Reflective View

Overall I am quite pleased with my final animation. At the beginning of the course I didn't feel very confident with 3ds max at all, let alone the daunting thought of having to animate within it too. However, despite the touchy start I got there eventually.

I can now find my way around the program much easier. Creating my spaceships and scenery really helped me to come to terms with program, such as playing around with the different effects such as the 'Noise' and 'Displace' modifiers to create my volcanic scene. Also, the ability to now be able to use the cameras correctly and using paths as a method of filming is really useful to know.

Animating was quite hard to adjust to at first but the more I animated the more confident and adventurous I became. For example, the start of my animation was just simply moving the camera along the setting, which didn't take too much camera skill to be able to do. However, the later shot of my Tie Fighter that shows the ship at lots of different angles with the camera moving constantly, was a bit more advance. This shot was probably my favourite because it's the most exciting one as it has the constant action of the ship and the camera moving at the same time.

I only wish I had more time to spend on this module and further familiarise myself with the program. I eventually learned to like animating and would've like to have gone on to experiment with the camera angles further.

Something I really enjoyed was texturing my models. I spent quite a while on these and created them all myself. I textured everything using Photoshop and was really pleased at how the Tie Fighter came out especially. The wings looked very identical to how they are on the original, which I was very happy with.


If I was to re do my project again there are a few things I'd like to change...

If I had've had more time I would've liked to have played around with using particles. I watched some tutorials on this such as creating fire and smoke. I would've like to have put some smoke into the scene, coming out of the volcanoes to give them a bit of life. I would've also liked to have incorporated some fire around the lava to make it look more dangerous and made it more exciting. Unfortunately though, I just didn't get enough time to spend on playing around on these to make them look good enough to use.

Another thing I would've liked to have changed was my lava. In the animation I would've liked it to have moved slightly instead of being so still and lifeless. To start with I did accidentally put an animation on the noise modifier, which I wasn't aware of until I had animated it. However, this didn't work well at all. Although, if I had've had more time to fiddle with the effects I might've been able to get it to animate at a more appropriate level so that it only moved subtly.

Also, I would've perhaps liked to have incorporated some use of lasers within my scene, but like before I ran out of time to experiment properly with this. I did look up tutorials as to how to do this, which were very helpful. On the other hand, my scene didn't require the use of lasers in the end as I made the animation more of a build up towards a battle between the ships rather than witnessing one.

Lastly, I would've like to have changed some of the camera angles I'd used, looking back. The scene of the still camera shot with the Headhunter flying I would've really liked to have changed. Parts of the ship flying were fine, but the still camera kind of spoils the shot. If I had had've created a path for the camera too, to move with the ship it would've looked much better because the whole scene would've kept in a constant motion and you would've felt the action more. 

Final Video

Here is my completed Star Wars Animation:

Premiere

In order to put my final animation together I decided to use Premiere. 

At first I imported all my clips into Premiere. I then Positioned them in order on the timeline. I went through each clip and on some I decided to cut the end off just to shorten them as the over all timing was over 30 seconds and some parts of the shorts went on for too long and weren't necessary anyway. 

On the moving shot of the Tie Fighter I did cut and make parts slightly longer as some shots happened too quickly and it was easier to stretch them out in Premiere then completely re edit them in 3ds Max.

Also, I went on to import a Star Wars soundtrack I had found when researching (which I posted on my blog previously). I simply dragged the file onto the timeline and it actually went with the video very well. I did have to cut the music slightly though as it went on for far too long. 

Additionally, I imported a file of some ship sounds which I had found on YouTube when researching. I posted this on my blog previously too. I dragged this file onto the timeline and cut it up accordingly so that the sounds were only played on the shots with the ships in. I was also careful to only add certain sounds that fitted with the ships so that they looked realistic when played together.

For the ending of the animation I made one of the engine noises fade out as I didn't want it to end too abruptly when the scene had finished.

Once I had finished, I exported the final video as an AVI file.

Filming - Shot 11 (Ships Meet)

My last shot was of the two ships, the Headhunter and the Tie Fighter, finally coming together in the scene. 

I started by positioning a 'Free' camera just in front of the volcanoes that was looking straight forward  and slightly tilted up. I made sure that both the ships started mostly out of shot so they would both fly into the shot at the same time. 

On the timeline I created some key frames of both the ships gradually flying on to the screen using the 'Move' and 'Rotate' tools once again.

