Editing

Things have really started to come together int he last week. Pretty much all of the scenes that were storyboarded have made it into the final edit. The use of the sounds that I produced in week 10 really give the renders character and lift some of the scenes that were perhaps a little bit stale on there own. For example the sound effects of the wind and water really help to bring Lara's scenes to life. You can really believe the ships are on the water when you can hear the waves crashing against them.

The other finishers and I have spent a lot of time getting the transitions between the scenes looking smooth and also trying to keep the pace of the whole thing up and making the animation flow. The music that has been used (Apocaliptica) is just perfect for the animation, I love the feel of it.

One part of the animation I am most happy with is the sequence where nelson is shot. The way that the sound and the visuals fade out gradually to nothing, is nice and then a musket shot is heard. Then there is a pause to allow the viewer to think about what has just happened. Then the music gradually fades back in and Nelson can be seen falling to the deck. The scene that follows is the one where nelsons blood covered hand is moving to and from the camera. We put a really effective blur on this scene that just looks gorgeous!.

Sounds

I have put together lots of ambient sound for the animation. I did this by layering up the sounds that Lara and I collected. I thought it would be a good idea to get to gether as many sounds as possible to get a good variety of background sounds in the final thing.

Again Blogger won't let me post them!!!!! grrrrr I'l play them to you when I see you!

Scene 6

Ok I have done the simple animation for scene 6, this shows the cannons pushing the gun flaps open on the Victory. I have been trying to upload a clip to show it but Blogger won't have any of it!! It is on the file storage space.

These two show how I set up the Booleans foe the cannon holes

Set sail

Hey guys the Victory is done!!! take a look at the screen shots.

They sort of show the stages!

Exploded view

This exploded view was realy helpful for modeling the Victory, so I thought i'd let you all see it!

HMS Tremeraire

Hey everyone, Ive been doing a bit of snooping around at the other British ships. The other main ship Is called the HMS Tremaraire.

The Victory is shown in the image on top. As you can see, the front part of the ships are almost identical. The main difference that really separates the two ships is the paint on the side. The Victory has very distinctive black banding around it. This should be something that the mappers concentrate on. As long as the Victory is the only ship that has this, it will stand out from the other ships.

All done well exept for the ears......(who needs ears anyway?)

I am very happy with the result! I have learnt a great deal from doing this.
I added two omni lights to the scene for this render to make a nicer and more natural looking atmosphere.

Just a quick one!

I don't know if anyone is having trouble with mapping the face on to the whole head? I found that the face was stretching over the whole thing and it looked terrible. So I made this map so that the skin tone around the face covers the other areas of the head.

Victory!!

I have started to model the HMS Victory. Above are some images that I have gathered for reference. I am mainly looking to get a basic idea of the main lines along the side of the ship and the shape of the front and back. this will enable me to begin by making a simple model that can be easily modified for more detail.

This is the basic model that I have come up with. I used the same reference technique as for the face. I found it really simple to do it in this way. I am very happy with the model as a starting point and will keep you posted as it progresses!

Sorry guys i promise this is last one of these I'm going to do! ;)

I nominate this image for the scariest face in the module award!!

I was mainly playing with lights here to get a nice effect on the face

Again I just used soft selection to achieve the expression (sorry Ali!)

Hey guys It occurred to me today that I haven't got any work up here that i did with the bones.
HERE IT IS!!!!

Just played around with the noise modifier and some environment maps too

As you can see I have stated to play around with moving the face to make expressions. I did this using soft selection

As you can see I have adjusted the size and the colour of the eyes. I am very pleased with how real it is starting to look

Creases

This a new thing that I have discovered that is useful and I recomend. It has allowed me to use mesh smooth while still leaving strong contour lines (like the ones around the nostrils and where the eyelids retract) visible. I.E. it doesnt smooth out all of the detail!

You can see how effective it looks in the two images above.

How to use creases

It is very simple: First you need to apply the 'mesh smooth' filter. Now that it is applied turn down the iterations to 0 so you can easily see the yellow frame. Now click on the edge tab within the mesh smooth modifier see below imge

Then choose the edged that form the line that you want to stay prominent on the face. Then set the crease value up to what you want. (the higher value, the more prominent the line will look)

Finally just put up the iterations to about 1 or 2 depending on how smooth you need the face to look. You can see that the line that you altered will stay visible even with the mesh smooth.

As you can see in the above image, i have successfully modeled the lips and the nose on the face.
I am really happy with how the lips look!

For the nostrils

• As you can see in the previous images I had a bit of a problem with the nose. so I had to begin by creating polygons to fill the hole that was left


• I then had another problem because there weren't enough vertices and edges to work with, to make the nostril. I used 'cut' with the edge tab, to make more lines which ran along the nose and across the nose to the edges of the face. This didn't only benefit the nose but also created more edges across the face and this made it smoother.


• Then I started to extrude the edges on the inside of the nostils and gradually extruded them in and up in to the nose.


• I then played around with the nose and impoved the look of the septum because it was too large.

For the lips

• This was a bit more atraight forward. I began by extruding the inside edges of the mouth at first outward and then in towards the face.


• I selected all the vertices on the inside edge of the face (the line down the centre) and straightened them up so that there were no gaps when it was reflected.


• I then pulled the meeting parts of the lips in to the face and then the top lip up and the bottom lip down. This made the lips look rounded and smooth.
  

Modeling the face in max

The images show the almost finished face. The first one shows the reult of pulling out each vertex to the guide lines on the profile view of my face. I used the mesh smooth modifyer to make the face look more smooth and natural.

The second image shows the face after I reflected it and joined it to make the complete face. I then mapped the image on to the face.

You may notice that in the first image I have attempted to make the nose. I added some more polygons into the empty space.

Face alignment and Topology

I followed the online tutorials to align a front and a profile picture of my own face. I found the Topology aspect quite difficult, because it is important to get a good flow of line across the face. As you can see from the image, the forehead will need touching up when it comes to modeling in max.

I am currently setting up the 3D reference plates and will post the results very soon!!!

Well I'm ready to start my first blog entry!!!

My fingers are poised and ready, they are tantalisingly caressing the keys but unfortunately i haven't a great deal to blog about at the minute! I'll be back when I've got some work to show off!