Evaluation of project

This has been a very busy module for me this year it has really tested my time management skills and been a high workload to complete. saying that i have really enjoyed doing it and am really pleased with the end product. we started off with a fairly loose idea of doing three different radio through the times and animating them accordingly. The end product was really nice and the whole group worked really well together to acheive the final animation. I have learnt so many new skills with 3ds max this year including advanced lighting and material use through the animation and the head model we did the first 6 weeks. i have especially improved my rendering outcomes as my 3d modelling skills are starting to take shape and i am starting to realise what im good at in max. There are thing i feel we could have improved on in the final peice such as maybe making the film a bit longer and animating the radios in a bit more detail but these are all things which were hampered buy time which we didnt have alot of in the module. To sum the whole project up i feel we did really well as a group and produced a good end product and i feel each team member really did there own part and shared the responsibility of the project equally. As i said earlier i have really enjoyed this project and richard has done a really good job in teaching it and i continue to learn new skills and develop better group working skills because of it. :)

New techniques learnt

For the first time ever i learnt how to create a glass tecture and apply it to a window pain to acheive a really nice reflective serfure in the render when the camera zoom through the window in the 3d animation. As i explain earlier the steps i took to create the material and apply it so it reflected the surrounding area in the render. This is something i will use to great affect in the future and had alot of fun learning to do it and implement it. One thing i am starting to see in this module is i keep on expanding my skill set in 3ds max and that is definatly a positive thing.

Final camera and scenes

Camera 4



Camera 3



Camera 2



Camera 1



Here are the screen shots from the final 4 cameras to capture the outside scenes for the animation. they are all target cameras and they were placed so that all aspects of the outside modelling would be captured.

One camera was to zoom into the chelmsford sign with a slight curve done with the set key on the time line. Another was placed orbiting the model for around ten seconds, this was done buy creating a path and then atrtaching the camera to it and adjusting it in the time line accordingly. Another was then placed over the hair and furr grass which would end up going into the window this one gave a really nice render which took a long time as ill describe later. The last camera was set to pan out from the birdseye view and position and end showing the chelmsford landmass the house is sat on.

4 final rendered scenes for the Animation

The four scenes will be used in the final animation to start and finish it.

camera 1 is a zoom into the chelmsford sign with the target camera.

camera 2 is a rotating shot of the whole enviroment with a target camera on a oval path

camera 3 is a zooming camera which goes across the garden and into the window reflection with a target camera.

camera 4 is a zoom out from the roof of the house for the ending titles which uses a target camera also.

All the footage comes to about 25- 30 seconds and took around 50 hours to render which i think is worth it as the scenes look really good. The end aspect ratio was 720px by 460px which looks good and was decided because the larger format which was asked for would have taken to long to render all the scenes in time.

Environment finished camera and animation time

Here is the finished outside environment ready for the camera and lighting to be animated. I just added a gradient background because it looked a lot better then the actual skyline pic i had tried before.

Environment change

Once i had made all the outside components i just felt there was something lacking i didn't want to fill the rest of the camera space with a grass plane image or something dull like that so i decided to put the small setting on a map outline of essex. Genius! All i did to achieve this was to get a plane and put the essex map off the internet on it and then trace round it with the line tool in max and then extrude it to the desired depth. i then applied the colours to it via the materials editor and it was done.

Here I have added some grass with the use of the hair and fur modifier. its fairly simple I just created a plane to represent where the grass was to grow from and then used the modifier to apply the specifics characteristics I wanted the grass to have e.g. height, compactness, colour.

Here is the rendered image with the path and fence added around the house.

I have started to make the rest of the outside environment for the animation. i started buy making a stone/ concrete path which will go outside the house to make it look a bit more interesting. I made this buy simply making a long rectangle and using the connect tool to create extra lines and extrude the middle to form the curbs either side. the material added was a stone/concrete which worked well and applied it the same as I have described in earlier posts.

The wooden fence was created buy drawing out a rectangle with the line tool and then creating a rectangle for the individual fence panel which was placed at the side of the line which will form the perimeter of the fence. I then turned the fence post into a editable poly and shaped it to have a point at the top with the scale tool. I then used the scatter modifier to clone the other post and position them along the fence line. I then turned the original line drawn for the fence outline and used the editable spline modifier to extrude it and create the 3 support posts that run along the fence with the clone button.

Finished pool

Here is the finished rendered pool from the top view, i have also added a target spot light above to accent the waters reflective qualitys for you to see, im happy with how it turned out now just add it to the scene.

swimming pool creation for the outisde scene

Here i have modeled a pool to accompany the house which might be used for some of the scenes in which the camera zooms thru the windows to show the different era scenes. It was quite enjoyable to create as it is basically a plane which has been extruded buy -20 to give the overall shape. I simply got a stone material and added it to the plane and then used the UVW map to modifier it slightly so it look good. The water was a process of layering different maps and changing the glosiness and reflective values till it acheive a nice see thru reflective tint and applied a noise bump map to make it look like the water is waving, definatly looks alot nicer then when its still and flat.

Adding windows

I have added windows in this render and made the handrails on the decking slightly smaller as i realised they were slightly to big. To acheive the reflection in the windows a created a plane to fit inside the window frames on each window. I then set the ambient and diffuse colour to black in the materials editor and set the specular level to 275 and glossiness to 45. I then clicked on the opacity blank button and added a falloff map, fall off map type to fresnel. After that i added a ray trace map int he reflection slot and set the refraction to 80.

