Sem. 2 Week 12: Moon Collision Ident and Evaluation

Recap:

Last week I completed the first two of my Idents, one; 'Rotating Solar System' and two 'Star going Supernova'.

This week I plan to complete the last Ident in order to hand in the assignment on Friday the 8th at the latest.

Moon Collision:

What I had been doing during this lecture is making a few finishing touches to the timing of the animation to make it look the most effective that it can and adjusting the settings for the particle system. This includes adding a motion blur to the particles, increasing the amount of particles, adding a 'Texture Map' and 'Self Illumination' and finally, adding a 'Perspective Camera' to the scene, adjusting it via zooming in for best camera angle.

I have gotten it to the point where I am happy with the result of the particles. The finished 'Moon Collision Ident' is shown below.

Evaluation:

Over this last semester I have enjoyed the work I have been doing towards this module. I feel that I got of work done and I have learned a lot of new techniques and skills in 3D Studio Max. This is most likely due to the help that I have been getting from the lecturer, Richard Barnes. I found him to be knowledgeable and competent in this topic of study.

The aspect of the module which I most enjoyed was working with the piece of software overall as a whole and learning the skills required to create a decent 3D Model/Animation in 3D Studio Max.

The thing I found moist difficult was getting used to the interface of the software and how all the settings were organised within the interface. However, after the first semester, and after a lot of help from the lecturer, I became used to the interface and knowing where to find the specific settings and Modifiers which I required to complete my assignment work.

If I were to undertake this module again knowing what I do now then I may have decided to attempt a different channel for my 3 Idents, a channel which would be a little more challenging. Such as my first choice for the channel I wanted to do for this module, Animal Planet.

Sem. 2 Week 11: Near Completion of Idents 1 & 2 and continuation of Ident 3

Recap:

Last week I had rendered my first drafts for Idents 1 and 2 (Solar System and Supernova). It was brought to my attention that I needed to make a few changes to the Supernova Ident.

First I needed to reduce the animation of the star expanding and imploding to make the animation seem more realistic and to better represent a star exploding.

Second was to increase the length of the animation over all for the Logo to fade in to the foreground completely.

Finally, the particles for the particle effect, which I applied to the star explosion, needed to be reduced down to size and changed to 'Dots' instead of 'Ticks'.

Solar System:

Last session I encountered a unique problem with the 'Omni Light'. As the planets moved in front of the 'Omni Light' the light seemed to pulse as the planets went past and the planets were visible when the planets passed behind the light as well.

To solve this problem I asked for help from the lecturer. He suggested I clone the 'Omni Light' and then block the effects of the first. This proved quite effective as the light no longer pulses when the planets move in front of the Sun. I also feel that it made the sun look more realistic as well. The finished Complete Video for the Solar System Ident is shown below.

Supernova:

This session I worked on the changes listed in the Recap section above, changing the size and applying a blur to the particle system, changing the type of particles from 'Ticks' to 'Dots' and changing the time scale of the Logo fading into the foreground. A video of the changes I made to the particle system is shown below.

I personally think the above particle test works well.

Below is, in my opinion, the finished Animation for Ident 2: Supernova.

Moon Collision:

This session for the Moon Collision Ident I merged the particle system from the Supernova Ident to this one, modified by changing the 'Off Axis' to 0, 'Spread' to 100 and the 'Off Plane' to 180, 'Spread' to 100.

I intend to follow-on from this by adding a Spherical Deflector to hopefully get the above screen dump to look like this below preference picture.