And Finally...

The last thing I am going to do is upload a few screen shots of high rendered images from my production. I am very pleased with the results of these so I thought I'd upload them on here as a way of signing off this blog for this module!

End of Project Review

It is now time to reflect on my work and look at what I am pleased with and what I am disappointed with.


I am pleased with the animation as a whole. I think that I have showed a good range of understanding and a good work ethic. I don't think I've gone more than a day or so throughout this semester without doing something related to this module. Hopefully this reflects in my work. After a bit of a struggle at first and creating a pretty simple model to start with in the mobile phone, I did get the hang of it and improved quite a lot in the middle weeks. Once we had handed in the models and we started animating, my project really took off. I straight away worked on the gun barrel scene and got it working well which was very satisfying. This led to me doing the first scene with the pro water material and picture of MI6 building. I didn't really have an opportunity to model that entire building, and it would have been unnecessary as it is only in shot for five seconds. I was pleased with how the middle two scenes went as well. I enjoy animating but it can be very fiddly and frustrating at times. I did manage to include some more advanced techniques as well, so this is good! I have really enjoyed the blog aspect of the project and I am very pleased with the work I've done on this site. I think its a good incentive to do work, especially when you see other people uploading their work. It is also a good reference to work and helps me know when I did certain things. I did complete the paperwork and follow it, which was good too as it enabled me to know what I was doing before I went into each scene.


After looking at some other people's animations it makes me feel less pleased about my own. I know it is bad to compare yourself to others the whole time but it does knock your confidence back when you see some of the outstanding work other people have done. I need to remain positive and remember that I should be pleased with my animation this semester, even if there are things I would like to improve.


One of the main concerns for my animation is that it isn't really a trailer. It is more of a story in itself. I think this happened because my mind tends to focus in on creating a story rather than coming up with bits of one. Some of the animating is a bit dodgy as well. Examples of this include the middle two scenes where the hand moves in a very rigid manner. I was fairly weak in understanding the materials editor. This is something I definitely need to improve in over the summer. I still find deciding which material to use a problem and working out how the maps will change the material. I would have liked to have done something else with the gun barrel scene, like in the real Bond trailers where the barrel moves about. This would have meant my animation would have ended up being a minute long, which is far too long when the brief said thirty seconds. The story doesn't really have much of a narrative, it may be unclear what Bond is doing in 006's office as there isn't time to explain. Again this is a problem with making a story instead of a trailer.


In conclusion I am pleased with my work this semester. Even if the final animation is not a really high standard, I am still pleased with how I have applied myself in the last few months. Hopefully I will continue working on my skills this summer, so I can improve my standard to bring it up with some of the rest next year.

FInished!

I have now completely finished my animation. After deciding on the music, I was able to export the file. I will export it as an FLV as well as QuickTime, just to make sure it will be viewable on the computers it is marked on.


I will review my animation and look at what pleases me and what doesn't. This will enable me to draw conclusions on how well I think this module has gone. I am likely to still feel similar things to the SWAT analysis carried out on 24th March but I can now assess from a completed project.


The backing music during the first three scenes is part of 'Time is Running out' by Muse. This was edited together in Premier pro so that the first bar is repeated.

Review of Other people's work

I will now have a look at how the other people doing this assignment have been getting on. I have seen them both in and out of class time but haven't seen the results of renders or the final animation. I've looked at people's blogs regularly throughout the semester so have gained a good idea of what people have been doing.


Alex Chapman
Have been impressed with his work throughout the semester. His blog is huge in content and is of a very high standard. He has shown a vast range of skills within 3DS Max, creating really realistic scenes, such as the laser scene in Goldfinger. He was the first completed animation I saw and I was very impressed!



Hong Wong
Again, really impressive work. He has created some really realistic things. When he was experimenting with water, the results looked like an actual photograph. His idea was very unique too, combining James Bond with Little Big Planet. Really good work, considering he was new to modelling at the start of this module.

Update of progress - Three days to go

I'm fairly relaxed with three days to go. I'm not really under pressure with any of my modules so that is good to say the least. I am just finishing re-rendering scene three after I have made the improvements that were stated before. I did end up doing the second scene again, as I noticed I had forgotten to apply the smoke material on the superspray. Its a pain when one little thing is missing and you have to render the whole scene again!


I also searched for an alternate sound for the box opening in scene three. I settled on using a beeping sound instead, as this could well be a realistic sound when access is granted for a swipe card system.