Towards the end of the shot I also made some key frames of the ships wobbling slightly by using the 'Rotate' tool. This was just to make them look like they were hovering rather than coming to a completely stand still.

Here is what the clip looks like:

I was reasonably happy with this shot. I felt it did go on too much towards the end though so it became quite boring. I decided I would just cut it slightly in Premiere though just to save a bit of time re-rendering the shot. 

Additionally, if I had've shot the scene again I would've added extra lighting. The sides of the Tie Fighter are completely black due to no light shining on them. This is because I had only used omni light on the bottom and top of the sky dome, so no light was coming from the sides. I could've added a spotlight perhaps just to the sides of the Fighter so you could see the detail of the side wings rather than them being completely black. A spotlight would've been good here because I only wanted it to focus on the fighter and not anywhere else on the scene as it would've looked strange. 

Filming - Shot 10 (View of TIe Fighter)

The next shot I wanted to create was to show off the detail on the Tie Fighter. For this scene I decided to use a new timeline as it was going to be a completely different shot.

For the first part of my animation, I just wanted the Tie Fighter to continue to move straight forward. So, I set up the camera and the ship in the right starting position at the beginning of the timeline. I then just had to create another key frame at the end of the timeline of where I wanted the last position of the ship to be. This created a basic shot of the ship moving forward, moving away from the camera. 

However, this time I wanted the shot to be moving and more immersive. In order to achieve this, I thought I would create another line to use as a path. Only this time, I would have the camera moving along it rather than the ship to create a more interesting shot. 

To carry out this shot, I create a line first by going to the 'Create' menu at the top, then 'Shapes' and 'Line'.

 

 With the line now selected, I drew a rough line of the camera path I wanted in the viewport away from the sky dome area, so that I could see it clearer. Once I had my line drawn, I then repositioned it using the 'Move' and 'Rotate' tools, so that it was correctly positioned on the scene. I had to rescale it slightly too as it was a bit too big.

I made sure that the beginning of the line was where I had the camera already positioned. This meant that when I turned the line into a path the camera wouldn't move out of place.

Now that my line was in the correct place, I wanted to change it slightly so that the camera would move in the exact line I wanted. With the camera selected, I went to the 'Modifier Panel' and clicked on the 'Line' level. 

I then clicked on the 'Vertex' option so I could see all the vertex's on the line to change them. Using the 'Move' tool, I moved some of the points slightly so they where where I wanted them and were at the right angel to get a good shot of the Fighter. 

Once I had my line looking how I wanted, I now wanted to make it into the camera path. To do this, I went to the 'Motion' Panel on the right.

Under the 'Assign Controller' section, I selected 'Position' and clicked on the small icon above the panel to bring up the 'Assign Position Controller' window.

In the new window I selected 'Path Constraint' and 'OK'. I was now able to select 'Add Path' under the 'Path Parameters' section. 

Once clicked, I selected the line and this now linked the camera to the path. Now when I moved the bar across my timeline, not only would my Tie Fighter move forwards, but my camera followed the path of the line too.

However, because I had used a 'Free' camera rather than a 'Target' camera, my camera did not have a fix focus on the ship. So, the camera would start out my targeting the ship but then it would move completely out of shot. This wasn't too much of a problem as I thought I would just move the camera manually myself instead.

I started at the beginning of my timeline and gradually worked my way through the shot, making sure that the camera was focused on the ship. I used the 'Rotate' tool to adjust the camera. The positive of using a free camera is that I got to completely choose the shots I wanted of the fighter, so I made sure that you could see each aspect of the fighter in detail. 

Also, I'd already created many frames in my timeline, and changing the camera angle continuously was quite time consuming so I only changed about half of the timeline. I thought the part I'd changed would be long enough anyway as it showed all angles of the Tie Fighter already, so it wasn't necessary to show it from anymore angles.

Once I had finished animating and changing the camera angles, I rendered the clip. I made sure not to render my entire timeline this time because the last few frames weren't needed as I didn't want to use them. 

Here is what the clip looks like:

As you can see, the clip is not perfect. I wasn't completely happy with it but at the same time I really liked some of the camera angles. Because of this I wanted to keep and use this clip. 

The whole shot happened far too quick, however. This wasn't too much of a problem though. I thought I would just import it into Premiere and stretch out the duration of the clip slightly so you got more of a chance to see the ship. I could've stretched the clip out in 3ds Max by adding more frames, but I decided this would be too time consuming as I would have to reposition the angles of my camera all over again. 

