Saturday, 15 December 2007
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Final Animation
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Environment import tutorial
You will need:
DARK SKY 2.jpg
James textures.mat
Both are on our humyo account in the 'Sky' directory. Open the .max file that you want to put the sky into (i.e. your animation). Press M to open the material editor, then find a blank(default) material, click it, and press G to "get material" or use the button shown on the left.
Now, choose "Mtl library" where it says "Browse From:", and click 'Open'. Then go find the .mat file you downloaded, and it should have 3 materials in it. You probably want 'Gloomy Sky'.
Now this is kinda where I messed up. I thought that a .mat file would store the images and so on, but it doesnt. So you'll need to tell max, where the actual .jpg is again. To do that, scroll down on the material editor, to Bitmap parameters and click the big button to relocate the file.
Final thing to do, is set that material as an environment. Press '8' to make the Environments window appear (or find it on the toolbar under 'render'). Then drag your material over to the button that holds the environment map. You want to make an instance, that way any adits to the material will effect the one being used in the environment.
As you can see, a benefit of spherical environments, is that the reflections come out nice in close-ups. A lot of people use high quality reflections as an illusion of detail in the scene.
That instance copy thing can be useful, because I found that you can do it the other way around. You could load a .jpg into the environment button, then drag an instance into your material editor, to make it spherical, shiny, bright or whatever. For example if you want a real simple sky, just create a gradient, chuck it in the editor, make the gradient blue to white, and spherical, and thats it.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Music
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Monday, 3 December 2007
Ships!
Fiday 30th meeting minutes
If you have any problems downloading files use firefox not Internet explorer.
All the ships are mapped and ready on humyo.Animation needs to be finished for Friday morning, all scene complete and rendered.
scenes completed
scene 1 - Marc
Scene 3 - Lara and nine and ten when re-angled
Jobs assigned for animation
ship movement using reactor - Lara
Sail movement, sea/wave movement and fire- Leah
Explosions - Sam
All animator are gathering and animating the scenes.
Help is being given by the other team members to animate.
Scenes which can be removed 11, 14, 16
Scene to be created by
Scene 12 - Ben
Scene 13 - Tim
Nelson walking Scene - Leah
Nelson Being shot Movement - Leah
Blood for scene above - Tim and James T (I think please let me know)
Nelson's Face - Kerion
Cannon Motion - James S
Scene 21- Explosion by Sam
Scene to be created by anyone
Scene 20 - Mast Breaking
Model and animate the Shooter
Crew Member Needed - In the process of being made
Please will everyone help with animation.
Thank you Tim for taking scenes home to render.
Note to Tim. I forgot to mention please render the nelson walking scene from two different angles. sorry I forgot, Thank you
Monday!
I believe we can do this guys, lets all work hard and create a great final piece.
Friday, 30 November 2007
Sky Map
Might be an idea to use both, perhaps the sunset on later on. Either way, for any outdoor scenes it'd be good to organise which scenes need which sky... We dont want continuity problems from the sky changing between the two every scene!
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
models needed in each scene
I have listed all the models needed in each scene from 7 - 27, we should be able to recycle scenes to make it easier. I've also made a couple of scene cut suggestions. any feedback would be great.
Scene 7
Boy on French ship
Canon
Gun powder container
French ship deck
Sea
Scene 8
French ship
Canon balls
English ships
Sea
Environment
Scene 9
French ship
British ship
Sea environment
Scene 10
See scene 9, just change camera view
Scene 11
British ship
Canon balls
Rigging – French ship
Man
Environment map
Scene 12
British ship / canon deck
Canon
French ship
Canon balls
Sea
Environment
Shrapnel
Scene 13
Canon balls
French ship – shrapnel
Canons
Scene 14
I’m not too sure this scene is vital, so for now I suggest we just make a scene of carnage, to save having to animate someone being shot by a canon ball.
So models would be;
French ships
Sea
English ships
Environment
Shrapnel
Scene 15
Nelson
Deck of victory
Crew
Canon
Scene 16
Man over board??? Same as scene 14 really
Scene 17
Nelson
Victory deck
Environment
Scene 18
Canon
Crew member
Deck of victory
Canon ball
Scene 19
Nelson
Scene 20
Chain link canon ball
Mast, rigging, sails
Environment
Deck of ship?
