Help Needed

I am currently working on scenes 3 of the view of the ships, scene 5 of the crows nest and the scene of nelson walking. However none of these scene are possible to create.

For scene 3 I scaled original sea and ship with nelson but apparently was not correct so I need the correct way to scale the enemy ships in the scene correctly.

For scene 5 I need the crows nest and the biped for the sailor in the crows nest.

For the scene of Nelson the final mapped nelson is not available yet, however this is due to a saving error which I was aware of yesterday and I have uploaded nelsons biped onto Humyo to be remapped.

Please can you let me know when these parts are on Humyo and I can start animating before Friday. Can someone also let me know the scale and I can complete scene 3 on Thursday morning when I will be in doing extra work.

Downloading

I have downloaded the final victory with textures. I will also download the new scaled items as mine weren't correct. I will then create the scene three and five when the crows nest and biped, and nelson mapped is uploaded.

Uploads to Humyo

All the sails that have been uploaded on to humyo are now animated and have been loaded into the ships file and in a new folder called animated sails.

Scaled waves

I have now scaled the waves to fit into the scene. The waves and the victory ship were scaled to the size of Nelson.

Creating a Biped for the Crows Nest.

Today a biped had to be created for the crows nest. Only the top half of the biped was required. First I created the the biped and positioned it with the crews clothing. Next The bones of the biped were adjusted to fit the model by moving and rotating the individual bones. Next the fins of each bone were adjusted to fit the shape of the body. Once all the bones were adjusted to fit the body. The number of fingers on the biped was upped to five and the finger links were change to three. Once all the fingers were positioned the biped needed to be linked to the body.
Next the modifier physique was used and a node was create to the pelvis of the biped. Now the biped and the mesh are linked the mesh is effected by the movement of the biped bones.
Now the envelopes on the bone need to be adjusted so the effect the correct vertexes on the mesh. This proved very difficult on the hands of the sailor. After a lot of trouble I created several successful envelops on the hand however I could not attach the lower vertex on the fingers. Due to these problems James West had a go at fixing the problem.

Sails Movement

Nelson walking

Today James west finished the biped structure on Nelson and i have been looking at creating the pacing scene on the deck of the victory.

I have created footsteps from the biped and moved them to create the effect of Nelson walking down the stair of the victory. I am still waiting for Nelson and the victory to be mapped and baked.

Once this is completed I can completed and render this part of the animation as I am also on the finishing team.

Uploading to Humyo

I have now uploaded the water effect and the final animation of the sail and the sea on the background ships.

Getting files from Humyo

This morning I have been getting the rest of the ships I need to animate of humyo. However when downloading the files they all have no link to their maps as only the max file has been uploaded with no attached map files. We need to some how load up the maps with each scene. I have seen that James T and Tim were both organising the files with separate folders so this morning I have added an animation folder, a videos folder and a nelson folder. I have also put all the ship is into the ships folder. I did this as I could not differentiate which piece of work was for which stage of the animation. Hope this ok. Any ideas on how to categories the work would be brill.

Report Writing

Today I am begnning to write my report for this module.

Todays Update

Today i have completed the sail movement part of the animation and added the sea. However this has a few difficulties as I don't know how big the animation needs to be. The size of the sea can change how the plane needs to be affected, for example the phase may need to be changed etc.




Today I also looked at how to make a biped walk. This part of the animation was meant to be completed by James West, however if he leaves I would like to animate Nelson walking. James W. will finish rigging Nelson and I can then create the Nelson Walking sequence.

Sail Animation

I have completed an animation of the sails on the ship and have saved the animation. When creating this effect i copied the sails and rescaled them to fit the same size as the original pieces. After completing the sails in this way i found they all looked to similar and blended together. To change this I changed the seed in the noise parameters to create a separate timing for each sail movements.








In this video I have added the sea effect created in Friday's lecture. One problem i am still having is being able to see the sails effect as there are no textures on the sails they still look a little flat.

Animating sails

I have now been animating the sails of the ship. The modifiers used to this were wave and noise.

The picture above references how the modifiers were used and how I selected the falloff before adding them.
By using the falloff I have set were the modifiers will effect sails and add the wave and noise.
When creating the movement using the wave modifiers the amplitude was change and adjusted to make the movement size look realistic. The phase of the amplitude was then set using the autokey.
The next modifier added was the Noise. In this modifier I selected Animate noise and changed the scale and the strength of the noise.
This created my first sail movement which I then needed to create on the other sails.

Animating

This morning I am going to start animating Marc's ships sails for the final animation.
I have downloaded background_ship off our shared storage space and I'm now ready to go.

Before animating the first thing I had to was name all the parts of the ship. Please will everyone start naming the parts as it will make it a lot easier when animating.

Creating Smoke

To create smoke first create spray in the top view port and rotate the spray so it points upwards. Then change the render type to facing. Next drop the size to fifty.

Now the spray has been create a map needs to be created.