Also, the camera is slightly shakey in some places, especially towards the end. I'd already decided I didn't want the very end of the clip because the Fighter goes out of scene for most of it. But again, I could just cut this out in Premiere to save much time re-rendering the clip.

Filming - Shot 9 (Tie Fighter Enters)

The next shot I wanted was of the Tie Fighter entering the scene. I decided to continue using the same timeline because I wanted to keep my camera and ship in exactly the same position as where I had left the end of my last shot.

All I wanted to do for this shot was simply move my Tie Fighter forward so that it flew past my Headhunter. So I moved my timeline along and used the 'Move' tool to move the Fighter forward.

When I rendered the clip I wasn't completely happy with it. The Tie Fighter moved in fine but I thought the body of the Headhunter was too still considering it was supposed to be hovering in the scene.

Because of this, I decided I would use the curve editor to adjust the position of the ship throughout the clip to try and get it to look like it was shaking slightly. To do this, I went to the 'Curve Editor' icon along the top first to bring up the editor window.

When the window appeared it showed me a graph of how each axis moved throughout the timeline. I wanted to draw in points to create a shaking effect so I went to the pencil tool icon along the top. 

On the graph I then drew in a steady line of points across the 'X' and 'Y' axis's. Although I was changing an already straight line, and replacing it with a reasonably straight drawn line instead, this still had a subtle effect to the ship.  

 

I had previously experimented with the curve editor to see what effectit had on the ship. At first I tried drawing small wavy lines along each axis on the graph. but when I rendered the clip The ship moved to violently and didn't look realistic at all. This is why i chose to draw a reasonably straight line because it still has an effect on the ship only slightly more subtly, which is what I was after. 

The reason why I chose to only alter the 'X' and 'Y' axis's and not the 'Z' as well was because I found that changing the Z axis had too much of an impact on the ship still. When I changed the X and Y axis's this gave enough of a change in the ship.

After I had adjusted the curve editor accordingly, my timeline changed too and now had lots of small key points in it throught the clip where I had changed the axis's positioning.

 

I had now finished animating the clip so I then went on to render it.

Here is what the clip looks like:

I was pretty happy with this clip. I really liked the way the Tie Fighter flew in across the Headhunter, and the lower angle looking up really shows a sense of power over the ships. I was reasonable happy with the way the shake came out on the Headhunter too as it was quite hard to create a subtle shake without it looking too dramatic.

Filming - Shot 8 (Headhunter Move & Viewpoint)

For my next shot I continued to use the same timeline as I had to create the previous shot. I wanted to create a shot of the Headhutner turning with the camera positioned on top of it so you got a view of how things looked from the ship.

I did try to create the shot by grouping the ship and the camera together but I had trouble doing this without selecting the sky dome as well. However, I managed to create a better shot by doing it a different way anyway. 

I started by moving the camera, at the right point on the timeline, so that it was positioned on top of the Headhunter so you could see the front body and the tips of the engine cylinders. I thought this gave quite a good shot of the ship as well as a good point of view angle.

For the beginning of the shot, the ship and the camera were positioned forwards. I then moved the timeline and used the 'Rotate' tools to move them both. I wanted them to turn because for my next shot I wanted the Tie Fighter to then make an entrance, so this was to help build up the suspense .

When I first rendered the clip, the shot happened way too quickly so it didn't really have the effect I wanted. Because of this, I decided I would re-render the clip, but after I had done a Time Configuration to stretch out my timeline to make it longer.

After I had added more frames in, I had to redo my animation so that things happened at exactly the right time otherwise the shot wouldn't work. 

Also, I decided to cut out the first few frames by not rendering this part of the timeline. This was the part where the camera started out positioned on top of the ship. I decided to cut this bit out due to the way I had filmed the rest of my clip. Because the camera wasn't positioned on top of the ship for the entire clip, it looked strange when the camera followed the ship when it came to them both turning. Instead, the shot looked better from the point of the camera following the ship just going into the turn as it looked like they were both in constant motion.

Once I'd done all this, I then render my clip again.

