Explosion Animating!

Today I learnt how to use the bomb explosion effect, along with the fire effect which is outputted alongside the explosion.

Firstly, I selected the space wraps option, and change the option in the drop down menu to Geometric/deformable, this then gave the option so I could draw a bomb, I had to draw the bomb inside my object, which in this case was a meteorite which is going to be blown up in my animation, I placed the bomb exactly inside of my model, this meant that the explosion would be fairly equal, if I placed it partially in the object, only a partial explosion would be output, so positioning was important.

Next I clicked on the ‘Bind to space warp’ which is the second in from the left tool in the top left hand corner, this then allowed me to click on the bomb and drag and attach it to my model.

When I then moved the timeline slider along at the bottom, it made the meteorite explode in to hundreds of pieces, I then went into the modifier tab, and this allowed me to play with the settings, here I could change how big the pieces were, how much they spun in the air, the chaos, which was how ‘crazy’ the explosion is, and so on.

Once I created the desired effect on the explosion, I needed some sort of actual explosion, with fire. To do this, I clicked on create panel, and then selected helpers, I then changed the drop down menu option to atmospheric apparatus, selected SphereGizmo, and then drew the shape slightly bigger than my meteorite model.

From here on I needed to add and create the fire effect, to do this with the SphereGizmo I drew selected, I clicked on the modify option, I then clicked the add button, which then brought up a window where I could select ‘fire effect’ and click ok.

Then back on the right hand side the fire effect should be added to the gizmo, so then I clicked to highlight the fire effect and then clicked on ‘set up’, this brought up a window where the settings for the fire could be generated, in this window the colour of the flame could be changed, along with the colour of the after effect smoke, the size, and the details etc.
At the bottom I selected the radio button which said ‘explosion’  and then click the button ‘setup explosion’ this then allowed me to set the start time of the explosion to correspond with the timing of the meteorite as it blows into pieces.

Once the desired effects and options have been tweaked, the explosion can be rendered, to see the outcome.

I am very pleased with this technique, I found it very straight forward and extremely rewarding, I had previously tried creating the explosion with the previous PAray technique, however did not get the desired effect.
I would have to say that this has probably been my most favourite technique so far in animating, as it is very powerful and looks amazing, I am looking forward to piecing it together with the rest of my animation.

Trial animation!

Today imported my Naboo fighter into my scene with the stars and planet, I used the path constraint animation technique to animate the fighter flying around the planet. I also used the target camera to focus on the model itself, and this follows it as it moves.

http://youtu.be/OuCoO5gUf7M

I am very pleased with the outcome of the animation, I will be using this technique a lot in my animation, and I am very much looking forward to using this further.

Reactor

The Reactor

Today in class we learn the reactor tool, this allowed us to create animation which could do a variety of different things, for example a bouncy ball, or make weighted objects roll or move along a surface.
To start I had to open the reactor menu, to do this I right clicked in the grey space next to the render button, and selected ‘Reactor’.

Next I created a rectangle and rotated it to give it a slant, next I created two spheres which would be animated to roll down the ramp.

I then selected create rigid body selection which then opened a new window on the right hand side, on there I had the option to ‘pick’ an object, so I picked all three of the objects I created, which was the rectangle ramp, and the two spheres.

I then clicked on property editor which is in the reactor toolbar, and then clicked on a sphere, on here I could add weight to the spheres, this would determine how quickly they would move on the ramp, and how quickly they would fall.

I then simply pressed ‘preview animation’ which is the second from last option on the reactor tool bar, and played the animation, which successfully dropped the balls and made them roll down the ramp.

On the property editor there is a selection of options which can be selected for appropriate animation, some of the options include; bounding box and mesh convex hull, these different selections will be used for the appropriate shapes, for example the convex hull would be used for shapes with a convex, the correct selection is important, otherwise the execution from the animation will not look right.

Unfortunately I don’t feel that this is an animation technique which will be included in my final animation, however it is definitely a useful technique to have learned for the future, It could be useful for making a ball bounce, or for creating a ripple effect on water.

Materials and settings!

Today I textured my models properly, when I first handed them in I had just colour them using basic maps, so now I wanted to make them look more realistic and more like the real Naboo fighter, to do this I used photo shop to create the desired texture, I simply used the colour yellow/gold as my background colour and then used an irregular shaped brush to create the dirty/burnt effect.

I then saved this as a JPEG, this map would be used for the main body of my Naboo fighter. I did the same thing to create the texture for the front of fighter, however using a silver colour. 

In the compact material editor I clicked on the diffuse button and that brought up a list of material maps, I then chose Bitmap and then selected my JPEG files that I created, this then imported the textures into the material editor, I changed the glossiness and specular to desire level and applied them to my model.

I found that the dark parts of my textures weren’t in the desired area of my model, for example I wanted most of the dirt/burnt effect towards the front of the fighter, and also a little less symmetrical looking, I learnt that I was able to change how the material took the model by going into the modifier list, and choosing the UVM mapping option, this allowed me to change the shape of how the material was applied to the object, for example if my object was a sphere I could change the option to spherical which then changed how the maps look on the model corresponding to the shape, I could also change the length, height and width of how the map looked on the model. After playing around with the settings in the UVM list, I was able to change how the colours were positioned on my model, and got a reasonable outcome with the darker areas of the materials at the front of the model, which I was aiming to achieve.