Rendered house unfinished

Here is the nearly finished house, im quite pleased with how it is turning out and need to add a few more items to complete the scene. The materials i added where edited in photoshop and applied as i have described in earlier tutorials using the UVW map to correctly place them on the image and bump map applied to each one individually. Thinking maybe it needs a swimming pool?

House creation

Here is the start of my house i simply made a box and them created a roof shape buy drawing a line with the line tool and extruding it to the desired dimensions. I then shaped the box with edit poly to the same contours as the roof so it fitted nicely. I decided not to use the chimney as it took away from the house i fort and made it look weird. The windows where made by creating to long boxs and then using the connect and bridge tool to make the intersecting section of the window. Glass not yet created and rest of scene.

Here i have added the door frame and began to create the decking which will go round the house to make it a bit more interesting. The door frame was made in the same way i made the windows just leaving the bottom box off and making it taller. The decking is being made buy creating a flat box and then using the extrude and connect modifiers to make the rest of it as you will see in later photos.

Rubics cube made with stone

Here is the finished object with the stone material applied, to do this i simply got a nice stone pattern and put it into photoshop to crop it approprialty and clean it up a lil with the blurr tool. i then went thru the process of of applying it as a material and creating a bump map as earlier described for other objects. Then a skylight was applied to give it depth and shadows in the final render.

Here i have been creating some more ornaments to accompany the radio in the scene, this is a rubics cube that i have made to look like its made of stone to fit with the old scenery. it was quite simple to make. i began buy making a box 100 x 100 x100 and segments times 3 all over. i then made it into a editable poly annd beveled the individual polygons till i was happy and fort it looked correct.

Finished old radio

Here is the finished radio with skylighting added to give it a nice shadow and depth :).

Old radio with materials

This is the radio with the old wood material on the body and then speaker mesh and metal finish on the other parts. The wood was fairly simple, finding a good quality wood image on google and adding it to the material editor. Once applied i then repeated the bump map process as earlier stated with the table till i was happy with the old texture. The speaker cylinders i used a speaker mesh material i found online and then edited it in photoshop buy cropping the part of the image i wanted and appying it to the cylinders on the radio and repeating the bump map process.

For the arial and controls i used a steel material which i found online and croped and darkened in photoshop so it would blend with the radio. I then applied the bump mapping till i was happy with final outcome.

Old radio creation further along

Now i have started to add the speaker holes over the face of the radio and added the arial on top. the speaker holes are simply created with the chamfered cyclinder and then copy them with the shift key to get multiple cylinders on the front. the arial was quite simple, just making a cylinder and then putting another on top with a smaller diameter using the scale tool. To finish it off i added a half sphere at the base to mask the entrance where the arial meets the radio body.

Old radio creation

Here i am starting to model my old radio for the first scene in the animation. i began buy making a chamfered box with desired parameters set till i was happy with size and chamfer of the box. I then set about creating two chamfered cylinders to represent the tuner and volume controls. To create the handle for the radio i created a rectangle on the spline mode and then turned it into a editable spline. I then selected the break button to chop the bottom off the rectangle so the handels go intop the side of the radio.

Finished Table

Here is my finished table with lighting and shadows applied to it. The lighting was applied with a skylight angled above and standard parameters applied to created the appropriate lighting for the scene. I am very pleased with the final outcome and now its time to move onto next object to model.

Creating table - Materials

Once the table had been created and i was happy with how it looked it was time to add materials to make it look more life like and realistic. Firstly i found a nice wood grain on google images which was the right lightness too. I then opened the material editor and went onto the bitmap button and choose our woob jpg and assigned it to the material sphere. Before i added it to the object i wanted to give it a bump map buy finding the bump map paramater selection and choosing the wood jpg and then choosing the bump percentage i felt looked good. I then assigned the material to object and messed about with it till i was happy.

For the black circles on top of the table i used a rubber preset material in max and just changed the colour to black on the editor panel and applied a slight bump map to give it some texture when rendered.

Table creation - Further along

The table is taking shape now, i have created a top buy making a box which is the same dimensions across as the legs and strutts, buy using the parameters box and the scale tool. I then created multiple cyclinders to give some texture and design to the top of the table. This was very simple just creating a cyclinder to the desired dimensions and cloning as many copies as i think looked good on the table top.

Table creation

Here is the start of my first object for the group video animation. I am creating a table for one of the 3 scenes (modern scene) which will either have the radio on it or just object to brighten up the scene. Firstly i created a box and assigned the length and midth measurments to it. I then cloned it buy uasing the shift key and positioned the four legs. After the legs were created i then cloned another four for the table top struts that run horizontal inside the table legs using the scale tool to shorten them.

Progress so far.

So far the group project is going well and indivuduals are modeling the radios and the main house used ion the video. i have been modelling my early radio and it is going well it is in the low poly stages and will be cleaning it up soon ready for material application and final rendering. then we will have another group meeting and decide who is doing the next lot of modeling and which objects in detail.

Intial ideas

The idea we have been brainstoring is having 3 radios from, 30's- 50's and modern day thru various scenes in a house. The ideas is to use a room in a house or the entire house and have it change thru the the times with the ornaments changing to with music playing from the time to.

here is a video of a fairy advert which uses a similar theme of changing thru the ages:

Inital brief

We have been asked to make an advert for visit essex.org, we have also been placed into groups for this project and will have to make the advert under 10 mins and in 3d studio max. We have already been planning and researching ideas about what to do for this advert. intial ideas are that we will use the birth plave of radio idea as it is something alot of groups wont use and it appeals to use to use it.