Here is what the clip looks like:

After I had re-render the clip, I was definitely more happy with it. This wasn't exactly the shot I was going for to begin with as I originally wanted the camera to be constantly on the ship when it turned to get a full point of view shot. However, the way I have done it, so the camera follows the ship into the turn, I actually quite like. It makes the shot more interesting instead of being constantly on the ship. Plus, I still got the point of view shot towards the end of the scene anyway.

Filming - Shot 7 (Headhunter Front Shot)

Now that I had a wide shot of the Headhunter flying, I wanted a shot of the model coming directly towards the camera. 

To do this accurately, I thought it would be best to create a line to get the ship to fly on rather than manually moving the ship myself. I thought it was best to do it this way because otherwise it might end up looking wonky on such a close up shot, plus it was probably quicker to use a line as well.  Therefore, I went to 'Create' on the top menu, then 'Shapes' and chose 'Line'.

Once I had the line tool selected, I drew a straight line in the viewport, out of the way of the sky dome. It was easier to create a straight line outside of the area as I could see it clearer. As soon as I had created a straight line, I used the 'Move', 'Scale' and 'Rotate' tools to accurate position my line where the Headhunter was in the scene.

I made sure to have the end of the line so that it was partly near the centre of the ship. This way the ship would not move when I set a path constraint and I wouldn't have to reposition the camera. 

When I had the line positioned correctly, I went to the 'Motion' panel on the right hand side.

Under the 'Assign Controller' section I selected 'Position' and then the small Icon above the options box. This made the 'Assign Position Controller' window pop up.

From the new window, I selected 'Path Constraint' and 'OK'. This now allowed me to be able to add a path in order to control my ships positioning. 

Under the 'Path Parameters' section I now selected the new option of 'Add Path'.

I then selected the straight line I had created. By doing this, it had automatically created points on the timeline for me. The starting point began with the ship in its furthest position, and the last frame on my timeline ended with the ship at the nearest point on the line. 

I had now finished my shot as I only wanted it to be quite a quick and simple scene. I rendered this clip, by going to the render option on the top menu and going to the 'Render Setup' window.

I made sure that I had the right frames selected and the camera viewpoint, then named my file appropriately and clicked 'Render'.

Here is what the clip looks like:

Filming - Shot 6 (Headhunter Flying)

I now wanted to have a shot of the Headhunter flying above the lava. I made sure that my Headhunter was in the right starting position, at the beginning of the timeline. I then created a 'Free' camera by going to the 'Create' menu.

Once I had both the camera and the ship in the position I wanted, so the ship was just off the screen to start with, I began to animate the ship.

Originally, I kept setting key points on the timeline and moving the ship accordingly, using the 'Rotate' and 'Move' tools. However, When I did this and rendered the animation, it was terrible. The ship didn't move realistically at all and it's movement was very jumpy. I could've altered the ships movement so it was more steady by using the 'Curve Editor' at this point, but instead I thought I would restart the entire animation process again using a different method to animate the ship.

In the end I decided I would create a path for the ship to fly on, which was a much better and easier way of animating the ship as it meant I could pre-determine the flight path of my ship and then animate it further later on.

In order to get my ship to fly on a path, I first has to create a line which was going to be the flight path. I did this by going to the 'Create' menu at the top and selecting 'Shapes' then 'Line'. 

Now that I had the line selected, I drew on the viewport, out the way of the sky dome because it was clearer, I roughly created the flight path. I then repositioned the line using the 'Move' tool, and rescaled it slightly as it was a bit big to begin with. 

I placed the start of the line where the ship was already positioned so that when I made it into a path, it wouldn't alter the ships position too much so I wouldn't have to move it again.

After the line was in place, I wanted to adjust it so that the ship would fly exactly where I wanted it to go, taking note of where the lava was on the scene. I thought it would look better if the ship flew around some of the less detailed points of the lava so that it looks a bit more pleasing to the eye.
In order to alter the shape of the line, I went to the 'Modifier' panel which allowed me to look at the different parts of the line when I expanded it.

I clicked on the 'Vertex' level which then showed me all the different vertex's on the line that I could now adjust.

I used the 'Move' tool to adjust the different points on the line. When I'd created the line I'd accidentally not made all the points curved which will cause the ship to turn quite abruptly when it's animated. However, the first few points of the line were curved so to try to hide this, I pulled the bottom pointed vertex off the screen so that you would only be able to see the ship move slightly. The next couple of vertex's were curved so I would be able to curve the ship off the screen ok.

Now that I had my desired line, I wanted to create it into a path. To do this, I went to the 'Motion' panel on the right.

