Pic 84: House Party with Ariane and Rachel

I decided to switch my strategy to doing the hardest scenes first to get them out of the way, and decided among the scenes left to do, the House Party scenes would be the hardest.

I was right, these scenes are the hardest. I got renders up to the "wet t-shirt" part on both scenes, which means I'm kind of done with Ariane, and about half way done with Rachel.

Crowd scenes are done in layers, and the layers need to match up, and it is a struggle to get it right.  Often the foreground people seeming to hover several feet above the background.  

The old pictures were put together in 5 layers of people, because computer tech 10 years ago could only put a few people in at a time.  This time, a good day was me combining layers in 3D to make the backgrounds easier, reducing 5 layers to 2.  I also decided to apply "billboards" which is a technique I used on the crowded beach scenes in Ariane in Paradise.

I had thoughts of dropping these scenes over the summer when I watched a documentary of the "Girls Gone Wild" fiasco that inspired the scene.  The people in charge of that franchise were unscrupulous and manipulative and often victimized and assaulted the women in the videos.

The reason I did not drop these scenes is because Rachel was right!  I wrote this scene partly inspired by a chapter in a sci-fi novel I was reading at the time (Daemon by Daniel Suarez) where one of the characters runs parties like this. I added my own speculative ideas of how they might work as well.  

According to the documentary, my speculation involving drug laced alcohol, paid sex worker plants, and group social manipulation was pretty accurate.  So I am leaving these scenes in for educational purposes.  I just wish they weren't so much work to make.

They also stand as a rare direct comparison between Ariane's personality (willing participant) and Rachel's personality (indirect observer).