Second scene building grow

Ground floor

First floor

Attic

Evaluation

I think that as a group we worked well and we are pleased with the result.

I think that the idea turned out well as it was a bit more interesting than just a standard walk-through. The walk-through section that we created for the second part of the animation was also a bit different as it has the character walking through the scene with the camera rather than just having the camera moving through the building on its own.

I think that the cuts between the separate cameras on the walk through section of the animation turned out well as it seemed to work well changing the camera when the character walked through the doors.

The items that were modeled for the interior of the building look good in the scene and as they are growing in the model.

The animation in the project turned out well. Lots of animation techniques were used in the animation and this allowed new skills to be learnt. Some of the animation sections could have been a little slower as they seem to finish a little to fast, especially the section where the camera zooms out for the final section of the model on the table.

The rendering took a long time and with hindsight maybe we should have started animating earlier so that we had longer to render the animation and fix any issues that arose.

The final animation turned out well and the music that we used in the final video worked well with the animation. There were are couple of problems with continuity in the animation but these are not that noticeable as you concentrate on the main part of the animation.

There are a couple of problems in the animation, the books on the table section are slightly raised above the surface, when the building grows there are slight errors on the models where the faces overlap as it is animating and there are some problems with the guildhall model in some places, this is especially noticeable near the stairs. As the building was modeled in two halves (the top half and the bottom) this areas was overlooked and so it is not consistent between the two floors. Texturing on some of the beams in the guildhall could also be improved.

Time management could have been a little better as it was quite a rush to get the animation rendered and finished on time.

Improvements that could be made to the animation are some of the problems could be fixed and some of the animation sections could be improved.

I think that in creating the animation we achieved a lot in the time that we had and the results have turned out good.

Finishing the project

The video files were brought into Premiere Pro to join all the separate scenes together and to add the soundtrack.

The uncompressed footage took up a lot of space and made it difficult to work with the files. After putting the video together we thought that the first 1 minute section worked well just by itself so we tried a version with only this section as well as creating one with the final animation.

Both of the versions of the animation will be handed in but we are still deciding what one to use for the presentation.

Rendering the animation

We started to render the animation to see what it looked like and what we still had to do while we were still working on the last part of the animation.

Before rendering at the final high quality resolution we first rendered a low quality test animation to check what it looked like.

For the building growing scene we adjusted the length of time that it took for the next blueprint to slide into shot and made sure that none of the objects from the ground floor were sticking through the blueprint. We also increased the length of time that it took for the ground to move into shot as this was a little too fast, and fixed some other small problems.

We adjusted the lighting so that the scene was brighter but then had to adjust the other scenes for continuity.

When the scenes were ready we rendered them as an uncompressed avi at 720p. When we rendered the first section we did not select uncompressed and the file was shrunk to the wrong size.

Selecting the uncompressed option created larger files but they were greater quality. They will be compressed when brought into Premier Pro and exported.

The rendering took a long time so it was important that we were happy with the animation before we started the rendering.

Another problem with lighting occurred when unit less not ticked when standard lights were used with the daylight system and the scene was darker and the colours did not match up. We had to re render this section once we found the cause for the problem.

Working in different scene files made the animation more manageable but also made it difficult to ensure continuity between the scenes.

Finishing the animation

Once the animation was finished some problems were spotted so they were fixed and re rendered.

The section where the camera zooms out from the guildhall model was redone as the lights were not the same in the file that was being used. We thought that it would be easier to reanimate this section than to try to fix the lighting in the other file.

The  part where with the blueprints didn't line up correctly between scenes as they had accidentally been moved in the different files. The blueprint were lined back up and the a short section was re rendered.

Multiple scenes had to be re rendered due to problems of 3ds max crashing when rendering and the loss of files.

Guildhall walkthrough

The biped that had been created and used earlier in the animation was used during the walkthrough section of the animation. Footsteps were used to move the character through the guildhall and the camera was animated to follow the character.

The biped walks through the rooms in the guildhall to show what the renovated guildhall will look like.

Finally the camera takes a look around the outside of the guildhall to show the complete outside of the building.

