Since joining this class and diving head first into the amazing challenges and lessons it has to offer, I have had one thing on my mind: “Oh good lord, what have I done.”
My name is Kyle Cordova and I am the artistic lead for the WARBRINGERS project. As a brief introduction, I pitched to our class a project from a recent World of Warcraft cinematic called Warbringers: Jaina, in which Jaina Proudmoore uses her magic to raise the sunken remains of the ship of her father, who she had betrayed long ago. The video below starts at the point when the effect happens (though the whole cinematic definitely deserves a watch!)
So yeah. We are going to dredge a massive ship from the ocean. And it’s going to look awesome.
The Team and The Mission
Our team, which consists of myself, Kaan Toy, Julie Zuniga, and Darshan Desai, decided that we want to make this effect as a pitch for practical use in an amusement park which means a few things:
- The effect must be reasonably practical for large scale use.
- The effect must make the audience feel small.
- The final reel we shoot in this class would be the ‘Trailer’ video we would use to sell the idea to a large theme park.
To break it down further, part one necessitates us to put some thought into how the mechanisms used for our small scale product would work in the real world, such as the lift system and the size of the boat. Part two reminds us of the look and feel of the original cinematic, we need to inspire wonder and awe above all else. And lastly part three holds us accountable; in spite of parts one and two, our primary objective is to make it look great!
What We’ve Been Up To So Far
We began our project with a maquette and design brief so that we could explain our idea in 3D space and have a plan for our concept going forward. After deciding on scale, we started prototyping away! Our first week we were still getting our bearings so it definitely was not the most efficient we could be, we all worked together on the same prototype for our mast, which we need to telescope down to a smaller size when the ship is underwater.
Learning from this, we decided to branch out and have our own individual prototypes due for the next Monday! Julie is taking care of the look and feel of our ship by researching into possible paint and texture treatments and making samples. Kaan is working on designing a model for our hull by combining skills like kit-bashing and 3D modeling. Darshan in tackling the lift system, how are we going to raise this thing? And I have been dipping my toes into 3D modeling and printing for the Masts version 2 which has been a LOT to learn.
We have a great challenge ahead of us, we need to build our boat and our mechanisms by our filming date on November 12th. So much to do, so little time. In spite of this, I know we will succeed. We are the Warbringers team, and we will bring in the navy.
