Your impressions of Pandemonium

[kimstock]

Hi everyone, I’m a student studying Digital Design and currently undertaking my Final Major Project, this is a self initiated project and I have chosen to do an animation about Satan’s palace/capital of Pandemonium, I'm nearly halfway through (this is a 3-month project) and I have been familiarising myself with the text whilst creating the designs and concept art as well as just general planning for my animation.

I have been using two books, one is the 'oxford world's classics' edition and one is this beautiful illustrated edition entitled 'Milton's Paradise Lost: Complete and Unabridged'. The illustrations were done by Gustave Doré in 1866 and it's my intention to try to replicate his style to some extent in my 3D animation.

I am, to be honest, finding the text quite ambiguous and was just wondering what fans of the book thought Satan’s Pandemonium would look like?

I’m not looking for any design guidance, but I thought it would be good to know what someone who was familiar with the whole of paradise lost would imagine pandemonium to be like and why as it might trigger an avenue of exploration I have previously overlooked.

I’ll try to post some of my designs and concepts soon and if it goes well might keep posting to the end of the project so you all can see how it turns out.

[Schokokeks]

Hi there, Kimstock !
Welcome to the Forum !

That looks like a very interesting project you've embarked on !
It has been a while since I read Paradise Lost, but I'll try to describe as much as I remember.

I've always pictured it more or less resembling a huge circular pit surrounded by high cliffy walls of a black, volcanic stone, e.g. obsidian:



As the walls are so high, rays of light only touch their very top, leaving the bottom of the Pandaemonium drenched in an opaque reddish light.
Moreover, I think the text says something about a lake which I imagine to be filled with a very tenacious liquid, tar maybe.

This bit is all I can remember, I hope it was helpful.
I'm looking forward to seeing your interpretation of it .

[kimstock]

Hi schokokeks thanks for the reply, sorry I haven't checked back here in a while. thanks for the picture, yeah its clear that it would be made from volcanic, dark, shiny rock.
Starting line 670:
"There stood a Hill not far whose griesly top
Belch'd fire and rowling smoak; the rest entire
Shon with a glossie scurff, undoubted sign
That in his womb was hid metallic Ore"

I like the idea about the pit, almost crater like i imagine, but what Milton describes sounds much more build-up:
"Th' ascending pile
Stood fixt her stately highth"

I might do a combination here and have both a pit and something rising out of it.

Somthing about a lake? is this it:
"Nigh on the Plain in many cells prepar'd, [ 700 ]
That underneath had veins of liquid fire
Sluc'd from the Lake"

Anyway thanks for the input I've got some drawings a sketches that I'd like to share a get comments on, i'll post them later, ciao.

[kimstock]

Hi there, as promised here are some images.


Through my research I Found these interpretations of pandemonium:


I also found an article relating pandemonium to the ancient roman architecture Here
If someone knows how i can get the second part to this I'd appreciate it.

Finally here are my first concepts:



Wow its actually taken quite a while to put this post together, oh well, after I've done the pre-vis images that I'm working on I'll post them.

Any comments and criticisms are very welcome, just make sure they're constructive and stay tuned for future updates

[Nutz]

Wow, sounds like an interesting project... specially with the upcoming movie coming in mind... I like the classical roman influence which is a good reference to the renaissance idea of how heaven/hell architecture might reflect, but I would venture to go even farther with the loose design... like Satan had formed it from the chaos that hell is... something like diamond and jewel like as an different approach maybe... just a suggestion.

[Schokokeks]

Wow, your images are very interesting. Great work !
I actually like your built-into-the-rocks architecture a lot better than the grand Roman buildings in the pictures you found. These lonely needle-like towers in my mind fit much better than a square pillared palace.
Looking forward to any further updates !

[kimstock]

Hi, thanks for the feed-back. When I started this project I honestly didn't know that they were making a movie, honest!

Hi nuts I'm not exactly sure what your trying to say but i agree that it should be a bit more chaotic and less uniform I’ll have to do some experiments with the form of the rocks and the way I integrate the architecture, the idea for this is from Milton describing the materials and that they used molten ore to construct there palace.

A more chaotic design could better reflect Satan’s emotions but I don't want it to look too evil because thats not how Satan sees himself in PL, however it is the capital of hell which has to be an evil place,,... I think it’s got to look cool-evil rather than horror evil.

Hey, Schokokeks thanks for the compliments I had the same reaction to the illustrations as you, they just feel to uniform to be filmic, I guess today we expect something much more radical than what they did back then.

Anyway I’ll post some images in the next post its easier that way.

[kimstock]

Models/Renders: here are my first attempts at recreating my Ideas in 3D


Concepts: just some drawings taken from my current storyboard for the animation


Anim. test: this was just a test to figure out how to bring a 2D image into 3D
<-links to video

[Schokokeks]

Wow, the video is awesome, I love the way the camera zoomes back.
You are very talented .

[kimstock]

hey, sorry for not posting in a while immediately after finishing the project we had a exhibition so its been a very busy year so far.

anyway we haven't got our results back yet so I'm still waiting on that, then I'll have to get a job etc. I'm looking to go into the computer games industry, this is going to be a very busy year indeed.

I've posted a video on youtube of my animation, its very low quality but it'll do whilst I get my website sorted out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhOyR3CKVzU

thanks to those who provided help and comments, Kim.