Aug 22 - Work commenced early Saturday evening. After repeated false starts, head-desking, software idiocy and four hours of lighting tests, I finally got a grip on the scene by taking the minimalist route. This isn't Jason's apartment, which needed some degree of detail for future scenes. This is effectively a throwaway environment, and to spend more than a day on it - counting production renders - would be a massive waste of time. Thus the result - salvaged environment shots from operative -6-, boxes from The Dualist, the chair from Whitehouse's apartment, and a flurry of quickly produced, basic models. The environment would fall apart of the camera panned. but it doesn't need to. One of the joys of storyboarding this thing out in advance. End result of corner-cutting and on-the-fly modeling? 23 hours from "dammit, WHY DOESN'T ANYTHING EXPORT CORRECTLY!" to "time for line art!"

While that's considerably longer than the setup time for a prepared environment, it's a friggin' record for going in cold. To date the only other example of "spot modeling" that I can think of is Raven and Tantek's bit in the first scene of Impact - and all told, that took quite a bit longer.

2010.08.25 - Ba-ba-bootay!

Also, the circle is a very slight variation on the QAR circle. Both serve as a psychosomatic foci, and both are largely ornamental so far as the story is concerned. Jesse could just as easily stare at goats without it.