Under the 'Assign Controller' section, I selected the 'Position' level. I thne clicked on the small icon above the panel in order to bright up the 'Assign Position Controller' window.

In the new window I selected the 'Path Constraint' option and selected 'OK'. By doing this it meant that I would be able to use the line I had created as a path contraint to move the ship.

As soon as I had done this, I was now able to select the 'Add Path' option from under the 'path Parameters' section. 

This allowed me to select the line I'd created. My timeline had automatically set key points at the beginning and at the end so that when I moved the bar along the timeline, my ship would now fly along the line. 

However, this wasn't all the animating I needed to do to get the ship to fly. When the ship moved along the line, it's position didn't move at all so it still didn't look realistic. 

To get the ship to look natural, I went through my timeline and changed it's angle and direction by using the 'Move' and 'Rotate' tools.

I set numerous points on the timeline in order to try and get the transition as smooth and natural as poissible. 

Here is what the clip looks like:

I am not entirely pleased with this video and would do things differently if I was to shoot it again. I'm still not entirely pleased with the way the ship moves because in some places it still judders slightly and doesn't look so natural. However, I decided I wouldn't use all of this clip and would cut some out in Premiere to save time instead of waiting for ages for it to render in 3ds Max. I wouldn't keep the beginning or the end of the clip as this is where the ship judders most when turning.

Furthermore, after taking some time to reflect on the clip, if I was to shoot it again I would move the camera as well. I don't think having a still shot necessarily does the shot justice. Perhaps making the camera move with the ship would've made it a bit more interesting.

Spaceship Sounds

I wanted to find some Spaceship sounds which I could potentially use in my animation for my ships.

I searched Youtube and found a video of spaceship noises:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWZqjawpTWs&feature=related

Accessed [12/12/2011]

Filming - Shot 5 (Underneath Headhunter)

For my next shot I wanted to shoot the entrance of the Headhunter from a different angle. I decided that I would create a shot of the underneath of the ship. I would have the camera looking into the distance and then it would look up to see the ship and follow it underneath until it flies out of shot. 

On the first key frame on the timeline I positioned the camera facing forwards. I then made it move up, using the 'Rotate' tool to change the position it was filming. At the same rate as moving the camera's focus point, I continued to move the ship forwards too. Towards the end of the timeline I made sure to move the ship far enough forward so that it moved out of shot almost, leaving just the small engine cylinders in view. 

Once I'd finished the animation of this clip, I rendered it by going to the 'Render Setup' window. I chose the correct settings for the animation and rendered the scene. 

Here is what the final clip looks like:

As you can see the very first bit of the clip is a bit shuddery. I thought to save time re-rendering the video, I would just cut this bit out of the final piece in Premier. I would keep the part just before the ship enters, so as the camera looks up. The scene happens quite quick anyway so it looks ok happening at this speed. I did think about slowing the scene down, but then I thought this would have a negative effect on the ship and make it look too slow.

Filming - Shot 4 (Intro of Headhunter)

Now that I had several shots of the scenery, I thought it was time to introduce a one of my ships! I thought I would introduce the Headhunter first, for no reason in particular. 

My idea for this shot was to first have the camera looking down towards the rock just below the volcano. This part of the scene was featured in the end shot in the previous clip I filmed, which is why I decided to use it in the shot. The camera would then quickly look up towards the sky and the headhunter would make its entrance gradually into the scene. 

For the first frame on the timeline I had the camera positioned down to the rock. I then added another frame in further along the timeline where the camera moved itself up to face the sky. I used the 'Rotate' tool for this. I then created more frames gradually along the timeline which slowly introduced the Headhunter into the scene. I used the 'Move' tool to slowly move the ship in each frame. 

Once I'd finished animating, I rendered the clip in the same way I had before by going to the 'Render Setup' window and selecting the right settings according to my timeline.

Here is what the final clip looked like:

I was happy with this clip as it shows a good view of the lava. The camera also moves at a very steady, smooth pace.

Filming - Shot 3 (Lava)

For my next shot, I wanted the camera to move along the lava, which was the last shot I wanted of just the setting. 

I moved the camera into position using the 'Move' and 'Rotate' tools. I made sure that the camera was quite low to the lava, so you could get a real close up view of it. 

