Evaluation

Overall I'm very happy with the results of my animation. Considering this was my first time using 3D Studio Max coupled with the small timescale we were given to complete the scenario I managed to create a trailer that represented scenes from my chosen film with a fair amount of realism.

I adapted to working with 3D Studio Max quite quickly and anything I did have trouble with I went and researched what I was doing wrong or how I did it. 

I felt like my original storyboard was quite optimistic, including explosions, character animation and other effects and I'm impressed with myself that I managed to stick to my storyboard so closely.

I was disappointed that I never had the opportunity to use Reactor in my trailer as I originally planned to use Reactor for my explosion scene. As I mentioned in a previous blog post Reactor would not work with the particles generated using PArray. However I am fairly pleased with the effects generated from the combination of PArray, PBomb, Gravity and Deflect.

If I had had more time to develop  the trailer I probably would have added more detail to the environments used in some of my scenes. The scene with the plane flying through the hanger seemed very bland to me and was primarily due to rushing the scene. If I was to improve this scene I would attempt to add some extra props (planes, equipment, scaffolding) and model and animate some extra characters to have manually closing the doors.

Ideally I would have also liked to not need to download models from external sources but the timescale meant spending time modelling things like trees would have probably cause me to not finish the project in time. 

In conclusion I'm generally pleased with the animation quality of the trailer despite the few weak areas. I feel like I learned a lot in terms of modelling in 3D and animating using key frames and other techniques. There is certainly a long way to go and more to learn and I hope I can do so in the near future.

My Trailer!

After doing some small final touches to some of the scenes and rendering them all in high quality I imported the clips into Adobe Premier and cut the clips together to make the trailer as I intended. I used the original James Bond theme as the base sound track and added some sound effects gathered from www.findsounds.com.

I added some fade in and out transitions between some clips based on my storyboard and the final scene is a jpeg image created in photoshop.

 

I'm happy with the overal results for my trailer. I managed to follow my storyboard as I intended and managed to complete the animation on time. I will give a full evaluation of my work in a following blog post. 

Final Scene - Test Render

I have animated the character to move in the final scene where he avoids bullets and then fires his own gun. I originally intended to model the gun that he holds in this scene but decided that the time it is shown the trailer is too small for it to be worth the extra time to model.

For this reason I have imported a pre-made gun from the turbosquid website. The model was created by the user ChuckNepo. http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-m1911a1-pistol-3d-model/362695

I linked the gun to the characters hand using a link constraint and closed the characters fingers around the gun.
I then used key frame animation to animate the character to try and match the movements from the film. It looks ok but moves perhaps too quickly.

I also added a small particle effect again using super spray to simulate the sparks from a bullet hitting the train carriage.

Explosion and Title Screen

I decided to change up my storyboard slightly for this scene. Not only does the hanger explode but a peice of sindged metal flies at the camera which displays the words '007' and 'Octopussy'. I wanted some kind of pause in the trailer between the initial sequence and the random scenes which come afterwards.

I should also mention that I plan to have the train scene come before the car scene simply becuase I feel it works better in that order.

Here is the rendered video of the explosion I created for this part of the trailer.

The effect is created using the PArray particle system which converts an already present object into smaller peices and explodes them out. This only makes them explode out in a definitive direction however so I also used the PBomb tool to cause the particles to explode out more realistically. 

I planned to use Reactor here to simulate the gravity effect on the exploded particles but it seems that it is next to impossible to use the system on particles.

Attempting to convert the particles into objects would mean they would lose their momentum and move unnaturally as well.

In the end to make up for the lack of Reactor I linked the Gravity tool from the forces tab to the PArray to cause them to fall and also added a UDynaflect tool from the deflecters tab to prevent the particles from falling through the ground.

The explosion itself was created using the SphereGizmo which is under the Atmospheric Apparatus from the Helpers tab. A fire effect with explosion checked and some modifying gave me a fairly decent result.

I'm quite happy with the result despite not being able to use Reactor. The idea for the titles to show up like it did came to me as I was creating this scene where a peice of the hanger flew at the camera when I was testing. I thought it looked really good and decided to use that for showing the title sequence.

I made the texure with the text on it in Photoshop and used UVW Mapping to get it to show in the right way.

Plane Scenes - Test Renders

I've spent some time animating the BD-5 Microjet model and the Missile to make the first few scenes of my trailer. I also had to create the scenes which they feature in meaning I also had to model the hanger which the plane flies through and the launcher for the missile.

The introduction scene - The plane is seen flying low over the terrain.

 

The trees in this scene are the same models I used in the car scene and are a downloaded model. Check the previous blog posts for the reference link.

The missile is launched leaving a trail of smoke.

