Adding a Skyline

Adding the sky to my animation was a very simple process. Simply pressing 8 on the keyboard will open up the environment and effect menu. In the background menu under environment map I clicked on none, chose bitmap and picked the image of the sky. Couldn't be simpler and it adds the skyline to the whole animation, not just one area.

Animation Update

As my animation continues to grow, I have been thinking about the sound that I would like to include with it. I have narrowed the list down to 7 possible songs, these are:

• London - James Newton Howard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCkVmlSVmns)
• Diamond Mine Bombed - James Newton Howard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUlft_0XW_E)
• The Shard - Steve Jablonsky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwz5vNu65Qk)
• Magneto - Henry Jackman (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohuq3ks35RA)
• Like a Dog Chasing Cars - Hans Zimmer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8-XarUUxM0)
• And I Thought My Jokes Were Bad - Hans Zimmer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbcVAtmQbMk)
• Kashmir - Escala ft. Slash (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5_2t3FDu2s)

All the sound featured above will contribute to my animation each in their own individual way. Most of the song choices are dark and menacing, that will fit well to the image of the tank. The most likely choice of music I will use for this animation will be Magneto by Henry Jackman, as I feel that this music fits in with the atmosphere and theme I am trying to portray of the tank. As I believe that the tank was made to intimidate people, something that my animation will show by demonstrating the power behind it.

It's Alive!

I never realised how easy it was to make a biped, let alone make one walk! Today's lab session involved these so called bipeds (skeletons that are stuck onto created figures to help them get a more realistic movement). First things first, the biped needed to be created, to do this I went into the create tab and clicked on the systems menu. I then added the biped to the scene. At this point, fingers, toes and various other bones can be added (even tails).

Setting up the Biped

Now to make it walk, something very simple as 3DS does it for you, all that's needed is to place the steps. There a different ways to add steps and make your biped walk. There are also various different actions that the biped can perform. The three basic actions are walking, running and jumping. The quickest was to make the biped walk is to click the create multiple footsteps tool. This will create a line of steps that can be moved left or right, as well as having the option of adding or taking away steps. Another more painstakingly slow option is to add the steps one at a time, this however does let the user move the steps to a position that they want. Something that can be useful when making the biped walk up stairs.

Multiple Footsteps

Walking Upstairs

Storyboard

This is the basic storyboard for my animation. It features the basic camera angles as well as a description of the scene, I am hoping to follow this storyboard in my animation. I may have to make a few tweaks to the storyline and narrative.

STRIKE!!!!!!

After learning to use the reactor software, my basic knowledge was put to the test when we used the software to create a bowling ball heading for the pins down a small alley. Again like with the boxes, all the objects within the view port needed to be changed to Rigid Body Collection. The mass of the objects were changed too, the alley was set to 0, the pins were set to 10 and the ball was set to 20. Once the mass was changed the collision tolerance for the pins needed to be adjusted as when the animation was played the pins would jump up and leave a gap. Trial and error set the tolerance to 0.4 and although the pins still jump up it is minimal. 

So the pins are set and the alley was ready but the ball itself needed to move towards the pins. To achieve this, the ball needed to move forward in frames 1 - 5. The autokey was used to help me achieve the movement. As well as this, I added a small rotation to the ball to give it a more realistic movement. After the ball has been moved the start time for the animation need to be changed for 0 to 1 as this will allow the software to recognise the movement of the ball in frame one (the timing menu can be found under preview and animation) this is crutial as without changing the start frame, the ball will just fall!

Reactor Training

Today's lesson saw us being turned into physicists for the afternoon. Playing with the Reactor software within 3Ds, which allowed us to change that mass, friction, elasticity, gravity.. etc. of an object. This proved very entertaining and will prove to be useful when creating the animation for the final project. Basic training started with creating two boxes (one considerably larger than the other). The smaller box would be dropped onto the larger, by adjusting various settings within the Reactor software. To make the box more interesting when it fell, the angles and height was changed. After angling the box to and adjusting the height, I changed the boxes into Rigid Body Collection (this can be found in the animation tab, clicking on the reactor section and finally it can be found in the create object menu). Once both boxes were converted, I changed the mass of the smalled box to 20 (this would make it fall rather then remain static). Upon preview of this animation I watched as one box successfully crashed into the other!

Make Shift Roman Target

The target is something that the tank can target to practise it's attack skills. I decided to do something that can be easily moved around. So I made something that can be set up quickly should the target be destroyed. I decided that the target should represent a person as it is something that the tank is likely to encounter.

The head of the target is a large grapefruit, this took me back to organic modelling and fruit bowl I created. I stated off with a sphere and modified the shape using soft selection in the modify tab. On top of the 'head' is a Roman helmet, this was done in a similar way to the organic modelling, I started off with a sphere and used so selection to mould it my desired shape. For the body I used a cylinder to which I used the multi/sub object material and changed the set ID on the top and bottom of the cylinder to create a tree stump. I used the lathe tool and illustrator to create the spike on the helmet, along with mental ray materials to make it shine. The platform on which the target is standing was created using a series of boxes, as was the targets arm. The Roman spear was created using a cylinder for the shaft and the cone for the metal spike.

Rendered Target

Close up of Roamn helmet