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The Forbidden Fruit - WorkDoc
🕑 Added 2021-09-18 03:46:20 +0000 UTCBackground information on the Forbidden Fruit project.
Note that you can download a PDF version of this WorkDoc at the bottom of this post.
At the military base in Section 4A on planet Tellus, a team of scientists explores the beneficial effects of indigenous plants on recruits. It seems that some of the men develop exceptional height and strength after prolonged consumption of some of its fruits. The main character - a medical officer who has flown in for assistance- is, however, mainly intoxicated with passion after eating some of these exotic products.
This intense reaction sets the stage for the chemical compound that is eventually located in the outskirts of the planet, in the tropical region of Tellus — a mysterious place where the hanging gardens and the floating forest can be found. Little is known about that remote place, but legend has it that at the top of this world, there's an ancient tree that only blossoms once in a millennium and that it bears the Forbidden Fruit for a hundred years.
Paradise found
For those who have seen the movie, it won't come as a big surprise that most of the settings for this series were inspired by Avatar, James Cameron's epic science fiction film from 2009. It was not so much the story but the images and special effects that impressed me so much, and I could not resist creating my own adventure in similar surroundings.
After leaving the polluted and densely urbanised metropole, the main character of my story enters the mysterious world of towering rocks, exotic forests and floating islands. The base camp of the expedition is located in a lush aerial paradise that overwhelms the senses of the team. The exotic surroundings stimulate the men’s playful camaraderie and mutual fondness. Once fully intoxicated by the environment, their affection grows into a fervent desire, unleashing an endless orgy of pure lust
To bring these scenes to life, I used a large array of different models and props. The images below show some of the main objects used for this project in order of appearance.
Apart from several models of forests and trees, I used Floating Sky Island and The Tree of Life to recreate the iconic scene from the movie. For a more realistic background, I integrated several images of the sandstone pillars of Wulingyuan, a scenic site in southern China, and some fragments of screenshots of the movie Avatar itself. For the aircraft, I used the SpeedCraft, a model that is clearly inspired by the movie Oblivion.
Apart from Avatar, several other themes have inspired me as well for this series. You might have noticed the contrast between the polluted overcrowded urban life vs the overwhelming force of nature, the idea of food supplements and extreme muscle growth (something that seems to be very popular), but, of course, I was the most inspired by the biblical themes of the Garden of Eden, The Tree of life and the Forbidden fruit. I’m not at all religious, but as an art lover, it’s impossible not to be influenced by these ancient themes. The depiction of the first human couple in paradise is iconic and has been repeated countless times in every possible way imaginable over the centuries.
The eating of the apple is traditionally defined in terms of good and evil, with the fall of man, the original sin and disgrace. It eventually became a metaphor for any indulgence or pleasure that is considered illegal or immoral. In this series, however, I tried to emphasise more the positive theme of the fruit as a symbol of sexual energy and bearer of eternal life. And although blasphemous in the eyes of many, this depiction of the nude couple at the base of the tree with an apple is probably more accurate than all those traditional representations. For if God took Adam's rib to create his partner, the genotype would be 44XY. So technically, Eve could only have been a man!
Genesis
The characters I used for this and all previous projects are from Daz 3D, a 3D-content and software company specialising in providing rigged 3D human models, accessories and settings.
Over the years, the company had many versions of human figures and characters, but in 2011, it launched a significant change in the underlying technology. Instead of each figure being designed individually, they moved to a single platform called Genesis, in which figures were derived as morphs from a common mesh. This not only made it possible to blend the base model into a huge variety of shapes, but also to apply add-on content like clothing, hair, and additional morphs to every single character.
Harry was developed during this time and is thus a child of the first Genesis generation. Meanwhile, several versions have been released since, and the models have become ever more sophisticated and realistic. Significant changes were added, including improved joint and muscle bends and flexing, and facial expressions. The use of different Weight Maps made the figures eventually compatible with other 3D software and game development platforms.