 

The smoke is a variation of the particle generation system I used when I orginally created the missile. It is produced using Super Spray particle system. It produces spheres at a high frequency and quite close together. To give the smoke effect a smoke opacity map is used.

The missile gets close to the plane but bond makes a last minute dodge.

Probably my favorite scene of my trailer. It looks really nice in high quality. The downside is that I havn't managed to put my character model into the cockpit of the plane due to not being able to resize the biped it uses. If I have time I may come back to this scene and attempt to upscale the scene for the model.

The plane flies into the air hanger to escape the missile.

Quite a simple scene which does the job but feels quite empty to me. It could do with some extra people running around or some props.

Cockpit view as the plane flies through the hanger.

I had trouble getting the lighting to work in this scene as it was incredibly dark inside the hanger while using the daylight system. In the end I had to remove the daylight system during this scene. It reduces the overall qaulity more than I would like but its the best I could get.

The plane squeezes through the doors and escapes.

 

The final scene in which the plane is used. I'm fairly happy with how the animation has come along for these scenes. The particle system for the missile smoke especially adds to the realism. If I had more time I would probably add extra characters to the scene involving the hanger as in the actual film there is a lot of soldiers running around.

Train Scene - Update

To save time I decided to rig my character model using the pre-made biped tool so that I could animate him for the train scene. The rigging went very well and even animates with the extra clothes I modelled originally without clipping.

Having done this I imported my character into the scene and linked him to the train using the link constraint tool. This meant that he would move with the train as the train moved along the track.

I then spent a great deal of time manually animating the character to run across the roof of the train carraige and then jump across to the next one. I realise I could have used the footsteps tool that comes with the biped but decided not too as it felt like the software was doing the work for me.

Here is the animation I have so far:

The animation isnt as great as I would like as it looks like he is running faster than the actual distance he travels but overall I am happy with the results.

Train Scene - Test Render

I spent a few hours creating the train scene for one of the last few clips in my trailer. The train is not as detailed as my other models as I am fast approaching the delivery deadline but in the few seconds that It will be seen I am happy that it will look the part.

This scene is where my character model will be seen jumping from one train carriage to the other which I will animate next.

 

Car Scene - Test Render

This is a low resulotion render of a short action scene in which my car model is shown drifting around the street corner for the final trailer. It is almost finished but still needs the smoke effect for the tire squeel.

 

For this scene I originally used a path constraint to get the car to move around the corner. This worked ok but was a little jumpy and unnatural. I attempted to modify the object using the graph curves but could not get a result I was happy with. In the end I manually animated the car using keyframe animation mixed with edits from the curve editor. The result as you can see is quite good.

Due to time restraints the model of the trees used in this scene was downloaded free from http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/tree-3ds-free/480774

All other models were created by myself. I take no credit for the tree models. All credit goes to user MedievalWorlds of the TurboSquid website.

Smoke Trail Effect Testing

The first half of my trailer include Bond flying the BD-5 Micro Jet while avoiding a heat seeking missile. For these scenes I ideally wanted a realistic looking smoke trail to be generated behind the missile as it chases the plane.

http://www.3d-tutorial.com/3d_max_smoke_effect-1039.html

Today I followed this video tutorial I found online and experimented with creating a smoke trail effect.

I used the built in particle generating tool Super Spray and tweaked the settings based on the knowledge I had gained from the tutorial. The result within the viewport was this:

Spherical Representation of Particles

I then added a smoke map opacity to the texture as well as a particle age gradient map. Finally i turned the overall opacity down to make it more see-through.

This 50 frame video took 15 minutes to render in the lowest resolution on my laptop so while being a nice effect it will greatly increase my render time in the actual scenes it is used in.

Animation Tutorial - Reactor

3DStudio Max comes with a built in physics engine called Reactor (developed by Havok) which can add gravity, friction and collisions to objects in a scene.

The first step is adding the objects you want to be affected by Reactor to a Rigid Body collection. Other collections exist such as the soft body collection (in which objects compress and morph when colliding with other objects) and cloth collection which can realistically animate cloth based objects.

When using reactor there are a number of different variables which can be changed to modify how an object is affected. The collision tollerence determines at what distance a collision will take place. Gravity can be set on any axis with the z-axis set to -386 by default. Each object also has Mass, friction and Elasticity sliders to determine how it behaves.

Using these tools on the bowling alley objects provided for the tutorial I created a realistic looking strike animation.

 

In this scene I set the alley floor to have a mass of 0 so that it is not affected by gravity while giving the ball a mass of 20 and the pins a mass of 5. Mass is effectively proportionate to weight so the higher the mass the heavier the object. I set the collision tollerence to about 0.5 over 3.6 to make the bowl more realistic. 

