[WIP] Enlighten Contest - A Peculiar Discovery

WiktorWasowski

I am so excited I have finally found some time to work on my entry!

I have several visions for the final look. There is a chance I'll attempt to make more than one scene, but for now I sticked to one which is a nighttime sci-fi museum. It used to be a dig site, but it was transformed into an exhibition after a large and unusual pyramid-shaped artifact of unknown origin was uncovered.
Actually, it could also be just.. a courtyard with some kind of a contemporary statue or fountain in the middle. A place to relax, talk to people and stare at the marvelous monument. I'll probably come up with the right story as I progress with the design.
I don't plan to add any geometry or textures as it's not the point of this contest anyway. I may ultimately decide to modify some textures a little bit, but for now I don't feel I need to do it.

WiktorWasowski

I'm still exploring the current approach and I think it's slowly getting somewhere

WiktorWasowski

I worked a bit on my second scene. The idea here was to make a good use of all these awesome narrow spaces and geometrical forms that the Courtyard is composed of. I really wanted to achieve a very strong contrast between areas that are lit and those covered with shadows. For this I decided to use a very limited amount of lights, but make them very strong and passed through these narrow spaces I mentioned before. As a result I started to think of the Courtyard as a kind of an astronomical structure that reveals its secrets only on a specific day at a specific time when the sun hits it from the right direction. It doesn't necessarily work that way (mostly because I chose to use nighttime), but this vision currently drives my creativity.

WiktorWasowski

I revisited the first scene to polish it. After a few iterations I ended up with something that gives me what I was looking for in terms of balance, contrast and color scheme. I'll now look for additional spots I could shoot photos from. This obviously doesn't mean I won't tweak the lighting and effects for another one hundred times, but for now I'd call the shot below my first candidate for one of the final entries.

J

I realy love your entry. You' ve well choose your color and the idee of " astronomical structure " is great !

Dox

Good job. I've a question what plugin do you use for bloom/glow? It looks cool.

WiktorWasowski

Thanks, guys!
@Dox For Bloom I just used the one that was attached to the camera in the project, but I also use Light Shafts by Robert Cupisz, which is probably what you're looking for! 

WiktorWasowski

For some reason I'm not allowed to post in the Final Submissions thread and all attempts to post there result in a message saying that I need to wait until a moderator approves my post. Until it's fixed, I post my submission below.

"A Peculiar Discovery" and "The Reveal" by Wiktor Wąsowski

A Peculiar Discovery

My first scene portrays a structure that was built on a dig site after an unusual object of unknown origin has been uncovered. The artifact appeared to be too heavy to be taken out of the desert so it got surrounded by modern architecture to form a museum instead.

I chose nighttime because It helped me achieve mysterious and dark atmosphere. Another reason is that I simply didn’t want the daylight ambience to interfere with my composition.

For the colors, I wanted to end up with something purplish, because I had a feeling it can help me get a little bit of sci-fi flavor into the scene. I decided to use blue as a dominant color and I paired it with red for contrast. However, as a result I felt I somewhat lost the coldness I aimed for so I decided to shift the red lights a little bit towards pink. This gave me the colors I needed for this scene.

I didn’t really use anything as inspirations and references, because I preferred to reach my goal through experimentation. However, my color choice was influenced by Temple of Athame from Mass Effect 3 because this was the first thing that came to my mind when I envisioned a dark and mysterious science fiction museum.

The Reveal

The second part of my entry depicts a building designed by talented engineers, mathematicians and astronomers in ancient times. Lying in a remote location, the structure only reveals its secrets once a year on a specific day and time. Nobody has succeeded in fully deciphering the information yet, but interestingly, it seems to relate to Stonehenge and the pyramids of Giza.

In this case I planned to create a great contrast between light and dark. I decided to use a very limited amount of lights but make them strong and really standing out. I really wanted to make good use of geometrical forms and shapes the Courtyard is composed of because I felt it will help me reinforce my astronomical theme. I focused on finding the correct places to pass the light through and quickly realized which one is going to work best.

For the mood I wanted to keep the palette toned and rather realistic for an ancient sandstone structure raised on a desert. I stayed with orange (kind of) as the dominant color but decided to kick in some subtle, cold blue and purple wherever I can to counter our nature to perceive orange as hot. I wanted to create a feeling that the stones that are the foundation of this building are cold and have been like this for millennia. They belong to a lost and long forgotten civilization.

bent_vector

Love the idea and your additional lighting structures.

HeliosDoubleSix

Congrats on Winning! - Love the mood you have achieved, and the 2 tone blue/red contrast works really well, the striking contrast of the super bright mysterious light sources give it a whole different feel, I can just imagine it all animated together as scene from a film, as light slowly emerges and beams out causing simultaneous wonder and concern as to what happens next

WiktorWasowski

Thank you!