Phew, what a crazy time we live in, right? Paradoxically, the spread of the Corona virus that isolated most of us in voluntary self-isolation, also increased creativity in most of us, 3D artists… right? I mean, what else is there to do that’s better than your personal projects? Apart from tutorials, movies, TV series, games, books, board games, long telephone calls with parents, long philosophical conversations with your close ones, counting toilet paper rolls… OK, apart from THAT, I think we can all agree, that working on your personal projects is the best thing you can use this quarantine for.
So… I am. I finally jumped into finishing many of the most important environments - like the city of ancient Athens, right around 490 BC. This is not the city you know from all the paintings, books and from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. This is Athens before the great temples and statue of Athena were built, before the city was burnt by Xerxes. You can have a look at its visualization here, on the Ancient Athens 3D project website.
Anyway, I was finally able to finish the gates of Athens, through which the city’s army marched out, towards Marathon.
While we’re at it, you can have a look here, at the Eevee preview of the scene.
I am also working on one of the more difficult scene for the film, which is not yet finished, but I will post an ambient occlusion pass here anyway. Lots of new assets in this one, especially the horses, the chariot, crowds, houses, oh… and the archaic Acropolis of course. Still quite a lot of work ahead, but getting there.
Here, you can see just one of the assets for this scene, a stall. It is barely visible, in the background - but it’s there! :-)
Oh, and the shields. Let’s not forget the shields. I always knew that I simply do not have enough aspis decorations for my short film - after all, there was A LOT of hoplites at Marathon and most of them liked to adorn their aspidae with unique emblem. Luckily, I found a magnificent package of these on CGTrader, so I immediately bought them and simply love them. These will get along marvelously with my own shield assets.
And, of course, in between the environments and assets, I am still improving the characters for the film. Apart from some generic crowd characters, I also worked some more on Nikephoros. I made him a brand new 3D eyebrow. Thanks to it, he looks perpetually “not impressed”. One thing I also learned - Corinthian helmets at the time did not have large ear holes. Soo, it seems I will have to redo my helmet models. Oh, well….
And finally, a new model I am working on right now is this Persian noble. While it is true that most of the famous Persian cavalry regiments were not present on the Marathon battlefield, at least some riders appeared and made the hoplites’ lives difficult. So, I obviously need to have them there too. Work in progress of course.
And with that, let me wish you good health and lots of creative spirit. Let’s hope this quarantine will lift off soon :-)
Chairé!
Martin
