Week 12

I finished animating and rendering the last few scenes of my animation. Once I had finished rendering each scene I imported the scenes into Movie Maker and edit the movie clips into place. I didn’t find this part difficult just a little time consuming.

I found this module very interesting I have done basic animation before but not to this detail and found it difficult in places especially with characters movement to what I wished. When I did some movement the body would disfigure which meant going back and changing Envelopes and recreating bones. But once the bones were in the right place the movement went well, and the movement and animation would work better.

The Rendering took a lot of time but I did expect this as I have render scenes in previous module. So I aloud more time for rendering and rendering as I finished animating scene.
I was pleased with character I created as I spent a lot of time on him and I enjoyed creating the character as I am interested in character design.

If I had more time I would spend more time on movement to get better movement from my character. I would definitely try and do character animation in the future and hopefully in a job and further my skills in 3d Studio Maxs.

Week 11

I carried on animating the scenes for my animation using the techniques as before with moving and rotating the bones of my character. With each movement I used keyframes to record the movement of the scene.

I had some problems making my character hit the golf ball and bend down no matter what I tried I could not get this natural movement. I had to stop this over adventurous movement and had a more simple movement instead the reason for this is that I had to make more movements and render the scenes.

I had a lot of problems making the eyes blink for my character, when I tried to rotate the eyelids to make them blink. Each time I had rotated the eyelid the eyelid moved in a different direction out of the head. I could not figure out why this would happen I tried reloading the eyes but I could not get this work. With time running out I went on to animating other scenes, and creating different camera angles.

I created the different camera angles by placing a camera in the scene and animated using keyframes for every movement I made with camera. The render the scene selecting that camera view I wished to render.

Week 10

I started to animate my character to the storyboard that I had created. I did this by moving the bones in my character using the Rotate and Move tool to get the character into the correct position.

Once I moved the character into the right position then selecting Auto Key I inserted keyframes for each movement I did to correspond with my scene.

I had some diffculties with my movement of my character like when I move my characters head the eyes started come out of their eye socket. This happen the same with the nose with movement, I found this annoying I had to re-link some parts together to fix this.

Week 9

This week I went on to create my scene for my animation I started off by creating four planes to create ground and the backgrounds of my scene. Once happy I group them together so that I did not accidently move them while creating the rest of my scene.
I created the sand pit using the Line tool to create the desired shape of the sand pit then using Extrude Modifier to give it depth. Then I used the Move tool to place the sand pit into place, and then I used the Sphere to create a hill. Then I used Move tool to place the hill into place, then I created a Circle and used an Extrude Modifier then place the circle into place, and using the Boolean I use the Circle to make a hole in the hill for the golf ball to go into.

I created the flag pole by using a Cylinder to create the pole and a Sphere to create the knob on top of the pole. The using the Line tool I create the flag shape then using the Extrude Modifier to give it shape. I used the Move and Rotate tools to place these parts together then I grouped theses parts together. I then placed the flag pole on top of the hill next hole in the hill using the Move tool.

I created Anubis’s staff by creating a Cylinder for the handle and a Box tool for the base, then using a Sphere and using the Scale tool to make design on top. I create another Sphere smaller the other one then using Boolean to create the hole in the design of the bigger Sphere. I used the Move and Rotate tool to place the piece together then I grouped them together.

I used Omni Light to create the lighting in my scene to make it the sun light as my scene is outside, and then place the light in one of the corners in the scene. The in the light Modifier I added and edited the Shadow Parameters to add shadow to my scene.

Week 8

I added some final touches to my character like the inside of my characters mouth which was done by copying Vertex’s with the from the mouth and joining them together using attached. I also had to create a small sphere inside the mouth as for some reason you could see the background in the gap of the moth even though I had checked all the Vertex’s were joined correctly.

With my character near enough complete I had to give a story to animate him, I decided to go for something a little different as if what would Anubis do on a golf course as I would think Anubis would be business type as he is the god of death, so for leisure golf is common relaxation.
So my story starts with Anubis walking up around a golf course then he suddenly sees a golf ball on the ground. He examines the golf ball then looks around at the golf course and sees the flag and hole that the ball is meant to go down. He then stops and thinks about what he is meant to do with the ball then when he gets his idea he gets ready to but his plan into action.

Anubis then summons his staff so that it appears in his hand, I thought this would show he has immortal powers and give him again godly posture for my character and would be a lot better than using a golf club as he would not do things that way. Once he has summoned his staff he would get himself ready to take a shot. Anubis then swings at the golf ball then the golf ball moves and goes straight into the sand trap.

As Anubis is a god I thought he would not be best pleased that he has failed in what is attempting to do, so I would go to scene of him not looking best pleased of what has happened. Then as Anubis is a god he would use is god like powers to his advantage. So Anubis uses he powers to levitate the ball and place the ball into the hole. The reason why he would is again to show that Anubis is not just a normal mortal but a god and this should add appeal to the audience.

I did have other ideas for Anubis like working on a computer or another everyday thing like watching television or making breakfast. But I thought this would be the better idea for my character as it would give me an opportunity to try and get some different movements out of my character.

Week 7

I carried on with boning of my character as I had done last week and looked in and researched more about boning form internet tutorials. Once I was happy with the bones I edited the Envelopes of each of the bones to the best of my ability to stop the skin from deforming when the character moved a part of its body.

