Final 3D Environment Animation

AUDIO - My final 3D Max Animation with audio. The audio was created by myself and Joe.
Joe - guitar
Me - drums
We recorded our audio using qubase which proved easiest as we could mesh our instruments together, using the sound booth ensured the quality of the recordings would be high quality.

3D ENVIRONMENT - Using a target camera within 3D Max I was able to record a panoramic angle around the underwater laboratory. The atmosphere was challenging to create as lighting plays a major role in making my animation seem realistic.

U:66 - LO3. 3D Environment Techniques/Methods

In the process of making and creating my underwater 3D environment there were a wide range of techniques, methods and software interfacing used in order to manage and edit my project. Firstly I think files are the starter of any project as file formats are crucial to manage as they operate, save and load all your saved work. There are various types of file formats, common types of file formats used in 3D Max are; .jpeg, .bmp, .3dsMax etc.
Here is an example of my 3D Studio Max Underwater Laboratory untextured -

Texturing Techniques - The most common formats used when texturing and environment is JPEG and BMP. Using the coulour palette within 3D Max makes texturing relatively basic. It is a simple matter of saving an image created or edited from the interenet or photoshop and using keyboard shortcuts you can simply apply and assign individual textures to objects. Shortcuts are useful as it saves you having to do everything the long way, for example: F9 - Render Screenshot, M -Texture/Colour Palette.


Here is the finished textured laboratory using different JPEG's and BMP's, with careful configuring and merging the end result looks more realistic -

Lighting techniques - In my 3D Environment I found the lighting controls and effects essential as it adds to the atmosphere the sense of sunlight beaming through adding to the overall realism of the environment. I used ambient lighting over my 3D environment as the light spreads out evenly which blends and draws out certain contrasting colours from the textures. As my 3D environment is underwater, lighting was a challenge because light has to travel threw volumes of water, so with that in mind the background lighting effects are distant but direct. Lighting provides shadows meaning the buildings, tress and landscape look more atmospheric as if they are really there. I also used spotlights in order to get a more direct beam of ligting over a certain areas of my area, with simple modification I was able to adjust the intensity and range of the spotlight giving me control over the amount of lighting I intend on having over my environment. Note the shadows in this environment -

Virtual Camera - I used a free type camera to do a panoramic view over and around my environment. The focus and aperture were set clearly as a wide angle shot so that the whole landscape could be seen through the lense. Various angles were used when in camera mode to capture and record the environments main features and capture in best quality possible.

Latest screenshots of my Underwater Lab

I making great progress with the texturing of my Underwater lab. The lighting and shadows are tricky but add the realsim making the building and natural surroundings seem more realistic.

Textures - Primary

Trailer Plot

Elizabeth Krasivaya – main character – a serial killer with one hand how was imprisoned in the facility and only works with others for her own selfish reason.

Dr L. crosgrove - one of to scientists, who did perform experiments on the inmates of the prison.

Dr cyka – another scientists how is slowly driven insane by the situation, a cowardly person how only survived by leaving his friends behind.

Doug – another serial killer how survives but isn’t as reluctant to help the others as he enjoys being in the overrun facility

The trailer stars with a sweeping shot of a river that leads to a dam then the camera pans out for a large view of the dam, then it goes black as a scream is heard then the camera is pointed at the main character as she wakes up suddenly in her cell, Dr crosgrove begins to commentate over what is happening on screen and tries to justify his research and the tests performed on the prison inmates and claims that the mutated monsters that he unleashed are nothing compared to the monster that were already there (the prison inmates, who are all serial killers). He then goes on to explain why the facilities is there and what they do, as he is explaining this the camera goes trough corridors in the facility, the vision of the camera will flicker from normal to the corridor covered in blood with dead bodies everywhere, then the camera then cuts to a montage of Doug playing in blood, Elizabeth killing things and random monsters the montage is played with music to suit the theme of murdering things and people screaming. At the end of the trailer the camera follows and then zooms in on Elizabeth’s face which is scared as creepy music is played as she smiles and then steps backwards into the shadows and the trailer ends.

Texturing and modelling in 3D Max

This is my underworld labratory that I am in the process of designing and texturing. The environment looks realistic and as for the objects they are all proportionaly alligned.

I am working on scary gates for my team trailer. I have made a start using basic primitive shapes and will now need to further texture the polys and include an environment to set the mood of a scary atmosphere.

Double Negative - Channel 4 Dubai Advert

Double Negative worked on a Channel 4 Promotion Commercial. In this ident, sees a helicopter flying across the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, however it flies over a particular section of the building which is a construction block, which reveals the "4". The visual effects are really realistic and the detail is very accurate in terms of lighting and shadows.