This was quite an easy shot as I only used two key frames on the timeline. I set the beginning one at the position I wanted the camera to start and then moved the end to 100 frames and set this at where I wanted the camera to finish. Although this was quite a simply shot, I wanted to keep it to this number of frames so that the camera would move steadily across the scene rather than looking rushed. 

Once I'd finished my animation, I played it back using the Play controls and the video looked exactly how I wanted it. I went on to render the video at this point to save time having to render all my video files at the end. I went to the 'Render' menu at the top to get up the 'Render Setup' window again.

I adjusted the settings accordingly, like I had been doing previously. 

Here is what the clip looks like:

Filming - Shot 2 (Tops of Volcanoes)

For my next shot, I wanted to continue setting the scene by taking some shots of the tops of the volcanoes. 

To do this, I used the 'Move' and 'Rotate' tools to reposition my camera above some of the volcanoes. I made sure that I was doing this at the first key frame on the timeline. 

I then dragged the bar on the timeline along in order to make another key frame. I basically took key frames at certain camera positions. I only made a couple of key frames for this clip because I only wanted it to be a short clip, and all the camera did was basically move forward along the volcanoes. 

Once I'd finished adding my animation, I wanted to render the clip because like before, the Play controls next to the timeline weren't very successful in giving me an actual feel for what the clip looked like because it lagged too much. I went to the 'Render' menu at the top and got up the 'Render Setup' window. 

I adjusted the settings correctly, making sure I had the right frames and view selected as well as an appropriate file name and clicked it to render.

The clip happened quite fast which is how I wanted it to be as I didn't want the shot to get boring if it became too long. However, for this clip I did have the returning problem of the lava moving.

Here is the clip:

The lava continued to animate for this clip because I had created it in an older version of the file, which I had forgotten to adjust the 'Noise' modifier for the lava in. Despite this however, I decided to use this clip anyway. I decided this because I only wanted to use the first bit of the clip where the lava was barely visible so it didn't have much of an impact. The small part at the end where the lava is clearly visible and animating, I did not want to use as it wasn't such a great shot of the volcanoes anyway. Instead of wasting time re-rendering the clip in 3ds Max, which would've taken a while, I decided I would just quickly chop the end of the video off in Premier. 

FIlming - Shot 1 (Setting the Scene)

In order to start filming, I first had to create a camera. I went to the top menu and clicked the 'Create' option, then 'Cameras' and 'Free Camera'. 

I chose a free camera to begin with because I wanted to be able to move it around and shoot different objects freely without having a fixed target. 

For my first shot, I wanted to build up a sense of surroundings to establish the setting. I original wanted to have the camera coming up from behind one of the volcanoes and peering out across the lava. 

I placed my camera in it's starting position by using the 'Move' tool. I also made sure that the 'Auto Key' box, next to the Timeline at the bottom, was selected and highlighted red too. By doing this it meant that it would automatically put in a key on the timeline whenever I changed something on the set. I gradually dragged by timeline along to a different point and moved the camera into a different position. I set several different key points on the timeline and used the 'Move' and 'Rotate' tools to get my desired camera angles.

I played through my animation using the play controls along the bottom, next to the timeline. However, due to the number of polygons I had in my scene, when I played it the animation was very slow so it was hard to get a proper idea of how the actual animation looked. Because of this, I decided to render the scene so I could see what it actually looked like properly.

To render the scene I simply went to the 'Rendering' option on the top menu, and clicked 'Render Setup'.

This opened up a new window which gave me the ability to choose the exact key frames I wanted. I chose to select the 'Range' option from the 'Time Output' section, and selected the frames from 0 - 100. I also selected the location of my file output and gave it an appropriate name. Once I'd done all of this, as well as making sure I had the camera view selected, I pressed 'Render' at the bottom right corner. 

Rendering didn't take so long for this as I had only made a very short clip. When I looked back at the clip however, I wasn't pleased with it. Firstly, the clip was far too short and the camera moved far too quickly into its next position. Secondly, the lava was animated too and was moving outrageously which I did not want to be happening at all. 

To solve the first problem of the clip being too short and the camera moving too fast, I added in more frames. I clicked the small icon next to the timeline, which opened the 'Time Configuration' window. Under the 'Animation' section I altered the 'Length' of the clip from 100 frames to 600 and clicked the 'Re-scale Time' option and clicked 'OK'.

