My Thoughts?

I really don't think the end result of this module reflects my ability to use 3DSMAX.
I think that if I were to do it again, I would definately look into using a better computer to render my animations on, as the computer I am currently using is just not powerful enough, and did not allow me to have my animation in as high quality as I would have liked, and also didn't allow me to have some of the envireonment i wanted.
I'm not overly pleased with the final animation, but at least it represents the fable well in my eyes.

Finished Animation

Finally Finished the Animation, after waiting hours for renders to finish.
Here it is after I uploaded it to Youtube.

Piecing the scenes together...

I chose to use Windows Movie Maker to piece together the animation. As I am more familiar with this programme, I felt more comfortable using it, and as my animation is relatively simple and to the point, it didnt need many effects or special features.
Here is a screenshot of me using it.

The time it takes to render...

I know I should have allowed for the time it takes to render a scene, but 3 and a half hours for an 8second clip is rediculous!
I'm going to have to reduce the quality of my renders and remove items from the environement to get it to run faster.

Scenes

Just some random screenshots from different scenes.

Adding Cameras

I have decided to add a camera to just a couple of my scenes, to give variation throughout the animation. Here is an example of one of the cameras I have used.

Lighting and its concequences...

I tried to create an extremely realistic lighting technique for my scenario.
However, once I had done this, I found that for a single frame to render, it would take 3 and a half minutes. This doesn't sound too bad, but when you have around 300 frames a scene, it will take a long time to render!
I think this is due to my environment for the animation. As i have included a large number of trees, and I enabled shadows, I think it is that that takes the time to render.
Maybe I should make my animation into a night scene...

Cameras

The use of cameras definately helps out alot when you are trying to make one scene look completely different to another. In my scenes I hope to incorporate just a couple of cameras, so that the enitre animation does not look the same and become tedious.

The Scenes

Here is a list of scenes I want to include in the Animation.

• 3 Buffalo Drinking
• Lion Sneeking Up
• Lion Roar
• 1 Buffalo Runs
• Buffalo Eaten
• 2 Buffalo Drinking
• Lion Roar
• 1 Buffalo Runs
• Buffalo Eaten
• 1 Buffalo Drinking and Eaten

With this I will include a title at the beginning and a small credits at the end.

Final Characters

Here are some screen shots of the finished characters for you to see.
I will be using 1 instance of the Lion and 3 of the Bull.

Titles and Credits

For my short animation, I have considered Titles and Credits at the beginning and end.
I don't really want the titles to take away too much from the animation itself, so I have chosen to keep all titles short and sweet.

In addition to this, I have decided to overlay text for each scene, as if the characters were speaking in a silent movie!

Rendering...

Unfortunately I think I have made the mistake of trying to work from home on my home computer. And by doing this, my render's are taking forever. Its probably just the RAM in the system getting clogged up.
Luckily enough the render's are working eventually, but just taking a bit longer than usual!

The story so far...

Right now, all the characters and the environment are finished. Now to start animating. The first of the tasks is to create all the expressions for the characters, for instance, the Lions bite.
After creating the expressions, I then need to make the characters move around the scene. As I have chosen to create my characters as simple head designs, their method of movement will be bouncing.

Creating the Environment.

For the setting of my animation, I wanted a desert-like scene, with a few trees, and a watering hole.

The buffalos will be based around the watering hole in a group, with the lion sheilding himself behind the trees.

This is what I have created so far.

How I created my Characters - The Lion

Here is a quick guide to how I created my Lion in 3DSMAX.
For all of my Characters, I decided just to model the heads of the animals.
I thought that by doing this, I could concentrate more on the appearance of the face, and the expressions on the characters faces rather than try and manipulate a whole body.
In my opinion this would help me portay the fable better.

To create my Lion, I started off with a Sphere.
Using the Editable Poly mode, I created the basic features of the Lion's head, the eye sockets, the jaw line, and the ears.


The next step was to create the other rather basic features of a Lions head.
The Eyes and the Mane.
To create the mane, i used a series of spehere that I modelled and then cloned, turning and twisting each one around the Lions head. The Image below shows the Mane half complete.
I also used simple spheres for the eyes.
During this step, I made some basic colour renders that I applied, so I could see what to do next, and what I needed to alter.


Once I had finished the mane, I moved onto creating the mouth.
Here is the Lion with the mane complete and the mouth complete.


Now I moved onto to 2 other details, the nose and the pupils of the eyes.
I used spheres for all of these details, leaving the pupils as exact spheres, but modifying the nose sphere into the correct shape.


Added more mane as there wasn't enough around the front of the head.

Colours in my Animation.

The scenary my animation is set in is an African desert type scene. Long withered grass, withered tree, lots of yellows and pale greens.
For the characters, I will use dark brown for the Buffalo (Bulls) with Ivory coloured horns and for the Lion I will use a combination of yellows, golds, and brown to create a fur like effect.

Photos for Inspiration.

Having problems with images.

For some reason I can't upload images into my blog.
This is quite annoying seeing as most of my posts include images!
I'll have to talk to Richard on thursday about this and see if I can fix it.

Storyboard.

Here is a simple storyboard to show what I am aiming to portray in this animation.
At the start, 3 Buffalo will be drinking from a watering hole.
A lion will then scare one of the buffalo into running away, where he is then eaten. This will be floowed by a cut to black, and then restarted showing 2 buffalo at the watering hole. This will then repeat until there are no buffalo left.