Final Video

This is my final animation:

Evaluation

It is my personal belief that overall the project was a success, as I've never done any type of 3D modelling or animation before.

Some of the problems I encountered with this module is that it was very time consuming, this made it hard for me to try keep up the amount of work needed each week, due to other commitments such as other modules and home life/work.

I found that my final video was surprisingly good for my lack of knowledge with 3D studio max and even though I changed my original storyboard, I still believe that my current video is of a decent standard.

To me this module was both interesting and irritating as I liked the idea of creating a trailer for James Bond as i enjoy the films but I found that actually creating the models and then trying to animate the trailer was extremely challenging for me as I've never done animating and I don't have any artist skill.

The quality of my video, I believe to be of a high quality as when using Premiere Pro, I managed to export the edited video as a HD FLV. This format seems to give the video itself a very clear and good look, some of the models could use improvements in some aspects.

The way I created my animation was so that the person watching saw the different scenes and wondered about what was happening and got them interested, the reason I did was because I sat and thought about what kind of things interest me about trailers and I realised that it was wanting to know what happened in certain parts of the film rather than all the action scenes.

I feel that the overall video could have been created differently using different techniques, such as maybe having some more first person shots or showing more action scenes, as I know that making a trailer based on my realisations is bad practise as the majority of people might not be interested in the same sort of style I am and might prefer all action scenes or some different style.

The audio I decided to use was the theme tune from Casino Royale and I only used certain snippets of the song as I wanted to relate the audio to the video. The way I have tried to do this is by doing things such as putting apart of the song that is not only catchy but also has lyrics such as "I've seen angels fall from blinding  heights but you yourself are nothing so divine", this part of the song plays whilst the scene where James Bond is jumping between two cranes and then another part where part of the lyrics are "You know my name" when the end scene is playing, which shows the 007 text shatter into pieces.

I had a few issues when trying to edit the video in Premiere Pro, this again is probably down to the fact that i've never actually used the editing software before and I hit a learning curve, though i eventually got the video how I wanted it, using fade to blacks between the different scenes and then also using an effect that skips between two different parts of the audio effectively, this also manages to keep the "energy" within the clip.

In conclusion I believe this module was a success and I ended up enjoying seeing all of the different things that 3D studio max had to offer. I think at the start of the semister I failed to realise how much time and effort would be involved within the assignment and therefore I think I put my other module before this one as that was also time consuming. Looking back to the start of the semister I'm shocked how far my animation skills have come along, though still quite lacking compared to some, I am still quite happy with my progress.

Changes to the storyboard

Whilst making this animation I have found I cannot do all of the scenes I have listed within my storyboard, this is either due to time restraints, lack of knowledge or because I had other assignments to try to finish.

Some of the changes were also made because I decided that the animations that I did make from my storyboard last longer than I expected, so the final video would have been far too long. The changes I have made, I believe are not going to affect the look of the final animation but are big enough that I feel I should note them down.

There are some changes I'm no longer able to do, such as, the end scene where James Bond shoots the barrel and blood comes down. As I don't believe I have the knowledge or time to do this, I would rather spend the time I do have creating parts of the animation I know I can do. Another change, is that I will no longer show James Bond hanging from the crane, after jumping from one to another. This is because I personally believe that the scene where James Bond jumps between the two cranes looks more intense without knowing how it ends.

Finally if I have time, I still want to implement the scene I mentioned in my storyboard about James Bond talking to a target and then killing him and being assigned his 00 status.

I am hoping that even with these changes, my final animation will be at a decent and acceptable standard.

Poker Table Scene

In this scene I wanted to show how the film Casino Royale links to poker and gambling as the title implies, I wanted to do this by showing James Bond playing poker and have poker chips and cards spread across a poker table.

To create this I first made the poker table, this was simple, all I did was use the cylinder tool and made the cylinder to my required size, then using the scale tool I pulled the shape out to resemble a poker table. After this phase was done, I converted the object into an editable poly and then put enough segments on the top of the table that it let me select the outer rim of the cylinder polygon by polygon, once I had selected the outside ring of polygons I used the extrude tool to pull them up, giving them an edge-like look. Once I had completed the time, I added an image to a material and then inserted that onto the middle of the cylinder, this then gave the cylinder a poker table look, with the inside being green and the outside ring of polygons being black.

Next, I created the walls of the scene, this was done by just creating three planes and adding a wooden texture to them through the material tool. After this had been done I started on creating the props for the table such as the cards and poker chips. This was done by simply creating a small plane and then extruding slightly for the cards, as cards are completely flat, and then adding an image to the back of the cards, as the viewer would only be seeing the back of the cards. Once this was done, I then created a few instances of the cards to create a pack of cards and then a few sets of paired cards to be spread around the table.
To create the poker chips I simply made a circle using the cylinder tool and then added a material of a poker chip, but to make sure that the material was only placed onto the polygons I wanted it to be on, I changed the side of the cylinders polygons to a different index to the top and bottom, this allowed me to insert the material onto the index of the top and bottom of the cylinder and not affect the sides. Once this was done, I proceeded to create stacks of poker chips and placed them onto the table.

