Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Making Pearl Habour

After finishing the maps up, I thought that it was time to start work on the actual island and the base itself, which I thought would be interesting to see what I come out with since this will be the first attempt in making terrain.

Websites looked at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK6nCZUzYDI
 
At first, I had made the base the same way I had made the maps, by using displace. The only problem was that when I had finished making it, I realised that I will properly need to make some of the landscape that would be seen in shots from the view of the camera, something that a simple plane wouldn't be able to cover up.



Terrain
When I was looking for a way to create terrain, I came across the first site. The way to texture caught my eye so I thought that I could give it a go. For some reason though, 3DS Max didn't have the Garment Maker Modifer that it had mentioned so I came across the second link to explain how to us the Terrain tool in Compound Materials. Using lines, I was able to create a basic island look to go with the base, with the Oahu Island mountains.

After messing with the terrain for a bit, I continued to follow the tutorial from the site that I was looking at when it mentioned Vertex Painting, seeing that it was on 3DS Max. I gave it a try.

Using the tablet, I shaded the island and tried to texture the island.

Following the instructions, I managed to get a as as the material part when the mixing of textures didn't seem to want to work and only show one texture. It was fixed for about two seconds when I added UVW Mapping and changed it to a box but the problem couldn't be fix. In the end, I thought that I should try out Unwrap UVW since the island wasn't a complicated shape like houses are......

Unwrap UVW


With the image plane behind the Island, its slowly coming along. It should be ready to place buildings and models on it soon ^^ Hopefully I can get water going......I should have really picked to learn water....my bad.



Saturday, 27 October 2012

PDP

As this animation is in a group, each of us have selected specific skill we want to gain while working on the Pearl Habour idea. While I worked on the script, I had decided to work on the landscape and fire effects for this animation. My last animation was set in a town centre so not much work was done on the environment so this time I want to focus on the mountains and the shape of the land. The reason that I had picked fire to work on is because I wanted to try and make a realistic effect for future projects. E.g. Campfire screen. This animation should be interesting to work on though. 

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Work on Operation Z Map

Today, I have been working on one of the Map scenes for the Pearl Habour Animation. At the beginning, it was a bit trickey to decide how to do the work.

I first tried to apply the leaf tutorial into affect but I had drawn the island wrong by forgetting the gap for the Pearl Habour base.

My second try, I thought I would try and draw the island on 3DMAX, using the line tool, which was all fine but the island looked too shape egded for my liking and it was hard to edit the island to add the mountains and make it look map shaped....

Displace 

The third time around, with the lecturer's aid, I learned a new feature in 3DMAX, known as Displace. With a plane, Displace allows you to form the shape of an bitmat image within the plane itself. With this, I could get the shape of the Island and do the edits to the island like I wanted....Happy Days.

Because it was a map, I picked this texture for the map for the time begin...


With the plane in place and the image created in the right shape this time round, I began to form the shape of the island and create the mountains on that island. This is what I got....

 
With the island shape sorted for the time being, I went into photoshop and began to create the material texture for the map so that the map could stand out more on the old map material itself. This is what I came out with....
 

 With the texture done, I added it to the map and applied UVW Mapping to let it fit with the shape of the map...
 
 


Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Particles

So today in class, we had covered how to make fire and smoke in 3DMax.

I feel like a caveman :P

So I had only done the fire today as I had spend a good amount of time not realising that it wasn't in the Mod Section but after listening to the tutorials on line and getting help from the teacher, I made a fire, though I kept playing with it because it looked like something from a PS1 game. Eventually, I kept it like this.

 

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Script


[BLACK SCREEN WITH THE TIME AND DATE THE ATTACK STARTED]
[FADE IN FROM BLACK]

EXT. PEARL HABOUR. OAHU

[EXTREME WIDE SHOT]

[ZOOM IN]

Shot of Pearl Harbour, around 7am, sounds of the waves and cheerful birds.

CUT TO:

EXT. PEARL HABOUR, FLASHBACKS.

Explosions, screams, shots of planes and boats sinking.

CUT TO:

[BLACK SCREEN WITH TITLE- PEARL HABOUR}

Narration begins.

NARRATOR (V.O)
Pearl Harbour….a day that the US had never seen  coming…or what they said they never saw coming.

CUT TO:

EXT. PEARL HABOUR. OAHU.

[WIDE SHOT]

Multiple shots of Pearl Harbour and the fleet ships before the attack, calm and quiet.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

There were a number of conspiracy theories for the attack after it had happened; it was as if the US had set the entire event up so that they had a reason to enter the war, that President Roosevelt was the main blame of the conspiracies themselves. But what if the conspiracies were cover ups for their embarrassment of being outsmarted by the little guys? What reason did Japan have of attacking Pearl Harbour in the first place if they knew that they knew that the US would follow after them? What did they get out of it?

CUT TO:

INT. MAP.

