The Impossible Hole

Our short features “an impossible hole”. A gate/doorway to an completely separate dimension. It’s a term Phoebe came up with when reading over The Heroes’ Journey, and researching other narrative devices.

Our impossible hole, is a crack through a window. There’s 4 large panes of glass, sitting side by side looking out into space. But one of those windows is cracked wide open. Rather than the outside space ripping everything out through the crack, everything is still. And on the other side of the hole, there’s a complete separate reality.

Watch out. The gap in the door… it’s a separate reality. The only me is me. Are you sure the only you is you? – The Brown Talking… Bag(?) / Silent Hills. PT (2014)

I quite liked this quote, lined up with our project quite well so i couldn’t not. So yeah, a separate reality. Through the cracks there’s a cavernous dungeon impossibly sits waiting for our protagonist.

We were first thinking, what if the environment naturally started changing and becoming that dungeon environment? Metal becoming stone, pipes twisting and warping into lit sconces, greenery and vines creeping in? We decided a hard barrier would be better, and maybe have these changes in environment would be the stone to metal as she’s running away back to the cockpit.

While they’re not the best, I attempted some photo bashes to get my ideas across.

 

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Time Loops // Black Holes are the result of Time Distortions?

So we’ve finally nailed our concept and story. We started off with the prompt/ concept “What if Black Holes caused Time Loops?” and began figuring things out from there.

In the abyss of space, an inquisitive pilot seeks answers when her ship chances upon an impossible doorway into a black hole but only discovers that she must escape the monstrosity lurking within.

 

So with our animation ending with a call back to the start, a literal time loop. I immediately got stuck into researching black holes and ways they could possibly drive our project.

Within black holes, there’s this point called The Event Horizon. Say you’re slowly drifting towards a black hole, once you pass this point, to an outside observer you would appear to be totally still, frozen in time. To you (assuming you’d impossibly survive) you would continue to drift on forward toward the Black Hole. But to the observer you’re frozen. Gradually your still image would be shifting into a red hue before fading out of existence.

It’s all to do with light. The Event Horizon is the point where light can’t escape, so beyond this point we have no idea what happens. What if… Things inside are trapped in a time loop of their last moments. What if… it’s a door to another dimension. What if… there’s something inside that can manipulate time for its own benefit. What if this monster is looping a pilots last moment over and over so it has dinner for a lifetime? Who knooows.

 

So while black holes may not be the main focus of the animation, we’re going to have a subtle nod to it being because of a black hole. At the end of the animation, when the pilot leaves the cockpit, she has just about missed the warning on screen. “!ALERT-BLACK HOLE WARNING!“

We’re thinking that the animation is based within that Event Horizon. The character has accidentally and unknowingly drifted into the black hole and is stuck in a time loop forever(?).

 

Research Potential: The Sinking City (2018)

Our idea of time loops were initially sparked when we watched the trailer for The Sinking City (2018). 

“The Sinking City is a third person adventure game, inspired by the works of American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. It is our biggest and most ambitious project up to date, in terms of gameplay, story and overall experience we are aiming for. We are building The Sinking City on three main pillars – open world, open investigation, Lovecraft – which define how it will play and feel.”

http://frogwares.com/discover-the-sinking-city/

 

We loved the idea of the characters death initially being the reason for the character to investigate which is where the knocking door element came from upon viewing this.

Unity Lighting

Seeing as i’m responsible for lighting our scenes in unity, I’ve started researching. I’ve played about with Unity a little before but lighting a scene is completely alien to me.

I met up with Beth Kirkpatrick, a student from 2 years back and she gave me loads of advice and links on  how to  light in unity. She sent me this youtube series that takes you through the process step by step. It’s fairly similar to the style of lighting we’re aiming for. I might just add more neon to tie in with our aesthetic. I’ll be following this series quite closely over the next few days.

 

I’ll also be looking to add some volumetric lighting into the scene, mostly for the corridor shots. We want to convey that sense of mystery and eeriness, and I reckon volumetric will convey that real nicely. This following video’s pretty close to what i’m hoping to create. Especially in the dungeon/ cavernous environment. I can achieve this through a simple plugin for Unity.

(I say simple, tune into the next post to hear about my struggles.)

 

 

As of lighting that’s all I have right now. Clicking the following link pulls up a moodboard, it’s what we’re hoping to recreate in our project.

https://jackcreaner.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/lighting-mood-board/