After all of this, I then added a camera that goes down the middle of the poker table and it stops at a pair of cards, after rendering this and watching it, I decided to add a silhouette who was suppose to be James Bond at the end of the table where the camera stops, this then gave me an idea of using the camera to go up into the silhouette as if you were looking through James Bonds' eyes at his cards, from this, I then implemented another scene which simply shows the poker table and a hand showing two aces as if it's being looked at by the player.

Here is the clip of the poker table scene:

007 Logo

One thing all trailers have in common is that the name of the film and the release date are usually always near the end, which is why in my trailer I also wish to do something similar, I originally had an idea for having the logo 007 with the gun at the end just showing normally, this would then shatter from the recoil after the gun fired.

Since then, I have changed my idea to incorporate this previous idea with a few differences, in my new version I have got the 007 logo shatter into pieces after the gun fires, but with the difference of that the gun fires a "bullet" which is actually text saying Casino Royale, which then stays on screen and a background with the different suits of cards appear (taken from the actual intro of the film), this stays on screen for a couple of seconds and is then replaced by "Coming soon, November 2006".

To create this, I simply started by creating the text using the text tool and I set the font and the font size, once I had done this I changed the environment of the scene to lack and changed the text colour to white. After rendering this to see how it looked, I found it was very flat looking and kind of dull, so I used the modifier called Bevel. This allows you to make things look 3D by changing the properties of the text, after being rendered again I saw I had found the look of the text I wanted.

Next, I created the logo to the side of 007, this was done by simply using the box tool to create two boxes and converting them to editable poly's, this allowed me to change the boxes how I saw fit and after some messing about I finally got the logo correct.

The next thing that needed to be done was to create the look of the gun firing and recoiling and then have the words Casino Royale come out like a bullet. This was done using the Auto Key function which allowed me to set key frames where I needed them and then manipulate the "gun" as if it was firing, once I had the gun looking like it fired, I worked on getting the Casino Royale text to come out, this was done by again using the text tool, bevel and then using auto key to move the text like a bullet whilst getting bigger.

After successfully getting this to work, I worked on getting the text to shatter when hit by the guns recoil, this is all using the PArray tools. To use a PArray, you simply click the PArray tool and drag on the scene where you want the PArray effect to work. In this case, I needed to scale the PArray into place around the text. The next thing to do is to select the object you want the PArray to affect, you do this by clicking select object under the properties tab and then click on the object, in this case the 007 text. Finally you need to select the kind of effect you want, you do this by scrolling to the bottom of the PArray's properties and choosing a preset, for my effect I chose the preset called "Shatter", this gives the text a very nice shatter effect but doesn't cause unnecessary effects, such as explosions etc.

After all this had been auto keyed and set out how I wanted it, I had to simply get the background to appear and then change the Casino Royale text with "Coming soon November 2006". This is fairly simple, I created the background as an image and then imported it onto a plane using the materials function and then used the auto key function to change its visibility from 0 to 1 over a few frames, giving it the look of appearing out of black, this same effect was done to the text as well, I simply changed the visibility of Casino Royale to 0 and increased Coming Soon November 2006 to 1.

I am quite pleased with this scene in total as I think its a little something different to the normal and yet it sticks to the tradition of James Bond trailers. There would be a few things I would like to change if i had to redo it, things such as not having just a black background, as this is abit boring, but instead maybe have a smokey background or something that keeps the background from being completely black.

This is my 007 logo and coming soon scene:

Biped in the hand

In my animation I use a clip of showing some cards and a hand bending them, I have created this look by using a Biped in just the hand, below i'll explain some of the processes I went through to create the hand object and talk about using the Biped.
Firstly I got a picture of a hand and put in onto a plane using the materials function, this would be a guideline to creating the hand.
To create the hand object I simply created a box with a set amount of segments and converted it into an editable poly, I then removed the parts of the box that I didnt need, once these parts were removed I had my hands palm. Using the picture of the hand I aligned my palm to the palm within the picture, and started to work on the first finger.

To create the fingers from the box I selected the polygons I needed and using the extrude tool I pulled out the first segment of the finger, this created the bottom of the first finger, then from this part I extruded again to create the middle "stub" of the finger and finally extruded once more to create the tip of the finger. Once I had completed this process I repeated it for all of the other fingers and the thumb, I had to rotate the fingers and thumbs a little bit so they were in the correct place and looked like actual fingers and a thumb. To give the hand a real look I selected the edges and used the ring and loop tools to select the others in the section, once I had done that I pulled the fingers out to give them a round/bent look, this helped when appling the Meshsmooth modifier.

