Scene 3 - Fox in Corridor

Finally a camera was added that would follow the fox down the corridor until the ghost appeared. The foxes back left leg with the mesh problem was purposely left out of shot so the deformation was not seen and it just looks like the fox is crouching down to avoid being seen.

Some object were added to the scene to make it look more interesting. A chair from the theatre was imported into the scene using the merge function. A high specular and gloss was applied to the poles to reflect the light, making it look more realistic. The rest of the fox's walk sequence was added. To create a pause effect I created another .bip file were the biped was not animated. This caused a strange problem whereby the foxes leg would cause the mesh to collapse and look strange. No solutions was found to correct this at this time. The amount of frames was increased once again to 1000 in order to accomodate all the animation.

The ghost in the scene was not as visible as intended. The feet could be clearly seen however the body could not. To make it clearer a target spot light was added and the intensity was massively reduced to make it look like a shadow.

A dummy security guard was made that would be in shadow and appear at the end of the corridor. Using the footsteps tool the security guard was made to walk across the end of the corridor. A spray patch was created to give the impression the room has a leak. The rain count was reduced to one and the size was increased so it was clearly visible.

The rooms box was converted to an editable poly, so textures could be applied to each individual polygon. A wood texture was added to the floor then the theatre stars materia lwas added to the walls and ceiling. Finally the lighting of the room was changed. An omni light was added at the far end to illuminate the fox and the end of the room. A target spot light was also added to illuminate the top of the fox so its head was not in the shadow.

To start this scene I needed to build the room. I created a box and used the normal modifier to reverse the polygons. I then added a few walk sequences to the fox using the motion mixer to get an idea how the scene would look. The amount of frames in the scene was then changed from 500 to 800.

Scene 1 - Storm

Finally a couple of cameras were added to the seen. The first was outside the theatre to show the fox walking along the street. a positioning tween was added to make the camera pan slightly to show a close up of the fox entering the theatre. The second camera is a static camera in the foyer to show the security guard being alerted to the foxes presents.

The next step was the make the security guard patrol the foyer corridor. This was easy to do thanks to the footstep tool in the motion box. Numerous footsteps were added and then the head was rotated slightly to show the door shutting alerted the security guard.

After a lot of search Internet forums I came up with the idea of attaching a dummy box to the bipeds COM. Adding a key frame that would rotate the box meant the model would also rotate. It does not look perfect as the animation speeds do not perfectly match however it was the only solution. So the box did not show up on the rendering I unchecked the rendering properties in the object properties box.

One of the biggest problems I faced so far was how to make the fox walk forward but turn a corner at the same time. I initially thought that I may be able to use the path constraint tool of the bipeds COM part. This did not work and ended frustratingly in error messages.

After I created the foxes walk along the street. To do this the motion mixer was used to import and .bip file of a walk animation I created for the fox. Adding a transition track meant the .bip could be looped over and over.

To create a realistic looking walk for the fox I created a .bip file. Planted keys were used to anchor the foxes feet to the ground when they needed to be in the walk sequence. The keys were then set free when the legs moved.

The first animation added to the seen was rain and lightning. A problem was found that was if the other models were too big the rain would only fall within a small area. I tried adding multiple spray objects but the result was not satisfactory. To resolve this I scaled down the theatre. This was simply created using the spray tool. Adjustments were made to the particle size and rain count to create a realistic looking shower of rain.

Before the animation could be applied I needed to import the models from the files into the one with the theatre. This caused massive problems that took quite a while to resolve. The big problem was that the firstly trying to export the models in different file formats meant that some were not able to find textures or import the biped correctly, as well as being different sizes.. I tried both .3ds and .obj extensions with no luck. The solution was to merge selected parts of the other .max file, however when coming to the security guard model it would not import properly. The mesh was completely jumbled up. This meant i had to merge the mesh and re do the biped for this model. The fox model imported with biped successfully.

Bipedding The Models

The second problem was when the feet moved, it impacted on the opposite foot. This was because the bone weighting was not correct. This was completely new to me but was eventually worked out and solved. By reducing the weight in certain places it meant the biped moved the mesh more naturally. I also had to increase the size of the bones in the leg in order to make the model walk more naturally. It is still not perfect but a great deal better than it was.

