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.
No comments:
Post a Comment