Finally to give the ball momentum I moved the ball forward along the alley by about 5 frames and adjusted reactor to only take effect from frame 2. I also lowered to ball to just above the surface of the alley floor and added a spin to the ball.

Animation Tutorials - Morpher

Using the Morpher tool makes it very easy to create simple animations like facial animations. For this tutorial we practised using this tool on a pre-built human head model with the intention of creating a few facial animations.

The way in which the morpher tool creates these animations is that you create multiple copies of the head object and modify it to show the finished emotion you want to animated.

These faces are then added to the list of channels on the morpher modifier of the original head which gives a slider to tween between the start and end facial animation. A tween!

These sliders can then be used to create the desired animations, combined with the curve editor and dope sheet this makes facial animating quite simple.

Here is the animation I created during the tutorial:

Animation Tutorials - Bones

Adding Bones to an object, most commonly character models allows body parts to be moved freely and realisticaly with the other parts of the body. It is extremely useful and time saving when it comes to animating characters.
For this tutorial we used the provided character model torso and added bones to the model manually in order to animate the arms.

Provided Model

 

The bones are added using a heriachy so that each new bone created is affect by the last, just like a real skeleton. This means moving the Bicep will make the Forcep move too. 

Bicep - Forcep and Hand

For this instand I modelled the whole hand as one bone for simplicity but for models which require finger movement bones for each finger would also be needed. 

After linking the bones to the torso polygons the area in which it affects more than often needs fine tuning so that all of the polygons move when required and they do not affect areas they are not supposed to. This is a long process but is very benificial to the animation quality.

Rendered Tosro after moving the arms using the bones.

Animation Tutorials - Frame Animation

For this tutorial we tried animating our first objects using 3DS Max. This involved using key frames to set start and end instances of objects which is then tweened by the software. Frame by Frame animation is also possible.

Tools such as the curve editor allow easy editing of the generated animations to help perfect each particular animation. In this instance I edited the curves of the animation for a ball to make it bounce more realistically and squash slightly when it lands.

Other options under edit ranges allow you to loop and cycle animations.

Here is the result of animating using these techniques.

Project Asset 3 - James Bond Character Model

At first I was hesitant as to whether I wanted to model a human character. A human model doesn't have a simple shape and since we are organic rather than inanimate It would be hard to make a convincing model. However seeing other students attempt it on their blog I decided I might as well push myself and give it a try. 

I primarily followed the tutorial on low poly character modelling by Ben Mathis which can be found here: http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/benmathis/benmathis_1.asp

As he suggested I started modelling using 8 edged cylinders rather than boxes as they more closely represent human anatomy and then started shaping the objects into a more human like shape. 

The Torso

Cylinders

I duplicated the leg to keep them symmetrical and used the Boolean tool to join the legs together as one object. 

Funky Trousers

Once I was happy with the shape of the arm I also duplicated that and again used the boolean tool to carefully attached each arm to the torso.

Funky PJ's?

I'm unsure as to whether making the body one object was the right thing to do when it comes down to the animating part but for now im quite happy with how it has turned out. Since in the trailer Bond is wearing shoes I have not modelled feet. However I did create some shoes. 

Smart Shoes

The Hands

I then tackled the hands in the same way the tutorial I was following adviced. I started with a cylinder shape and extruded out the fingers one by one and got a fairly decent result.

Start

Making it a bit smoother

Mesh Smooth FTW!

After completing the hands I once again use Boolean to attach them to the body. At this point I had a fairly decent looking headless corpse of a model.

At least he has shoes.

The Head

I was not looking forward to the head. Many online guides explain how the head is the hardest to model because we as humans are so used to looking at them that even slight deformities are noticable to us. I first tried the poly by poly method that was referenced in a peers blog but found it was taking too long and once again switched to the low poly tutorial I had been following so far.

Creepy.

I started with a cube and modelled from there, adding in new edges and cutting in details where appropriate. 

Demon Eyes

While not very realistic I'm generally happy that is is at least recognisable as a human head. Using the mesh smooth modifier makes it slightly better.

Not bad

At this point I wanted to add clothes to my character and I stumbled upon a video tutorial on how to use the Garment Maker and Cloth modifiers to generate clothing.
See Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hkk8XgGPQw

These modifiers can simulate clothes locally within the viewport to wrap themselves around the character which I personally think is amazing.

Panels of the shirt.

Adding seams

Simulation Result.

Snazzy

I wont go into detail on how the process works. But I have to say that I am extremely happy with the results.

Now with trousers!

