Evaluation of Trailer Project

Over the past twelve weeks there have been some very steep learning curves that have resulted in producing a piece of work I never thought I would be able to produce. Indeed, there is a lot of room for improvement and it is far from perfect. However, based upon how the project first started, there has been a huge development in my 3D skills and I now appreciate attention to detail more than what I once did.

The elements of the trailer that I think work very well are the biped as he walks and his mesh how it was physiqued. Plus, the explosions in the car chase amongst the scene where he walks and then turns to the camera and then shoots. I like these as it does represent some elements of real life. 

However, due to limited knowledge and skills required to make something very sophisticated it does lack believability. You couldn't look at it and think that is a real person, car or plane in the trailer, it is very obvious that this is not the case. As this is the first attempt at using the program I am very happy with the results. A recommendation for future projects would be to focus more on a smaller scene and add more detail to a small scene. Rather than having many scenes with little detail within them. In this attempt of making a trailer, I believe I have taken the breadth approach, when a better result may have been produced if a depth approach had been adopted instead.

To conclude, it has been a successful project, the trailer was completed on time and it has the theme of James Bond. There is room for improvement but many of the elements combined together display still an effective result.

Creating the Final Trailer

The aim of this was to incorporate all of the scenes that had been created thus far into iMovie (a Mac tool used to create short movies) and add a backing track.

To achieve this, the objectives were to import all of the movie clips into the development tool along with adding the James Bond theme tune. A theme will also be chosen so that it appears to the reader that they are viewing a James Bond briefing folder.

First, on the file menu of iMovie, the import button was selected and all of the movie clips were highlighted so that it was added to the folder to choose between for the final menu. The software package is very user friendly as you simply drag and drop the clips into the order that they need to appear in and the software package creates the transitions between the two.

Once all of the clips are in the current order, right click on the section with all of the clips in order and select project properties. This will open a dialog box showing the different layouts that the software package offers. To create the effect that it is a mission brief, select photo album. This then automatically adds a titles and credits section to the trailer. On the titles, the name of the film "You Only Live Twice" is edited into the clip along with my SID number. On the credits the producers of the James Bond films were edited in here so that it says "A Saltzman and Broccoli Production". This was to try and keep it authentic.

When the time was calculated it was a second short of 30 seconds, however, the title of the film disappeared too quickly for the audience to view, therefore a freeze frame was added which kept it on stage for a second longer than it originally was going to be and works a lot better now.

To add the music to the clip, the theme tune was saved in a folder which was then drag and dropped into the editor. The software package then edits the music to the clips. The default fade out was a little too abrupt still, so this was adjusted so that it fades out over a period of approximately four seconds which works much better than the original.

To complete the trailer it was then exported as two types of movie clip just in case the viewer doesn't have a compatible software to play it. Although, this being said, it has been played on an iMac with no problems so there shouldn't be any issues with this. The file was exported as a .mov file which runs QuickTime and also a .mp4 file which opens in iTunes.

Creating the Bond walk and shoot scene

The aim of this scene was to represent the original scene of every Bond film, which has Bond walk across the scene as he turns to the camera and then shoots his gun, which then fills the camera with blood. The scene is always looking down some sort of cone object.

To achieve the scene's aims. The James Bond Biped needs to be opened, and his attire needs to be changed to represent a white shirt and black shoes and trousers. In the same scene, an open ended cone will be created, with a swirl modifier along with the twist modifier which will make it appear similar to the original when rendered. Plus, there will be horizon lines in a simple blue colour like the original. There will also be a plane that appears on the screen with an altered opacity so that the camera can still see through the blood on the screen. There will also be a superSpray particle system to represent gun smoke.

To alter the attire of the model, it is simply achieved by using the paint selection tool along with faces selected on editable poly, and highlighting the faces that need to be altered. For example to alter the shirt all of the t-shirt section is selected. Once the material has been altered, the next set of faces are selected and the process repeats itself until Bond is looking more smart for this scene.

