THE END!!!

Finally its all finished. Took my animations into premier pro today and linked them together. It runs smoothly. Added some text and a funky transition and I am very pleased with the outcome.

Almost The End

Well I have now, finally, finished my animation. I have broken it up into 3 separate files. I have a fair ground scene, a street scene and a beach scene. I am taking this opportunity to look at parts I am very proud of and explaining briefly how I created them.

The first part is my sea. I am most proud of my wave effect that was created. I had a look around a few websites and found a few guides to give me some quick ideas on how to create waves. The way I finally created them was by created a sphere and using the select points button flattened it in a circle. Next I created the basis of the wave. Using the wave tool (located in the space warps panel, then in the drop down menu under Geometric/Deformable) I dragged out a rectangle over my circle and in the modifier panel I changed the wave Amplitudes and lengths. Once I had created a wave I liked the size of I connected it to the circle using then "bind to space warp" button. The circle then took the shape of the wave. To animate it I moved the Rectangle that represented the waves.

The next part I will look at is my table clothes. This was something I learnt last semester and was able to put to good use again. To create the cloth I first created the table it would go over. This was simply a series of cylinders. I then created a large rectangle over it, remembering to give it plenty of segments. Then in the modifier panel i changed it into a cloth and in the object properties set the rectangle to be the cloth. I then selected the table parts from the list and set them as collision objects. This basically meant that the cloth would not pass through them and wrap around them instead. Once this was simulated the cloth moved down and over the table.

The most challenging part of this project was my roller-coaster. Initially I tried to do the track as one long spline however at the beginning/End the rails crossed over meaning that in reality it wouldn't work. This wasn't good enough for me so i deleted it. It was then decided that I would split it into sections and to have part of it underground. This meant that I could avoid the previous issues. The way I created the rails was to make a spline the size and shape of how I wanted the rails to look. Then I added a circle onto the end which was the thickness I wanted it to be. I then used the loft tool to extrude the circle along the spline.

All that is left now is to put it into premier pro and make the final movie file.

Fair Ground - Final

This is the final look of my fair ground, although i may change my background as having one with the sun in really wasn't the best idea. I think it needs to be extended a bit as he appears to stop and look at the roller-coaster and then run for it. Doesn't really give people much confidence ha-ha. So i will make it another 100 frames longer for the final animation. All things considered i am very happy with this scene.

Trouble!!!!

much frustration now, i tried to merge a couple of scenes together and its thrown my animations of of synch and even deleted parts of them. This is not good. will be attempting again tonight but if work is lost you can all take it as it didnt work. wish me luck.

Rollercoaster mark II

Well after another attempt at making a rollercoaster i have come up with something i am happy with. It was created in seperate bits and goes underground so i dont have to join it all together. This helped to avoid the issues i had with the other attemps which were that the rails crossed over at the end which was rather silly. Anyway this is the animation i came up with



The animation was created by attaching the Rollercoaster carrige to a line using the line constraint, this is found in the animation drop down menu. I then had to adjust the cart by rotating it so that it flowed round the tracks as if attached to them. The hardest part was rotating it on the loops as it doesnt sit perfectly on the tracks. I think this looks good, however, and is sutible for my final animation.

Cafe and Arcade

The above image is for the street running along the sea front the arcade and cafe are the first of a few shops to be added.

Beach

This is my beach animation, as it will appear in the final scene.

Beach huts

i have made some beach huts for my scene, these are very simple ones and i plan for them to only be showing quickly and from a distance. If i have enough time then i will make the interior for some and have their doors open.

Cafe and Arcade

I have been created buildings for my scenery recently and so far i have this arcade and have started work on the detail inside my cafe. The arcade contains a number of arcade machines, dance machines, change machines and a booth in the middle for staff. In the cafe i have added tables and chairs, a till, trays, a couple of display boxes, cups and teapots. These were all relatively simple to create (especially the teapots :D) and i feel they give the cafe a nice effect.