[MEDIUM SHOT]

Shot of US and Japan, models of transport boats travelling from Japan and back. The Countries stand out by being excluded and change colour.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

The US and Japan had previous had relations before the events of WW2 started to occur. It was only in January 1940 that the US had stripped Japan from supplying the natural and industrial resources due to Japan’s advances onto China and forming an alliance with Italy and Germany .

The models turn away from Japan and return to the US, stopping travel to Japan all together. Japan begins to turn dry.

CUT TO:

EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN. SUN RISE.

[WIDE SHOT]

Japan aircraft cross the Pacific Ocean as the sun begins to rise.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

With resources stripped, Japan continued their aggressive path for land and resources in China and parts of Europe, until they were stuck. Japan wanted to invade the south east of Asia, mainly for more supplies and territory. The only problem was that if they were to attack, it would prompt the US army for war. If the Japan was to get the territory and supplies needed, they would need a distraction to give them enough time to concur the areas needed.

CUT TO:

INT. MAP

[MEDIUM SHOT]             

  Models of Japanese aircrafts on the world map, being pushed from Japan to Pearl Harbour, being moved in to attack the US.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

From that, ‘Operation Z’, originally known as ‘Operation Hawaii’ was formed. The plan was simple. The first wave would arrive at 7:40am to strike the base before the second wave arrived at 8:40am. From the attack, while the US try and recover from the sudden surprise, Japan can easily continue their aggressive moves across Asia without the worry of the US’ appearance.

 

CUT TO:

 EXT. PEARL HABOUR. OAHU

[POV]

From the view of a person, they would look up into the sky to see the planes coming in.

                                                                                                                                                                                CUT TO:

INT. SIGNING HALL.

[CLOSE UP, FORMS]

Italy, Japan and Germany all sign the Tripartite Pact, forming their alliance.

NARRATOR (V.O.)

Japan had sided with Italy and Germany all because they had lost their resources and began to fall out of their relations with the US. Because of that choice, as well as the US disregarding any warning signs,…one of Japan’s greatest attacks occurred.

CUT TO:

EXT. PEARL HABOUR, OAHU.

[MULTPLIE SHOTS]

Japan attack Pearl Habour, shots of boats sinking, explosions, and sounds of gun shots and screams and smoke, echoing as the screen eventually goes dark.

CUT TO:

EXT. REMAINS OF PEARL HABOUR, OAHU.

Smoke filled the sky as the US looks at the aftermath of the attack

ROOSEVELT (V.O)

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost…

The Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.  Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.  Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.  Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.  Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. This morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

[FADE OUT TO BLACK]

[TIME AND DATE OF WHEN THE ATTACK FINISHED FLASHES ON THE SCREEN]

Advance Materials

Wow! 3D Max hates me today.

Today, we had to learn about texturing objects using the Unwrap UVW and because we had made an object from the last tutorial, I thought that I could texture the building and then not only use the building to learn the tutorial but then re use it for some 3D art that I'm trying to work on.

So natrually five hours later, I decided that the building was a lost cause and quickly made a wooden storage hut. After making the hut, I had played Unwrap UVW and started to sort the mapping out for the object.


Soon after, I had placed the mapping into photoshop and selected a wood texture to cover it. I had customerised some of the sides by adding a wore-out logo onto it as well as adding some colour to the inside side parts to make it look like it was molting. This is what it came out like.

I'm glad that I have finally gotten around to learning this part, I should be able to add a unqiue style to when I do my 3D art. This will also be useful when making planes for buildings again.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Storyboard Dicussion

Within the group meeting, we discussed the research that we had found and began to place ideas on what the do. After a while, we decided to go with a mix of my idea and Scott's and explain the events from the Japan's point of view, along with voice over to explain the events and conspiracy that lead to the Pearl Harbour attack.

We have been given seperate scenes to work on and storyboard, as well as discussing a effect we would like to learn doing this assignment. I have been put in charge of the script writing and some of the storyboard. I will also be modelling the landscape and focusing on fire effects as my new skill.

Tutorials- Connecting Vertexs and Smoothing

In this tutorial, we all had a go of turning a square into a house without adding new object, I was already familiar with the technique as I had used it multiple times when I was working on my building and my bird back in my last assignment. So, me being me, I decided to mess around with the house and see what I can create. This is what I got.


Looking at the houses, some of the classmates mentioned that it looks like something out of Bioshock.....I don't see it. I will save the houses though for an seperate project I'm working on.

The smoothing tutorial I had messed around with before as well....just not that great. I had used the smooth technique on my unfinished mesh of a man and the bird from the last assignment. Learning about it was refreshing as I didn't consider the different levels of smooth that much....that worked away. I done a can in the tutorial. This is how it came out.

 
 
It was such a good idea to do a Can that the teacher stole it for future tutorials......stealing my ideas. I will save this for future projects too. It is a pretty cool can.