Grand Space Opera 2D Entry: Peter Davis

#2


Hey guys! i almost forgot about ye-olde cgnetworks challenge this time round! good to see im incredibly late for another challenge, even though this is my first CGnetwork’s challenge. lots of good stuff up already!

Sorry, but i have a small issue to post:
The concept that is is my 3d section has been moved to my 2d section and will not be used as a 3d concept from this point forward. Apologies for any confusion this may cause.

OK! unfortunately im up to my cha-cha’s in busy work, so my section wont be the most interesting. this is mostly to stake my claim and lay down my concept.

this is the jist of it (a story will come later)
-civilisation built spherical complex around a sun: all light harvested inside, entire outer surface harvests light outside.
-needed room to expand, so tried to ‘swallow’ other planets.
-gravitational forces interfered and the sun became unstable. through part and parcel, the stuctural integrity of the complex collapsed, and there was a massive explosion.

beyond the issues of lighting and the fact that what ive just said is most likely physically impossible (=P), thats the main basic concept, as far as the physical elements are concerned.

#3

just sime simple geometry to give the composition a run through. i like the one on the left.
basically, its the inside of the planet that has the geography. the entire outside surface absobs light and fuels the planet. the column through the middle transfers energy between poles. the story behind the other planet will come later.

its hard to get a sense of scale with this crappy concept, but imagine the smaller planet to be the size of earth.

#4

ok, heres the background story:

[i]The people of the planet Sancta were a tremendously religious people, and were blessed enough to have an entire race united under a single set of fundamental beliefs. Through the millennia, they developed technology and adapted research in a futile effort to create their god in flesh and blood, failing on several disastrous occasions.[/i]

[i]When inter-galactic war finally arrived at Sancta, the people, unwilling to wage war and gamble the lives of their people, executed another attempt at creating their god in a form that could protect them physically. They failed. The results were ruinous. The resulting cataclysm was successful in destroying their enemies, but also drove the race close to extinction.[/i]

[i]Driven by faith alone, the survivors of Sancta traversed the galaxy in the colony ship Eleison in the hopes of gathering resources to survive and bring into physical form their new home.[/i]

[i]Hundreds of generations later, after finding the brightest sun they could find, the people of Sancta utilised their abundance of knowledge to create their new world – Coronam Vitae. It was a shell of a planet – the outer layer was exposed to enormous amounts of heat and light, but was implemented to harness this power to fuel and heat the terraformed surface that lay thriving on the other side of the wall.[/i]

[i]And so the people of Coronam Vitae lived contently. This is where they prayed, however, their god was angered that they abandoned their home world in its hour of need. But what angered him more so was their lack of faith. By trying to embody their god in a physical form, they expressed a subliminal disbelief in their god. And so their god sought to smite them.[/i]

[i]Their god sent the planet Iudicium hurling towards Coronam Vitae.

[/i] Translations (for those who think it will be interesting)

[i]Coronam Vitae – Crown of life[/i]

[i]Sancta – sacred/holy[/i]

[i]Eleison – mercy[/i]

[i]Iudicium – judgement

[/i]


unfortunately, i have assessment due tomorrow, and however much more interesting it is to work on a CG networks project, i have a degree to earn. out!

#5

Hello Peddy,

Came over to see what you are up too and WOW! I love the concept1. The idea is based on the Dysons Sphere theory? cool idea :thumbsup:

Good luck my fellow Aussie and will be back to see updates.

#6

Dyson’s Sphere Theory? damn, i must be behind in my Science trivia. a quick stab at google and wikipedia didnt show much, but i can only assume the obvious. i did however manage to discover that “the “Dyson Sphere” theory (which has been associated with Freeman Dyson for dubious reasons) has been shown to be an unstable physical conformation. Neat idea, but impossible to maintain.”

slightly disheartening, but i looked at the judging process, and it doesnt say it has to be physically possible/feasible. sweet!

#7

I love the concept story!! Cant wait to see some refined sketches.

Jose

#8

Excellent concept mate, obviously extremely well thought out and planned. A real neat backstory to set the scene certainly helps to visualise what your trying to put accross. Will definately keep an eye out for updates as you progress. Keep it up, thanks for you comments in my thread.

