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.