Guildhall renders

I rendered some images of the guildhall filled with the objects. I added some lights in the scene, it is still a bit dark but these will be adjusted for the animation.


First floor

Kitchen

Kitchen

Stairway

Hall

Guildhall

Guildhall

Disabled toilet

Ground floor

Library

Museum

Guildhall animation - scene 2

Using the slice modifier applied to the separate objects in the scene the guildhall could be animated growing.

We selected the objects, and with the slice modifier setting to remove top, moved the slice plane below the object so that  none of the object was visible. By turning on autokey, moving to a later frame and then moving the slice plane so that the it was above the object the building appeared to grow.

We did this for the groundfloor with the walls and finally the objects inside the building. We animated different parts of the building growing in order the sliced in order and then adjusted the timing so that the different objects growing were a bit more random making it look more organic.

The blueprint slides in on top of the model at this point and then the next part of the building will grow.

We repeated the same process for the for the first floor and then finally the attic.

We rendered a test video and found that this turned out quite well although there were some problems that needed to be fixed.

We decided that we wanted the camera to be closer to be building as it is growing so that it will be easier to see the objects inside. We will also change the speed as it seems to be moving a little to fast.

Guildhall animation - scene 1

I added the radiators (Jack), fridge magnets (Steve) to the scene and then merged the character created by Hong into the scene. The character was too small so I selected everything in the scene and scaled it so that it was in proportion with the man.

This scene was now ready for the animation, Hong animated the first section where the character turns on the radio. After this we created another file to create the growing building animation. We decided to split the separate parts of the animation into different files to make the scenes more manageable and to allow separate parts of the animation to be worked on at the same time.

Render of the table where the building model will be placed

Scene 2 of the animation will be the guildhall growing from out of the blueprints on the table.

Preparing the Guildhall for animation

I finished placing the objects in the scene and then modeled some display cases for the museum and the counter for the shop.

I adpated the table model to create the counter. The computer model will be placed on top of this and some shelves will be placed in the room.

And then for the display cases I used a box extruded a section and positioned it in place.

I selected the top polygon and then used insert tool to create a smaller polygon inside and then extruded this down to create the inside of the display case. I selected the vertices at the top of this section cloned and detached them and then used them to create the glass.

Once all of the objects were in place I cloned the top floor of the guildhall and the table inside and scaled it so that the whole guildhall model would fit on top of the table in the room.

I also merged the environment the was created by Hong into another version of the guildhall model so that this can be used when outside of the model is viewed in the animation.

Placing items in the scene

I took the items from the different members of the group, merged them into the guildhall model and positioned them in the rooms.

Hong

• Fridge 
• Cooker
• Sofa 
• Table with objects
• Outside environment (with pub and gravestones)

Jack

• Bookcase and books
• Fireplace 
• Light switch 
• Plug socket 
• PC 
• Toaster 
• Mugs

Steve

• Sink 
• Toilet 
• Items for table (ruler, book and protractor) 
• Kitchen cabinet 
• Light fittings 
• Picture frames 
• Table and chairs

I used the floor plans as a guide to place the items into the scene and the other items I placed where I thought they should go. I had to scale the items so that they were the right size for the scene and had to adjust some of the models such as the kitchen cabinets so that they fitted into the space.

Kitchen

Top floor reception

Library

Library fireplace

Museum

Shop

Slice

In the animation the guildhall will grow from the blueprints into the renovated model. To animate the building growing we will use a slice modifier and animate the slice plane.Other methods could be used such as moving the vertices that make up the model but as the model is quite complicated this would make it quite difficult to do it this way.

The slice modifier will be applied to the separate objects that make up the model so that they can be animated separately. All of the objects could be attached or grouped together and then the slice modifier applied but this would give less control over how the model can be animated.

I selected the attic part of the model, applied a slice modifier and selected remove top from the options on the modifier. By selecting remove top all of the model above the slice plane is removed, slicing through the model. When the slice plane is moved the the location where the model is sliced changes. This will allow slicing to be animated to create the building growing.

Slice

Using the slice modifier works well to create this effect but when the slice modifer cuts off the top of the model it leaves a hole where there are no polygons. To fix this a cap holes modifier can be added, this caps any holes in the model.

