One of my main concerns was avoiding a world where every element simply extruded vertically.
Because the pattern contained four major zones, I started developing different behaviours for each area. I went back to the sketching and started writing notes and ideas:
Some of the ideas included:
- paths appearing as grooves
- surfaces extruding from the ground
- walls rising into position
- structures shifting laterally
- curved corners developing over time
- scattered elements gradually organising
- spline-driven geometry
- fragmented geometry reconnecting
- final connecting strands appearing near the resolution
For one zone, I explored an almost circuit-like system where different walls and pathways could assemble themselves progressively.
I also began considering using spline-based geometry animation as a more controllable alternative to relying entirely on complex deformers.
This was an important production decision because it allowed me to think about animation not only visually, but also in terms of how realistically each system could be controlled.