In the materials editor select a new material and change the opacity map to mask. Then change the map to a gradient and changethe gradient type from linear to radial. Change the noise amount to 0.5 and the size to 3.5 and select fractal. Change colour 3 to two-hunred RBG which should be grey.

At this point the size of the spray was dropped to 75.

Then go up to parent on the material editor and change the Mask to a particle age map. In the particle age drag colour one down to colour three and select swap.

Then go back up to parent level and select the opacity map, gradient and click on the autokey. Drag the key to the last frame and up the phase to five. Turn off the autokey.

Next select the diffuse map and select smoke. Change colour two to pure white and colour one to 141 RBG grey. Change the size upto 100. Change the phase in the same way as on the opacitiy map using the autokey.

Attempting water

I have been creating water with James w. so the technique can be perfect before he leaves.
To create the material first i change the material from standard to raytrace.
Next click the reflection map and enter a falloff map.
Then click the checkered icon to view the background in the material.
On the falloff map under front side and flip the black and white using the arrow icon.
Then go to parent and select the environment where is has a box saying None. change this material to sky dusk(duskcld1) , this is under the materials library.
Then click and drag the material so far onto the water plane.
Next select the the bump map select noise. Change the noise to fractal. Within the noise parameters change the size to five.
To make the water look less silvery change the reflect map down to seventy-five.
Next change the diffuse colour to an indigo blue and bring up the specular level to one hundred and twenty.

Now the material has been made the modifiers need to be added to the plane.
First up the segment in the plane so their even in each direction.
Next add a noise modifier to the plane. Change the strength in the Z axis to around five and change the scale to around twenty. Finally select animate noise.
Now add a wave modifier and change the amplitude one and two to five.
To finish the effect use the autokey an change the phase on the last key.

Friday 16th Meeting

I have just blogged the minutes from our meeting on our new group blog. I am now going to have a look at the sea texture and animation.

Premiere Pro

Today I have got a few books out including one on the use of Premiere Pro. I have been reading up on this book so when we come to finishing the animation it will go together with ease. I have also taken out a studio max book to gain more knowledge on effects for the animation.

Creating a wave from the wake ship

The next effect we tried was creating a wake wave from the ship passing through the water.
This effect works quite well but will look better with a ship behind the wave and textures.

Ripping Sail

We have been working on the animation of ripping sails. This has proved difficult as the hole just appears and it does not look the cloth actually rips. This video is what we have so far but needs some help with this as it is not realistic enough.

Billowing sails

I was having trouble working out this effect and could not find a tutorial.
James W. and I have had a go at this this effect and worked on our first sail.
First we changed the sail to an editable poly and set the soft selection and the falloff on the planes vertices's.
We then added a animated wave modifier set the amplitude and the phase of the waves. On the wave modifier we also moved the gizmo to set the direction of the wave.
The final modifier used was a noise modifier to the plane. On this modifier we havled the scale, changed the strength and turn on the animate noise for the final effect which is shown below.

Fog

First attempts at creating fog with my sea animation.

The fog looks ok but needs to be a bit more spars and random. I will make this effect better this afternoon.

Website

I have a very good website which has an A-Z on max tutorials including fire, bodies, hair and many more useful things.

http://www.infinitee-designs.com/Tutorials-3DSMax-1.htm

Have a look it might have something you want to use.

Explosions

Whilst looking for a billowing wind tutorial i found a tutorial called a Matrix bullet-time tutorial. This tutorial freeze a complicated animation ( in this turtorial an exploading teapot ) but the camera must move aroud the frozen explosion. The main problem doing this in 3D Studio Max is knowing how to freeze the explosion, but I've found the solution in this tutorial. This tutorial uses cameras around the animation and then creates one image of each wanted frame from each camera.

Whilst using this tutorial I will need to learn about studio max vido post, from which i have found out is under rendering > environments.

This technique can be tried on our exploding barrel as when the barrel explodes it happens so quickly it is a bit difficult to see the full effect. This technique will pause the animation but still take frames from moving cameras.

Storyboards

Ali has completed some brilliant storyboards and look really effective. I have now printed them in Photoshop and their going to go on the wall in the lecture room so we have something to reference too.

Creating Billowing Sails Effect

I have created a flag effect in max but now I need to create the movement of the ships sails. The animation team will also need to look at how to make a cannon ball burst through a sail and what effects could be used on this.

The Final Fire Effect

The final fire render looks quite good. I could still improve on this if anyone has any hints or tips.

Creating a Realistic Fire Effect

To create fire start by creating a blizzard particle system and place it in your scene so its pointing upwards. Under the modify panel, change the emitter size to 45 x 45.

The percentage of particles displays in the viewport are a certain percentage but the amount of particles rendered will always be 100%.

