Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Welcome back to the Caribbean, me hearties!




Now, let's reset the lights and turn daylight into night:


And here's the set itself, without the character, as the camera backs away through the arched gateway...



Sets, props, costumes, lights, cameras, characters, hair -- the whole 3D works went into this. Here's a list of what was used:

Port of Tortuga set and props;
Michael 4;
Spartacos hair;
Matthias skin map;
Journeyer Scout costume...

Plus about ten lights and loads of camera positions -- I basically drove the camera around, chasing the character, once I had the lights set up.

The set is absolutely fantastic. First, there's a huge assortment of props -- I think it's four different houses, plus a mission with a belltower, several walls and wall segments, a fountain, a well, a cart, a street lamp ... even a gallows, if you wanted to stage an execution!

I'm reminded of the big pirate movie of 1975, The Scarlet Buccaneer, also known as Swashbuckler. You missed it? Boy, did you miss out. Robert Shaw, James Earl Jones, Genevieve Bujold, Peter Boyle, Beau Bridges, Geoffery Holder, Henry Kingi -- with a fantastic musical soundtrack (which I have on LP - yep, plastic!), and the whole thing shot entirely on location on a real ship which is a replica of the Golden Hind. Don't believe a word of this? Well --

Here's the trailer:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3632726297/

--sorry I can't embed that, but it's not available at YouTube (I looked), but imdb.com does have it, and it's the long trailer. Just overlook the hokey 1970s era readover and concentrate on the trailer itself. There you go ... I'm not making it up after all --

Anyway, the set here is the Port of Tortuga set from Renderosity and what I like about it is, it's freeform. You get the buildings and walls and things, and you put your own town together, which is cool beyond describing. Full marks to the designer, also, because s/he managed to bring the props in at a file size which doesn't stress the computer to death.

The other great thing about this set is -- it's not merely Tortuga It's virtually any small town, circa 1750, which means you can do so much with this. Five stars out of five, and then some.

Jade, 3 August