Wednesday, 13 April 2011

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.

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