To have the ability to bend the fingers I created a Biped and attached the hand of the biped to the hand I had created, this is done by using the attach to node ability in the biped's properties in the modifier panel. After attaching the biped to the hand you then have to attach the Physique modifier to the skin and you will have the ability to move the hand and fingers, although you may find that the skin of the hand is left behind at certain points, to fix this you need to simply click the bones on the biped and change the Radial Scale within the envelope properties under the physique modifier, an example of this being done is shown below.

Once everything has been correctly aligned using Radial Scale then you can move you should freeze the hand and then click on the section of the biped you want to move or affect.

In the above picture I have bent the links in the fingers around the cards I created before then imported into this scene, to bend the fingers I simply selected the end of the fingers and arranged them into the place I wanted, I then bent parts of the finger to look as if they are holding the cards.

Crane Clip

This is the clip of my crane animation with the silhoutte of james bond jumping from one crane to another, this is using the same crane just scaled differently and facing the opposite direction.

To create James Bond jumping from the first crane i used the low poly man that Richard created and connected it to a biped, this allow's me to, once connected properly, move the character as i see fit.

The reason for the character being a silhoutte is unknown to me as he wasnt before i used the day light light source and rendered the scene with the mental ray renderer, this is a problem im not really bothered with as it looks okay and doesnt affect the scene in anyway.

I have moved the character's limbs to incorperate the look of him jumping through the air and then falling, this was difficult to do as i had to visualize and actually act out as if i had pushed off and was jumping for something. The reason i did this was to try make the character look as if he was really jumping and falling, otherwise he would have looked like very fake or just as if he was walking in the air.

Using the Biped allow's me to access each part of the characters body and manipulate it as i see fit, so during this scene i have the characters arms and legs move as if he were running and pushing off the first crane, and then running in the air (which i looked into and alot of people do when jummping). I also moved the characters head and torso but it is such a small movement it is hard to notice.

I originally was going to try use reactor to animate the character jumping by using the gravity option, but i dont have enough experience to know it would work and i didnt have enough time to try it, which i regret as i think it could have looked extremly good and worked well.

The clip:

Reactor

Reactor is a very useful 3D physics tool that can be used when making animations.

This is a basic example of using reactor to create an effect.


To start off you need the create a Rigid Body, to do this you must go to the animation tab, then reactor, create object then select rigid body collection, you can then place this on the scene where you want it.

Once you have done this you will need to place the objects that you wish to animate on the scene, after doing this you will need to add them to the rigid body collection by going to the modifier panel, then clicking the add button under the RB collection properties and finally selecting the objects you want to add and clicking select.

After these steps have been completed you will then need to set up the actual reactor, this is done by going to the utilities tab and then clicking reactor. Once you have clicked reactor a few minimized options will appear, for this example the tab Havok 1 World will be used, within this tab you have the ability to change some settings, these settings are the Mass, Friction and Elasticity. Now changing these settings will allow the objects to react with each other, for example changing the Mass will allow the objects to fall and will also determine how faster they fall (an object of greater mass will fall faster than an object with low mass).

Below is my example of a basic reactor ability

 And below is another example of using reactor to create animations

Animating with Morpher

Using the Morpher technique within an animation allows the creator to create different versions of the same model, this is helpful for things such as different movements with the same model or facial expressions.


Morpher is done by creating a different number of animations for the same object, again an example of this could be creating an image such as a head, then animating a number of different faces which are then stored and called upon when needed.

The actual process of using the Morpher modifier is a simple one and i will discuss it below as well as display my own attempt.

The first thing that needs to be done is to create the object you want to use the Morpher effect on, once this has been done you must convert the object into an editable poly.

The model i am going to use

Once the image has been converted into an editable poly you will need to make sure there are no modifiers as this will affect the next step, once you have confirmed there are no modifiers you will then need to make a few copies of this object, for this step i created 3 copies of the original, so there were four objects in total.

The three copies of the original head

Once you have the different copies you then need to name each one, preferably the name of the emotion the they are going to be, i for example have named the two heads i use in the example video below, smile and open mouth. Once you have named the objects you can start to animate them, this is actually quite simply to do but to get the face to look like a real emotion you must be quite precise.I am going to describe how i made the Open Mouth objects animation, to start the animation you can simply select the polygons you wish to move, in this case the polygons around the lower lip and the chin, once selected you will need to then pull them down to open the mouth. You will also need to move some of the cheek polygons around to make it look like they are stretched.

Once you have created the animation you want you can then apply the Morpher modifier to the object, when you have done this you should see the "Channel List" in the properties section to the side of Studio Max, within this section you should right click on an empty channel and then click select object from scene and choose the animation you have been working on.

The name of the animation should now be where the empty channel was and there should be a value between 0 and 100, this value is used to control the tween between the different animations. To then capture this animation as a video, you need to use the Auto Key and change the value at the frame you want.

This is my example of going from a smiling face to an open mouth emotion.