Background almost complete....

This week I worked on trying to finalize the background design. I'm feeling relatively pleased with it, although it was not quite what I had initially envisioned. The lighting still needs a ton of work, which I plan on fixing up with Eric Hanson. There are also a few problems I want to work out, for example the posters and the windowpane. I'm also not quite sure about how to deal with the toy shelf, which is just a plane in space. Still, it is close enough. check out some maya software renderings here:

 

I rendered out a shot to see how it looks with a character. I think it looks pretty cool, but at the same time I have an itchy, uncomfortable feeling about it....my aesthetic senses are tingling with discomfort! There is something wrong with it, but I can't quite point it out. perhaps it is too detailed, but at the same time, I  like the detail. In this shot, I desaturated the background, which helped a bit. It think it has something to do with the composition of this shot itself. The vertical datum is right in the center. Well, this shot isn't quite complete still--I don't have a background for the outside street view.

EDIT: I just played around with the composition. I think its starting to work better. Check it out:

Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned in the last post, but I finished all of the Sequence 2 cu/color animation revisions, so I'm relatively back on schedule. hoooray!