Research and Planning

For the first part of my planning I decided to research some portfolios that specialise in the same industry. As my client is a bird watcher I searched for some bird watchers and had a look at some websites. I found this area very difficult as most bird watchers only have blogs and not actual sites. I googled famous bird watchers to see if that could help me more and went onto Wikipedia to see some of their results and came across a man called Kenn Kaufman, He is a known bird watcher that has not only his own blog but his own website. Great now I was getting somewhere. No I wasnt. I took a look at his website and realised why bird watchers just stuck to blogs. It was very plain and boring and lacked any excitement at all, So back to square one I went and this time I started to look closely at Photographers. Now I was getting somewhere I found a few sites that I thought was good and a few I didn’t think worked as well. All the ones I like seemed to be quite minimalistic and have nice designs without filling the page with too much text, I also really liked the portfolios that had made a gallery and not just slapped photos all over.

Here is a list of some of the sites I looked at:

Bird Watchers

http://birdingwithkennandkim.blogspot.com

www.kaufmanfieldguides.com
www.fatbirders.com

Photographers

www.rowephotography.com
www.kosoff.com
www.charliewaite.com
www.arnoldhenri.com
www.marcusholdsweorth.co.uk

Here is the design layout for my desktop website:

Well I made it past year 1… PHEW. Now its time to put my head down and do some work

Planning

When I was given the assignment brief for virtual environments I was really looking forward to it, for the next few weeks I really got into my planning. I started off doing a mood board for some ideas, while I was looking through some images on Google I decided to have hell as my theme so I brought some card and created my 3D prototype. A few days later I was watching Steven Kings IT and as I was watching I started to think of how some of the scenes in the film would be really good scare scenes so I decided to change my theme. I thought about it a lot and decided to create my ride like a circus because then I can have clowns in it but then I would have a few extra ideas for some props. This time I created another mood board so that I could keep looking back at it for ideas. I created my 3D prototype and then started some drawings. I started off designing how I would want my entrance to look and then designing my cart, when it came to designing the track and putting in where I would like my scare scenes to go I had a million and one ideas so I wrote down my best three and then used some of the less scarier ones as props. Finally I created my storyboard and then I went on to designing my cart.

Making the cart

Making the cart seemed like it was going to be very quick and simple, hmm yeah right. To do this I used the box tool and made a box that was 70x50x40 I then made it into an editable poly and used the swift loop tool to add in some extra segments. I then selected the segments in the box that I wanted and used the extrude tool to make it rise. Once my box looked like a chair I moved onto making the clowns shoes to do this I used the sphere tool and two boxes. I placed one of the boxes through the sphere and booleaned it to make it a semi circle and then done the same with the other box to half it again. I then lined it up with the chair and stretched it so it resembled a shoe and then I cloned it so there were two. I then had to make the clowns head for this I started off with a sphere; I converted it into an editable poly and then played around with the shape to give it the more face look, then using the pyramid tool I created the clown some hair. For the eyes I just uses for two spheres, I placed the smaller one inside the bigger one so that you could only see a little bit coming out and then I selected both shapes and cloned them to make the other eye. For the mouth I used the arc tool and created two similar sized arcs then when I got them in the right position I grouped them together. For the teeth i used two different sized pyramids and just cloned them several times putting them in line but then rotating them slightly so that they went in place but looked very messy.

Scare scenes

For my scares scenes I decides to watch some clips on YouTube and get some ideas. My first idea I thought of when I had hell as my theme I was going to do a jack in the box where the jack’s hair was on fire. I decided to keep this idea but just use a clown instead and take out the flames part. My second idea I got from Stephan Kings IT, I wanted to have a washing line and put a clown peeping through the clothes. My third idea I got from some short clips I watched of ghost rides where they have something hanging down and as the ride gets closer it shoots up. For my third idea I wanted to turn the lights off for a few seconds and then when they came back on a clown would be in front of you and then shoot off but as I couldn’t get my lights to work I decided to add in doors that opened and placed the clown behind them.

