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Description
"...They were steering, as well as they could guess, for the gate-like opening at the far northward end of the long valley which they had seen in the morning. Once they were through the gap, they had only lo keep on in anything like a straight line and they were bound in the end to strike the Road. Their thoughts did not go beyond that, except for a vague hope that perhaps away beyond the Downs there might be no fog.
Their going was very slow. To prevent their getting separated and wandering in different directions they went in file, with Frodo leading. Sam was behind him, and after him came Pippin, and then Merry. The valley seemed to stretch on endlessly. Suddenly Frodo saw a hopeful sign. On either side ahead a darkness began to loom through the mist; and he guessed that they were at last approaching the gap in the hills, the north-gate of the Barrow-downs. If they could pass that, they would be free.
'Come on! Follow me!' he called back over his shoulder, and he hurried forward. But his hope soon changed to bewilderment and alarm. The dark patches grew darker, but they shrank; and suddenly he saw, towering ominous before him and leaning slightly towards one another like the pillars of a headless door, two huge standing stones. He could not remember having seen any sign of these in the valley, when he looked out from the hill in the morning. He had passed between them almost before he was aware: and even as he did so darkness seemed to fall round him." [J.R.R.Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8, Fog on the Barrow Downs.]

Inspiration taken from the above passage. Great idea of mine: create an atmospheric scene of some stones. At night. In the dark. In a thick fog. Hmmm... I ended up taking a bit of license with the scene and so it's not totally black (tweak your monitor brightness - you should be able to see a granite texture and cracks) and the fog is clearing. Otherwise it would be... kinda boring.

It could probably do with a pony or Hobbit or something in there but I haven't the skills to do objects like that properly and my ancient copy of Poser (version 4) doesn't work on Windows 7 beta.

I'm out of other ideas to make it more interesting but think the overall effect is... OK.

Comments and suggestions welcome!

(PS: the Vue project file ended up being called Frog On The Barrow Downs - one of those weak personal jokes - I even tried adding a frog on top of one of the standing stones but it just looked silly. So much for comedic inspiration.)

EDIT: I should point out this chapter was ignored by both the early animated film and (the million fold more successful) Peter Jackson movie. Both films remove chapters containing the sinister Old Forest, Old Man Willow and Tom Bombadil (an intriguing character forged from several powerful medieval character archetypes - the Fool and the Wise Man according to semi-dubious Jungian Archetypes). There are jokes about the only Jewish elf, Goldberry, but I won't go there.

Fog on the Barrow Downs was the next chapter to be abridged, probably because it's narrative function, like the last few, was merely to further the rich detail in the back-story: here the hobbits are captured by a long dead spirit, called a Wright, and imprisoned in its barrow, a tomb (typical of early iron age northern Europe, built above ground, containing the remains of a king as well as his most cherished possessions and formed into an small hill or mound). Here Merry and Pippin find ancient Numenorian daggers, subtlety supernatural blades, that they use as swords for the rest of the story. Luckily they're all rescued from the evil spirit's lair by the ever enigmatic (and quite possibly stoned) Tom Bombadil.

Here is also the creation of the evil ancient Wheel-Barrow-Write, but that's a joke best left avoided, especially by gardeners.

EDIT: coming back to this, I can see the mist needs a lot of work - possibly layered, ground hunging. Also the camera could do with being further off the ground - Hobbits aren't THAT short! Some lichen on the granite would be nice!

Description
"...They were steering, as well as they could guess, for the gate-like opening at the far northward end of the long valley which they had seen in the morning. Once they were through the gap, they had only lo keep on in anything like a straight line and they were bound in the end to strike the Road. Their thoughts did not go beyond that, except for a vague hope that perhaps away beyond the Downs there might be no fog.
Their going was very slow. To prevent their getting separated and wandering in different directions they went in file, with Frodo leading. Sam was behind him, and after him came Pippin, and then Merry. The valley seemed to stretch on endlessly. Suddenly Frodo saw a hopeful sign. On either side ahead a darkness began to loom through the mist; and he guessed that they were at last approaching the gap in the hills, the north-gate of the Barrow-downs. If they could pass that, they would be free.
'Come on! Follow me!' he called back over his shoulder, and he hurried forward. But his hope soon changed to bewilderment and alarm. The dark patches grew darker, but they shrank; and suddenly he saw, towering ominous before him and leaning slightly towards one another like the pillars of a headless door, two huge standing stones. He could not remember having seen any sign of these in the valley, when he looked out from the hill in the morning. He had passed between them almost before he was aware: and even as he did so darkness seemed to fall round him." [J.R.R.Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8, Fog on the Barrow Downs.]

Inspiration taken from the above passage. Great idea of mine: create an atmospheric scene of some stones. At night. In the dark. In a thick fog. Hmmm... I ended up taking a bit of license with the scene and so it's not totally black (tweak your monitor brightness - you should be able to see a granite texture and cracks) and the fog is clearing. Otherwise it would be... kinda boring.

It could probably do with a pony or Hobbit or something in there but I haven't the skills to do objects like that properly and my ancient copy of Poser (version 4) doesn't work on Windows 7 beta.

I'm out of other ideas to make it more interesting but think the overall effect is... OK.

Comments and suggestions welcome!

(PS: the Vue project file ended up being called Frog On The Barrow Downs - one of those weak personal jokes - I even tried adding a frog on top of one of the standing stones but it just looked silly. So much for comedic inspiration.)

EDIT: I should point out this chapter was ignored by both the early animated film and (the million fold more successful) Peter Jackson movie. Both films remove chapters containing the sinister Old Forest, Old Man Willow and Tom Bombadil (an intriguing character forged from several powerful medieval character archetypes - the Fool and the Wise Man according to semi-dubious Jungian Archetypes). There are jokes about the only Jewish elf, Goldberry, but I won't go there.

Fog on the Barrow Downs was the next chapter to be abridged, probably because it's narrative function, like the last few, was merely to further the rich detail in the back-story: here the hobbits are captured by a long dead spirit, called a Wright, and imprisoned in its barrow, a tomb (typical of early iron age northern Europe, built above ground, containing the remains of a king as well as his most cherished possessions and formed into an small hill or mound). Here Merry and Pippin find ancient Numenorian daggers, subtlety supernatural blades, that they use as swords for the rest of the story. Luckily they're all rescued from the evil spirit's lair by the ever enigmatic (and quite possibly stoned) Tom Bombadil.

Here is also the creation of the evil ancient Wheel-Barrow-Write, but that's a joke best left avoided, especially by gardeners.

EDIT: coming back to this, I can see the mist needs a lot of work - possibly layered, ground hunging. Also the camera could do with being further off the ground - Hobbits aren't THAT short! Some lichen on the granite would be nice!