The 2nd Episode of the BBC Documentary Renaissance Revolution

Just share a brilliant documentary that I’ve just seen the third time. Talking about this painting for the whole episode, with the editing really full of motion to convey the mass jumps of weirdness as well as relations, and also some great modern background music instead of classical magnificent orchestral ones for the renaissance topic, which I feel express the idea that we understand this painting from our own age and thoughts, just as it was also modern or even advanced at its own time.

This is also where I got some of the knowledge/interpretations of this painting I used in my project, like the owls, the Tree-Man, the structure, and many other abstract ideas…. even before I thought about the topic of this final project.

https://dailymotion.com/video/x1ircew

The UI Update

Added a shading of Bosch’s drawing The Tree-Man in the background. And some detailed changes. I now feel better about this UI and about to move on. Reminded me of the Age of Empire 2 where this kind of shadings are also used a lot XD

And the UI in the outside scene (when triggering something). I’m happier with this and it can be a transition so that the other scene wouldn’t seem that heavy.

The book in the left bottom corner is the entrance to the other scene (? I’m not sure about how the Unity’s UI system works now). It also came out from one of Bosch’s painting St Jerome. Thanks Bosch XD

The UI Sketches

Decided to stop the modelling to work on the UI system and programming part which will be the framework of the project.

I would describe the UI’s style as medieval,  Bosch-ish, and fit in the overall project style.

1. Medieval

Firstly as I have no experience with game UI design, I looked for how it should look like online. Most of them were too cartoon, while the flat ones seemed too technological or modern for the painting’s age.

Then I thought about some historic RTS games I played like Total War and Europa Universalis. The UI designs are much more delicate in these successful game. I also found a very nice design on Behance (from which the last pic came).

 

2. Bosch-ish

I found a fun app in Apple Store the other day called Bosch Painter, which offers many interesting element cutouts from Bosch’s paintings, as well as canvases for the users to compose their own Bosch styled images. It gave me great inspiration.

The idea in this app is that we can create Bosch-ish pictures using things he drew as they are just so recognisable; and this method is also used somewhere else, like the exceptional exhibition Hieronymus Bosch 500 took place in city of Den Bosch this spring.

What surprised me afterwards was that when I looked for some good elements to use, I found some of his paintings are “born with UI” – with some perfect decorative elements:

the exterior (Saints James the Greater and Bavo) of The Last Judgment

The Extraction of the Stone of Madness (Cutting the Stone)

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

What’s more, an unsolved problem that how I should include the exterior shutter of the painting the Garden of Earthly Delights from the very first when I was still planning to make all the 3 scenes this summer, seemed to have got a way.

 

3. The Overall Project Style

This is the hardest part of all. But first I should actually introduce what I’ll use my UI system for. As I have mentioned a little in my plans before, I’m going to create a collection system for all the messages the player will meet with during the exploration of the scene. So when the player has found one message, it will appear in the collection, while the uncovered ones will still remain a “???” status. This is the main game mechanics of this project. Also, I’d like to add the functions of viewing where the message was from in map (based on the original painting), marking the objects you like and reviewing the spinning models later, and taking photos from the perspective you like.

So the demo came out as below. I don’t have a model’s pic taking from a proper view so I’m using a previews work of mine to imitate at the moment. And I found a gothic font to use on that title scroll like what Bosch wrote on it originally (but in a more recognisable font). I didn’t even use any other resources; all of materials I used were from Bosch’s paintings.

This should be very Bosch-ish. However, I don’t find it fit in the game scene’s style at all. It’s too heavy and not at all flat, but the problem is if I want to use elements from the renaissance paintings, the style can’t be like today’s aesthetics.

Here I changed a bit of it and hopefully it could be better with the flat-shading models later. I quite like those ancient styled things I deleted from the last version though. And I still not really satisfied with this design… apparently the layout is quite unbalanced. But the important thing right now, is to go on with Unity to realise the graphics, which is going to be an extremely tricky thing! Bless me 😛

The Project 3D Night Cafe

The Night Cafe

Today I came across a project on Made With Unity about a 3D restoration of Van Gogh’s Night Cafe by Mac Cauley. It was just surprisingly great to see that really somebody is also doing the same kind of thing at the moment, and has quite already achieved the kind of sense that the 3D restoration of a painting should be like in my very initial imagination.