The only problem now is finding some sound to fill the empty spaces at the start of the animation. The only sounds you hear at the moment are the sound effects like the laser and the door opening. I will have a look to find some music that fits.


The main things for me to do now are to evaluate my entire project, burn the disc, print off this blog and to have a look at some other people's work. I do sometimes get disheartened when I see other people's work, so I will do my best not to let that happen this time as I am pleased with my work this semester!



Beep 9 - http://www.soundjay.com/beep-sounds-1.html [9/04/2011]

Post Render Feedback

After collecting together all my scenes and viewing them in order in premier pro, I am fairly pleased with the end result. I have applied my current sound effects to the correct places and they sound good. There are a few bits I want to change, luckily I still have time. The changes will result in the animation being longer; it is currently 36 seconds.


The first two scenes are fine, I need to render the second scene with the updated superspray system.


The third scene I would like to start off slower. At the moment the camera moves too quickly, it would be better if it pauses for a second to appear that Bond is taking a second to work out what to do. I also want the camera at the end to zoom into the gun more slowly. The robot sound that I found for the box opening does not fit, so I need to find an alternate sound.


The fourth scene, the bullet needs to fire more quickly to line up nicely with the gunshot sound, and the final image when the blood is done should remain for a few seconds so I can fade out.


I will make these changes this weekend, and see if I am happier with the results.

Sound files

I have been looking on the Internet for sound files that I will use in premier pro to complete the animation. These take the form of small noises, such as the gun shot, the laser and an opening door etc. The main body of music will be the James Bond theme tune, which I have on CD from when I was a boy! I need to decide whether to have the theme tune running throughout most of the animation itself, or if to only use it for the gun barrel sequence. I will see if I can find any other suitable music firstly. Here are the websites where I acquired the wavs. All (apart from the CD) are [Internet] based and were first found and accessed today [07/04/2011].


Gun Shot - 357mag wav - http://www.talkingwav.com/various_wav_sounds.html
Door Opening - Door Open 1 - http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/domestic_sounds.html
Box opening (robot sound) - robot_explode.mp3 - http://soundjax.com/robot_sounds-1.html
Laser Sound - "Lightning" Given to me by a friend - Unknown origin.
Gun Reload Sound - "GunLoad02" Given by a friend - Unknown origin
James Bond Theme - "The Best of Bond, James Bond 007" CD Compilation - 1999

Update of Progress - One week to go

Just thought i'd update my progress with one week to go.

I'm nearly ready to move out of 3DS Max and into Premier Pro to bring the scenes together and add the sound. There are a few little things i'd like to change in the scenes but I will need to check how time consuming these may be as the scenes will have to be rendered again.


It doesn't seem to make a huge difference how high you set the render quality in 3DS Max, the final outconme is relatively similar. I have chosen to use PAL (25 frames per second) and have rendered my scenes at 640 x 480. If I have time, I may try a higher spec render. I have also elected to use the first gunbarrel sequence. This was because of a number of reasons; the barrel of the gun would be black, the blood drips better in that version and also the vast amount of raytrace was distracting.





Next week I will conduct a full evaluation of my work and see where I am pleased and where I am not. The current feeling is that I will be fairly pleased with my final animation, but we shall see when it is put together with sound effects!

Scene 3 - First Version

I have now completed the first version of my third scene. I had started making the set for this scene a long time ago but I had never fully finished it. Now I have learnt a lot more about materials and 3DS in general, so I was able to improve on it a lot.

The first thing I needed to do was to adjust the back wall. I wanted to have a window that Bond will aim out of, so I created a new box shape and deleted some of the polys so there was a hole through the shape. I then used the bridge tool on each of the edges to fill in the gaps so you couldn't see through the mesh. I then created another box and fitted it in the gap. I set the material to be the pro materials glass.





Next, I changed the colour schemes of the walls. The walls need to match the colour of the corridor I previously created, so the brown colour I chose before was not appropriate. I went for a white/cream colour. I used the pro material wall paint material with a roller setting. I also removed one of the lamps to accommodate for the window. Outside the window, I created a box and put a sky image onto it. This makes it look like the office is high up in the building, and gives Bond something to fire out of! The other thing I did was change the material of the desk in the centre. Glass was just becoming too much of a pain, to render, to view, to do anything with. I decided I'd make it a simple brown material, that way it would render nicely. I used a simple standard material with a brown diffuse.