For the scenery, an open ended cone needs to be created. The cone is added to the stage which should be approximately four times the size of Bond. Convert the cone to an editable poly ensuring before this is done, there is only one face on both the top and bottom of the cone. Select the face on editor poly, and highlight the bottom and top face of the cone and delete these faces. This is so that the camera will be able to be positioned so that Bond will walk by the cone and turn to the audience and shoot. Therefore, it is important to make the size of the smallest end of the cone to be big enough to see Bond through it. If this is not the case, then use the scale tool to adjust its size.

Once this is complete, turn off editable poly, but still have the cone selected, and in the modifier panel, select Normal from the drop down menu. On the side menu that appears, tick flip normals. This will allow the inside of the cone to be rendered. If this step is not completed, the cone will not appear in the rendered file.This is because Max normally expects to render the outside of an object rather than the inside, so this modifier alters this to make it vice versa.

To make the cone similar to the original, it needs to have the swirl material applied to it with black and white as the colours to swirl. Alter the tile and mirror so that it swirls around the inside of the cone. Next apply the twist modifier to the cone and twist the cone, so that it emphasises the swirl of the cone and begins to resemble the original more. Towards the end of the timeline when Bond will have walked and then shot his gun, and the screen turns red, if the twist modifier is adjusted here it makes an interesting effect to the end of the scene. The cone is a stationary part of the scene and will not move from its original positioning throughout the scene other than when the twist modifier is applied, but it still doesn't move.

The horizon lines are two planes that have been aligned with Bond and made to scale to Bond so that they are approximately twice the size of Bond so there is not blank space when he walks across the stage. On the diffuse colour panel in the material editor, two shades of blue were selected, one was to the plane of the x axis and one to the other on the y axis. This gives an element of depth to the horizon lines, but also works well where Max has standard lights when creating a scene, which allows you to see the objects that are on the stage. The positioning of the horizon lines mean that the angle of the camera in relation to the horizon lines show a shadow as well adding depth.

Now, that the scene is ready, Bond can now have footsteps added to the scene so that he can begin his walk. As Bond has already had the physique modifier applied, he will not need to go into figure mode in this scene. He simply needs to be moved into place by selecting his COM and using the move tool and placing him, just before the right side of the cone that the camera will look down. On the motions panel, select footstep mode, and select walk, followed by create multiple footsteps. He shouldn't need more than seven footsteps to reach the centre of the cone, and ensure to select start from the beginning, rather than at current frame. Then click 'OK'. This will then show the footsteps that Bond will adhere to. If there are too many adjust as necessary. On the last footstep he will hold one leg slightly aloft. Ignore this as it will be adjusted later on. Once the correct number of footsteps have been selected, activate the unactivated footsteps in the motions panel. You will witness the model of Bond automatically adjust himself to the first footsteps. 

The next step is to create the illusion that Bond has fired his gun. In many of the originals, you can barely see his gun, you just know that it is there because of the gun smoke that comes off of it. Therefore, due to time constraints, smoke will be created to represent gun smoke but not the gun. A bullet will then fire towards the camera. This is created by selecting the create panel, and on the drop down menu and selecting particle systems. A button will appear saying SuperSpray. Select this and add to the stage. Place it so that it is just above Bond's extended hand. Adjust the spread and particle size so that it the smoke will not go in a straight vertical line. To make it appear like smoke, by selecting the material editor and changing it to a gradient and on each iteration altering the second color to be white and the first and third colours to be black, this will create the main part of the smoke. A level of noise needs to be added, adjusting the levels so that it begins to take a smoke appearance. To make it more see through, the opacity also needs to be adjusted so that the final effect is like so:

Now the smoke has been created, a bullet can be created by adding a cylinder to the stage and converting it to a poly, and on the top face, extrude and bevel so that it comes to a point. To create a gold material, in the 3DS Max tutorials folder and added to the diffuse material. By adjusting the glossiness and specular level it makes it look like a gold object.

At the beginning of the animation the bullet was placed where his hand was going to have smoke come from as it is representing a gun. But so it doesn't look out of place, it was scaled down so much that it wasn't even visible that it was there. When Bond is then in place as he is about to fire, using Auto Key, move the bullet closer to the camera through the cone, and scaling the bullet out of proportion so that as it comes towards the camera, it appears to grow in size as it was originally a small object from far away and has got bigger as it draws closer. The result is a little exaggerated but this was the intended effect, and it works very well.