For The Night Cafe, I wanted the viewer to experience the feeling of stepping into this back alley cafe the way Van Gogh might have. I also wanted to express that feeling of wonder when you see his paintings, of being swept up by his exuberant colors where every brush stroke feels imbued with his lust for life as much as with his inner struggles.

I’m also so thankful that the artist talked detailedly about the methods in this project which is of course very useful and inspiring to me dying for the shading and texturing! Although it’s like hey it’s impossible that no one is thinking to make something as you do, I now feel there’s the motivation again and the visible aim I can head towards. Anyway, people are fond of Van Gogh who has been getting all kinds of creative tributes, but not the other genius of painting!

A Useful Website

http://www.esotericbosch.com/

The Esoteric Bosch
Commentaries on the esoteric meanings in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch

Found an excellent resource of the explanations of the painting. Detailed, academic and quite comprehensive. In the slides the writer explains the painting in every small part and that is exactly what I was thinking to make interactions to my project: when you come to a place, see something and trigger the explanations or something.

I’m afraid I can’t quote this materials directly or maybe I should contact the writer for permission. I keep it now and will see how I could use it later when I start to do the interactions. I’ll definitely need something though and will keep looking for other materials as well.

Some Related Projects

Here are some related projects to mine I have been looking at so far.

1. https://tuinderlusten-jheronimusbosch.ntr.nl/en#

This is an interactive documentary of the Garden of Earthly Delights based on web browser. It is a very delicate project with high-resolution picture, music and audio introduction within featured details. A brilliant way for those who want to know about this painting quite detailed, where the image is very clear and the experience is smooth. I will also use this as an important reference for the details and text introduction, and which are the significant parts to add interaction.

 

2. http://www.bdh.net/work/boschvr/

This is a VR app making the original painting in 3D animated scenes early this year. I was disappointed when I first saw the title and thought there had already been the project I was planning to do, but got quite released after I saw its trailer because it was not really the way I wanted to make it.

In this app the user rides on a flying fish to explore the environment. The fish follows a fixed routine. While the user is able to look around, it is not possible to go around or even stop moving as will. The primary is that although it is 3D and even also made with Unity, it seems that the team did not make new models but edit the original image in small pieces of figures, add joint so they can move (rotate limbs) with those axes. As a result, the animation is quite rigid and the whole project seems plain and not really 3D. It remains all of the original though; and I cannot keep everything as I am modelling by myself, would of course lose a lot of details because of the time and technique limit. And another thing is that I would also texture my project in my own way to create an integrate environment but not use the painting with the colour and material of the original brushes and cracks.

I have downloaded the app to try this most title-related project. But there was some problems with my iTunes payment so I did not make it to buy the locked scenes which is 2.99 pounds and are only able to see the free one which is the heaven panel, and it was quite simple. I saw a video about the their documentation of people’s trials on street, where there was a little segment of the hell panel which seemed quite nice though. I will definitely try it as soon as I solve the payment problem.

 

3. The 3D animated version of a ancient Chinese painting Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival (Qing Ming Shang He Tu)

I did not find an official website for this project but it has been quite known among Chinese people, and it is visually more like what I want to do to the Garden of Earthly Delights.

The painting is one of the most treasured paintings in Chinese history and is originally 528.7cm*25.2cm on silk scroll. The similarity of it and the one of Bosch is the great details of figures and the scene which can be too much for a common visitor to know, as well as that they are both painted in their own unreal style so there must be a new way of modelling and texturing to make them look fully integrated in a 3D environment.

Below are the electronic versions of the painting. Looking like a computer game, it has everything totally remade with the digital effects (look at the lighting and petals in the first image), and I found this is kind of what effect I would love to achieve for my final version (I am not confident that I can though, since these projects whether I like or not took teams of professional people and much more time, but I would give it a try).