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.