Finally for the blood to come over the screen, a plane was created that was originally placed above the camera out of sight, and once Bond had shot, the plane descended in front of the camera using Auto Key. This then stays on the stage for approximately one second and then concludes the scene.

To make the camera in this scene that has been mentioned throughout how this scene was made, it is simply done by selecting Target on the create camera panel. As the target is looking through the cone, the target doesn't move, which is why this type of camera was most appropriate. When rendered, it needed an Omni light in two places to make it appear the way I wanted it. There was one behind the camera to create a shadow done the cone and also one near Bond so that he wasn't all shadowed out. It was still clear to see what he was doing.

Overall, I was very pleased with the result of this scene. Indeed, there could have been improvements with the model of James Bond, but in terms of the animation elements of the scene I am very pleased.

Creating the Sphere animation

The aim of this scene was to make the iconic James Bond circles move across the scene before he walks across the scene and shoots the camera. Therefore, there will be two spheres that appear on the screen and move. One will move right as another appears from the first sphere and moves to the left.

To achieve this, the objective of this scene is to create two white spheres and using Set Key the individual spheres can be manipulated to move in the intended way as mentioned in the aim.

First, creating the spheres; simply create a sphere on the stage. On the material editor, select the diffuse colour and choose white. At the moment it still has a grey shadow, this needs to be changed. This is done by setting the self illumination to 100. This makes the sphere appear to be white on the stage, when really it is like having a light on the object. This is the intended effect for the sphere as it matches the films spheres that appear on the stage. Using Set Key, move the sphere from the left to the right in a straight line by selecting the x axis, and then set the key on the finishing position. If this has been completed correctly, when the animation is played, the sphere should go from one side of the stage to the other. If this doesn't work it maybe that the set key wasn't selected at the beginning as well as the end. It is important that Set Key is used for this scene rather than Auto Key. This is because when the copy of the sphere is created, Auto Key doesn't make the sphere travel in the opposite direction correctly, it changes direction which isn't the desired effect.

At approximately a third through the animation which should be almost a second in, still using Set Key create a copy of the sphere. This can be achieved by right clicking the sphere, and selecting clone, this will ask if you want a copy, or an instance or reference. Select Copy. Now when the move tool is selected the second sphere will appear when it is moved across the stage. Whilst still in the Set Key tool. At approximately two thirds through the animation, as the original ball is most of the way through it's travel, move the clone to left. When the clip is played the two balls should move in opposite directions and appear like the original.

Once complete on the front view port, click the render set up and select the range to start from zero to the last animated frame. Select the file to render the .avi file to and then finish by selecting render. It is important to render the front view port as the original is a front view of the two balls. To keep it like the original, this is the way that it will be rendered for this animation.

Creating The Animation For James to Run from the Harrier

The aim of this scene was to animate Bond walking from the entrance of the hotel towards the camera. He would then turn round with a close up of his face as he sees the harrier. As the harrier begins to drop bombs from the plane, Bond runs evading the objects falling towards him. He then reaches his car and drives off.

The objectives to complete this aim were to open the model of James Bond, and import the hotel scenery and the harrier model to the same scene as Bond. Then using the two animating tools; Auto Key and Set Key to animate various objects within the scene to display the intended effect. 

The first step was creating a Biped for James Bond to have the physique modifier applied. Using a biped allows a character model to be manipulated to moving in the same way as a human would. To attach the biped, it first must be created. In the create panel, under systems, Biped can be selected. In the front view port, the mouse is click and dragged from the feet, and finish at the head of the model's body. It is also important to note, there are different bipeds to select from. There is a male version, female or just standard biped, each given a different approach to how they walk along with their appearance.