The main character of this series is based on Michael 8.1, the latest version of the Genesis character system, with improved facial expressions, more realistic skin and facial features like eyes and eyelashes. As a token of these more inclusive times, Michael also comes in a disabled version (including a wheelchair), and an additional set of "female anatomical elements".
Although the character looks indeed far more realistic and the bends and flexes work much better than before, I'm not so sure about the facial improvements. The expressions seem to be far more restricted and don’t always look that convincing. Instead of giving a full-face smile, the character often only gives a phoney laugh, looking more uneasy and embarrassed than anything else. Apart from that, the enhanced capabilities of 8.1 are also not backwards compatible; many control tools and features of generation 8 no longer work on this model, and several props totally misfit the character. So, working with this new version can be a bit annoying at times…
These enhancements also come at a steep price in size. Where the first generations come at ca. 6 to 9 MB, the basic mesh of the newest generation takes up to 29 MB to store, using more than 19.000 Kbytes of memory. The complete Harry is 26 MB, the main character for this series is 570 MB, using up to 300.000 Kbytes. The fully rigged 8.1 characters for animation can easily get over 1 GB and are thus hardly manageable in more complex and overcrowded scenes.
A long flow
With more than 400 images, this series has been the longest single project so far. The project started in May 2021 and took nearly three and a half months to complete. In total, I used 12 different settings, 4 main characters, and more than 200 different poses to bring the story to life. The working files of the entire project eventually reached a size of nearly 41 GB.
As usual, I didn’t start with a complete storyboard; I only work with a general idea and rough outline for the series. The inspiration from the themes and settings does the rest, leading me from one scene to the other. I just go with the flow, so to speak, letting the characters find their way to the end of the adventure.
As the creators of the Avatar movie have found out, the themes provide enough material to go on forever. For Avatar, a sequel of 4 movies has been announced that will last till 2028, and I'm sure we'll be seeing the four heroes of my story once again in a future adventure. It has been a delight working on this project for such a long time, and I would be delighted to return to this magical place one day.
Related sections of this project
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Comments
Priapus of Milet
C4D: https://www.maxon.net/en/requirements/cinema-4d-s24-requirements
Priapus of Milet
DAZ: https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003568443-What-are-the-System-Requirements-to-run-Daz-Studio-
Priapus of Milet
My pleasure! Yes, DAZ can be a bit unwieldy and slow. Therefore I only use it for morphing and posing the characters, and then individually export them to CINEMA 4D where I do all the other stuff (texturing, settings, animation, rendering). Well, you can find all requirements necessary for DAZ Studio and C4D via the links below, I’m currently using a processor of 2.59 GHz and RAM 32.0 GB. The morphing is fairly easy, once you have the tools. DAZ has different ‘kits’ available that give a whole range of possibilities to morph the character. Making additional changes manually that are out of the scope of these tools is not so very easy.
Thomas Polk
Thank you so much for the WD pdf. Although the pictures are a bit different, having the document as a handy pdf with the gallery will be greatly appreciated when I return to the novella on my computer. Now for a few questions, let me begin, not by being astounded at the size and unwieldiness of Daz 3D but by asking how much computing power is required: what is the size of a processor that will handle this work efficiently and how much RAM does the processor need? How easily do these models manipulate into different shapes, mass proportions and muscularities? By the way, I love this work of yours because, not only is it so well done, but there are four interacting, discernably different, sexy forms. And you have, through expression and interaction, made to some extent, individual personalities for them.
Priapus of Milet
It's now available, and although not as professional and classy as the overview by Andrea, I think it's a great addition to the project. Making one short overview myself made me realise even more the amount of work and sheer quality of the job Andrea did :o)
Priapus of Milet
Thanks, Keith! Much appreciated and glad you liked the series. I'm sure we'll be returning to that place one day for another adventure :o)
Keith Nathan
As always I'm really enjoying reading your word doc. Thanks for walking us through your creative process, in particular this project. I hope all these assets you created will be reused and revisited in the future adventures!
Priapus of Milet
Good question, good idea! Hadn't thought about that, but I'll see to it. I'll let you know when it's available. Thanks!
Thomas Polk
Is there any way this is downloadable as a pdf?