Next, I needed to import all the models into the scene. I required my gun, the mobile phone and the right hand and sleeve. Using File, Import, Merge I was able to do this and after some resizing, the models could all be placed into the scene.





Next up, I started animating the camera. Animating a target camera is a little bit fiddly, as you need to animate the camera end as well as the target end. This makes for some frustrating times using set key, as keys get lost or moved and the camera changes place. I animated the camera looking from the left to the desk at the end, then zooming into it.





The hand model needed to be adjusted to accommodate the mobile phone. I did this using the soft selection tool, along with rotation and move tool. The phone sits in the hand nicely. Set key was used to make the hand appear in the correct place and then move. I have not yet done the shock from the phone's prongs, that will be next on the agenda! The arm then moves back out of the camera and it remains out of shot.





Once the arm moves out of shot, I used set key again to make the box's lid rotate upwards, revealing Bond's walther p99 and some bullets inside. At this point the camera zooms upwards and into the box to show you whats inside. This was very tricky as the camera part of the viewport only updates when you select it, so a lot of trial and error is involved to get the camera into the correct place.





Next was the bit that I thought would be tricky... picking the gun up! As the camera had moved up, it allowed me more space to rotate the arm downwards towards the box. I then used the link constraint tool to attach the gun to the hand. This enabled me to move the arm upwards with the gun attached. The gun had to be rotated in the box to fit into the hand. I then set the camera to pan away to the MI6 picture on the wall (to remind Bond of who he works for, and also to enable me to substitute in my final arm with gun!) The camera then pans to the window and the gun is aiming out of it. The final thing is for the camera to zoom into the back of the gun... cue gun barrel scene next!





As I used three different arms in the course of this scene, I needed them to appear and disappear. Before I have used the mini curve editor to do this, but now I have found out to use the dope sheet. It is very similar but there are a few differences. Once the arm is selected, right click and choose dope sheet. A box is brought up. The first thing to do is add a visibility track. Once this is done, go to assign, controller and set it to on/off. Then you can add and set keyframes. To make the item invisible at first, the first keyframe has to be placed before 0 on the frame count. The second keyframe will mark where the item becomes visible. This was done for the arm that picks up the gun, and the arm holding the gun ready to fire.




The final thing I did was to import a few of my previously made models and put them on the desk at the side. I thought it was a nice touch to get them into a scene somewhere!


I have rendered this scene, you can see below. There are a couple of things that need to be done. Obviously the phone needs to fire something out of its prongs to open the safe. I also need to look at the phone screen, maybe find a JPEG to go on there. The final thing that I forgot to do for this render is add the carpet! When the door opens in scene two you see the floor of this room and there is no carpet in there yet!






Another adjustment to this scene is to use bones in the arm that picks up the gun. This enables the arm to be more flexable. First off, the arm is selected, and the bone tool found. The arm fitted five bones inside.







Once the bones were in the correct place, it was time to use the skin modifier on the arm. You have to add the bones into the box on the right hand side in the modifier panel. Once this is done the arm now movees with the bones.







John McNally
Blue Skies, Red Sunsets and a Red Moon
2009
http://johnmcnally54.com/blue-skies-red-sunsets-and-a-red-moon/
[Internet]
[06/04/2011]

Got3d
Got3d Texture Store - 70 Carpet Textures
2004
http://store.got3d.com/products/70-carpet-textures/pages/Office-Carpet06.html
[Internet]
[31/3/2011]

Animation of Scene Two

I have completed the animation side of my second scene. As my animation is from first person perspective, I had to pay special attention to the position of the camera as it has to appear as what Bond would see. This proved tricky at first but I got the hang of it.


Firstly I needed to create my office scene. It is quite bare at the moment but I will add to it later on. At the moment there are two walls and roof. There is a door in the middle with a padlock on it (made out of a box and two cylinders). I have imported the watch and hand models into the scene. To create the arm, I used a cylinder and used the inset tool to create a smaller circle inside the end polygon. Then I extruded out the end of the arm which would be the sleeve.





I then used the material editor and set the IDs of the poly. I selected the new extruded end and set it as ID2 and the rest of the arm as ID1. Using material editor I selected a new multi/sub object material and put ID1 as black and ID2 as white. This then changed the colour of the arm. After resizing it and placing the watch onto the end, I could move onto editing the hand.