Next under particle generation choose a user rate of 3 (This controls how many particles are to be created per frame).
Under Particle Motion

• choose a speed of 1.97
• a variation of .276
• Tumble 0 and Tumble Rate 0

Under Particle Timing make your Emit start a negative number. By making the number negative the particle generation is constant throughout the clip.
My frame count is 250 so I chose an Emit Start of -250, Emit Stop and Display Until of 250. Chose 36 for Life and 34 for Variation.
Under Particle Size choose 2.24, Variation 2.39, Grow For 5 and Fade For 29.

The speed of the particles determines how fast the particles are moving. The variation allows for various particles to travel at different speeds. Life determines how many frames the particle will live for. One particle will last for 36 frames in this case.

Next under Particle Type choose Instanced Geometry. This allows the particle to be any mesh or geometry created in the scene. By doing I have created a custom particle.
Next create a sphere of a radius of 3.625 and 32 Segments and add a noise modifier to the sphere.
Under the noise parameters, choose

• Seed 0, Scale 4.777,
• Roughness 0,
• Iterations 4.48

Under Strength make X: -2.87, Y: 5.59, Z: 12.182.

Go back to the particle emitter parameters, under particle type, it should already have Instanced Geometry selected. Scroll down until you see a button that says Pick Object. Click on that button and choose the sphere you just created. Right click on the sphere and choose hide selected. Now the particle emitter should emitting many little spheres.
To see this change your viewport Display from dots to mesh. (be careful as this could crash your computer) then, switch back to dots to save memory.

Add the material to the particle emitter.I then did a test render, this looked very effective. Finally under the Material ID Channel, change the ID from 0 to 1.

In this tutorial it says to render using post which is not on this machine.

Creating a Fire Material

To create my fire map i started by creating a new Standard material. Under Shader Basic Parameters I chose Blinn. In the Blinn colours I chose an orange color for Ambient/Diffuse Color. for this orange I chose an RBG of Red:255 Green:120 Blue:0 Hue:20 Sat:255 Value:255

Then i clicked the self illumination box on and select a slighter brighter orange color (Red:255 Green:174 Blue:0 Hue:29 Sat:255 Value:255).

Next I chose diffuse color map and picked Particle Age and hit ok.
For Color #1 chose a red color, and set Age #1 at 20%.
For Color #2 chose an orange color and set Age# 2 at 50%.
For Color #3 pick white and set Age# 3 at 100%

Once done go back upto parent level. I then checked diffuse map was set to 100. Then changed the self illumination map and choose Smoke. The Smoke Parameters need to be set to size: 40 and make color 1 an orange color and color 2 a yellow color.

Go back to the parent level. Under the opacity map also choose Smoke. Under Smoke Parameters choose size: 40 and make the two colors pure white and pure black.
This will create a fire material.

Still Looking At Effects

I still looking at different effects but mainly I am concentrating on fire. When i find a successful output i will blog the results.

Fire Effect

We are now looking for a fire tutorial as we are not 100% sure how to do this. We are going to search the internet for helpful hints.

Websites found
http://3dflashworld.com/3ds_max_Creating_Particle_Fire_using_Max_particles.html

http://www.phoenixbit.com/site/tutorials.asp?view=R3JhcGhpY3MvM0QgU3R1ZGlvIE1heC9maXJl

Spoono fire material http://www.spoono.com/3ds/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=4
Spoono fire Animation http://www.spoono.com/3ds/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=5

http://www.feedoffcreativity.co.uk/Tutorials/3D/MaxCampFire.php

This site shows realistic fire and also has a link to create the material.
http://3drockstar.com/index.php/creating-realistic-fire-using-particles-in-3ds-max/

This website has several key tutorail we could use to create fire, the sea, rope and billowing smoke
http://www.tech-faq.com/3d-max-tutorials.shtml
which after trying I found out do not open correctly, not happy as they looked very effective.

Sea effects

This is my first attempt at a sea effect. The boat is just basicso I can get a ruff idea of the effect. I have used a noise map and a wave effect. There is still room for improvement but I will keep working on it.

Creating a flag Movement

I have created this effect using a wave modifier. This was very simple to create by changing the phase and the amplitude of the wave. I also had to add falloff to the flag so it did not have movement where it joins to the post.

Animation Effects

Half the animation team, James.W and I (Leah) are now going to look at different effects which we will need in the animation.

Effects Needed

• Smoke
• Cannon Fire
• Water, Sea Waves
• Wood Splinters
• Wind in the sails
• Sails ripping
• Fire
• Gunpowder pouring (maybe?)
• Blood
• Ship Movement
• Rag Doll Physics - Dead People
• Musket Fire

For some of these effects we will be using reactor. We will also use such modifiers as wave, noise and particle systems.

Final Character Profile

I have now styled the hair and mapped the eyes. I styled the hair by moving the end vertexes of the hair and upping how many hairs there are to make it look thicker. I have mapped the eye and tiled it to fit. i rotated each eye so the are looking in the correct direction.



My final character now looks like Bon Jovi.