Scene 21
French ship
Sea
Environment
Shrapnel
Scene 22
Shooter
Musket
Bullet
French ship deck
Nelson
Victory deck
Scene 23
Nelson kneeling
Victory deck
Blood
Scene 24
Nelson hand
Blood
Victory deck
Scene 25
Repeat 24, blurry
Scene 26
Victory deck, camera view on the side
Scene 27
Victory deck
Humyo Downloading
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Scaling
OK, this is how Tim described to me to be the best way to scale things, in the customize menu, at the top of the max screen, go to units and change it to metric, and metres. Once this is done create a rectangle which is the height of nelson. This will be your 'measuring stick'. Once you've done this you use the measuring stick to gauge a ratio of Nelson to a ship, so if nelson is 1 metre high and the ship is 100 metres high, then you duplicate the measuring stick and scale it up by 100 times and then scale the ship to be the same size, using the height element, as the stick.
I hope this makes sense, maybe if anyone does re-scale a ship when they save the scene they could make this apparent in the file name so people could use some of the models if needed.
Items Needed
For scene 3 I scaled original sea and ship with nelson but apparently was not correct so I need the correct way to scale the enemy ships in the scene correctly.
For scene 5 I need the crows nest and the biped for the sailor in the crows nest.
For the scene of Nelson the final mapped nelson is not available yet, however this is due to a saving error which I was aware of yesterday and I have uploaded nelsons biped onto Humyo to be remapped.
Please can you let me know when these parts are on Humyo and I can start animating before Friday. Can someone also let me know the scale and I can complete scene 3 on Thursday morning when I will be in doing extra work.
Note for all
The scene of all the scaled item that leah put together are actually not scaled correctly, In comparison to the ship Nelson was far too big, so, I've rescaled the items and posted them back upto Humyo. To keep the sea animation correct I had to up the number of segments on the plane so it may take a while to load.
Hope the animations are all coming together. Scene six has been created by Richard, and I'd like to offer my greatest thanks for that as he is not an animator.
If anyone is finding that they are at a stand still with waht to do, compilation of scenes would be good. This wasn't really set out as a job but will make it easier as were animating.
See you guys all friday. 10 o'clock please, we've got a lot to do.
Monday, 26 November 2007
Scene 6
Uploads to Humyo
Sunday, 25 November 2007
Fridays Meetings
Models which needed to be finished
- Crews heads - for this use the heads created in weeks 1-6. The textures need to be baked.
- The sailor that shoot Nelson - Model, bake and animate
Jobs assigned
- Tim- Model a musket.
- Kerion- Map Nelson
- Tim and James T - Rigging Sails
- Panos - Bake textures on the Victory
- Jo Bowman - create a water colour sky.
- Lara and Richard - Narrator script and recording, look at sound effects.
- Sam - look at animation of cannon fire.
Everything needs to be mapped by the end of the day.
Friday 23rd Afternoon Minutes
Points brought up in the meeting about todays work.
- Ali, richard and Lara have found ambient noise and seagull effects. The narrator voiceover has been created.
- Marc has created the animation of of nelson writing and can use this scene to show an overview of the stratergy of the battle being created. These scenes need to be rendered for friday.
- For the third scene the main boat and the background boats have been modelled.
- Leah and James W have created a biped fro the crows nest and will be finished monday.
- James T is creating the crows nest.
- An extra meeting has been set up for monday at complete modelling and start animating.
- All finished models with the material baked need to be uploaded to humyo. Please can the victory and Nelson be upload than a lot more animation can be completed.
- Also post up screen shots of your progress on your blogs and in the computer room with the other print outs.
- Tims has finished the musket and will upload shortly.
- Jo will have the sky texture finished by wednesday.
Important - Animation deadline is friday 2nd.
Friday, 23 November 2007
Sound effects!
Me and Richard also managed to find a microphone and so recorded some narration for the begginning of the animation. I have included this on my blog, but I will post it here as well:
"The Battle of Trafalgar saw the British decisively defeat a combined French and Spanish fleet on 21st October 1805 in the most significant naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars.
A Royal Navy fleet of 27 ships of the line destroyed an allied French and Spanish fleet of 33 ships of the line of Cape Trafalgar in South-West Spain.
The French and Spanish lost 22 ships, while the British lost none. The British Commander Admiral Lord Nelson, died late in the battle, by which time he had ensured his place as Britain's greatest naval hero.
In the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson orchestrated a controversial battle plan that had scarcely been seen before.