Now I had a problem, I had created a right hand and I needed a left one. The solution was to select all the vertices of the hand and use the mirror modifier to replicate the model mirrored. I then resized the hand a put it into place.






I could now start animating. I needed to position the camera so the hand appeared so Bond checked the time. I used set frames to do this and coordinated the two movements. I then carried on with the camera and moved it towards the door.






I had to get the arm to follow it as it is needed again. The arm comes back into shot and the laser beam appears. This is just a cylinder at the moment. I have changed when it appears using the mini curve editor in the bottom left corner. Adding a visibility track and keyframes enables me to select the exact point I want the laser to be on screen.





Here is the first render of the video.



After seeing this video, I noticed that there is a point where you see the gap at the end of the arm. I fixed this by moving the arm slightly to the left. Next, it was time to alter the design of the environment itself. I need a sign saying 006 for the door, as well as other items that might be found in MI6. I need to add some lights too, to give the corridor a more realistic feel.


I have changed the material of the laser to have self illumination with glow (lume). The laser has also been shrunk slightly so it is thinner. By moving the position of the arm, this also meant I had to move the laser position. I did this by rotating it back into place. The scene seems to happen very quickly, which makes me feel I need to find a few more seconds from somewhere. I will need to go over the thirty second mark, there is no way I can fit the required animation into the time plan I created.



I have now finished the scene completely. After some debate about colours and materials I settled on white walls with a blue door. The doors have a wallpaint material with high gloss whereas the walls have a bump map with noise, to make them appear more paint like. I also improved the animation of the scene by getting the door to open once the padlock drops off. This was done by using set key, and the rotate tool. On the door, I created a JPEG in photoshop saying "006 office", so I imported that onto a plane and put it on the door. I also created another door and put it on the right hand wall, to make it seem more office like.



I created a picture of Judy Dench as M and put her on the wall in a photo frame. To create the photo frame, I created a box and inset a a square into one of the sides. then I deleted the two faces so there was a gap in the middle and placed the JPEG inside. The picture frame has a high gloss, pro stone material. This reflects the scene in it.





I changed the way the padlock drops, using reactor. I used autokey to get the left hand part of the padlock to drop, as this was the point where the padlock was burnt. As for the rest of the padlock I selected it and brough up the reactor menus. I selected the right hand part of the lock and the lock body and made them a rigid body collection.





I then right clicked on the lock body and gave it a mass of ten (select object, open property editor on reactor menu). Ater doing the same for the rest of the lock it was then time to designate when the lock will fall.





After putting in the start and end time on the right panel, it was time to set the gravity. I also set the gravity, (Havok 1 world) which sets the rate at which the padlock falls.





After some experimentation, I managed to get a good realistic drop of a padlock! After previewing the animation and creating it, the frames were inserted into my scene.






To create the smoke for the laser, I used the spray particle system. This is found in particle systems on the create panel. There are a lot of settings that can be changed within the systems. I shrunk the particle size and range. I then added a smoke material on in the material editor. Using a standard material, setting the diffuse colour to smoke. After setting which frames I wish the smoke to be visible for, I was ready to render the final scene.








Since this video, I have adjusted the superspray on the smoke for the laser. I made the particle sizes bigger, and the spray span a wider space. The result is now far more effective as before the smoke was a bit limited shooting straight upwards.


Got3d
Got3d Texture Store - 70 Carpet Textures
2004
http://store.got3d.com/products/70-carpet-textures/pages/Office-Carpet06.html
[Internet]
[31/3/2011]


Ian Jackson
A-Listers donate clothes to Alder Hey Imagine Appeal
2010
http://www.artinliverpool.com/blog/2010/08/a-listers-donate-clothes-to-alder-hey-imagine-appeal/
[Internet]
[31/3/2010]

Using Bones and Biped

In the last lecture, we learnt how to use the bones system as well as bipeds. These are very useful for animating a person and other types of characters.

Firstly we applied bones to a simple shape. In this case using a cylinder. Once the cylinder was made, go to systems and bones. Dragging a few bones down (in this case four) they are then placed inside the cylinder. After this, select the cylinder and use the skin modifier. Adding the bones will mean the two objects become linked together. Now, when you move the bones, the shape of the object will change.





Next, we looked at using a biped. This is a skeleton figure that can be applied to a model to animate it like a human being. We downloaded a human shaped model and selected biped from the systems panel. The first thing to do is to shape the biped to be the same size as the model. This means aligning the arms and the legs into place along with the head and torso. To do this, you have to select motion and figure mode. This will then enable the editing of the bones within the biped.





