Environments Part 1
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| Inside the walled City |
The world in which a story is set plays a very large role in how the story will be presented, how conflicts and characters can progress within it and the general tone the story will be told in. I don’t think there has ever been a time I didn’t have the setting worked out long before I put an idea on paper. At this point I don’t have an outline of what the story is about, but just from establishing the setting I wanted to write in, I already know key components I will work with.
When I first sat down to work on this story, I started with a single line on paper, which was the setting this story would be in:
Our world 300 years from now
I wanted to stay in a science fiction genre for my first outing, mostly because it was a genre I was already familiar with writing, but I also wanted to root it in a world that would have grown out of the world I live in now. This meant I could mix things that were familiar with things that were fantasy. They way I figured it, the more options I had to play with, the less constricted I will feel in telling the story, whatever it would end up being.
The next comment I made was one that would really set the entire mood for this future world of ours:
The end of the world has come and gone
Ok, to be fair there is no “end of the world” here, as we do have people living on the planet. What I wanted to tell was the kind of story we never get told. For example, at the end of “Independence Day” when they finally figure out how to defeat the aliens what happens to the world after that? With the loss of a large portion of the population, how does the world progress from that point?
Those kinds of movies are all about being invaded and how we respond and they have been done over and over again. So I had no interest in once again making that same movie.
I set out to tell a story that was rebuilt from the ashes of destruction. It was much later that I decided on the themes (people with extraordinary powers, the significance of the invasion itself) but from this I was able to establish the world I wanted it set, and that helped very much during the process in thinking of how things would be designed.
So with all that lead up out of the way, let’s talk about the locations chosen in Episode 1
Environment 1: Red Light District
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| Red Light District |
I already touched on this a bit in the last Blog entry, so I won’t spend a lot of time here, but because the first scene takes place in this area, I wanted to immediately establish the mix between the old and the new. The outside environment would have to represent a futuristic city, while still keeping a look that would have evolved from the world we live in now. I could mix this feel of the area with the people I’d place in the scene, but taking them out, I still wanted the environment to speak for itself.
I was very lucky that a 3D artist, whose content I had been using to create some exteriors, had created a Red Light district in the same matching theme. By purchasing that set from them, to use with my other sets, I was able to design a very unique Adult zone of the city, without it looking much different than the rest of the city.
The Hole club, where we follow one of our characters to, was an environment I wanted to resemble strip clubs we have now, once again keeping that element of old and new. I just felt as though this would be the kind of place where someone could get a traditional, old school strip show. Even though it was basically an elaborate brothel with the sex rooms down the back tunnels, its initial impression would be just a regular club. 
Environment 2: The Old World
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| A city in the world that was |
I have already established that the cities were rebuilt from the ashes of the old world so, for our characters outside of the city walls, I had to create environments that reflected a world abandoned and destroyed.
The city that the Outcast base is in was designed to be one of the places the initial attack just stopped, so while some buildings would still be standing, areas around them had to be a representation of devastation.
I used several models to set the mood, including several cities in ruins style models mixed with business neighborhood models. I was reminded of scenes from films like Terminator: Salvation or L.A in Independence Day. Enough structure would have survived to say “yes this was a city” but enough of it destroyed to impress upon the audience that something terrible happened here.
I am glad that city destruction is not a unique environment for me to want, so several content creators had made sets that worked perfectly. One in particular I was very excited to use, involved buildings in Rubble leading up to a bridge that had been mostly destroyed. I loved the imagery of the model and had to get it for this project.
Environment 3: The Outcast Base
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| Outcast Base of Operations |
The idea behind this base was that they moved into an abandoned military base from the old world, and got it running again. So it had to look fairly military but also very retro at the same time. Advanced to technology we have today but nothing too futuristic. The command center was only part of it, having to create hallways, a landing area for the transports, and quarters for the outcasts who lived there. It all had to fit the same theme and blend with one another. I am sure many of our military bases these days would look fairly futuristic to what we would expect, so with that in mind I took a few liberties in thinking at the time of the invasion, things would have advanced a bit in those areas.
Because it is an underground base, the environment needed to feel enclosed, with no windows and no outside light, which ended up challenging in some cases. Luckily I had enough modeled environments to piece together and make it work. A lot of them needed a bit of texture work to match them up, but the end result has every area look like it belongs.
Environment 4: The Senators office
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| Senator Durin's Office |
For the Senator I wanted a very large room that overlooked the city. I liked the idea of this Senator being a bit attached to design from the old world, while ruling the new one. I found a fantastic model, created by an artist with the handle of “Ratracer”, called “Tycoon Office”. It fit the feel I wanted for our Senator perfectly, combining the reception area, Conference area and personal office all in one setting.
I actually re wrote the first scene here so it would fit the design, having the first moments we spend here be during a meeting with others. I quite liked the big windows showing the city outside and the fancy retro style desk the Senator works from. Part of the idea behind him is that he doesn’t just work in this building; he lives here. So the feel of the room had to be very personal. He even wears older style suits to match his “classic” feel. There is a reason for this madness, but we don’t find out about that until much later, so no spoilers for now!
And that covers only a few of the locations in the first Episode. I still haven’t covered the Bunker and desert, where we meet some of our lead Outcasts, The Dome which is part of some secret government plan to (spoiler), and the G-Corp facility, which plays a very large role in the 3rd and 4th episodes, but makes its first appearance here.
Next time on the blog we’ll introduce you to a few of the characters, and the process in creating their look, style and personality.
Jon