Once I was happy with boning and envelopes I went onto to create a skirt for my character I created the skirt by creating a Plane then a small Sphere that was roughly the size of my characters waist. Then I added a Cloth modifier to Plane and made the collision path the small sphere to create the skirt shape.

I had to do this a couple of time to get the right effect and also on a couple of occasions the computer crashed due to errors with the modifier.

Week 6

I decide to bone my character to do this I used the Bone and created bones to fit the character like the arms, legs and head so I could move moth arms etc. I had a lot of trial and error when it came to boning my character.

This took several attempts and placing the bones inside the body, then using the Skin Modifier on the body to link the bones to the body. This task seemed simple but become more difficult as time went on. As went I tested for movement on my character I could not get my character to move in certain ways, so this meant going back a step and trying again.

Week 5

I created the characters eye using a Sphere to create the eye ball and made the Sphere an editable mesh. I selected the centre Polygons using the Circular Selection tool the created an idea do I can change the material to centre of the eye to make it a pupil. Then I selected the rest of the sphere and made that an ID. The colours I chose was black for the pupil and white for the outside, I then created two more Spheres and change them to Editable mesh as well. Then using Vertex and Polygon to make theses Sphere into the eyelids for the eye, I moved the eyelids into place using the Move tool. With the eye created I then imported into my Anubis scene then using the Move tool and the Scale to place the eyes into place in the eye holes of the Anubis character.

Once I had finished with placing the eyes into place I went on to create arms and legs for my character. I did this using the same method used to create the ears I used Inset with the Polygon selection to create small Polygon, then using Bevel and Extrude I created the shapes of the arms and legs. I made the arms a bit more muscle again to give the character more of a god like posture; I did not give the legs as much muscle as I wanted to give the character cartoony touch with skinner legs.

I did try to make hand but could not get them to match or suit my character , and as I still need to bone my character an d animate him in a scene I thought it was best to make, cartoony mitts hands and if I had time go back and make better hands.

Week 4

I continued on with creating the head I created the eyes holes on the head by selecting the Polygon and deleting the Polygon selected. Once the eye hole was created I needed to copy what I had done on one side of the face to the other. To do this I selected the Sphere and clicked on Mirror to make a copy of the face.

I did have to go back and re-edit the muzzle using the Move tool on the Vertex and Polygons to give the muzzle more of a dog/jackal shape to it.

I added a modifier to the head Turbo Smooth so the head didn’t look so blocky and robot like when rendered. I decided not and a Fur/Hair Modifier as it would take way too long to render also the computer crashed every time I tried to add the modifier to the head.

I then went on to create the neck for my character I used the same sort method used for the muzzle and ears. I selected the Polygons underneath the head and using the Extrude and Bevel down to create the neck for Anubis.

I created the nose for Anubis by using Line tool and created the nose shape, once happy with the shape I used the Extrude modifier to make the nose whole. Then using the Move and Rotate I placed the nose into place.

I then went on to create the body for my character I used the same method I used to create the neck. I selected the Polygon from the neck and using Bevel I created the torso of my character, as Anubis is a god I decided to make him quiet muscle figure to give more of the impression the he is a god so he would not be skinny.

Week 3

I started to create my Anubis character in 3D Studio Maxs; I decided that I would start by creating the head for my character. The reason why I decided to create the head first is that I feel that it may take me some time to get the correct shape for the head, and I have never created an animal head before in 3D Studio Maxs only a human head for another one of my modules.

For creating the head I first started by creating sphere and making it into an Editable Poly, once the sphere was turn into an Editable Poly I could start creating the shape of the head. First of all I went into the Editable Poly Menu and in Selections I selected Polygon. With Polygon selected I then I select from the menu Edit Polygons and select Bevel. With all these selected I go back to the Sphere and selected the Polygons I wish to edit, and then move these Polygons out to create a muzzle for my character.

Once I had got a reasonable shape for the muzzle I went back onto Polygon in the Edit Menu and selected some of the Polygons on the muzzle. Once I was happy with the selected Polygons I clicked delete to create a mouth for my character.

I then selected Polygons again from the Edit menu and selected Inset from the Edit Polygon menu, the select a couple of Polygons on top of the head. Once selected I made two smaller polygons on top of the head using Inset. Then I selected Vertex from the selection menu, and then I selected Cut form the Edit Geometry menu. I then selected one of the Vertex’s corners of the small Polygons and cut it in roughly in half diagonally selecting the other vertex in the corner opposite the one I just selected. Then I attached the new cut to the Polygons by selecting attach from the menu in Edit Geometry.

I selected Polygon again and using the Bevel technique I used to create to create the muzzle to make a shape for an ear. I then went onto Vertex and Edge selection and Scale make the ear expand more, the I selected the Polygons on one side of the ear and selected Extrude to make the inside of the ear.

Week 2

I started drawing design for my Anubis character and looking into hoe to create a dog/jackal like head in 3D Studio Maxs. I also looked into hoe to create a human body as Anubis has a dog/jackal head but a human body. I looked at various tutorials on the internet on different methods for creating my character, and kept for reference for when I got down to creating my character in 3D Studio Maxs.

Week 1

The assignment set is to create a 3D historical character that can use for a children programme. I have decided to look at the Egyptian gods for my ideas for a character as I believe this would be more interesting to create.

The first thing I did was look into the Egyptian gods and decided to I was going to look into more Anubis than the other gods. After this I created an image board of all Egyptians god and drawings to get a better idea on the style and what the god were meant look like to them, then I could get a better idea how to create my character, that is going to be a more cartoony version of Anubis.