Double Negative - Fox's Panda Advert

This is an advert done by double negative. The quality of animation, editing and voicing are very good. This advert costs came up to £1,500 000. The Panda is called vinnie and plays a major role in advertising Fox's biscuits.

Industry visit - Double Negative

On the 14Feb 2011 we had Lewis from Double Negative give us a presentation and talk about what the industry is like and how to approach a potential career in the games/media industry. The topic he touched on was how to get into the industry (Moving Picture Company). how he got in, the jobs he had to do for the first 2 years as a runner where he made tea and coffe for other employees and assisted them in every way possible. He also gave us an insight into what he does currently and how much he earns doing it.I found it very useful as he encouraged us to get out there and make the effort to get noticed. He also explained what it is that he does for Double Negative, and what they're all about. Double Negative is always busy on a dazzling assortment of visual effects for major motion pictures, from the latest block-busters to smaller, independent productions.

Double Negative, located in the heart of London's Soho, was set up in 1998 with a team of 30 staff. Since then the company has grown to 900+ staff, making it Europe's largest provider of visual effects for Film. In 2009, Double Negative opened the doors to its Singapore office. Currently housing a team of 90+, the Singapore office works closely with the Double Negative team in London, on selected productions. Through our steady and constant growth we have always sought to retain the creative drive and involvement of our artists through all projects, continuing to ensure that they have a close collaboration with clients.

Here are just a few examples of the films Double Negative have worked on in terms of visual effects.

Iron man 2:

Channel 4 Commercial:

Fox's Panda Advert:

Inception - Bending buildings:

LO3 - Marketing Products & Responses

Individually we came up with ideas for our games name, my two ideas were “Brain Dead” and “Gates to Insanity”. As a team we have concentrated on the name of our game and decided to go with “Gates of Insanity” as this name is fitting to a horror genre. Through a simple process of voting we all agreed that the games name “Gate of Insanity” would be the final decision on what our game should be called.

The platform we have chosen for our game is PC.

 

 

PEGI Ratings are important for us to consider because it will

Determine what age is appropriate for the audience we are

targeting. 

We decided to rate our game PEGI 18+ as this game will contain:

• Violence
• Bad Language
• Fear 

 

Marketing Products -

Robin: Box/Cover Art

Joe: Banner/Splash Screen

Corey: Mug

Harrison: T-shirt

•Flyers

•Renders/Screenshots

•Adverts

•Viral Marketing

•Banners

•T-Shirts

•Mugs

•Stickers

As of yesterday whilst my team was researching marketing, one task that had to be completed was finalising the teams name for our game. 2 examples/ideas where required for contributions towards the official name of the game. We then had to create a mind map. Names that were suggested for our game were:

Underworld
Insanity
Infected
Silent Horror
The Gate

But the name our team chose by vote was:
Gates To Insanity: Vorota Bezumiya

Here is the box art that I have developed in Photoshop with the title being "Gates of Insanity. This game is aimed at the age group of 18+. The platform of this game is for the PC.

At this point it was time to consider the type of heading and fonts for the title on the front cover.

Example font style 1:

Example font style 2:

Example font style 3:

I also experimented using scary gothic/hell type gates to tie in with the games title "gates of insanity". At this point it just did not look right, so I incorporated both images of the eye and the gates. I used Photoshop to edit and manipulate both images to make them blend together. The main feature in which I used on the eye and gates was transparency/opacity. I added both images together and changed the opacity to bring threw some of the red in the background which works well with the dark and shadowed gates. 

Presentation - Reflection

Overall, how do you feel the presentation went?
I feel my teams presentation went well and orderly. We all managed to project our voices directly and clearly. I also felt that the research I did on Aztecs along with some stories really interested the audience. I think everyone put enough thought into their presentations, but when it comes to pitching it can be quite challenging because talking infront of people requires a bit of confidence. That all said I feel the presentation overall was successful and have learnt a lot about different cultures and mythological stories.

How long did your team take?
My team managed to do about 20-25 minutes all together on our presentations. 

Was everyone prepared? (comment on all)
I felt that everyone had put enough effort into the research and pitched interesting stories to the audience. I delivered general facts and background knowledge on the Aztec culture and religious views. Joe, Harrison and Corey managed to grab the audiences attention with general questions and facts aswell which proved to be beneficial to captivate the audiences attention and keep them interested.

How did your audience react?
My audience were listening intently and seemed quite interested about the history and tales of the Aztec Culture which made it easier to pitch because I had the audiences attention. The audience were also keen to ask a few questions regarding the architecture related to the Aztecs.