Making the jack in the box

Making my jack in the boxes was quite simple I just made a box 50x50x50 then made another box 48x48x48; I placed the smaller box inside the larger box lining it up accurately and then used the Boolean tool to cut the shape out. I then made a box 48x48x2 this is what I was using as the top of the box. I then made my clowns head using spheres and pyramids and the line tool to make a moustache. I then went into the dynamics objects and used the spring. I put everything into place and the hit the auto key and animated it.

Making the washing line scene

To make my washing line I used two cylinders and a line, I then used basic shapes to make my clothes. All I did was use boxes and turn them into editable poly’s and then play around with the corners to make new shapes out of them that looked like pieces of clothing. I then used the biped tool to make a male body, and then I removed the head and made a clowns head to go on top.

Making the floating clown scene

This was easy I just repeated the same steps as before ad used the biped tool to make a males body, the made a clowns head and put it on top. I then put the auto key on and animated it so as the cart gets closer the clown rises into the air.

Props

I only have one prop and that is a clown standing on a ball.. I just cloned the clown from the washing machine and stuck him on a sphere. It only took me a few minutes to do but I think it looks good.

What I enjoyed??

Well to be fair I only really enjoyed planning my ghost train, once I was actually making it I realised animation is definitely not for me. I found the planning really exciting and on my plans I have this amazing ghost train that I thought would be fun to make 3D and animate but when I tried creating it I really struggled and got bored.

What difficulties I had??
While I was making my animation I had the standard difficulties like learning to do things and having to use online tutorials, or saving and closing my work and opening it up to find things missing but that wasn’t so bad, It wasn’t until I tried to add in the lighting and camera that I realised how difficult 3Ds max was. I had my camera in place and had got it working so my animation seemed to make a little sense but then the day after when I opened it up again my camera had disappeared and every time I added a new one in it just span around in the same spot instead of following my track. I then moved on to lighting and thought I could go back to the camera afterwards but then my file kept closing. I tried several times to fix the problem but nothing seemed to work so I decided to start again. This time I decided to use walls in my animation and keep my track the same level. Although I preferred my first ghost ride because it went up and down I knew that this way I could get my camera right quicker. I didn’t actually add in lighting in the end because I needed to move onto my next assignment.

If I could do it all again??
Hmmmm I hope I never ever have to use 3Ds max again. If I could do it all again I think I would try something much simpler like a tetris train where boxes fall down or something.

About my pages… Well the page I enjoyed creating the most was my contact page, I found that I learnt the most from this page. I learnt how to make a form I also created links from my site to other sites.. And I didn’t get stressed once it was the first page I completed. My least favourite page was my portfolio, I thought I was so clever when I made the Adobe Bridge gallery not realising I would spend the next two days trying to put it on my actual portfolio page and to top it off I tried to delete my CSS of my portfolio page because my background image was getting cut off by the gallery and I deleted the whole style sheet.. My about page and my blog where just basic I just added text. My homepage was the last page I made, I took off the style sheet and made this page separate from the rest, although it is basic and very simplistic I do like this page.

The first thing I did was research some websites and portfolios, I hired out some books from the library and then sat down and did my planning. I had two favourite website layouts which were http://www.andreamann.com and http://www.emotionslive.co.uk. I like them both because they both looked really nice but they was very simple.

I then did some rough designs on A4 paper, I have changed my ideas A bit but not too much. One big change I did is I decided against an ideas page and made a blog instead. I think people would rather see what I’m doing than see what I say I would like to do.

I will add more to this once I have finished my portfolio.. Chow

Well my new years resolution was to do better this year than last so wish me look.. Although I havent been on my journal yet I have tried alot harder with my work and have done more research and preperation than last time.

On the day of filming I met the rest of the team in the Waverly Building, after getting the camera and equipment we all headed to the Arboretum to start filming. When we got there the first thing we had to do was ask permission to chalk on the floor. After getting permission we started setting up the camera and getting into position. It took a very long time to set up due to the suns positions and shadows but eventually the lads managed to get it right and we started filming. It took about seven minutes and then our film was done all that was left was the editing.
I hope you like our One Shot video, we all worked hard on it. Although I’m not planning on becoming a director or anything me and my group had lots of fun and I really enjoyed working with them.