Popular battle tactics at the time involved maneuvering to approach the enemy fleet in a single line of battle and then engaging in parallel lines.Nelsons plan was to deliberately cut the opposing line in two, approaching in two columns sailing directly at the enemy, one near the centre of the opposing line and one near the trailing end.
His ships would break the enemy formation in half, surround that half, and force them to fight to the end. Nelson specifically hoped to cut the line just in front of the flagship: the isolated ships in front of the break would not be able to see the flagship's signals, hopefully taking them out of combat while they reformed.
The result of this plan was truly devastating......."
Getting files from Humyo
On all the ships I have opened so far there are no sails which I was going to animate this morning. Next I will attempted to add some sail to animate unless anyone has create some. Please let me Know.
I have seen that James T and Tim were both organising the files with separate folders so this morning I have added an animation folder, a videos folder and a nelson folder. I have also put all the ship is into the ships folder. I did this as I could not differentiate which piece of work was for which stage of the animation. Hope this ok. Any ideas on how to categories the work would be brill.
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Online storage
Havent really had time to play with humyo yet, but the drag and drop upload was cool. I dont know other peoples experience with ZIP/RAR/TAR compressed files, so if anyone has problems with .rar format, get in touch, but I'm pretty sure either Windows XP has a way of using it like a folder, or WinZip, WinRar, 7-zip can be downloaded to extract them. I'd advise using them on files if they get really large in size, or a huge amount of maps etc.
I'm going into uni again today because my laptops running 3d stuff awfully slow now. Rigging is practically done, should have the sails done tomorrow too. I would like to work with Tim for a bit, to merge the files, and make sure thats all neat, and I think tomorrow would be a good time for me to work on environmental stuff. I can't remember exactly what I'm doing with environmental things, but I want to get a sky dome done.
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Looking good!
If people could help me out by posting up on here what work they have already completed or are working on that would be a great help.
I just wanted to remind everyone that we should have all the mapping completed by Fri, and that the animators should have an idea of what they are doing, so that the animation can be complete by next week.
If anyone is having any problems please let me know.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Maps List Infos
Remanding List for the map makers Attenion
Map Makers: Tim, Panos, Kieron, Ben, James T, James W
Main Ship Mapping
French flags
British flags
Start fighting flag
Rigging
Ropes, hooks
Masts
Iron/metal textures
Skin
Blood skins
Hair
Eyes
Uniforms – French, British,
Medals Emblems,
Crew uniforms
Weapons
Cannons
Muskets
Surrounding Environments - Office, Decks Environment
Sea
Sky
Birds
Monday, 19 November 2007
Brittish ships
Re-assigning Animation
James west was also going to be completing the smoke effect which I have completed on my blog. We will need to re-assign the other parts of animating Nelson.
Sails Movement
I have also added the water. Any ideas on my making the movement more visible or any suggestions let me know.
Friday, 16 November 2007
Online Storage
We now have our very own online storage space. here are all the details. We need to keep all the finished work on here so that everyone can access it as and when they need it. Pass this on to make sure everyone knows.
www.humyo.com
Sign in details:
samantha.holdaway@student.anglia.ac.uk
Password:
battle07
You can upload any files, as you'll see to test i uploaded my room of exploding barrells. Hope to see some more files soon.
We're sticking with all the scenes but were gona concentrate on getting the main ones done so that we have a complete film, were pretty much on time at the moment but we only have 3 WEEKS left so we need to keep focused, and knuckle down, Lara and Richard are going to the library today to try and get hold of some sound effects to add to what Marc has already found.
Most models have been made at this point so were passing them onto the animators and mappers and should start seeing some good results soon. Im gona have a go at one of the animation scenes today using Richards Victory ship. James W may be leaving, which we'll all be sad to see, so we need to reassign his work to other people. So... we need someone to do the nelson animation, and other people animations. This is a major job, anyone who feels they have nothing to do, or maybe wants to try doing some animation then please let me know so that we can get this underway. For now thats all I got to say.
Keep up the good work, those who are contributing on a regular basis, and can we all please a try a little more punctual, we need the entirety of friday lessons to get this work complete.
Also, we need to communicate with each other more, the minute a model is finished/mapped/animated we need to pass it straight over to the next person. Either contact through the blog or through someone who has the persons phone number. We need to contact each other more regularly than just seeing each other on a fri.
Friday 16th November Meeting Minute
Lets start with the modelling.