Cafe

i have been creating many different models for a cafe over the last few days including things like tables and chairs, a counter, tills and coffee machines. the tills and coffee machines havnt been completed yet and will take at least another days work but this is my cafe so far.

beach

over the last week i have been experimenting with texture effects for sand and sea. i have now reached a point at which i feel my effects look realistic. these still need a bit of work however but this is what i have created

all this needs to complete it is a background picture and a decent camera view. i will be using this in my final scene and expanding it so it goes right out to the horizon.

the waves in the sea are maybe a little too big and could do with being reduced.

Early experiments

I have been experimenting with making different things for the fair ground. So far i have managed to create the basic look of a Ferris wheel and a short animation for a roller coaster.

the Ferris wheel was created by using 2 circles (with smaller circles drawn over then and the Boolean tool used to cut them down so that 2 thin outlining circles were left) after this a series of cylinders were created to look like the supports holding the circles in place. the stand for it was a triangle with a smaller triangle used for a Boolean inside. Once this was done i cloned it to make the other side of the Ferris wheel. I then went to create a ramp in the middle to act as the ramp to get onto the ride. when all this was put into place i connected the 2 sides of the Ferris wheel with a large cylinder, this acts as the main support and also the point at which the wheel moves. Upon completing all this i made the seats using simple boxes and then cloning them around the Ferris wheel.This is the final result, i am very pleased with it so far. I need to work on the maps, lighting and animation to finish this off.

Roller Coaster

I have also created a short animation for a roller coaster. To create the tracks i used a torus and then converted it to a editable poly in order to create the bumps and turns. I then cloned this to create the inside track and scaled it down. The Slats connecting the tracks are just cylinders angled to fit right.

In todays lecture we looked at maps. We looked at shaders and how they effect the maps. There are many differnt kinds that make things looked shiny or gives them a matte effect. I found that most of the shaders were good for making things shiny for instance metals. There is also one that makes things look rather plasticy (if thats even a word) but i cant see this one being very useful in this project. The metallic ones however may be very useful as i will be creating models of large metal structures.

Light effects

In this weeks lesson we looked at different lighting effects as well as different ways of rendering.



To start with we looked at Active shade rendering which updates automatically when you create new objects. The only problem i found with this is that it doesnt update when you move objects. Apart from this it was very heloful when creating a scene to get a good knowledge of how things look without having to constantly render the scene. The second render we looked at was the RAM player, which allows you to import 2 seperate rendered images, this gives you the ability to view the scene before and after changes you make. This is great for making small changes to the scene to just check how they look.



We then experimented with different light effects. The two i looked at were Volume light and lens effect. Volume light was used to change then intensity and the colours of the light. this gives some different looks to the scene. The lens effects greate different effects usually stemming from the source of the light. For instance there is one titled star which makes the source of the light go off in different directions. Another nice on is the one titled Ring, which gives a ring of light around the source.

Lighting and Camera Animation

This lesson we concentrated on making lighting and camera movement. the lighting side of things was relativly easy and didnt take long to get to grips with, however when making the camera move it involved alot of what we did last week. i used a simple circle line as the path for my camera but decided to move the points round to make the movement more intresting, this also gives different views of the room.

Research

This is my research board, i looked at a few different coast lines from cornwall to southend to skegness. I have choosed different pictures of things that i like, things that i want to create in my animation and things that i feel attract people to different coasts.

Basic Animation

In this second lecture i created a simple animation and an animation that follws a path. These both worked well and have answered my questions about how to animate. This is easier then i thought but i feel that once the project gets going then the animation will become alot more complicated. This was very enjoyable and i hope to start work on some basic animations for my project from tomorrow

First Lesson - Creating an Apple

In this lesson i created this apple. To do this i did the following:

I started this by creating A sphere with several segments and converting it into and editable poly. After this i selcted certain faces accorss the top and moved them down into the apple. i then did the same with the bottom of the apple. once this was all done i used the meshsmooth modifier to round off all the edges. When all this was done i went back to the editable mesh and changed some of the faces on the side of the apple to make it look less spherical.

The Stem

This was created by using a cylinder positioned in the correct location and then using the bend modifier on it. This created the curve of the stem and made it smooth.

First Thoughts of Brief

The first thoughts of the brief were imagining what a british seaside is like and why people are attracted to it. This would include the attractions, location and avalibility of different things like hotels, resturants and ammusement parks.