Best and Worst Bits

Best Bits of our Animation

• Representation of Storyline - I'm really impressed with how our group has stuck to the storyline when creating each individual animation scene. That was our main target so that it was easy to understand and identify the events taking place.
• Models created - I personally think our group has produced excellent models that are highly detailed and are brilliant replicas of the vehicles we wanted to produce. We each spent a good amount of time making sure they were of the highest standard and it is clear to see in the final animation. 

Worst Bits of our Animation

• Borders of Scenery - I think our scenery was well done, however looking back on the production I would personally make it so you cannot see the edges of the water which join up with the bottom of the sky dome. This does not look as realistic as I would have liked but this is a mistake that I will learn from. 

Module Evaluation

Voila!

Our animation is finally completed.
I am really pleased with the finished product our group has produced. The animation really portrays the storyline of the topic that we were given in week 1, which is due to the fact our group worked hard to replicate the plot.

I'm very satisfied with my own personal work that I contributed to the group and believe it was of the best possible standard. From the start I wanted to prove that I could produce work of a high quality and complete tasks that were given to me by the group or tasks created by myself.

There a few things that I would change if the opportunity arose again.

Firstly, I would have produced many more models to add to the scenery for that little extra touch, such as barrels or crates. I included these into the design processes in my sketchbook but decided against it because of the rendering time due to the size of the file.

Another part of my work that I'd change would have to be the sky. I would use a different process than what I used for this module. The 'Sky Dome' looks realistic but once all the scenes had been rendered, I came across better techniques to use that would have looked that much better. This is all part of a learning curve as any creator finds things to pick at in their own work once the process has been completed.

Finalising the Video Editing Process

Now our group began placing all the rendered videos in the order from our storyboard that we created in the first couple weeks of our module.

Rhys took control of this task with the rest of the group giving their input as we went. The video involves a few different transitions and effects that work really well with the genre of the animation.

Inspiration for Soundtrack

Once all the rendered videos had been placed together, I then began to look at existing soundtracks as inspiration for our own..

Here is an example of existing audio that I looked at to inspire our group:

From the film 'Inception', titled 'Time' created by Hans Zimmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxabLA7UQ9k

Composing The Soundtrack

Our group wanted the animation's audio to flow well with the emotion of the events incorporated. We thought the best way to do this was to create a soundtrack ourselves using Logic Pro and the sound effects available through download or Apple Loops.

I started the process by choosing individual loops of Logic Pro that were needed. Firstly I watched the rendered videos we had of our animations and worked out what sound effects we wanted to include and the rest of the audio would be a backing track.

The sound effects that I chose were:
(Apple Loops)
'Airplane Prop Pass' - Airplane
'Airplane Prop Start and Stop' - Airplane
'Bow and Arrow' - Backing Track
'Explosion Blast 02' - Explosions
'Fire 1' - Fire Effect
'Motorcycle Harley Pass' - Motorbike
'Motorcycle Harley Pull Up' - Motorbike
'Vintage News Short' - Newspaper
'Whoosh 10' - Airplane
'Whoosh 19' - Airplane

Techniques Learnt Along The Way

Over the period of the Virtual Environments module, I have learnt many different techniques in 3D Studio Max that will stay with me for a long time and prove useful in my life career.

Super Spray
From much guided help of fellow group members, I was able to conquer the super spray technique for creating fire or smoke. As the animation topic was about the pearl harbor attack it was necessary that we included these two elements. Now that I understand the technique, I believe if I am given the task of creating something similar in the future I will have no trouble tackling the task.

PArray
This technique also proved useful to me when I was creating the explosion trailing the Jeep. It enabled me to destroy a particular object in an explosive fashion.

Now To Piece The Animation Together..

Now that all of the animations our group created have been rendered out, the task of piecing it all together in the perfect and sufficient order takes place. We will do this using Premiere Pro by importing all the files into a project and then moving each scene to the correct position.

The final process will be to create a soundtrack. This will be done once the animation has been pieced together so that it is easy for the group to workout what sound effects we want where and so forth.

Watch this space..