More Chinese Mountains and themes..

Coming towards the end of the design for the Chinese theme now.

Improved flowers on the lake, both static and moving, and fixed the mountains in the background.

Here it is with the weather text overlay:

Click for a larger version. I will be able to start work on the weather conditions soon.

Then a quick preview of the African Savannah idea, just the backgrounds at the moment, but I like the contrast of the yellow and blues, as opposed to the greens of the normal countryside:

 

 

Watching the new Zoo tv series is what gave me this inspiration, and another scene set in Tokyo makes me really want to a proper Japanese painting theme, similar to the Chinese but more abstract.  

More Chinese Theme..

Been doing more work on the Chinese Painting theme showing a misty mountain lake, see below:

First off, blending the edges so they fade into white, to give more of a paper or canvas feel.
Then added a bridge and gatehouse in the foreground, with a new animation of a galloping horse and rider that runs across the curve of the bridge.

The fishing boat now drifts slowly behind the bridge.

The waterfall animation is improved at larger resolutions, and the flying birds are faded out a bit so that they don't appear so high contrast.

The tree branches on the right still wave in the breeze, and drop flower petals at random intervals.

The pink water lilies at the front drift across the lake.

Still to do:

• Improve the lily animation and add more flowers to the lake foreground.
• Redo the far mountains behind the temple

Then will start work on the weather animations, and changing the colours of the forecast thumbnails so that they work with the white background.

I have decided to keep this a more stylized theme based on a single painting which is set during the day, so there will be no sunset or night versions. That will also mean its quicker to finish!

After that I need to investigate a city theme, but I had a nice idea for a African Savannah theme, with Kilimanjaro rising in the background, waving yellow grasses in the foreground, some nice baobab trees that would look great in silhouette at night and during sunset, and of course some nice animated animals, perhaps giraffes. And maybe a landrover crossing the screen..