Monday, 6 December 2010

Animation Scene 2 – Flypast / Banner







To create this scene the model of the Lancaster bomber was merged with the scene. A path was drawn for the plane to follow and the Lancaster was attached to the path using the path constraint tool. At this point the skybox was imported from the previous animation scene. The volume fog effect was added a set up the same as in the previous scene. A plane was created and given a sea texture as the angles from this scene would also show the sea as well as the sky. The banner image was then created in Macromedia Fireworks CS4 and imported as a texture to be placed on a plane that was created as the banner. The banner was given an attach constraint to the bomber so it would follow the same path.

I was told it would be possible to animate the banner so it would look like it was flapping in the wind. This was something I had never tried to attempt before and decided to look on the Internet for tutorials on how to do this. The first tutorial I found suggested using reactor. First the banner was given a reactor cloth modifier and the mass value was adjusted to 70, as suggested by the tutorial. Next a rigid body collection was added to the scene through the reactor menu and all solid objects were added as objects of the collection apart from the banner. Next a reactor cloth collection was added to which the banner was added. Using the group sub selection of the reactor cloth modifier, some vertices were made rigid so they would not collapse in on themselves when the cloth was animated. Finally a reactor wind object was created and the wind speed and other values were updated. At this point I tried to test the animation using the preview animation button in the reactor menu. Every time I tried this it crashed my computer with no error message given. I tried adjusting the settings many times, but every time my computer crashed. I had to abandon the method of using reactor and luckily I found another method of animating the banner. The solution was to instead use the cloth modifier instead of reactor cloth. Just like using reactor the group sub selection tool prevented the cloth from collapsing in on itself by creating rigid points. I added a couple of space warp wind objects and pointed them in the direction the wind would blow from. By clicking the ‘cloth forces’ button on the cloth modifier these wind objects could be added telling them to affect the banner object. Clicking the simulate button applied the animation to the banner. A couple of times the simulation had to be erased so the settings could be tweaked but eventually the effect was created to a good standard.

The spitfire model was then imported and duplicated a few times. Using the same path constraint method they would follow closely behind the Lancaster bomber. Using ‘set key’ the rotation of the planes were altered to create the effect of the planes rolling in the air. All propellers in the scene were then animated in the same way as the previous scene using the set key to create a rotation tween.

The final model to be imported into the scene was the Red Arrows planes. One was merged into the scene then duplicated another eight times to form the whole team. They were position in a formation to resemble a plane and grouped. The group was then set to follow a path, following behind the Spitfires and Lancaster.

A few target cameras were added at this point. The first would pan and follow the Lancaster for a few seconds at the start of the scene. The second would shoot the planes in procession, focusing on the banner from a side on view. The final would shoot the Red Arrows from below as they flew past.

Finally some lights were added to the scene to illuminate the underside of the Red Arrows planes as well as the above of the planes from the angles of the first two cameras.

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