After the fox was completed the security guard was given his skeleton. The biped bones were easier to create that the fox as the model is human shaped. Again a skin modifier was applied to connect the bones with the mesh. Using the footstep tool a few footsteps were made to see if the model was able to move how it should. I noticed that firstly the eyes and hat were not following the mesh. This was because there were not connected to the biped. This was easily solved by using the link tool.

The first model that was bipedded was the fox. Using the biped tool a human shaped biped was created and rotated 90 degrees so it could be transformed into an animal shape. Once the biped and its bones were shaped and placed accordingly a skin modifier was applied to the fox and the bones added. Luckily enough no bone weighting needed to be changed.

Fox Model Development

Render of finished fox.



Used a bitmap to texture the eyes on. Then added the UVW map to create the body textures.



Applied an unwrap UVW modifier for the texturing of the fox.



Finished model.



Slightly modified the body proportions in the legs and mouth.



Added detail to the head to make it look more like a fox.



Added in a turbo smooth modifier to smooth over the model.



Worked on the shape of the legs and tail.



Added on a tail.



Extruded polygons once again to create the legs.



Extruded and sliced the polygons to create the rough body shape.



Added in a couple of spheres for eyes, then changed the shape of the ears and mouth.



Carried on manipulating the vertices into a more fox like shape while using the quick slice tool to add in more vertices.

Started by creating a box and converting it to an editable poly. Manipulated a few vertices into a very basic shape of the head, then added symmetry modifier to mirror the other side of the fox.

Theatre Development

Renders:

Lighting was then added. First a omni light to give some ambient lighting to the outside of the theatre. Next a couple of target spot lights were used to light up the front of the theatre. The transparent glass texture made the light flow throughout the whole building an gave it a nice lighting effect, meaning no more lights were need inside the theatre.

Finally a sign was added to give a more theatre like look to the front of the building.

Next the buildings were created by repeating a picture on a plane.

The outside of the theatre was then started. A path a road were created.

Finally ticket boxes were created and added to finish the room.

Added in a staircase either side as well as the red carpet, to keep a consistent theme throughout the whole theatre.

Next the foyer was started. Another box was created to form the room. The normal modifier was used once again so the polygons were reversed.

The stage and the seating was then brought together to form the inner theatre. An omni light was added to give light towards the stage and contrast the rows of seating.

In order to put a picture on the ceiling of the stage roof a UVW unwrap modifier needed to be applied.

Worked on the materials of the stage part of the theatre.

A safety wall and railing was added to the upper tier. To create the metal effect I used a high specular level on the material. Next a carpet texture was given to the steps as well as a gripper texture added. Finally a ceiling was given to the lower tier so the upper tier steps were not visible.

A door frame and skirting board was then added and copied to the upper tier seating.

A box was then added around the whole inner theatre, then using the normal modifier to reverse the polygons to face into the theatre, the floor, ceiling and walls were textured. An omni light was briefly added to test how the seating would look.

The second tier of seats was then copied exactly from the first tier and moved up.

Next the seating in the theatre was created by using instance copies of the original chair to first make half a row, then a section, and finally using the symmetry modifier the lower seating was created. Steps were added to fill the gap between the chairs.

After this a door was designed and given a glass texture in parts. The glass texture was made by adding reflection maps and reducing the opacity. The door was then mirrored to create the double doors in the theatre.

A red carpet was added between the balcony boxes using a plane shape. The roof over the stage was then created using a box then converting it to an editable poly. With soft selection on the shape was moulded by manipulating a few vertices and then tidied up with soft selection off. Finally another symmetry modifier was applied to the roof to mirror the half.

The roof of the balcony boxes was added, then a symmetry modifier was then applied to mirror the balcony box on the other side. Finally a stage was created using the same method as the balcony and a back drop curtain was added.

Planes were added to form walls between the columns. A cylinder then used and cut in half to create the balcony. A model of a chair was then created and given a turbo smooth modifier. It was given an instances copy from a master chair, so that if any adjustments needed to be made to the mass of chairs in this theatre it could be easily done. Finally curtains were created by using an editable poly then manipulating the vertices into a concertina shape before given a turbosmooth modifier.

Started by creating the columns that support the balcony boxes by creating a box and converting it to an editable poly. Then using the extrude tool and the scaling tool to create the tapering effect in places. An arch was then added that would eventually form a doorway.