Cap holes

As a multi/sub object material is applied to the guildhall the material applied to the newly created faces is incorrect. To fix this a material modifier can be added, above the cap holes modifier, and then the material id set.

I also moved the uvw map modifier to the top of the modifier stack so that the materials would be mapped correctly onto the sliced object.

Material

Although this method seems to work well for many of the objects some of the more detailed objects such as the ground floor, first floor and chimney cause problems. With the chimney the cap holes modifer fills the hole in the top and with the building the model is incorrectly capped when the slice moves right near the top or bottom of the model.

The cap holes modifier works by selecting the border and then capping this hole. If an edit poly modifier is added above the slice modifier you can see that selecting the border and then selecting cap this creates the same effect. A way to solve this problem may be to remove the cap holes modifier on the objects that cause a problem and instead use an edit poly modifier and manually fill in the holes in the model by selecting the edges and then using the bridge tool.

Polygon created at the bottom of the model

The cap modifier also created a polygon at the base of the model even when the slice modifier was not applied. This was caused because there were no faces at the bottom of the walls, I fixed this by creating these faces around the bottom of the model.

Finishing the model and textures

Finishing the model and textures ready for animating.

With the stairs created I decided to create the spindles that go beneath the handrail. I used a cylinder and then used the array tool to create the rest of them.

The doors were created from boxes,  I adjusted the height and width so that they fitted in the wall sections. Next I modelled the door handles, I started with a cylinder and adjusted the shape of this by scaling sections of the cylinder. Finally I applied a turbosmooth modifier to create the final shape for the handle and added a symmetry modifier to create the one for the other side of the door.

I modeled different types of handles for the different doors in the guildhall. I applied a wood texture to the doors and a metal texture to the handles.

Finally I decided to optimize the model by removing any unneeded edges. I used target weld to join the unneeded vertices. Now the sides of the model are much simpler.

I selected the objects for the different parts of the model and created selection sets to make it easier to select them when needed. Selection sets allow you to select multiple object with one click.

To create a selection set select the objects and then type in a name for the set into the selection set box on the top toolbar and press enter. These objects can easily be selected again by selecting the name from the selection set drop-down box.

When creating the guildhall model I modelled it in separate parts. This makes it easier to see into the model as the different sections of the model can be hidden. Using selection sets the attic, first floor or ground floor can be easily selected and hidden.

Next I will look into how it can be animated to create the growing effect that we are after for the animation.

Guildhall windows

To create the windows I used a plane for the pane of glass and boxes for the frames. From the reference images taken of the guildhall I could see that on the top floor the windows were made up of rectangle pieces of glass but on the ground floor they were diamond shaped with diagonal frames.

I adjusted the window that I had modeled to create each of the windows in the guildhall, adjusting the size and amount of frames in each window.

Windows in place on first floor

To create the windows for the ground floor I used the method but rotated the frames so that they were diagonal.

The windows for the ground floor were trickier as it was harder to move the vertices, to adjust the size, and keep the angle of the frame correct.

Windows in place on both floors

Texturing the model

The texture from cgtextures was applied to the roof and was as used as a bump map to create a more textured look. At the bottom of the texture there is a grey section were the tiles end.

I decided to create a opacity map to create the shape of the tiles at the edge of the roof. I used the magic wand tool to select this section and then added a new white layer above the current layer to be the base for the opacity map.

I filled the selection from the magic wand with black. In 3DS Max where the opacity map is white the object will be displayed as normal but where it is black it will display as transparent.

Next I painted the black sections with the paint brush tool to fill in some gaps that were not included in the selection.

Finally I applied a Gaussian blur to make the lines between the black and white sections not so sharp.

I applied the opacity map to the material in 3DS Max and now the edge of the roof looks more realistic.

To texture the chimney I used a brick texture from the internet. To map the texture I added a UVW map modifier to position the texture. I found that cylindrical mapping worked the best then the texture flowed around the chimney if box or planar were used they were stretched along the edges. I selected cap ends so that the brick texture was applied to the ends.