Finally I added the trousers and gave the objects textures. The model is not finished completly. (A trend I seem to be setting) as he still needs eyes, hair and ears. I look forward to rigging the character and seeing how the model animates. Fingers crossed that it does without breaking...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some Renders showing the character using the daylight system.

Project Asset 2 - Alfa Romeo GTV6

The Alfa Romeo is just one of the cars featured in the film Octopussy. However I wanted to use it in my trailer as it is the best looking car in the film (although not quite an Aston Martin...) and does a great drift around a corner as Bond escapes the police. The whole scene takes just a couple of seconds and would go well as part of the last few clips in my trailer.

Research Board for Alfa Romeo GTV6

Since the model is actually quite complex in shape I started by drawing the shape of the body with the line using reference images. When complete I converted the spline into an editible poly and extruded out to get a block the shape of the car.

Car shape complete!

With some vertex tweaking, chamfering of main edges and deleting out the polygons where windows will be I had this:

First iteration of the car

By using this method I had majority of the car shape complete with very little effort. Many other students I've noticed have been modelling poly by poly which in my opinion takes a great deal of time and requires a lot of attention to keep smooth. However this method is not without its faults as I had to cut in many edges myself using the cut/connet tools to keep the model in quads.

Front Grill

 The next step was to define the front of the car. I created the grill using a box with a high number of height and width edges, inseting certain polygones and extruding through. To generate the smooth curve I used the modifier FDD 4x4x4 which I had used when making the desk chair earlier on.

Wheel Rims

The wheels consists of a tyre object (created from a tube shape) and the rims which was created using a number of methods including, extruding, inset, and bevel. The rims took a long time to get right. The other change at this point was the attempt and making the wheel arches which stick out quite prominantly from the car.

More defined car with wheels

At this point I then went on the create the windows and doors. To get an accurate window trim shape I copied the polygons surrounding the window frame and then extruded them slighty. This gave me the shape of the window frame and I added a plane to fit inside for the glass. I also added the lower trim and front and rear bumpers.

Car Even more defined

The final part was adding in the extra details including headlights, wing mirrors, rear details and other body details.

HeadLights

Wing Mirror

Rendered Wing Mirror with reflective texture.

At this point I would say the Model is again 90% complete. There are a couple more details I want to add when I get the time, (windscreen wipers, license plate details etc). Other than that the model is ready to use for my trailer and I'm fairly happy with the result.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some renders of the model using the daylight system:

Project Asset 1 - BD-5 Microjet

The BD-5 Microjet features in the opening minutes of the film Octopussy. It is a key icon from the film and I felt that it should be in my trailer.In fact the mojority of the trailer will include this model. Because of this fact this was the model I started working on first.

Research Board for BD-5 Microjet

There are not very many screenshots of the modelling process for this model as I forgot to regularly screen cap my progress. However I attempted this model by starting with a cylinder type shape and edited the sizes of each round edge to get the general shape of the plane.

The wings and fins on the plane were added by deleting the polygons where they attach and extruding out by holding shift and draging out the polygons into the shape of the wings.

Mid Progress Model - With MeshSmooth

The exhaust was added as a seperate shape created from a simple cone. A great deal of time went into trying to make the plane as rounded as possible and im still not 100% happy with it.

Creating the cockpit

Because I planned to have a scene shot from the cockpit view I decided to create a cockpit for the model. The polygons where the cockpit window was positioned was removed and capped to fill the general shape. A seat and controls were also added as was a joystick. The joystick was created quite quickly using the lathe modifier whereby you drawout half of the object using the line tool and lathe it to rotate that line into a 3D Model. Unfortunatly I do not have any screenshots demonstrating this.

Cockpit Render - Glass Material refracts the light.

The current model is probably 90% finished and requires proper texturing (Paint Scheme) and some small body details. Since this is my primary model I will probably continue working on it throughout the project.

Current Wireframe Model

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some renders of the model with a daylight lighting system:

Current Progress on Project Artifacts

I figured at this point it would be a good idea to show some screenshots of the models I have been working on so far. I wont go into detail with the techniques used to create each one but will give each model its own blog entry explaining the creation process when I am happy that they are complete.

BD-5 Micro Jet

Progress:
Mostly finished. Some final touch ups and texturing is required. I am not going to create the wheels for the plane as they do not feature during my trailer.

Alfa Romeo GTV6

Progress:

Also nearing completion. The main framework is done. All that remains is external details such as wing mirrors, door handles and trims. Texturing will also need to be done.

James Bond Character

 

Progress:
Very much incomplete. Only recently started and will require the most attention in the coming days but I am confident I can model him a satisfactory level.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I started with these three first as I feel that they feature the most in my storyboarded trailer. Other models such as a handgun and train will also need to be created over the next week or so.