Reactor Testing

I have now learnt how to use the 'reactor' tool (after many frustrating hours!) following a tutorial - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbVIu61fQcA, (link found through Abby's blog). The reactor tool basically allows you to have objects fall randomly when hit by another object. So I thought this would be extremely useful for my scene, instead of animating each block on its own which would be very time consuming.

I ran into many problems and difficulties whilst trying to animate the train to bash into the building blocks. Problems that occured were:

- I had to link all the parts on the train and the building blocks (letters linked to block) together instead of having them grouped because reactor didn't work otherwise.

- For some reason, even though the blocks aren't touching, they seem to still be falling through each other, and the 'L' block even falls through the floor. I have checked the properties properly for the floor and the blocks making sure they have the correct boxes ticked etc, yet they still seem to be doing this. As I can't seem to fix this I have left it like that for the final animation, (some people who viewed the clip didn't even notice the blocks falling through the floor so that's a good sign at least!). To make it less obvious however, I plan to 'disguise' the error by making the camera angle view it in a way where it is not as visible.

- At one stage, the train wasn't even visible when previewing the animation and the blocks still fell (I then realised it was because I hadn't added all the relevant parts of the train into the 'RB Collection Properties') so that fixed that problem.

Below is a video of the reactor tool being tested out.

(Note: I mentioned previously how I was planning to animate the wheels on the train moving/rotating, however I have now decided not to animate the wheels as I figured this wouldn't be noticeable at all, unless the camera view was zoomed in really close, but this will not be the case).

First Animation Test

Here I have animated (roughly) the train moving along with lighting being shon out of the front of the train. The movement of the train was done by using path constraints and the line tool (creating a curvy line to where I want it to follow and end up). The light was achieved by adding in a 'target spot' light into where the yellow part is, and then targetted the light to shine on the floor by rotating it till it looked right. I had also added in 2 omni lights in the room to enable the room to have a better atmosphere, and so that the light from the train can be seen. The opacity on the yellow part of the train had also been altered so that it appeared slightly see-through and glass/plastic like.

Once this was done I had grouped everything together (the shapes to make the train) including the target light, so that when the train moved, the light went with it.

Please excuse the dodgyness of the train moving (it looks like it's sliding at one point!) but this was just for testing. When it comes to the final thing, I hope to animate the wheels rotating as well as having the train moving in the right angle, and then knocking the building blocks over with the reactor tool.

New Models

I have been creating more objects as I have found my room seems to be too bare and empty, but I figured this was also because the objects made are for children and so they are tiny compared to the other rooms where they include huge objects! However I feel that once the models of the children have been created and put into the scene with animation, the room will come to life!

New models made include:

-Table

This was basically done using boxes and chamferboxes. To get the triangular shaped part on the table, this was simply a box which were altered by dragging the vertices at the top of the box 'inwards'.

-Books
I have also learnt a new skill, using the 'Multi/Sub-Object' tool found in the Material Editor. This basically allows you to apply more than 1 material or colour to an object. For example, I have used this for the books on the shelf, and has proved very useful. It's a very simple tool to learn, but very handy at the same time!

The books were simply 2 boxes with a 'boolean' tool used; this enabled me to create a look of pages within the book. Then the appropriate images were applied in the Material Editor.

-Plastic Chair
This was made out of one box and then modified by extruding certain polygons to get the legs and the back of the chair etc. The bevel, chamfer, inset and bridge tools were also used when creating the chair. I did find the bridge tool to be quite useful as it allows you to join up polygons together easily (this was used to join the back of the chair together).
The tutorial for this model can be found here: http://www.tutorialized.com/view/tutorial/Modeling-a-plastic-chair/27080.

-Lego Bricks

Made out of a box, basically used extrude tool to drag out the 'circle' parts with 2 modifiers applied (shell and meshsmooth) to complete the finishing touches.

Characters - Silhouettes

Richard has managed to make the body for the silhouette and has also included my head that I modelled from the first half of the module. However, there has been a few problems with this body when trying to animate for some reason; some parts didn't work properly as they didn't move the way people wanted (Maria and Luke), so Rich and Luke had to make a new one which allowed the biped to fit. Luke also had trouble with having the biped being shown when rendered even though it fitted, but this problem has now been solved.

