Dynamics

I hate them.
The end

Modelling Continued

More on the modelling....


A pic of all the wheels with axles attached.



A start on the modelling of the back section of the crane. This being the part where the crane arm is attached to the main body.


The crane arm so far as it is not fully completed yet. I am just modelling the rough outline of the shape to start with.



A picture of the crane so far without the crane arm. Once again this is only a low poly pic with the small details still to be added.

The Model

So I have started in the modelling process of my crane. I have started with modelling the front drivers' cabin and then gone on to do the main body of the crane. I haven't added every single detail yet as this will be one of the last things i do in the modelling process.


Starting with the drivers' cabin I have begun modelling half of it. The reason for only doing half of the model is because it can just be mirrored across to give a symmetrical model.



After the drivers' cabin was completed (minus the small details) i went on to model the simple task of the main body of the crane. Once again only doing half of it, but when it is time to mirror the main body i will have to tweak some parts of it as it is not entirely symmetrical.



This is a completed model of one of the wheels that will be on the crane. It can easily be duplicated to give the total number of wheels needed. As you can see the wheel is not completely round. This is because I have to keep the model low poly until its time for the final render. If its' low poly it's easier to animate as it takes less processing power from the computer.

Snap Happy

It's time for me to start planning on the creation of my model. The only problem is that I am at a big disadvantage from the CGI team that created the crane in the film. First of all they are top dog professionals that have been doing this kind of stuff for years. I haven't! Secondly the fact that the film contained a real life crane for all the driving scenes, this enabled the 3D modellers to take over 300 photos of the crane from every single angle possibly needed for them to create a picture perfect model of it. Unlucky for me I do not own a crane so I have to use only what I see in the film. I'd call that a pretty big disadvantage, but after an hour or so I carefully selected frames from the film that I could use to model my 3D crane. Here are some of the frames I selected.

I have chosen this scene from the movie Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines. This is an edited version of the original scene as I had to cut the actors out because the main purpose of this project was not character animation. One of the main reasons for selecting this scene was the fact that it contains object and particle animation, and also the fact that the crane is actually CG and not real.





These are some short tests that the 3D artists created durng the making of the 3rd film to find a realistic way for flipping the crane over. I have no idea what all the little points are on the model are or do but I am sure as I continue this project I will hopefully learn what they are for.

Evolution

Here are some pictures showing how particle and special effects animation has been used in earlier films to give the desired effect. The two pictures above are taken from 'Terminator 2 Judgement Day' which was created in 1991. At the time these were ground breaking effects for the CGI industry. The two pictures below are taken from 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' (2006), and 'Poseidon' (2006) which both used Maya as the 3D package. There is a clear difference in how the CGI industries effects have progressed.

Brief

Re-Creating the Scene:

New and up-coming director ‘Steven Artois’ is in town filming his new film ‘Hitlist’, an action packed adventure which is set to be one of the all time greatest blockbusters ever. He has a full team of staff working hard apart from he doesn’t have a digital special effects artist, which is beginning to bring the final production of the film to a halt. The film is on a very tight budget so instead of going to Hollywood and hiring professional digital effects artists Mr Artois wants to try someone new to the business.

He has asked for you to re-create an action scene from a film that has special effects. The time scale of the scene should be from 15 seconds to 1 minute and no longer depending on the production quality. The choice of scene is up to you whether it be from a Hollywood blockbuster or a home made movie.

· Basic paperwork will be needed to show how you work towards completing final outcome, i.e. a basic method of how you achieved the final outcome. Storyboards and concept drawings which will show how you have seen past the camera view shown on the film and imagined what the whole scene would of looked like during filming it.

· The re-creation of the chosen scene should be created in one of the major 3D packages, i.e. Maya, Lightwave, or Max. Everything that will be seen from the camera view in the scene should be fully modelled and textured. Decent texturing is very important due to the video output quality of films. There is no polygon limit on the modelling of the scene.

· If possible keep character animation to a minimum as it’s the special effects that are important in this brief.

· Particle animation included in the 3D package should be used to create the special effects to a high standard, and also the animation of objects in the scene.

· The finished scene should be: Size 4:3 720 x 576 PAL 25 Frames per Second, and the file format must be MPG 2.

· The finished scene must be burn to disc but also including the original film chosen film scene which will allow for comparison.

Mr Artois will be looking to see how closely you have made your re-creation of the scene compared to the original. The more they look exactly the same the better.