By holding the cursor over the scale icon in the main menu, it can be changed to non-uniform scale. This is useful as each individual axis can then be scaled on the parents and children limbs of the biped. To get the most effective mesh between biped and model, the limbs of the biped should cover at least two thirds of each body part. To ensure the biped walks the way that the model should follow, knees and ankles, along with lower and upper arms need to be scaled correctly. The most important part to scale is the COM (centre of mass). This aligns the biped in with the model. This should be checked in both the left and front view port for best results. Of course, before any of this can be achieved, in the motions panel, figure mode must be selected. If alterations are made before putting the biped into figure mode, it will all be undone.

Once scaled, the skin of the model (the name of the model itself - all elements of the model should be attached so they are encompassed under one name, even if they are linked together they must be attached) should be selected and on the modifier panel, select physique from the drop menu. The purpose of physique is so that the model can then be meshed together with the biped. This is accomplished by adjusting the envelopes. Envelopes are sections that cover each limb of the biped, which have attributes of radius, parent and child. By altering these values, the amount of the skin that is covered is altered to eliminate any unwanted stretch marks from the model. This tends to be shown most when the biped is put into walking mode (which will be discussed later) and parts of the skin are left behind. By altering the radius, parent and child values, this is no longer a problem. However, if the values are set too high, limbs begin to get entangled together and ruin the appearance of the model when rendered.

Once the biped is ready and the physique modifier has been applied. By pressing the 'H' key, and selecting 'bip01' from the menu that appears. On the motions panel, the biped can then be put into walking mode. This was the case with this scene. Once the scenery had been scaled to the model (if it had been vice versa, there would have been problems with the biped when walking - always scale to the biped), the biped was put into place by the entrance to the hotel, ready for the footsteps to be put into place. When confronted with the footsteps panel, the user can choose between creating a walk, jump or run for the biped to adhere to. For the first section of the scene, the biped needs to walk approximately seven paces. Therefore, the walk icon is selected, followed by the button 'Create Multiple Footsteps'. This then presents another menu, which can alter the length of each stride, how many footsteps to create, and which frame to begin the footsteps from. In this case, the frame to start is at the start of the animation. Therefore, seven is placed in the number of footsteps, and start at beginning is also selected, followed by 'OK'. The values of the stride length can then be adjusted based on how far the biped has walked. 

Once the footsteps length and placed correctly, the biped will not walk at this stage. This is because they need to be activated. On the motions panel, there is a button to activate unactivated footsteps. Once selected, the biped will automatically adjust itself, so that the feet of the biped are placed at footsteps zero and one. Now, when the animation is played, the biped will begin to walk those footsteps that have been created. This is because, as part of the biped package, it automatically uses Auto Key and places keys in the time line as the biped walks. At this stage, the stride of the biped is rather lifeless and also a little feminine as the biped selected was just the unisex version. Next to the timeline, a button can be selected to toggle through the timeline using the '<' and '>'. By using these keys, the timeline will jump to the next keyframe in the intended direction. This is so that in each key frame, the biped can then be adjusted to make him have a more realistic walk. 

The first step to complete this task, is to select the COM and at each key frame using the rotate tool, adjust his position so that his body will move on each footstep. This is because generally, people will not walk like they have a wooden block attached to their spine limiting their movement. The biped wants to look more organic so adding something so simple shows fast results. This is also applied to the arms. By selecting the move tool, and then selecting each hand in turn, by adjusting the z axis, the biped looks like his arms are going up and down in each key frame rather than being strapped to his sides. Furthermore, adjusting the positioning of the head in some of the key frames adds more life to the biped. To make it easier to select the different parts of the biped's body, on the display panel, select hide by name, the name list will appear. Select the skin (the model) and then only the biped will be on display. Once finished, return to the display panel, and select unhide all.

The next step is to make James Bond run across the stage. First on the time line leave a gap of approximately two seconds (60 frames) so that James, later can turn to the camera before he runs as mentioned in the scenes aim. Then return to walking mode on the biped. Select run followed by create multiple footsteps. This time, the stride should be approximately 3m. Although, this number is unrealistic for a human to run this far in one stride. The stage has been scaled to the biped, which means that 3m will actually look quite normal when rendered. Ensure to select start at current frame rather than at the beginning. This will then add footsteps later in the timeline to finish the scene. Adjust the number of footsteps to ten and adjust until the biped reaches the car comfortably, once the footsteps have been activated. Sometimes, the biped will do a huge jump as a transition from the last walking footstep to the first running footstep. This can be overcome by either moving the footstep closer to the last walking step. Or if this does not fix the problem, the amount of frames between the two can be too far apart, so the biped tries to make a transition that will last the time remaining. By adjusting the timeline, this should eliminate the problem.