Its not rare but us aussies seem to be few and far between in these comps it good to see more of us around here showing off their tallent amongst all the other great artists from all over the world. Have a good one.:thumbsup: :beer:

#9

the planet crashes into the outer surface of Coronam Vitae. as this surface harnesses and processes and enormous amount of energy for the entire planet, the result of a planet crashing into its surface is a chain reaction that creates a spherical supernova effect that bursts from the outer surface, sending shrapnel (think very BIG chunks of shrapnel though =]) and an enormous energy wave outwards.

On top of that, even though the geography of the planet has a troposphere and other outer layers (although on the inside), busting a hole in the side causes the vacuum of space to suck everything out, including energy from the column in the centre that had been fractured from debris.

My first idea is to change the planet Iudicium into a small star with the same name (think Fifth Element) to make it more consistent. If the god was so angered by the destruction of Sancta, I doubt he’s that eager to go throwing planets around like a metaphorical game of dodgeball.

But my main query is whether to portray all ive mentioned so far from inside or outside the planet. Ive given a slight idea of what both will kinda look like, but I plan to extrapolate. Thing is, the view from the outside will have impact on a greater scale I feel, but the inside view will be more personal and possibly tell more of a story. (if only it were possible to do a psycho pan that shows both, but I cant image how =])

Im sorry I cant give any visual representations at this time, but if you could all give me your opinions or advice on how I should approach this, itd be very helpful!

  Pete.
#10

Yep, I just can’t get enough of these challanges. Good luck to you too friend. It’s like I said with the machine flesh, even if you don’t win a prize you are sure to have other artists look at your work.

#11

You’re right, it doesn’t have to be phisically possible, nevertheless I must ask where they got all the material to build that shell-thing which is mutch bigger than the brightest sun they could find which I guess is incomparable in size to any planet orbiting it… :scream:

What about an view from outside, but near the hole so that we can see both, the inside and the outside? Though it would be difficult then to portrait the sun…

Good luck to you!

#12

Peddy, thanks for your comments on my thread.

I think you have a sweet concept and you’ve obviously done a lot of thinking here. I like the original concept sketch, but I dont really understand what is going on entirely. I think it’s a problem of your value system, talking tones not religious beliefs. If that is a star inside the outer crust-like thing, then the inside would be much more lit up, and the star would be blinding making the outer crust appear as a sillouette against it.

I need to see the other composition camera angles more fleshed out to give feedback on them.

I’ll be checking back.

#13

Peddy-
Here’s an idea, you might try showing some of “shell” in the foreground- so you can actually see some of the civilization. This would really force the scale, and allow for all kinds of drama if it were cracking apart. As it is it’s a really cool idea, but there’s nothing in the picture to tell you how massive it is, no point of reference.

Good luck with school!

#14

Lol possibility is overrated. The concept is dope, i’ve subscribed to this thread in fact.

#15

Yeah, i love the whole Dyson Sphere concept :slight_smile:
Good to see things are all going well on the home front too - hoping to come back home before i start to like it here LOL.

Yeah, absolutley, this is a great concept - its got grand scale, potential for incredible detail, and plenty of depth.

Subscribes

#16

replies are always good =]

coCoKNIght, funkbuttah: yeah the sun things a bit whack, so thats why i dont mention it in the story, cos i took it out.

coCoKNIght: refer to what malcolmvexxed said :slight_smile:

ebrowning: about the shell in the foreground, yes, its a very solid angle and im glad someone else agrees with it. i will try and implement it later.

unfortunately, i have 2 weeks to do a schizer load of work, so im committed to not doing any work on this project until after that 2 weeks. woe is me, but it has to be done.

#17

this is huge buddy… like ur starting… the concepts r also flowing smooth… i totally liked ur camera test… i also feel that the left one catches more drama and sence of huge space… keep goin buddy i wanna c more :thumbsup:

#18

Very nice and i like the background story so far, show us some more pictures im eager :thumbsup:

#19

hum, great ideia, show some more pics,

i liked the history… i can almost feel what you want to say… =PP

#20

Good luck with your art, it seems interesting!

:slight_smile:

#21

Great idea, although the almost-square proportions of your initial concept image take away from the dramatics of it. I’d go for a longer rectangle for the image, probably and upright (portrait) orientation, although a landscape could also work.

Edit: if that’s what you’re doing with the 2nd image, then great, ignore the above.
Looking forward to seeing more.