rendered three dimensional imagery in a fashion which didn't attempt to replicate photographic imagery. The industrial revolution era imagery of the setting suggested the medium of illustrative plate as a fair technique to try and replicate.

Setting Abstract

This project was conceived as excepts from a tabletop roleplaying game setting book, so each piece is accompanied by a section of ‘flavour text’ describing something about the scene, and it’s significance within the setting.

Distorted Space|Time and it's use in Fictional Urban Planning

Hingeway exists within the warping of space which surrounds the healed over scar of a gateway between worlds, this scar emanates a warping effect upon the fabric of reality. The weight of the scar tissue twists the shape of Space|Time around it, creating a volume of Space|Time which is non-contiguously connected to the Space|Time around it.

Put simply this means that the entrances and exits from the warped space do not relate to the normal Space|Time around them in the way you might expect, e.g. Two roads which exit the warped space running parallel are unlikely to run parallel in normal space, indeed they may be on opposite sides of the city, or they may be the same road but leading to and from different days, or the roads may not exit into the city which contains the warped space.

Dislocated areas of Space|Time is a popular device in 'contemporary fantasy'; one of the genres which the Gateway College setting fits into; this device was used in a most memorable way by the author Neil Gaiman in his novel and television series Neverwhere, which is set in a London which exists under, above and around modern day London. Called London Below it is a world wove of forgotten places, fairy tales, myths, legends, and the disposed; where The Angel Islington is precisely what his name suggests, where Blackfriars Underground Station is home to an order of Dominican monks, and The Gap is truly something to be mindful of.

Methodology

Inspiration for the process used to turn rendered images into etchings was taken from an article documenting the process by which the footage for the 2004 retro-futurist pulp-adventure film “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” was modified to give it the appearance of various degraded period film stocks in order to evoke the feel of classic pulp serials from 1930s and 40s.

This soft-focus style was dropped in favour of a transformation process which would give the Strata renders appearance of an etching, or a woodcut plate illustration such as might be found in an old fashioned book. While this is by no means a unique concept, it is one which has somewhat fallen by the wayside in favour of reating imagery which is progressively more, and more “photo-realistic“; this perceived need for realism can have a terrible dampening effect on the creative freedom of the 3D artist.

The actual technique for processing the image took some muddling over to produce satisfactory results, though eventually a technique utilising four layers was hit upon which could be successfully applied to almost all images with little modification. The process to transform a rendering into a virtual etching is, in layer stack order from bottom to top, thus:

  • On a duplicate of the original image layer apply the 'Chalk & Charcoal' filter with the settings of, 'Charcoal area: 15', 'Chalk area: 10', and 'Stroke Pressure: 10'. Set the layer Opacity to 50%.
    This layer provides some subtle background shading to the image, which is not quite true to the etching style, but can be passed off as the image having been give a light watercolour wash.
  • On a duplicate of the original image layer apply the 'Stamp' filter with the settings of, 'Light/Dark Balance: 20', and 'Smoothness: 10'. Set the layer Opacity to 30%, and the layer Blending Mode to 'Multiply'.
    This layer provides block shadow elements to the image, though quite pale on its own, it provides just enough extra pigment in combination with the other layers, to give well defined shadows.
  • On a duplicate of the original image layer apply the 'Photocopy' filter with the settings of, 'Detail: 10', and 'Darkness: 15'. Set the layer Opacity to 50%, and the layer Blending Mode to 'Multiply'.
    This layer gives hard outlines to the image, giving definition to shapes which are blurred over by the other filters. It is adds another layer of shadow detail to the image.
  • On a duplicate of the original image layer apply the 'Graphic Pen' filter with the settings of, 'Stroke Length: 5', 'Light/Dark Balance: 30', and 'Stroke Direction: Right Diagonal'. Set the layer Opacity to 100%, and the layer Blending Mode to 'Multiply'.
    This layer is the one which gives the distinctive 'scratchy' look of an etching, the short strokes allow the layer to defines the fine detailing of the image.
  • Disable the original image layer to reveal the final effect.

These setting will produce an acceptable image in most situations, though if the image to be transformed is particularly light, or dark some tweaking of the settings will be in order as the process will intensify this in the resulting image.