To continue with my postings about my meditation application, today I wanted to discuss another scene that I’m building that I’ve given the rather tentative title of “Lava World.”
If I’m being totally and completely honest, I’m struggling with this one.
The idea started out great. In my space station scene, the viewer is in orbit around a planet that is clearly volcanic in nature. So how difficult would it be to create a scene that is taking place on that planet, with lava flows and volcanic activity in the distance, a full sky view of the nebula seen from only windows on the space station, with some eerie sound effects that make it clearly a deserted world far from home? It turns out that “simple idea” was actually more than I bargained for.
I started off with a small scene that focuses on a scientific outpost designed for a lava-filled environment. The buildings and resources there look designed to withstand heat, and there are plenty of walkways and catwalks that are suspended above where the boiling lava will flow past.
I found the right visual effects, containing heat-mirages, steam jets, and actual volcanic explosions that would be taking place far away from the viewer.
Naturally, the visual effect of flows of lava oozing all around the plains and down the cliff surfaces nearby was a must, and I feel like this is being represented well.
I also added a number of alien creatures that would be flying or wandering around in the distance, huge things that looked like they legitimately belonged on a steaming-hot world. Nothing demonic or scary looking, just things that legitimately looked like they could be part-lava themselves.
The noises, the ambience, the visuals are all there. But for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, it’s just not relaxing like I thought it would be. Some revising was clearly in order, and I set about to try and find the mismatched piece.
I initially started to fiddle with the sound effects. Maybe the wind or the mechanical whirring sounds were too distracting. Muting or changing them around didn’t seem to alleviate the issue. So, I started looking at other possible reasons. Is there just too much going on? Are there too many things to ‘look at’ or ‘listen to’ for Lava World to put me at ease?
Thunderstorm Forest had a lot, visually speaking, going on in that scene. Rain, lightning, multiple locations to sit and view. That was a very relaxing location. Lava World didn’t seem to have more ‘going on’ in its scene, but we’re talking about something that was a very different location, visually speaking.
After a lot of experiments and getting input from a colleague, I may have to resign myself to the possibility of this location having too much in the way of ‘disturbing vibes’ to make the scene feel relaxing. Because that’s really the heart of it. There’s some kind of general unease when I’m looking around the place, and it’s kind of confusing considering that I’m a fire sign.
While it occurred to me that I could just have a handful of scenes that are specifically and deliberately labeled as “Creepy Scenes” and leave it as such, I really had high hopes for this location to be one of the let my walls down and chill.
I will be leaving this one to percolate for a while and come back to it with a fresh approach sometime in the future. I like it too much to scrap it completely.
Hope you are all doing well and have a great rest of the week!