Tingting Wang
U639
Fall 2007
A Cave Journey
The Final Project, A Cave Journey is based on
an ancient Chinese poem/legend, Peach Blossom Spring. The poem written by Tao
Qian in Jin Dynasty (365~427) is about the experience of a fisherman's
accidental intrusion into a secular utopia-like land.
During the Taiyuan period of the Jin Dynasty, a fisherman of Wu-ling once rowed upstream, unmind of the distance he had gone, when he suddenly came to a grove of peach trees in bloom. The wild flowers growing under them were fresh and lovely, and fallen petals covered the ground--it made a great impression on the fisherman. He went on for a way with the idea of finding out how far the grove extended. It came to an end at the foot of a mountain whence issued the spring that supplied the stream. There was a small opening in the mountain and it seemed as though light was coming through it. The fisherman left his boat and entered the cave, which as first was extremely narrow, barely admitting his body; after walking around in the cave for quite a while, the fisherman finally found the exit. The exit opened out onto a broad and level plain where well-built houses were surrounded by rich fields and pretty ponds. Mulberry, bamboo, and other trees and plants grew there, and crisscross paths skirted the fields. The sounds of cocks crowing and dogs barking could be heard from one courtyard to the next. Men and women were coming and going about their work in the fields. The clothes they wore were not like those of ordinary people. Old mean and boys were carefree and happy. These people’s ancestors had fled the disorders of Qin times and, having taken refuge here with wives and children and neighbors, had never ventured out again; consequently they led happy lives here, and had lost all contact with the outside world.
This project focuses on the part when the
fisherman enters the cave, walking around in the maze and tries to find the
exit of the cave. Wandering in this scene will be as playing a role-action
game. If the player succeeds, he/she then find the utopian Peach Blossom Land,
a pursuit or even the best dream for all ancient Chinese intellectuals and
scholars (Fig. 1).
By employing Virtool and Maya, I tend to create a virtual cave environment that is serene and beautiful in which cave stones in grotesque shapes and baroque lights are integrated (Fig. 2). The cave will be divided roughly by 5 parts: The entrance, the scene one (Fig. 3), the scene two (Fig. 4), the scene three (Fig. 5), and outside of the exit, the peach blossom spring (Fig. 6). During the process of walking inside the cave, the player will obtain different emotions and interpretations of the cave when exposing to different cave scenes where shapes, forms, colors, textures, lights, tones, and spaces are well organized in a supernatural and wizard context, and thus gaining the aesthetic experience and subliminal joyful sense.
During the process of creating this scene, main methods of construction are Polygon modeling, Sculpt Geometry tool, Booleans, various kinds of texture mapping including planar, spherical, cylindrical mapping, etc. Maya tools used are the following: Append to polygon tool, particles, Normals reverse, UV editing, Extruding, Merge/delete Vertex/Edges, Chamber Vertex, Cut face tool, Split polygon tool, Sculpt geometry tool, and Merge edge tool, particle tool. After creating several polygon cylinders, I connect them using Booleans-Union to form different paths crossing together as a maze. Then I make use of moving, scaling, rotating vertex or edges to adjust the shape of the maze. When creating the mountain area in the scene of Peach Blossom Spring, I review lots of pictures of Guilin Mountain and water, and then draw the outline of the scene of Peach Blossom land (Fig. 7). Then I create a polygon plane, and use Sculpt Geometry tool to adjust the shape of the mountain so as to create an outline of the scene.