Skeleton/Walking/Movement!

Today in class we was taught how to assign a skeleton to a figure to make it walk.
First of all I created a figure using a box, I simply used extrude and bevel tool to manipulate and generate a body figure.

 I then used the symmetry tool to create the full body shape; I only drew this up rough to get the understanding of the animation and technique which was being taught.

The next step was to go into the create tab, into systems and then select biped, I could then draw up the skeleton figure to roughly the same size as the figure which I created.

The next step was to put the skeleton inside of my created character, then select my character that I created and then in the modifier list chose ‘Physique’ and then chose a node which in this case was the skeleton, this then brought up another window and then I had to simply press initialize.  

I then clicked on the skeleton which was placed inside of my character, I then clicked on motion in the create tab which gave me a variety of animation options, I clicked on ‘footstep mode’ and then clicked on ‘create footsteps’ this allowed me to input a path of footprints that my character would the follow. 

When I played the animation the character did indeed follow the footsteps however the walk was quite unnatural and it was dragging parts of the character which it shouldn’t have been moving.

To try and correct how the character moved I had to try change the settings, to do this I had to select the skeleton and go into the modifier list and under ‘physique’ there is an option for ‘envelop’ I clicked on this and I could then select different parts of the skeleton, for example I was selecting different limbs on the body, and then on the right hand side in the modify settings I was changing the size of the radial scale, this basically ‘snapped’ anything in the area which was linked to that specific part of the body. This shaped the body a lot better and I was really pleased with the outcome on the legs, I managed to get a fairly realistic looking half of the body, which animated and walked quite nicely.

I didn’t manage to get a very good animation on the arms for some reason, but for a first attempt I was pleased with the outcome and I am sure I will benefit learning this technique in the future.

In the lesson we was advised when creating our characters to make them have the ‘Da Vinci’ pose or a star jump pose if you like. This was made clear for when it came to animating the character and using the envelope tool to assign specific parts to the node, this was because if the legs were close together and I was increasing the size of the radial scale there would be a good chance it would then select parts of the opposite leg.

Unfortunately I don’t think that there is a place in my animation for this technique, however I am pleased to have learned it.

Morpher and animating.

Animating my light saber.

Firstly I selected auto-key, then I went onto key filters and made sure that ‘all’ was selected.

I then wanted everything to be off at 0 frames, so I went into my omni light which projects a green light from the light saber, and set the multipler to 0.
I then moved forward 10 frames and changed it back to 1.

I then had to animate the light saber itself, to do this I used the same technique as turning the light on and off, I turned on auto key and went back to frame one, I then used vertex selection under editable poly and selected the very end of the light saber, this allowed me to then move the whole sword type and pull it down within the handle.  I then went to frame 10, and just did the opposite, I dragged the end of the light saber back up to its original position.

When the animation is played through, we see the light saber grow and as it grows it also lights up.

I am overall very pleased with animating my lightsaber, it has recreated exactly what happens in the original star wars, I initially set out to try use the morpher tool in the modifier list, although this didn’t work out as planned however it could be used in the future.

Morpher tool.

To use the morpher tool, clone an object for example a square in this case, then manipulate it to how desired, then select the original shape which the user wishes to morph into the manipulated shape, in the modifier list select morpher, then on the right hand side right click one of the empty fields and click select object, then select the maniuplated object.

 

Now when the timeline is moved the original object transforms into the object which was manipulated.

 

Fire!

Creating Fire.

Although we learned in class how to create fire, I decided that I would like to take it further and look at how to create a realistic fire/flame effect; I watched a youtube video tutorial and followed that to create a good fire effect.

Firstly I went up to the create menu > particles > super spray.
I then drew the super spray on my stage. 

I then changed the settings of how the particles would appear.
I changed:

Percentage of particles = 100%
Particle motion > Speed = 0.2
Use total amount of particles = 200
Emit time = -100
Emit stop = 500
Display until = 500
Particle Size > Fade for = 30
Standard Particles = Facing, this meant that no matter how the angle or view point of the fire, it would always face the user.
Rotation and collision > Spin time = 1
Rotation and collision > Variation = 0.5
Rotation and collision > Phase =180
Rotation and collision > Variation =  1

I then could add the textures to my fire, I opened the compact material editor selected diffuse and assigned a noise map to it, I could then add the colours to my flame, I chose yellow for colour 1, and an orangey red for colour 2 and changed the setting to ‘Fractal’.

I then went back to the default and checked the face map, I then clicked on opacity, and then selected gradient as the map. I then gradient map I had three different colours, black, grey and white, I selected the grey and changed it to black, so that only white could be see through, I then changed the noise setting to 0.7 and the size to 3.5, but this depended on how I wished the flame to look.
I then changed the noise threshold, both setting the low and high to 0.5

I then went back into the parameters of the super spray and changed the size of the particles which gave it a more meatier, fuller kind of look to the fire.

I really enjoyed following this tutorial on creating a fire, it was simple to follow and the outcome was very good, I am hoping to use this effect in my animation and incorporate it in some way.
There was a lot of numeral settings which I changed by following the video, but these only made sense when I started experimenting after I had finished, by changing different aspects and seeing what different it made to the fire.

Youtube, 2011. 3D Studio Max Tutorial - How to create fire [Online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVHBJSq7rpg
[Accessed 11/04/2013]