This Blog contains a breakdown of the content covered in my 3D Animation module. It shows how my skills progressed to the final product, which is available to watch here-

Its far from perfect but in doing this I have learnt a greater respect for the artists, and have a greater understanding of time frame these things take to design and build.

In summary...

I must say, this has been an enlightening experience for me, at first I really struggled but I feel that come the end I had progressed leaps and bounds. The actual animating itself proved very frustrating, but over time, learning the boundries with what you can/cant achieve made the process much easier.
I also found myelf making alot of work arounds (for example with the lazer beam appearing) which may not be as time effective as a professional still achieved my overall goal.
I would also like to share some of my reflections on techniques I used, firstly lets start with spline paths. These can be fantastic when getting a fluid object such as ship or plane to move, as the banking tool adds to some extra realism, but it is also very restrictive. Once an object is set to the plane, you cant remove part of it (again the lazer) mid flow. It is also true that you cant animate starting part the way along the path.
The graph editor i felt was a fantastic tool. Rather than keyframing the out of control Xwing by doing a series of rotations, in the graph editor I was actually able to set it to go over 360 degree spins, which is how I got the ship to tumble over itself. I actually had the ship rotate to 800 degrees over the period of 10 frames, allowing for over 2 full rotations. This allowed for a really dynamic, out of control look that I was really pleased with.
Overall I feel I grasped this assignemnt well. I did feel my lighting techniques and texturing could be better, but the Modelling and Aninmation I am pleased with (I fell these aspects will be of most use to me as a games designer) But now I will start to turn my attention to the finer details, such as shading maps and adding shine to polygons.

Break down of camera angles

So I just felt like I should break down the camera angles I chose and what I am trying to convey with them.
The first angle is a wide shot that pans following the xwing. I used this to set the space scene (the space debris can be seen in the background) following the Xwing, making it the main focus to convey that this is the protagonist.
The second angle is the worms eye whilst zooming in on the tie fighter appearing. This was to make it look more imposing and menacing creating the antagonist role.
The next scene was quite dynamic so i wanted something to represent this. I had the camera focus on the xwing being chased by the tie, then pan roud so you can see it getting shot.
For the next shot, with the xwing falling uncontrolably to the planet, I wanted to portray the impending, so I had the camera follow the xwing, with just a portion of the massive planet conveying how insignificant the ship is. I wanted to back this up with the pilots perspective (POV) trying to add some emotional attachment to him.
Finally, I felt it best to set the camera watching the xwing crash to its inevitable demise, static and unmoving, almost mournful.

Lighting and more problems

So I realise I didnt mention much about my lighting so far. the lighting really wasnt hard to grasp. The concensus online is 3 well placed omni lights is enough to gain a good ambient light effect, which is what I wanted in space considering all the stars are tiny light sources.
For the final scene, I wanted to protray the bleak desolation of the planet hoth, so I set an omni light low to cast shadows across the snow dunes.











I also wanted to vent my rage in regards to animating objects to appear at certain times. I wanted my Tie to fire a laser, and upon contact with the Xwing, create the smoke effect. I tried EVERYTHING to do this proffessionally, looked online, tried layers, even animating visability but somehow it was always out of my grasp. I had to result to sneaky work arounds, namely hiding the lazer object inside the tie, and using the curve editor to ensure they traveled the same speed. as for the Xwing, upon getting hit, I animated it to spin, then snapped to a different perspective with the smoke now attached. Not the best,but hey, it looks good

Adding text

I discovered that text counts as a spline. I had to go into the rendering in the command bar, and select viewable in render and viewport. Helpful to know, I imagine 3DS max has a size limit to ensure random "shrapnel" polys are not rendered.

Opening Scene

Animating the Xwing flying along a path I felt was the best option. I set the target camera and xwing to the same path to ensure fluid motion.

This is a fantastic way to ensure smooth fluid motion along a path, removing natural human zig zag motions. Also editing the banking amount and ticking follow path really gives it a realistic touch.

I also addressed the issues of the thruster glow. For this I used directional spotlights, and adjusted the far attenuation to ensure no light reflected on unwanted areas. It gives a nice surrounding glow to the rear of the ship.

References

Sorting out sound files for the final piece, I would like to reference the following-
http://soundbible.com/suggest.php?q=boost&x=0&y=0
http://www.tk421.net/gallery/sounds/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znv29YPtyGA&feature=related.

The rest of the sound files will come from my personnal library and voice acting. These wont be submitted as part of the assignment as I do not have the right to distribute the files.

Thankyou to George Lucas and Lucas Arts for the use of sounds, images, and references of the Starwars Universe.