Once the biped is correctly aligned, place it inside the model. Then select the model and find the physique modifier. This then enables you to link the biped to the model. Once linked, open the envelope tool on the modifier panel. You can then select every individual bone and edit the envelope size, which in turn will change how the model moves when the shape is changed. When this is complete, the model can start to be animated.

Updated Storyboard

I have finally had a chance to scan in my updated storyboard. This is where I am drawing my ideas for my animating now. I have already nearly completed the first and last scene. Now just for the middle ones!





Along with this storyboard and the time plan I made last week, I am now fully able to plan how to complete the assignment.

Opening Sequence

I have created the opening sequence for my animation. The scene will be five seconds long and will contain a slow zoom in the the MI6 building. I created a plane and imported the bitmap onto it. I wanted to use my own water material instead of the water in the picture. 3ds max has a built in water material when you switch the renderer to mental ray. I created a box and started experimenting with the materials. There are a number of presets within the material. I struggled at first to get the river the correct colour. It needs to match the sky and the presets were either too blue or too green/brown. I opted to use a custom colour and selected one similar to that as the sky. Once rendered I decided it was good.





I added a camera to the scene and locked it to the picture. Along the timeline I auto keyed the camera to zoom in slightly over the five seconds. This means I will be able to add text using premier pro to set the scene at the start of the animation. Here is the rendered video, it took a long time to render as the water material is a promaterial. I am especially pleased with the water material as it moves when the camera zooms in.





Danny Robinson
MI6 Building, Albert Embankment
2006
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/177502
[Internet]
[25/3/2011]

Gun Barrel scene complete - just need a decision!

Finally, I have finished the gun barrel scene for the end of my animation. I noticed after posting last night that the blood material magnified the rest of the scene. This of course was a problem. To solve it I adjusted the material. Instead of using raytrace in the refraction map, I used the opacity map with an opacity base setting. After some experimenting around, I decided on 50%. In the scene view, the material appears to be uneven around the edges on the blood but when rendered it is completely fine.





I also cut the length of the scene down to eight seconds and changed some of the timings within the scene. When I was happy I rendered and got this result.





After rendering that video I was very pleased but then I remembered when I first made the gun barrel the two materials were the other way round. I decided to switch them back (the two IDs for the raytrace and black material) and render again as it couldn't hurt to see the outcome.





I am now presented with a tough decision! The first video is more realistic to Bond as it contains the black gun barrel, however the second video looks more visually impressive. I especially like the part where the bullet fires, you see the reflection in the raytrace of the barrel. I will ask around and see which people think I should use!

Gun Barrel nearly complete

I have nearly completed my gun barrel scene now for my animation. I have adjusted the bullet so it is larger so it covers the whole camera as it fires past.

I solved the problem of the bullet being in shot too long by using the mini curve editor in the bottom left hand corner of the timeline. I selected the bullet and then added a visibility track. I was then presented with a graph that represents the timeline of the animation. After inserting a keyframe, I was able to select whether the bullet could be seen at certain points. So in this case, the bullet appears when the graph starts to change its position. Using this technique, I also added a plain white plane over the front of the gun barrel. This means you cannot see the silhouette of Bond until the camera zooms in close. Again, to do this I selected the plane, and added a visibility track, moving the graph to show where the object becomes visible.




The other problem I mentioned in the previous post was the blood. I came to the conclusion the best technique was to use a simple plane and edit the vertices. After some experimentation I finally achieved a realistic effect. I placed a meshsmooth modifier on the plane which makes the points of the plane less rigid. The material for the blood was blinn with a red specular colour. I added raytrace to the refraction map which adds a nice effect when rendered. The final thing to edit with this material was how see through it was. To do this I changed the specular level, settling on 100. When rendered, the gun barrel is still visible through the blood, perfect!



After that it was time to coordinate all of different features of the scene together. The camera was complete of course from previous renders. The bullet was adapted, but now with its new visibility track it made the firing more easy. I dragged the keyframes to change when the bullet is fired. It was a little bit tricky timing the blood drop but I got there eventually. I may fiddle with the timing of the scene again before I decide it is final; as this scene lasts ten seconds, where as it is meant to be only eight according to my timing plan! After a long time rendering, I got my near final gun barrel sequence!

