Final Evaluation

Overall I am pleased with what I have produced in this past 12 or so weeks.

Having not used 3ds Max prior to the module, I feel I have come quite a long way with it, not only to produce 3 models, but also a 30 second animation, which in my opinion came out rather well.  If I were to change anything, if I had the time would have been make another animation for the last shot. Originally I had planned for the TIE to fly off into the distant looping as he went.  But when using 3ds Max when I was trying to create the loop, I kept finding that the program would try to work out the TIE's orientation that led to some odd results, and when I tried to intervene and add rotational key frames, it got even stranger.  Due being pushed for time I decided to abandon this idea, as if I had eventually worked out the problem and it did not look pleasing, it would have been time wasted.

Whilst I like how the animation ended, it could have been smoother, the transition from the 1st TIE animation to the 2nd weren't quite as smooth as I'd hoped, but I feel it does close the video nicely as it's a good way to fade to black once the TIE fills the screen.

The video itself didn't take overly long to make, once I had all my shots I could edit them in After Effects and then shoot them into Premiere with no troubles at all.  What did a long time was rendering from 3ds Max, at least 2 of my renders were 6+ hours, and unfortunately due to time constraints, I had to render one shot in draft settings, hopefully nobody will notice which shot it is...! To speed up render time I did however render 1 object at a time for example, just the X-Wing, and then just the TIE.  I feel this took less time as there was less in the shot for the renderer to have to rerender, and less calculations to make at one time, as 3ds Max will use 100% of available CPU power, so the more power it has for a simpler task, the quicker it will be.

I feel the techniques I used cover a wide range of different animation techniques, although I feel had I used 3ds Max more so for animation I would have had a harder time.  With my prior knowledge of After Effects I knew exactly what to do to achieve my chosen results, to do the same, or at least similar, 3ds Max would have left me stumped.

Image and Audio References

Image References:

[Star-field-8-with-nebulae] 2011 [image online] Available at: <http://universe-beauty.com/Space-photos/Earth-from-space/Star-field-8-with-nebulae-5637p.html/(mode)/search/(keyword)/star+field+with+nebulae> [Accessed 23 November 2015]

[Hyperwall Gulf] n.d. [image online] Available at: <http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003900/a003913/smd_hyperwall_gulf_starLayer12.27000_print.jpg> [Accessed on 23 November 2015]

[Starfield Render] 2013 [image online] Available at: <https://thefulldomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/starfield-render.jpg> [Accessed 23 November 2015]

[Space Metal] 2014 [image online] Available at: <http://www.metalinjection.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/space-metal.jpg> [Accessed 30 November 2015]

Audio References:

Koenig, M. 2009. Intruder Alert Sound, [Download]. Available at: <http://soundbible.com/843-Intruder-Alert.html> [Accessed 01 December]

Jason. 2011. Fire Pager, [Download]. Available at: <http://soundbible.com/1766-Fire-Pager.html> [Accessed 01 December 2015]

Brad. 2011. Plectron Tones, [Download]. Available at: <http://soundbible.com/1946-Plectron-Tones.html> [Accessed 01 December 2015]

Burtt, B. n.d. TIE Fighters Flyby 1, Flyby 2, Flyby 3, Flyby 4, Flyby 5, Flyby 6, Flyby 7, Firing, X-Wing Flyby 1, Flyby 2, Flyby 3, [Download]. Available at: <http://www.sa-matra.net/sounds/starwars/> [Accessed 07 December 2015]

Explorer, S. 2012. Bomb Exploding Sound, [Download]. Available at: <http://soundbible.com/1986-Bomb-Exploding.html> [Accessed 07 December 2015]

Siren, B. 2013. Missile Alert Sound, [Download]. Available at: <http://soundbible.com/2056-Missile-Alert.html> [Accessed 07 December 2015]

Koenig, M. 2011. Cargo Plane Cabin, [Download]. Available at: <http://soundbible.com/1305-Cargo-Plane-Cabin-Ambiance.html> [Accessed 07 December 2015]

Vonstroke, C. n.d. Cinematic Low Rumbling bass, [Download]. Available at: <http://www.mediafire.com/listen/obs7h2kknh9486p/cinematic+low+rumbling+bass+SoundEffectsFactory.wav> [Accessed 07 December 2015]

DVD Submitted for Hand-in

To the marker: 

My DVD does not contain the individual exports for each of my shots from After Effects as they came to 3.41 GB and therefore wouldn't fit onto 1 DVD-R without compression, which we were told not to do.

