Scene Creating

Car chase scene

The car chase scene will be split up into two separate animations but using the same scenery. This will make it much easier when it comes to rendering. To start a thin cylinder has been added which will form the floor of the scene. Next a number of planes have been added to form the road the cars will travel down and a number of trees have been added to make it more like a forest.

For the road a speckle material has been added with a black and grey colour to look like pavement. The grass has been given a speckle effect on the bump map, to make the grass stick out. A dark green colour has then been added for the main colour of the grass.

This will make up the two short animation clips. Below is a rendered version of the scene, the scene itself still needs a few things added and tweaked but this is the base of the animation scene.

Only the cars themselves need to be added and animating within the scene.

Forest oddjob scene

The next scene will be of oddjob throwing the hat at an escaping person. A lot of the scenery used for the car chase scene can then be recycled and used for this scene. The grass will remain the same, the only thing different will be the road and the trees. The road will not quite be visible, and the trees will be a little more spread out.

This is the basic of what the scene will look like, below is a rendered version of the preliminary scene:

The only thing left to add to the scene is oddjob and the escaping person.

Sphere:

For the two car scenes and the oddjob scene I have decided to use a sphere and place a sky material on the inside of the sphere.

To do this first create a big sphere and convert it to an editable poly and select all of the faces. Next under the edit polygons select flip, this will flip the faces so that they appear on the inside. Next using a picture of a sky taken from the internet and add the material to the inside of the sphere.

Now the forest and car chase scenes can be placed inside the sphere to make the scene more whole.

Laser scene

The laser scene is a little trickier as a want the camera to swivel round the laser which means the whole room will need to be created. To start five rectangles need to be created to form the four walls and the floor, this will ensure that the material I add to the will remain straight.

This is the basic set, the height and width can be altered later.

The next step is to add a small platform with a set of stairs, which is where the dials and buttons to work the laser are located. To do this a box has been created and converted to an editable poly, the front faces have then been extruded to form steps and a platform by just using one simple shape.

A railing and a plane have then been added, the plane to the wall just above the platform and the railing just in front of the platform.

Now for the middle parts of the scene, some sort of elevated box that Mr Bond will be lying on underneath the laser. To do this a cylinder has been added and rotated which will be placed underneath a box to give the illusion that the box is elevated. This is so when the camera moves around the room, the box won’t look like its floating in the air.

This is what the basic scene will look like without any of the materials, laser and people.

Now that the basic scene is complete the camera can be added to stage. For this scene the path animation will be used, first a circle shape has been added just a bit smaller than the room so that the camera can travel around it. Next the camera has been connected to the path by going to constraints – path constraints and attaching the camera to the circle. The camera now moves around the circle.

Now the basic animation is ready, everything just needs more detail and the objects need to be added to the scene.

Moving onto some of the materials, the walls and floor will be relatively simple to do as they are both going to have a floor board wood effect. The wall has been given a wood map and the glossiness level has been made up to 100 and has also been given a bump map of tiles which will hopefully make the boards stick out. It has then been given a horizontal count of 30 and a vertical count of just one, this will make then a lot more like wall panels.

The floor boards have been done exactly the same way, only this time the specular level has been boosted up to 100. This gives a shiny board look to the floor which gives the illusion of light reflecting off the surface. The stairs have been given the same material as the floor boards.

The middle box has been given a grey colour with a high specular level, to give a metal effect, this has then been added to the railing as well.

Now that most of the material has been added to the various parts of the scene, the laser can now be added. To do this go to file – imports – merge and then bring up the laser file. This will import everything from the laser file. After a bit of moving around a size adjust the scene is nearly ready to be fully animated.

The only thing left to add is the person lying on the table.

Goldfinger title screen

The goldfinger title screen is probably the easiest scene to complete at the moment. First using the text tool I created the name goldfinger, next convert it to an editable poly and extrude the text which makes it 3D.

Next make the text smaller and add a plane just behind the text and a camera just in front of the text.

Next give the text a glass effect by going to the material editor and under the maps heading choose refraction – raytrace, this will create a glass effect.  Next using a picture of fire, found on the internet, add the image to the plane.

 Now that the fire has been added to the plane the animation can begin. The text can be animated to rotate around and move towards the camera getting bigger. The fire on the plane can look like its moving by animating the offset value in the animation screen.