Were they positive? Distracting? Encouraging?
Yes, the audience was positive and quite encouraging because everyone was paying attention making the delivery of my presentation more relaxed. No distractions during my presentation which was a relief.

Comments on you whilst doing the presentation?
Direct and clear. Kept a consitant flow when presenting my pitch and moved from topic to topic.


Were you prepared? Were you nervous?
I usually have a few nerves before I begin my pitch, however once I was going it all came to me and I felt comfortable with what i researched making the delivery of my presentation much easier and fluent. I would say that off the top of my head I was a bit short on full answers which was unfortunate as a fellow class mate asked a question on Aztec architecture that I was unsure of and was a little dissapointed that I did not have an accurate answer for his question.

What can you do in the future to improve this?
Do more research and taken the time to plan my presentation so that there are no awkward pauses during the pitch.

Generally - what did you learn from doing this presentation? What can you take from your research to use in your team game trailer?
I learnt that stories can be passed from generation to generation, and still have an impact on cultures and religions in todays day and age. I learnt quite a lot on the history and facts of different genres, people and there ways.

Lighting tutorial

Today I have recieved a tutorial on how to apply lighting to objects and standard primitives. I will apply this technique to my games trailer project. I simply used a spotlight, and with certain modifier tools i was able to increase the intensity and depth of the shadows. A very useful technique and has helped me a lot.

Constraints

What problems have I/will I encounter? -
My team and I had managed to have a team meeting to contribute towards new ideas and report on any progress and the current status at which we are all at in terms of the work we have completed. Some of these questions below will be filled in later on in the future where we hope to know for certain the true outcome of our team project. I had encountered small glitches in 3D Max, but managed to recieve assistance from team mates in which the problems were sorted out.


How will the team work together/or not? - We all have roles and responsibilities, so to work together we have set goals and agreed on what we all will be trying to achieve nearing the deadline of our game trailer.

Organisation, who is doing what and when for the client? -

Financial/budgets, How much would a project like this cost to produce? -

Legal, copyright, IP's, Patents? -

Deadlines - A set deadline has not been mentioned yet, however we aim for the completion of the game trailer before the digital showcase. The sooner we get closer to completing the trailer the more time we will have to polish and edit any hic-ups that may of occured.

Resources Available -

Further Research - Game trailer - Art styles, Characters, Environments, textures and concepts

Radioactive Zombie Penguins - In lesson I was to provide a presentation to my team to share my ideas and thoughts on what could be included and used in our game trailer. Here are some snap shots of the research I have compiled in Microsoft Word.

Reviewed roles of team R.Z.P

In todays lesson we have been informed what every member of my team is doing in terms of environments and design for our team game trailer. Joe, Corey, Harrison and myself have all given a pressentation on what we feel is the best idea and works well for our intitial plan for a game trailer. We gave a 5 minute talk presentation to the members of R.Z.P so that we can share and evaluate each others ideas. So far here are the ideas of each member of R.Z.P:

Joe - Gothic Style for interiors
- Add skulls as a texture to perhaps an entrance or on walls
- Characters are dead/green glow
- Lots of collated armour, japenese weaponary
- Exterior Japanese style
- Japanese type weapons

Harrison - More historical facts
- Art deco
- Water/Dam environments
- Modern weapons

Robin - Futuristic Waterworld
- Dark like gothiv environments, Ruins
- Various textures will be incorporated including: stone, water, cement etc.
- Greek architecture, pillars, statues
- Art Deco
- Tunnels: Tocix waste seeping throgh walls and cracks and the tunnels.
- Characters Pirates, Underwater masks, soldier styled human
- Camera angles range from above ground to below ground
- 19th Century Weaponary

Corey - Egyptian Style
- FPS camera angles
- Pyrimids and bright spaceous environments
- Evil characters, dog faced characters

Fogging Effects Experiment 3D Max

I have experimented in 3D Max with Environmental effects, and focused on Fog effects. I created two pyramids on a plane and set a camera angle up above it. By applying a fog effect, i was able to enhance the atmospheric look of the environment looks quite dramtaic with the slight fog surrounding the pyramids.

Refrenced Sources for Fantasy Environments

Fantasy Art Now
General Editor: Martin McKenna

I concentrated on a unique and different style of environment that would later on be incorporated in my game trailer production. Fantasy is the style I'll focus on using for my environments in 3D Max and when it comes to concept sketches and ideas. I put together a moodboard of images I found from a Fantasy art book that had characters, environments and textures which were I think abstract and unique. The lighting is one aspect that fascinates me in fantasy environments because the lighting exposes a high quality of detail weather it be the textures and patterns of characters or the natural surrounding of the environments. The landscapes are generally uneven and very abstract with quite an atmospheric and scenic design.

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