1st Attempt - Forest

I have decided to experiment with the proposed forest scene. After Zoe has walked down a busy street of Croydon she walks into a 'mystical' shrub which acts as contrasting transitional point. As the bush passes a whole new peaceful world arrives on screen.

Shrubs and tree trunks replace the urban concrete jungle and as Zoe enters deeper into the forest the whole scene becomes more mystical as autumn arrives and then night.

This scene is going to take a lot of time and rendering power. This is because all the individual tree trunks and plant life must be cut out and seperated onto layers. Therefore the illusion of depth and 3D can be produced.

The forest test below:

(Sorry for bad quality)

I am relatively pleased. The 3D layers have worked pretty well. However, perhaps more shrubbery needs to be present in the foreground. Also the depth of field could possibly exaggerated a bit more. The background could do with being a bit more blurred.

The Zoe puppet will of course be animated!

To create the dust particles I composited the animation preset: 'cc snow'. I then set the speed of the snow to
-0.03. This negative value caused the snow to slowly rise upwards.

Next I want to try and create some light rays and 'funky' lighting effects - it all possibly needs to be a bit brighter and vivid.

Below: The 'magical' bush which acts as a transitional wipe between Croydon and the forest is coming along nicely.