Gun Barrel with bullet

My next draft of the gun barrel scene includes Bond firing a bullet back at the camera. I firstly imported a bullet in from my gun model made a few weeks back. I had to angle the bullet in such a way that it shot back at the camera. This was fiddly and I had to use the local view to fire the bullet at an angle. The bullet material was an ongoing problem too as I wanted the bullet to be gold as there is lots of silver in the scene. Firstly, I tried using the pro metal material, but could not get a gold effect so i I resorted to using a standard metal effect (change the blinn drop down to metal). I could then customize the colour, I also added a falloff effect to the reflection map. This gives a nice light reflection when the bullet is fired. I experimented with the specular level and glossiness until I was happy with the results.





After I got the bullet on the correct line, the animation process was fairly simple. I used set key to fire the bullet when the camera was in the correct position. The only problem is that the bullet is visible in shot before it is fired by Bond, you see it move as the camera zooms down the barrel. I will address this problem tomorrow, as well as starting work on the blood that will drip down the camera! That's that for tonight, time for some rest!

Animation Time Plan

I have planned out how long I expect the scenes in my animation to take. This should be pretty accurate to the final animation, so it will be a useful guide when I am animating.





The animation will have four different scenes. I have a new revised storyboard that will be posted as soon as I gain access to a scanner! This means the animation will be broken down into four different scenes (the last of which is very much in progress). I have allowed a second for each transition between the scenes. This will be put it at the end using premier pro. I will edit each scene individually in 3DS and then put them together at the end. This means rendering times will be smaller as the scenes will be broken down into manageable chunks. Doing it this way also enables me to set more realistic targets, such as have a certain scene drafted by a certain date etc.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis

I have carried out a SWOT analysis test to see if I am on course to meet my objectives for this module. The outcome of my work is as follows:

To create a thirty second James Bond trailer using 3DS Max, demonstrating a range of skills within the software.

Strengths – The work does demonstrate an understanding of the software. The models were made and handed in on time, fully complete. The modelling matches the storyboard set out earlier on in the course. Also, learning has been gained from completing the tutorials in class time and experimenting with some of the different features in the software. The later made models (watch, hand, gun barrel) are more in depth which helps to show that I have learnt more throughout the course. My work does show that I have learnt quite a lot since starting the course, as I had never used a piece of software like this before. I am on course to complete the animation by week 12, animating is now in full swing!


Weaknesses - The first model was very basic. This does not help me gain particularly high marks or show much skill in modelling. At times I have struggled to follow tutorials and have spent far longer doing things that would take somebody better barely any time at all. Also, I seem to struggle to solve problems, such as when I accidently hit control X (which brings up expert mode) I was clueless how to bring back the normal scene. I also find that the mesh within my models becomes messed up, no matter how careful I am. Another weakness is down to my drawing/creating ability. I have never been particularly good at creating realistic things, as can be seen from the terrible drawing on my first storyboard. I just hope that my modelling is good enough to create something realistic in the end. Animating seems ok so far, hopefully I won't come across too many problems or I may be there all day solving them!



Opportunities - This whole module is a great opportunity to get better at modelling and animating. Baring in mind I had never done anything like this before, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I have a great opportunity this summer to spend more time in 3ds Max, improving my skills. Hopefully my final piece will give me an opportunity to enable me to get better. I also have the opportunity to learn from my mistakes this time around. If I could re-do this course now I would spend far more time planning and preparing in the first couple of weeks (tough this time as I had no real concept of what we can do in the software) and I would also choose my models far more carefully for the first hand in. I would also spend more time early on working out how I would do things later on and doing necessary tutorials.


Threats - The main threat to my work is coming across little problems that affect the scene. An example could be what happened with my gun model on one save, where suddenly I realised it was incorrectly shaped! Obviously a slip of a button previously messed it up without me noticing, and it takes ages to correct it! Another threat is the rendering times. I have already seen how long it takes to render a scene using the lab computers. I have also found out that my pc at home isn't as powerful as the lab computers, so rendering times are going to be a nightmare! As long as I plan my scenes and get animating now, there shouldn't be any major threats to me completing the objective set at the start.

Gun Barrel Sequence

Here is a fully rendered video of the gun barrel sequence. I have found a sillouette of Bond to use. I have also swapped the two colours round, so the raytrace material is now in the grooves of the barrel. I think this looks better.