Everything else is there.

Make Human

Make Human is a program to make realistic 3d human models.  Mario brought this to my attention so that I could have somebody in the cockpit flying the TIE, but the only problem was I couldn't find any clothes available.

I didn't fancy having a naked pilot so I had a look at Make Human's open source clothes gallery, except that, because I was intending on making a female pilot, all of the user made clothes were very perverted and would have made her nudity the focal point of the animation in either a perverted way or an amusing one.  Because of this I opted out of using a 3d model from Make Human, which is a shame as it would have been another layer to build upon in the animation.

Final Animation

Here is my final export of my animation:

3ds Max and Maya: What is the difference?

Before this module I had dabbled in Maya, through my own studies and 'teaching' (I used to assist on a media production course).  At a glance both programs look rather similar, but after getting used to 3ds Max, it's a bit more intuitive.

Things are easier to find on 3ds Max, where as on Maya they seem hidden behind drop down menus, and depends which tab you're on, changed the entire tool bar, that is one thing that I found quite confusing when starting out.

(Autodesk Maya 2011 n.d.)

In the green circle there are the different choices that when changed, change the icons in the red circle, so if one is new to the program and accidentally changes the drop down menu then they will be very confused as to why their tools have changed and moved.  I did this myself more than once when starting out.

The red circle contains all the tools available for the chosen workspace, found in the green circle.

The blue circle holds all of the generic tools, such as move, rotate, resize etc that the user will need. On 3ds Max these tools are where the red circle sits.  That would be one of things that when you are used to one program it may seem a little strange to move, as the programs do similar things.

(Autodesk 3ds Max 2016 Interface (My own screenshot))

The red circle holds all of the generic tools such as move, rotate, resize etc, which unlike Maya are on the top, rather than down the left-hand side.  The left hand side in 3ds Max holds all the display properties, such as not showing any objects in the hierarchy that h ave been hidden.

The blue circle holds the various editing tabs, which when cycled through affect the tools in the green circle

Maya seems to be the preferred software used in the film industry when creating locales for green screen, or adding in building collapsing; Maya has very realistic rendering capabilities, where as 3ds Max is preferred in the games industry as it allows the user to rig a model quite quickly.  As well as the games industry, 3ds Max is also used architects and engineers due to it's integration with AutoCAD

It is worth noting that when I used Maya, it was on an Apple Mac, and that is another difference.  3ds Max is only available on Windows, where as Maya is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.  So depending on your OS, you might be pigeon holed into using one program.

A lot of it will come down to preference and whichever software that one uses first.  The same can be said for Unreal and Unity, personal preference and familiarity.

Edit 16/12/15 - I feel it is worth noting that since I have made this entry, I feel that since reading about both programs they control in incredibly similar manners, Maya has the controls behind a drop down menu at the top, where as 3ds Max has them in tabs on the right.  But the essentially do the same thing.  I had not noticed that before discussing them.


References:

Difference between Maya and 3DS Max. [online] Available at: <http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/software-technology/difference-between-maya-and-3ds-max/> [Accessed 11 December 2015]

Tay. T, 2014. 3DS Max vs Maya: A Friendly Comparison. Udemy.com [blog] 8 January, Available at: <https://blog.udemy.com/3ds-max-vs-maya/> [Accessed 11 December 2015]

Autodesk, N.D. Maya 2011/features. [online] Available at: <http://area.autodesk.com/img/products/maya/nondestructive_live_retargeting.png> [Accessed 15 December 2015]

Draft Animation

Here is the first draft of my animation, I created on the 12th of December.

I am pleased with the result but since then I have spoken with one of my lecturers, and have gone through some things that could be tweaked or changed...These will follow shortly