From Storyboard to Computer Screen

The storyboard is not only a valuable guideline for animating my characters in their scenes, but also a blueprint to the set that they exist in. This animated sequence, for instance, takes place in an ancient ruin...

Clearly, even a crumbling temple ruin is a man made structure, and since I suck at perspective drawing, I decided the best way to create the ruins would be to construct a temple chamber in 3ds Max.

From my initial storyboard above, we can see that the most important features to the rune chamber are the entry and the dais, where our hero will activate his magical rune. The area also needs to be large enough to house a sword fight when the skeletons show up.

the entrance to the rune chamber, flanked by 2 torches (which weren't initially depicted in the storyboard) details such as extra torches and arches in the walls were included as I made progress with the 3d models.

view of the 3d dais from the centre of the chamber. In my storyboard, I already intended for the inscription to be illuminated by 4 large torches giving off a blue light (inspired by the shrine that houses the Bright Shield rune and Black Sword rune in Suikoden 2, to any video game veterans reading this blog)

View of the dais and runic inscription upon entering the chamber.

The very first shot that appears in the animation is not a shot that appears in my storyboard. Originally, I just thought of having the three men walking towards the camera, and then a wide shot of the chamber. But as I worked on the environment in 3ds Max, it occured to me that we should be given a view of what the three men are experiencing as they reach the rune chamber - what is the first thing they see, and obviously, the dais lit by blue torches is dead ahead of them.

Starting the scene in this way also gives us an impression of the importance of each character. The hero comes first, as he is being pulled by the force of his rune, followed by King Lino, and the servant Akaghi. At least, I hope this is the impression people got.

Now one of my favourite shots was also one of the simplest to pull off - its when we get a full-frontal view of the dais and inscription.

first person view of dais in storyboard

first person view of dais in movie

I had no thoughts of including the hero's hand in this shot when I first drew the storyboard, but as this was a first person shot, I thought it would be sensible to have it from the hero's perspective. This is a huge nod to fans of the video game - we can't see the rune on the hero's hand as he's wearing gloves, but we know its there. He responds to the site of this inscription by holding up his left hand and making a mental comparison to the actual rune that is attached to his body.

And the best reference is of course my own left hand. Just as well, as I'm right handed, so I could function with my graphic pen and wacom tablet whilst referring to my left hand, turning it in front of me. And my physical build is quite similar to that of the hero, so I didn't have to exaggerate too much.

Another shot that appears in the animation which was not in my storyboard is when the hero ascends the steps onto the dais. This seems like a tedious, unnecessary scene to include in a storyboard, but its quite important to give the audience the idea of how these characters function in this environment I've created. It also helps build up tension for the scene, to give us more of a sense of mystery and the unknown. And, it also kind of gives me the impression that the hero is offering himself as a sacrifice! Anyone who is familiar with the Suikoden video games may be able to relate this scene to Suikoden 2, when the two main characters enter a shrine and receive the two runes of beginning, and also in Suikoden 5, when the prince enters the Sinder ruins to awake the power of the Dawn Rune.

Another shot I was quite pleased with was when the hero touches the inscription and his rune and the inscription starts to resonate, and fills the chamber with an eerie red glow...

 Simple, but i think somewhat effective. I don't think there was any human animation in this scene, just the torches flickering and the red light intensifying.

The blue torches turning red was not in the storyboard - lighting and colours are often overlooked when it comes to my storyboards. But adding in the images of the calm blue fire turning into a violent bloody red does inflict a bit more drama on the scene. I added close ups of the torches changing as I didn't feel the one perspective shot made it clear enough what was happening to the torches, and I also included Lino and Akaghi reacting to the light to make things feel a bit more alive.

And I did head back into 3ds Max to edit the lighting from blue to red.