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]