 By doing this it gave me many more frames that would draw out the scene and make it longer, instead of looking so rushed. Back on the timeline I also moved some of my key frames along to make some scenes longer and so that they filled out the whole of the timeline.

For my next problem of my lava animating, I was slightly puzzled at first because I hadn't added any animation to the lava so I wasn't quite sure why it was doing this. I then realised the reason why it was animating was due to the 'Noise' modifier I had added previously. When altering the different aspects of the noise modifier, there is a small section of 'Animation' within it. At the time I must've seen no effect as I hadn't rendered it, so I must've forgotten about it and left it. So to alter this I simply went back to the Noise modifier and changed it so there was no animation, because it didn't work at all. 

Now that I had changed my timeline accordingly, I rendered the clip once again. This time it took much longer to render due to the amount of new frames added. I still wasn't entirely happy with the final clip, but I decided that I would be able to use some of it. 

Here is the clip:

As you can see, once the camera pops out from behind the volcano at the start, the lava still begins to move violently. This is because when I altered the effect of the 'Noise' modifier on the lava, I must've changed it at another point in the timeline rather than at the very beginning, so you only notice the effect later on in the clip. Additionally, the clip does go on for too long towards the end and starts to become slightly tedious due to the lack of change. However, I really wanted to avoid re-rendering the clip again because it took so long. So, I decided that I had enough footage in this clip to use as the opening, at the point were the lava stops moving. I would then just cut the end of the clip off in Premier so that it didn't go on for so long. 

Ideas For Animation

• I'm going to start my animation with some slow shots of the volcanic scenery. I will start by having the camera coming out from behind a volcano and then looking across the landscape.

•  I will have individual shots of the volcanoes and the lava to set the scene. These will most likely be quite close up so you can see the detail of each.

• I will then introduce the Headhunter to the scene by getting the camera turning and looking up into the sky.

• I will have a distant shot of the Headhunter moving around the lava and then some closer shots of the ship coming towards the camera.

• I will then have the camera turn with the ship to look up to the sky in order to introduce the Tie Fighter into the scene.

• I will then have a moving camera shot of the Tie Fighter which will be quite close up to show off the detail on the ship.

• I will then have a long shot looking across the lava and will make each ship fly into the shot from opposite sides. At this point I will make it look like they're about to fight. This will be where I will end my scene.

Possible Music

I was looking into ideas for the music I could have playing in the background of my scene. I wanted it to be Star Wars related obviously. I searched YouTube for related clips and also to do with the planet 'Mustafar' as that was the planet my scene was based around.

I eventually managed to come across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=799I3-jCWtI

Accessed [12/12/2011]

I thought this music would fit quite appropriately. It was roughly about 3 minutes long in total so it was more than enough for the 30 second clip I needed to create. 

Lasers Tutorial

Here is a clip I found of a laser tutorial. If I get time, I will try to incorporate it into my video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwrAIqwTCNY

Accessed [12/12/2011]

Filming Tutorial

Before I started to film my animation, I wanted to practice the tutorial to make sure I knew how to film properly. I opened up a completely blank file just so I didn't accidentally mess anything up on my volcanic scene.

To start off with, I drew a line by going to the 'Create' menu, then down to 'Shapes' and chose 'Line'.

I then drew a line in one of the viewpoints. This line was going to be the camera path.

Once I had drawn the line, I wanted to create an object to film. I went to the 'Create' menu again and this time chose a 'Cone' from the 'Standard Primitives'. 

I then created a small cone in one of the viewpoints, which was positioned round about in the centre of the line I'd just drawn. 

Now that I had both my camera path and my object created, it was time to create a camera. To do this, I went to the 'Create' menu again and chose 'Cameras' and then 'Target Camera'.

I was now able to draw my camera onto the viewpoint on the line path I'd made, making sure to direct the camera directly towards the cone. 

I then went to the 'Motion' on the right in order to set the camera up completely.

 I expanded the 'Assign Controller' and clicked on 'Position' and the small icon just above it to open a the new position window.

When the new window opened, I selected the 'Path Constraint' option and pressed 'OK'. 

Back in the 'Motion' panel, I scrolled down to where it said 'Add Path'. I clicked on this, and then selected the line I drew earlier. 

As soon as I had selected the line, the camera immediately repositioned itself to the very beginning of the line. I could now press the 'Play' button and press 'C' to see the camera view.

I did play around with the Timeline slightly, just be adding more frames in etc. to draw the scene out a bit.