Modelling
Completed models so far
- Nelson's Hand
- Nelsons Office
- The Victory Ship
- Tim's Modelled ships
- Nelson Himself - Note: nelson currently has two arms and only has one!!
Modelling needed to be completed today:
- We need some sort of group work station where our work can be stored in one place.
- Rigging - James T
- Sails - James T
- Crows nest - James T
- Person In crows nest - James W
- Cannon Deck - James S
- Cannon Balls - Ben
- Cannons - Ben
- Barrels - Ben
- Uniforms - James W will create today.
Note from Tim - He has now blogged on the ships he has created and is contactable via the Internet.
Mapping
Today the modelling needs to be finished so it can be passed onto the mappers and animators. Some of the modellers have been mapping as they have been modelling but modelling needs to be finished to deadline.
Animation
Jobs have now been split between the group
- James W. - Nelson animation - including boning, Smoke. Nelson may prove difficult to animate as Nelson was produced light waves, we will have to wait and see!!
These jobs above may need to be split again depending when James finishes.
- Lara - Ship Movement (still be researched)- This can now start being animated as Richard has completed the Victory. To animate this the parts might have to be group so the all have the same movement. Currently the ship is not mapped, to be done this week.
- Leah - Sails Movement, sea movement & Fire - Will still need a little help from James W. on the sails before leaving to gain further knowledge.
- Sam - Explosions- It may take a while to create the explosions as the animation movement of the other parts needs to be created first to see where this effect will be position.
Sam is also looking at the bullet time effect to be used on some of the scenes.
Finishers
Sound effects- Marc has a CD of sound effect and Lara is finding sound effects on the Internet. Leah is looking at the main music and the credit music which currently stands at Captain Pugwash.
Narrator also needs to be considered and when it will be recorded etc.
Rendering - Think about the use of batch rendering and having a day to render. The key scenes need to be rendered first which are crucial to the storyline.
Transition- When scenes are rendered they need to have a second at the beginning and the end to add transitions without overlapping on the sequence itself.
Comments to be read by ALL !!!!!
- Firstly a very important point, this is a teamwork based module so we must work as a team.
- It is now WEEK 8 we must make a move on this. Time is of the essence!!
- Every week now we need to have a quick meeting at the beginning of each session so we keep up to date and on target.
- People MUST turn up on time or turn up at all!!!!
- A group work station need to be created where all the work can be kept.
- We have a new group blog, give Sam your e-mail and she will send you an e-mail to join.
- When modelling you MUST start naming your parts.
- Panos Please Comment on the parts you will be completing within your groups.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Well...
I actually want to have a bit of a rant, so please bear with me as this is not aimed at everybody.
OK...
If anyone other than leah, and lara, and myself have been looking at each others blogs then you will have noticed a very good, very well modelled Nelson, which has been slaved over by Ali for a considerably large amount of time. You will notice he has blogged and documented his work so that we can all see the progress. This can also be said for Tim to some extent, although since the blog about his ship, then seagull there hasnt been anything else put up, but he has documented some work. I know for a fact that Marc has finished his model, in fact it was finished by last week which is great, even though I dont have a blogger address that works for him, I know things have been done. Again, the same can be said for Richard, he had nearly completed his model last week. Ben has been modelling, but has also been mapping stuff at the same time, whilst this may seem like a good idea and we are seeing some great work posted on his blog, BECAUSE HE IS DOCUMENTING FOR ALL TO SEE, its not really the way its ment to work, but we'll discuss peolpes opinions on this tomorrow.
People need to be documenting work more.
I appreciate that we all have other stuff going on, and its not always easy to work on this project, but we still need to.
Basically the point I want people to understand is that the blogs are a way for use to work as a group and document our progress so that no one feels 'in the dark'. We need to work together to get this done, and at the moment all I'm seeing is individuals.
Lets start working as a team.
We'll have a meeting first thing tomorrow, so, I suggest anyone with anything to say needs to be there.
Thank you if you read my rant.
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Afternoon Meeting Minutes
This blog shows the minutes take from the afternoon lecture.Final Groups & Their Jobs.
Modellers
- Kieron
- Ali Jobs –Small British ship, Nelson
- Tim Jobs - French ship, Spanish ship, Riffles, Seagulls
- Richard Jobs –The victory ship outside hull
- Ben Jobs – Ammunition, Gunpowder sacks/barrels, barrels, driftwood
- Marc Jobs – Nelson’s office
- James T Jobs – Cannons, Uniforms British & French
- James S Jobs – Cannon DeckShips include rigging, flags, ropes, cannon holes/port holes.