 

Reactor

The reactor feature is very useful as it makes objects act how you want them to act, without having to animate a path for it. For example adding weight to a sphere so that it falls when the animation is played.  This can be done by right clicking on the blank space next to the render button, to bring up the reactor panel. First create a box, with several spheres above it and make all of the objects rigid, this will make them solid. Next add weight to the spheres which will make them fall onto the box. Example shown below:

Now create another sphere and convert it to an editable poly. Take the vertex on the top part of the sphere and bend it in to form a bowl. Now in the object properties editor box, in the reactor panel make the bowl a concave mesh, which will make the reaction more like a bowl. Place the bowl underneath the spheres and play the animation, the spheres will act differently when the fall into the bowl.

Curtains can also be made using the reactor feature. First create a curtain pole, using a cylinder and a couple of spheres, then make a couple of hooks and place them on the curtain pole. Next make all of these objects rigid, which will make them a solid shape. Open the object properties editor and check the box “unyielding” which will allow the objects to move.  Next create two planes and give both of them the cloth modifier; this will make the planes appear like material. Now we need to connect the planes to the curtain hooks, in the modify panel click on reactor cloth and go down to constraints. Click on attack to rigid body then select part of the vertex of the plane and click on the “none” button, then the object you want to attack it to, in this case one of the hooks. Repeat this step several times until all of the hooks hare linked to the planes. Now make sure that nothing is selected so that the animation part can begin. Using auto key move the hooks apart, which will move the curtains when the animation is run.

Altered Car

The car has been altered slightly to make it a little more realistic. On the bonnet of the car, a cylinder has been added and cloned to make a space for the two headlights, opposed to just having two spheres on the front of the car. The two spheres were then made much larger and moved onto the cylinders that have been added. This makes the car look more like the Aston martin.

The door frame and bonnet frame have also been given the same colour as the car, so that the objects don’t stick out so much.

Goldfinger Title Screen

Using a plane and the text tool a fiery effect can be created giving the text a flame look. To start a plane was created with a picture of a flame placed on to it. Next the text tool was used to create the word “Goldfinger” which was then extruded to make the text 3D. A glass effect using the refraction and raytrace material in the material editor which was then added to the text. A small animation was then created making the text move towards the screen and getting bigger as it moved. The fire on the text was then animated to look like the fire was moving in the background. This emphasised the effect the glass gave the text as the fire moved.

Path and Bond Animation

The path technique will come in very useful especially for my laser scene. I can create a cirlce path, similar to the one the ball followed, but instead of attaching a ball I can attach a camera. This means I can create the scene, place the laser in the correct position and the camera can move around the laser, taking in the whole scene. Below is a Basic clip of what the scene may look like, the laser and characters have not yet been placed in and there are a few materials that need tweaking but it is only a first draft:

This is how I want the camera to move around the room, I just need to bring all the objects together.

I can also use the path tool for another part of my animation (The car chase scene). I have now decided that it would be best to break the car chase up into two separate scenes. This will make the file size much smaller, therefore much easier to render once finished. The first part will be the cars driving towards the camera, two of them turn off in time, the last will crash into the camera. This means the camera will go black and be easy to end the short clip, ready for the next clip to be started. The second will be a side view and overhead view of the two cars stopping in a layby.

Below is a list of scenes that my animation will contain, including roughly how long they will last, now that the car chase has been broken up into two separate scenes:

·         Car chase – cars speeding towards the camera. (8 seconds)

·         Car chase – cars come to a stop in a layby. (4 seconds)

·         Oddjob – oddjob throws his hat at an assailant trying to escape into the trees. (6 seconds)

·         Laser scene – the camera rotates around the laser, taking in the whole scene, once one rotation has happened, the camera zooms a little as the laser shoots. (8 seconds)

·         The title screen appears. (4 seconds)

This is just a rough estimate of how long the animation will run, the laser scene may even be broken up into another two separate scenes, one rotating scene, another laser shooting scene. This will depend how the animation progression goes.

 

Animation Path

Below is an example of the path animation:

Animation - Path

The path animating technique is probably the easiest technique to use. first you create a path, whether it is a line, or a rectangle, circle or even a free drawn line. Next Place an object on the path by going to "Animation" - "Constraints" - "Path Constraints". With the object or camera selected click on the line, which will place the object on the path. When the animation plays the object will move around the path.

In this case the ball has been linked to the circle, when the animation plays the ball will move around the circle.