Conclusion

Now I have finished the assignment I feel I have learned a lot in this part of the module. I had no prior experience of animating in the a 3D enviroment before the start of the semester and therefore I feel I have come a long way during this module. I think the overall result of the animation is better than I expected it would be when I was first given the assignment brief.

I think the animation is good but there is a lot that could be improved with the animation part particularly. There are many scenes where at some point the animation does not look natural of flow particularly well and could be tweaked to get a better result. I think this is due to my time management of the project as I focused for too long on the modelling part rather than the animation. I think I probably set myself too bigger task for the amount I time I had to complete the assignment. Having to model a whole theatre was too time consuming and there were many other fables I could have chosen with less to model, meaning I could focus on the animation more.

I believe I have used a wide variety of animation techniques and tried to incorporate as many as I could into the animation. I achieved most of what I would have like to have done, however the animation would have been better if the reactor water had worked and I wanted to try lip syncing, but did not have time to.

I feel that since I started this assignment I have learned at lot and would have liked to improve upon the parts I did first that are not so good. I am also happy with my use of cameras and lighting in the animation. I think all of the are used to a good effect and none are without purpose. It is the first time I have thought about lighting and cameras and so overall I feel I did a good job.

In conclusion I feel I have learned a lot over the course of the module and the experience I gained will be very valuable when it comes to future modules. I think the animation meets the criteria for the assignment well and I hope my hard work will be overall worthwhile.

Using Premiere Pro

To create the finished .avi I used Adobe CS4 Premiere Pro to put together all the rendered animation sequences. I rendered the whole thing in 1024 x 768 resolution as it looked nicer than 800 x 600 on my computers. Once the scenes were rendered they were imported into Premiere Pro. Sound effects were then added to improve the animation. Some parts of the animation were slowed down as they real time animation was too fast. Credit slides were then added for the introduction and end and to place subtitles over where the fox is talking. Finally the animation was rendered into 1 .avi file. The quality of the movie is not as good as the rendered versions from 3DS , but I could not find a way to improve it.

Scene 2 - Fox in the theatre

Finally the foxes body and head were animated in order to make the fox look like its taking part in the scene. The fox was originally static but making it look around the theatre while the shot is happening makes it have a purpose in the scene.

A camera was then added around the stage area to show the seating. A tween was then added by using the set key function to pan around that area of the theatre, showing the fox clearly above the stairs.

The theatre was the move so the animation would be the same but the fox would be walking along the stage. I learn from animating scene 1 that it is tricky to get the fox to change direction using the motion mixer, so I thought splitting the scene up would be a much better and simpler approach.

A camera was then added to show this part of the scene. It was set up in the upper tier of the theatre looking down on the stage area. This was done really just to show another angle of the theatre.

The door was then animated using the set key button at the point where the fox walks through it.

This scene was originally going to be a chase scene between the security guard and the fox. I decided to change this because the scene would not show any different types/methods of animation and I felt the time could be better spent on another scene. The scene was split into 3 sections. The first would pan a camera around the theatre. The second would show the fox walking along the red carpet and the third would show the fox walking along the stage to the backstage area. Using the motion mixer the fox was animated to walk along the red carpet area.

Scene 7 - Sleeping Fox

The omni light in the room was animation to move away from the room to fade the light, which would fade out into the end sequence in the finished animation. A camera was added into the room to set the view of the fox sleeping.

This scene was very short and simple to create. The room from scene 4 was used. The fox was then manipulated into the laying down position. The auto key button was used to make the foxes head lie down as though he went to sleep.

Scene 4 - The Mask

Finally a couple of camera were added to the scene. The first would pick up the fox walking into the room. The shot was designed to be above the fox's legs so the lack of a walk sequence was not scene. Instead the fox's head and spine move up and down to give the impression he is walking. The second camera captures the animation after the fox see the mask.

The mask was animated to fall in the water. I planned to use reactor in this scene for the water however this was not possible as every time I tried to preview or create the animation 3DS would freeze. To compensate I added some key frames that would show the mask bobbing up and down in the water.

I then started working on the animation in the scene. Using the auto key function the biped of the fox was manipulated into different positions to give the impression the fox saw the mask that made him jump. Finally the fox's mouth is tweened so it looks like he is talking.

Lighting was added to the room. Firstly an omni light to illuminate the room, then a target spot light that is focused on the mask.

Before animation could be added, the scene needed to be created. I decided to set this scene in a backstage storage room. I created the basic room shape using a box with a normal modifier attached to reverse the polygons. I Added a few chairs and pipes from the previous scenes. I created a few boxes also and textured them with an image of a box. Finally the mask was created and given a turbo smooth modifier. A plane that would act as a sheet covering a chair would make the mask look more like a person in the eyes of the fox.

Scene 5 - Fox Hunting

A couple of cameras were added. The first will capture the security guard walking down the stairs. The second will capture the security guard searching the front of the theatre.

The doors in the scene were then animation using the set key tool. The guards arm was positioned so it looks like he is pushing the doors open.

The torch object was added once again to the security guard left hand. A target spot light was connected to the torch to make it look like the torch is on. At first the light target did not follow the light object but this was solved also by linking the light target to the torch object. I think this adds a really nice effect to the scene with a good dynamic lighting effect in addition to the lightning effect.

The next part of the scene shows the security guard looking for the fox inside the theatre. The footstep tool was used plot the guard's path through the theatre. When it came to the stairs the animation doesn't look as natural as it could, but there is no easy way to solve this so rather than wasting time fixing this I decided to place the camera in a way the animation might look more natural.

The first part of the animation was the security guard picking up the torch. To do this the auto key was used to gradually move the security guard hand into position to pick up the torch. To pick it up a dummy box was created that was linked to the torch. A link constraint was then added to the torch in the motion panel. A link was then added to the dummy object and left hand from frame 60 onwards. Therefore when the animation reached frame 60 the torch would be connected to the biped but not before, giving the impression the torch was being picked up.

Scene 6 - Scared Security

The amount of frames was reduced from 1000 to 400 as this scene is much quicker than scene 3. The lighting needed to be tweaked slightly in order to see what was happening. The spot light above the guards head was given a higher intentsity. A camera was then added that films over the guard shoulder. I made it static unlike scene 3 as the animation happens so fast that a viewers eyes could not adjust fast enough to see the animation if the camera was zooming in and zooming out.

I then once again used the footstep tool to add a walk sequence to the security guard up to a point in the corridor until he sees the guard. At the point a run sequence was added using the footstep tool so the security guard would run back out of the corridor scared. I used the auto key keyframe tool to add a flailing arm effect to show his distress.

This scene was relatively simple to create. I first made a copy of scene 3, which takes place in the same location. All I then had to do was import the security guard model.