Other items to be modelled are dead people, the sniper, powder monkey, crows nest and driftwood.Cannonballs need to be modelled in several forms, normal, chain cannonballs and grape shot.
Animation
Sam, Leah, James W, Marc, Lara
- Effects Needed – Smoke, Fog, Blood, Splinters,
Animation Sequence
- Scene1 the drawing of the plan by Nelsons hand on parchment
- Scene 2 Fade into an overview of the battlefield and how the ships are positioned in the plan.
- Scene 3 shows the bow of the French ship close up to the camera with British ship line up in the distance.
- Scene 4 a shot of the look out in the crows nest looking at on coming ships. Camera pans round to the front to show the reflection in the telescope.
- Scene 5 shows telescope point of view (POV) shot of enemy ship with a flag raising. The raising flag show it is time to fight.
- Scene6 The lookout shouts down to the people on deck who prepare for battle.
- Scene 7 Panning shot of the side of the ship showing the wooden cannon holes. As the pan continues the port holes open and the cannons emerge. The camera swings round to show all the cannons.
- Scene 8 A shot of the powder monkey filling the cannons and lighting the fuse.
- Scene 9 A shot of cannonballs firing between ships and bursting through a ship sail creating rips and hole, lots of wreckage.
- Scene 10 Front view shot of the bow of the ship sailing towards the enemy. Sows waves crashing against the ship.
- Scene 11 Panning shot of two ships passing each and firing at each other. The front of the British ship crashes into each other breaking off the bow of the other ship.
- Scene 12 POV shot from the powder monkey through the cannon hole. An enemy ship passes and the cannon fire and the cannonball goes through the ship showing the insides.
- Scene 13 POV shout from behind the fired cannonball as it hits the ship.
- Scene 14 Nelson is show pacing up and down the deck.
- Scene 15 A man is shown being shot of the rigging by a musket and falls out of shot.
- Scene 16 A ship being shown under cannon fire. As the ship is hit there is a huge explosion and it begins to sink. There is lots of wreckage and driftwood from the ship in the water.
- Scene 17 Nelson is shown pacing the deck again but from a different angle.
- Scene 18 Panning shot as seaman are shot and fall overboard off their ship.
- Scene 19 As the battle get more intense this scene show the cannons firing and showing the detail of the jerking motion as they fire on passing ships.
- Scene 20 Reaction shot of the cannon fire breaking the mast of the enemy ship.
- Scene 21 An angled shot of sails ripping by a grape shot cannonball.
- Scene 22 Nelson final pacing shot, Pan round Nelson into a POV from his right hand man Hardy.
- Scene 23 Zoomed out shot of the sniper ready to shout Nelson. Zoom into shoulder view then the sniper fires.
- Scene 24 Slow motion shot of nelson being shot and falling to the deck onto his knees. As this happens the gunshot echoes and all other sound fades out.
- Scene 25 POV shot as looks at his hand which is now covered in his own blood.
- Scene 26 French ships sailing away with an audio over the top ‘we won the war, we won the war’.
- Scene 27 POV of nelson’s eyes blurring and slowly shut.
- Scene 28 Scene fades out and writing is shown explain who won the war and other facts about the end of the battle.
- Final Credits of everyone involved in the sequence.
Map Makers
Tim, Panos, Kieron, Ben, James T, James W
Jobs- Ship Mapping– Flags, canvas, French flags, British flags, beginning fight flag
– Rigging
– Ropes, hooks
– Wood
– Hull, masts
– Anchor
– Iron/metal
– Ropes- People
– Skin
– Hair
– Eyes
– Uniforms – French, British, Nelson’s Medals, shoes, crew uniform
- Weapons
– Swords – blade, handle
– Cannons, Muskets – metal, wood
- Surrounding Environments
– Sea, sky– Wreckage, driftwood
– Dead people– Birds
Finishers
Leah, Richard, Ali, Lara
Jobs- Render out animations
- Find sound effects- Find music
- Order animation in Premier Pro- Edit animation length-
Add transitions
- Edit music
- Bring Audio and video together
- Add final credits
Research
The flag to begin the battle.
Detailed facts about the battle.
Look at the uniforms work by officers and the crew.
Look at the detail of the ships used by both sides.