In the year 2080, the advent of artificial intelligence brought forth massive international division towards the attitudes regarding machine personhood. Havana, a once neutral territory in the ongoing conflict between the Vanguards and Loyalists has become a battleground, deciding the fate of the future of humankind.
For my demo reel, I wanted to showcase my ability to tell stories through framing, lighting and composition.
I was heavily inspired by questions regarding potential issues that might arise in the future.
One of the biggest questions that came to mind is the potential civil unrest that might arise from the advent of the singularity.
Specifically, the debate of personhood for artificial intelligence: will sentient machines share the same civil rights as we do?
The key inspirations for my scenes came from a variety of sources, but most of them consist of cyberpunk references found from other amazing artists on Artstation.
While trying to come up with a consistent theme for a story, I was interested in creating a vision of a moody, dystopian futuristic city.
I was initially influenced by Final Fantasy XV's city, Lestallum, and wanted to create a similar environment that was rundown, and futuristic, but also seemed familiar and vintage.
Upon further research, I found that FFXV’s main reference for their city, Lestallum, came from Cuba, Havana, and immediately set about trying to study different spanish colonial architectural styles.
I wanted to create a scene that had an interesting contrasting dynamic between something traditional, but also very new.
A lot of the level design and composition found in my scenes were also inspired from Blade Runner, and other artists on Artstation.
SungWook Jang's work on Blade Runner, as well as Cornelius Dämmrich, and his elegant use of asymmetrical one-point perspective, come to mind in particular for learning how to block scenes out.
For prop design, I closely followed Maarten Hof and his attention to prop detail and modularity.
By studying how he created his specific props- and what programs he used to create the texture and detail of the assets, (as well as understanding PBR workflow) I learned how to plan and map out my environment in a way that was both artistic but cost-effective.
Overall, the project took around 7 months to complete (with some assets already previously built beforehand) and challenged and pushed my artistic skills beyond my perceived limits.
I learned a lot during the process, and am very thankful to my family, friends, and mentors for all the support they have given me throughout this entire experience.
Modeled/UV Mapped in Maya, Normals baked with NDO, Textured in Photoshop/Substance Painter, Rendered using Unreal Engine 4.
Artstation Link:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gZP8Z