The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- First Title was a nice ornate Old German Font made with glass with a very thin internal filament like a vintage light bulb. Neon was too contemporary for the design but this is a tribute to that look.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. This is the camera viewport with the main extruded type with a micro bevel.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Material Shader Screen grab shows the internal modeled filament inside the box extrusion font.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Material Shader Screen grab front view shows the internal modeled filament inside the box extrusion font.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- I loved this design as I got to add in blowing snow dust around the font. A translucent ice material for the type with whimsical snow dancing around the title.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- An extra render pass as a Z-Depth mask to give the Creative team distance based masking with my delivery.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- The Screen Grab viewport shaded from Camera shows the individual lights I used to light the Key Art. If you look closely you can see the snow particles I placed around this title.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. A Camera viewport.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. Here you can see the tiny snow flying around the font from the Bird's Eye view.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A standard Gold Single Point Center Bevel is always wanted for most fancy font styles like this. Here I did a negative bevel that bend inward with a thin sharp knife edge center profile.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. The Sub-D divided final mesh with enough divisions added to smooth out those longer curves.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. The base mesh I hand built for the title without subdivision added. This file is lean for animation work in MGFX.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments-An extra render pass as a Z-Depth mask to give the team distance based masking masks ready to go.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. At this more extreme angle you can see the thin bevel edge well in low poly base form.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. The High Poly count file ready for renders.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. Looking down the depth of the font is clearly visible. Enough extruded surface for camera moves thru the file. Low Poly seen here.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A Clay Shader Screen grab highlighting the geometry. High Ploy mesh smoothed geometry.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- I liked the font as it had nice "thorns' so to speak sticking out from the horizontal sections ans the ornate swirls as well. This was a clean metal version.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments-An extra render pass as an Ambient Occlusion/ Dirt
render pass to add realist lighting as well as aging in the
intersections in the geometry. You can see the dirt collects in the tighter curved areas.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- A rougher metal texture with procedural pitting as well as some mapped distress and cracks. This has a reflection with some warmth in the cold metal. I added wrapped vines around sections of the title in this alternate design using that last design as a base model.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments-An extra render pass as an Ambient Occlusion/ Dirt
render pass to add realist lighting as well as aging in the
intersections in the geometry.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- This version went warm in colors with a Gold and Black texture set, and it was reminiscent of a Postcard look with a extrusion to the side.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments-An extra render pass as a Z-Depth mask.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- An extra render pass as an Ambient Occlusion/ Dirt render pass to add realist lighting as well as aging in the intersections in the geometry.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- For this design I also used a distressed metal and the font was wavy and bumpy with a melted metal feel to it. Hand built not machined in appearance was the goal.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- Here I applied an Ice texture to the above file as an alternate design. Nutcracker is a Holiday Winter film so there were a few with the cold materials in the design.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments-An extra render pass as a Z-Depth mask to give the Creative team distance based masking.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- An extra render pass as
an Ambient Occlusion/ Dirt render pass to add realist lighting as well
as aging.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- This crest design was the larges render of the bunch with hand built swans and crest elements based on scrap reference given to me from the team. Hand built scales and the parts were all very fun to work on.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments- An extra render pass as an Ambient Occlusion/ Dirt
render pass to add realist lighting as well as aging in the
intersections in the geometry. The center crest in the middle was built as separate objects that I boolean the parts into one object to give it a cast metal look with rounded edges more appropriate for the time period.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments-The extra render pass as a Z-Depth mask to give the Creative team distance based masking.
Project Review
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Key Art Proof of Concept Title Treatments
December 2016
Client: Walt Disney Pictures via Cold Open
Creative Direction: Gardner DeFranceaux
Project Date: December 2016.
Back in the Winter of 2016 I was hired for the Disney Holiday Film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. This project was very early in production as the film was released 2 years later in 2018. I worked on the Key Art 3D Logos for a few weeks developing a variety of title
treatments. These were proof of concept, so they did not make it to the end and finish.
I love doing freelance for the Cold Open agency,
and as usual I get really fun 3D Logo concepts from
the team there, and this production was no different. I do many 3D Logos, and I definitely enjoy fancy ones. I worked with a team and was provided about 10-12 vector files to build out in 3D as dimensional.
I was given a lot of room on this gig to created a few distinct looks. This is the stage in the design whey we can explore concepts to get a feel for what the director of the film wants to see to represent the work.
I did a wide variety with extruded logos, beveled logos, ones with vines growing around them, some light up vintage Victorian bulb filament styles as well. A range of finished metals, and even one with snow flying around the icy frozen wonderland text. A really fun project!
This is a larger than normal post as I took a larger number of screen grabs in a flat Clay Shader to show the
sculpture forms I made for the ornate title treatments. A Behind the Art post is for those wanting to see the actual geometry in a build, focusing on on the font builds with base mesh builds and polygon subdivision mesh smoothed finals. A Disney feature film title usually is animated, so using 3D with a lot of surface and details work well for any Motion Graphics [ MGFX ] use.
Many thanks go out to Gardner there at Cold Open for bringing me on for these project based roles. Please do take a trip over to the site at the link to see the impressive work they do!
I am currently full time doing freelance as I hunt for a full-time place to work at, so if you need a bid for a 3D Illustration or 3D Logo, or a 3D Model feel free to contact me for a quote. I am open to Hourly gig's, Work Retainers, Part-time, and of course a Full Time opportunity [ Open to relocation ] would be best. I have worked remote since 2009, so I am ready.
Cheers, THOM