I have also tried to use the person that has been made by Luke for my scene. However as my scene will have children, I had to scale the person so that it was smaller, but yet again, there was another problem! The biped could not be scaled with the model, so I will be creating my own person instead.

Below are images of both Rich's and Luke's models:

Room Appearance - so far...

The modelled room so far:

I had been experimenting on the wall colour/wallpaper theme so that it will be appropriate and appealing to babies/toddlers. In the end I decided a rainbow coloured wallpaper with bubbles could be seen as friendly and playful. The wallpaper was made myself using Photoshop. I may also add some fish images in there also just to add to the 'fun factor'!

More objects

-Toy Train
As you can see from the image, the toy train was made all from boxes, cylinders and spheres. Most of the objects were given a 'meshsmooth' modifier added to it so that they had a more rounder appearance. I am planning to animate this toy train moving across the room when the Intro scene transitions into my nursery room. Then the camera will gradually move around the room zooming closer to the kids playing with toys etc.
The toy train will also have a light flashing out from the front to add to the atmosphere.

-Hoop Game
This was very simple to make, just 3 simple shapes (chamferbox, capsule, sphere and a torus). Then the text tool was used and extruded to be placed onto the chamferboxes.

Modelled Objects

Below demonstrates how I made each model, some were complex whereas others were very simple to make.

-Pin

Very simple, just a cylinder shape with the middle part pulled in to create the shape for the ends. The soft selection tool was used to create a smoother finish. The same process was followed for the actual pin bit. This could have been better as you can see the edges aren't very curved, this was because I had forgotten to set the sides to a higher amount, however this isn't too much of a problem since it won't be seen close up in the animation.

-Pinboard & Letter
Just 2 boxes squashed so that it was quite flat, one on top of the other. Then a suitable material was found on the internet and applied onto the middle box to create the correct texture. Even though this was very simple, I felt this looked very effective. The paper was simply a box with a material applied on top. (The material was a picture of a lined paper, which was then edited in Photoshop with the text included on).

The pinboard was created as I thought it would be good to show certain notices of events etc that took place within the Nursery or the organisation itself as a whole.

-Building Blocks

Again just boxes with the text tool and extrude modifier used.

-Piggy Bank

This was one of the more time consuming models to make. It was created from following a tutorial found online - http://www.oktutorials.com/3d-studio-max-tutorials/modeling/smooth-piggy-bank.

To start off, a box was used with certain parameters chosen, and then converted into an editable poly with 4 of the front polygons being selected. This part was purely to create the pig's head, and was achieved by beveling those selections several times, adjusting the 'outline amount' each time. The same was also done to the back of the box. Once this was done, I had to go into vertex mode and resize the shape to gain a smoother round appearance for the body by selecting the correct vertices on the diagonals.

For the legs, certain polygons were selected and the 'inset' button was used and then extruded. The bottom of the vertices (legs) were then and resized. The ears was also the same process as this except the bevel tool was also used.

Finally, before I used the meshsmooth modifier to make everything a lot smoother and round, the bottom of the legs (edges) were edited using the 'chamfer' button, this would make them go 'inwards'.

The hole for inserting money was created using the boolean method with a box.

The outcome of this model I think looks great and will be suitable to use in my scene, reasons are as described in my previous post.

Nursery Mood Board

I have gathered around some pictures which I think represents a Nursery room well. This will give me ideas on how I should plan where everything will be, such as where furniture can go, as well as what atmosphere should be created with the use of different lighting effects and bright, fun colours that are suitable for children etc.

From this mood board I have come up with many ideas for models/objects which can be placed in the room.

Updated Storyboard - It REALLY IS the FINAL one now!!

Here is the FINAL (It really is) storyboard!!

YMCA Update

After discussing what each of us had to do, we started to get to work on modelling. Following the final storyboard shown previously, we decided it was best to change a few parts of it as some parts were just too time consuming and not do-able. These new changes will be shown later on.

For the moment, I have begun modelling some objects for my nursery room. All simple objects (toys) such as building blocks, trains and a piggy bank (this piggy bank will be used as a donation 'drop off' box).

My Aims:

- I aim to learn new skills in 3DS Max, which includes using the 'reactor tool'. This will be for the building blocks for when the baby knocks them over. The letters YMCA have been coloured black with white letters so that they can be distinguished easier.

- Learn how to use the Biped

- Improve on my animating skills overall

- Develop modelling skills.