 

Like the walking steps, the biped needs to be adjusted in each key frame to make him look more realistic as he runs to the car. Generally, the biped will not alter the arms even when the model is running. This means that this needs to be altered like before. More exaggerated adjustments give a better effect. When a person runs, to give more power, their arms stretch rather high to heighten momentum. To make the animation as realistic as possible, this will need to be incorporated into the biped's movements. Also the COM should be adjusted using the rotation tool so that as the thigh lifts, the COM rotates in the direction of the lifting thigh. Plus, the thighs rotate upon each lift of the limb to again build momentum. This emphasises that the model isn't running because he forgot to buy milk before the shop closes but rather that he is in danger and must escape as quickly as possible.

In the frames in between the last walk footstep and the first running footstep, using Auto Key, adjust the head and the COM so that it appears to represent Bond turning round and then returning back to the direction he was originally looking in. This will be so when the camera is added, the camera can then zoom in on his face before he begins to run.

The harrier now needs to be making an appearance of the scene. Using Set Key, the position of the harrier to begin with needs to be behind the hotel, so that it is not seen at the beginning of the scene. By the time Bond has reached the last footstep, the harrier needs to be above the hotel, so that when Bond looks behind and up above the hotel, the harrier's nose is pointing down towards Bond. By selecting the button that has a key image on it, next to Set Key, this will add a key to the timeline to add an animation detail to the timeline. The difference between Auto Key and Set Key, generally is that Set Key gives you more control over the animation in comparison to Auto Key as Auto Key will automatically make the transition between one key to the next, whereas the transition can be controlled more for Set Key.

As Bond runs, a missile will need to fall near Bond as he runs to show the audience the pilot of the harrier wants Bond dead.

Now, on the final footstep of Bond's running sequence, the object properties of Bond needs to be adjusted to zero, so that Bond is now invisible to the audience, to give the impression that he is now in the car. The final element of the scene is to show the car driving off the stage. This was very simple using Auto Key, starting on the timeline at the last running footstep, using the rotation tool, make the back of the car appear to be like a rear wheel drive as it swerves a little trying to pull away in a hurry. And then pulls away into the distance. 

Using a free camera instead of a target camera means that the target doesn't have to be moved around the stage, the camera can just be shifted from one place to the next. To see the camera in the one of the view ports, select the view port to display it in, and then in the port selection button at the top left of any view port, highlight cameras and then select camera01 from the menu. This will display what the camera can see and what will be rendered at the end. Use Auto Key so that the camera updates throughout the animation. To begin with, at the beginning of the scene the camera needs to be focusing on Bond as he begins to walk towards the camera. As Bond looks around to the harrier, the camera needs to be adjusted  to zoom in on his face looking up towards it. Then as he turns back round, the camera watches him for his first three steps and then reverts back round to Bond running towards the camera. The camera then looks up at the harrier and then shows Bond in the car driving off into the distance, which concludes the scene.

Now that the biped is ready, the biped itself can be hidden, so that when rendered the model is only shown not any limbs remaining within the model. This can be completed by following the same steps as when the skin was hidden, instead of skin being selected, all of the elements within the biped hierarchy need to be selected instead.

Adjust the timeline so that it only displays the frames being used in the animation. This can be done by going to the last animated frame in the timeline, noting this number and then selecting time configuration, and adjusting the number of frames to that of the noted number.

 

In the render setup menu, adjust the range from zero the noted number. Scroll down the menu to where it discussed the file path, select files and choose the folder to save the scene to and save it as an .avi file. The other default settings are fine for this render, and then finally click render at the bottom of the menu. This will take some time, once it has finished, the .avi file will be in the folder that it was saved to ready for viewing. It doesn't need to be opened in 3DS Max to view it anymore. This scene is ready for editing at the end.