Reactor Curtain

Next, I created a curtain using reactor. Firstly using a tube as a curtain pole and some boxes as hooks. I then created a plane that will be the curtain itself.


The first thing to do now is to select the cloth modifier from the toolbar. This is the icon with a t-shirt with an M inside. Also I need to create a cloth collection (icon with a t-shirt and c) and place the curtain in it.


In the curtain properties, scroll down to the constraints part. This is where the curtain will be attached to the hooks. Select the top left vertex and "attach to rigid body". A new box called attach to rigid body appears above. Select none and then the hook above. Complete this for all three hooks so there will be three different constraints.





Now it is important the hooks and pole are set as rigid body objects. This is done using the same technique as in the previous post with the dropping spheres.


Next we will do some animating. Using autokey, move the left and centre poles across. When previewed, the curtain will move, that is if the curtain is attached correctly to the hooks.





I also added some wind onto my curtain, using the wind from reactor (not wind from particle systems) which blows when the animation is played out.

Introduction to Reactor

Reactor is a separate part of 3DS Max that allows many things to be done through its physics engine. It will be a useful tool when animating but it is worth using sparingly as it massively bumps up file sizes and rendering times.


The first thing we did using reactor was to animate some bouncing spheres. Firstly I set up a scene including two spheres and some boxes as ramps for them to slide down. Next, I set up the workplace for reactor by right clicking up the top to bring up the reactor toolbar along with going to utilities and bringing up the reactor toolbar on the right hand side.


The first thing to do was to set the materials as rigid. Go to create rigid body collection on the reactor toolbar (far left icon) and group all of the items into one collection. This means that when the objects collide they will not deform. This is done by creating a collection and then adding items to it using the panel on the right.





Next, I gave the spheres some mass. To do this, select the spheres and open property editor on the reactor toolbar. I gave each sphere a different mass which should mean they fall at a slightly different speed.


Using reactor you can create an animation or preview it. This can be seen below.

Gun Barrel

I am now going to create the gun barrel for the iconic James Bond sequence at the start of every film. This will be seen at the end of my trailer.


The first thing to do was to create a tube in the scene. I set the radius and then put the height to -2000. This will make the tube long, which is needed. I chose to use an even number of sides, as they will form the grooves in the gun barrel. In this case, I chose 28.



(pic 1)


Next up, I selected the edges within the barrel using the top view. By selecting loop and ring from the selection panel, it selects all the edges for you. I then used chamfer, which placed extra edges in for the barrel grooves.




(pic 2)

Next I switched to polygon selection and chose each of the edges within the tube. Using the extrude tool I was able to bring the panels out slightly, increasing the size of the grooves within the tube.



(pic 3)



I noticed that the extruded parts were not in line with the rest of the tube. To solve this I switched to the scale tool and was able to drag the x and y axis until they were inline. During this model I have also learnt how to use the snaps toggle. This is very useful when trying to place something somewhere specific.




(pic 4)


Next up, I switched to the top view and selected all of the horizontal edges. Using the connect tool, I put in an extra 80 edges. As you can see from the picture, this caused 3ds max to crash! Luckily I managed to get it working without crashing.



(pic 5)


Now I will show the material that I used for the inside of the gun barrel. Using a new multi/sub object material, I set ID 1 to be standard black.




(pic 6)


ID2 was more complex, using bump as noise, and reflection as raytrace. On the model itself, ID1 was set as the entire tube using polygon selection. ID2 was set to be the inside panels of the tube (see pic 3). In the bump setting, I used 1%. This material was then applied to the tube model.




(pic 7)


Next up was animating a camera. I inserted a line through the middle of the tube, running exactly to the same length, so 2000. I placed a free camera in the centre of the tube next to this line. I then clicked on the motion panel next to create, modify etc. This brings up a new menu where I selected Assign controller. From here I chose position XYZ. This brings up a new menu with a list of options (pic 8). From the list choose path constraint. This then allows you to select the line created earlier that will be used as the camera path. It puts the keyframes in automatically, I found I had to switch the keyframes over as the camera was going the wrong way.




(pic 8)

Next I added a plane at the end of the image as well as a free light. This will reflect and refract the light when the scene is rendered. Finally, I added a twist modifier that gives the effect seen below (pic 9). The angle I used was -540. This gives a good twist on the gun barrel.



(pic 9)


Finally I added a meshsmooth modifier and rendered the image.





(pic 10)