Adding music

I felt the animation was good but was not complete without some sort of sound.

The first thing I did was find a cannon blast sound to place in at the best moment when the cannon fires.

I found the sound on 'Soundbible.com' and provides a life-like boom of a cannon.

I also found a life-like wall crashing down for when the cannon ball smashes the castle wall. This effect helps the animation seem more realistic.

The last effect was for a background track which leads the viewer throughout the video. I needed a dramatic and enjoyable theme that relates back to Da Vinci's time.

After listening to quite a few classical music tracks, I felt that they did not quite suit the video. Then I thought of Pirates of the Caribbean theme and thought the action/adventure music would fit well.

I had to edit the track to fit the time line and put the audio in the corresponding place in the video.

I then imported this edited track and added an exponential fade to the beginning and end to match the video.

I really think it works well and provides and appropriate backdrop to the video.

Using Adobe Premiere

To make the animation into into one file I had to put it into Adobe Premiere.

I am familiar with Premiere as I used it in previous projects. Once Premiere was opened I imported each rendered scene and organised them into the correct order in the timeline.

When I played the sequence some of the timings seemed unrealistic, as if you were waiting for the animation to catch up with you.

By cutting endings of clips and shifting the timeline along, it created a must more fluid video.

I felt like the animation needed an introduction. So I created a brief title screen that fades into the animation. I contained a title 'Da Vinci Siege Machine' and included my SID.

I also added video transition effects that linked each scene to one another and also starts and finishes the video. I think this makes the animation more professional and better to watch.

Rendering

It was important to use the correct rendering settings to optimise the animation and the way it looks.

I made sure I use a mental ray renderer which creates a better look for the finished animation as I have used mental ray shadows and light.

I used the HDTV setting to export the animation. The HDTV setting is set to 1280 x 720. This will give an optimal frame rate and ratio setting that would be great for widescreen TV's otherwise the animation will look old in an 4:3 ratio.

In some scenes the green plane seem to illuminate the other shapes such as the wall. To overcome this problem I reduced the final gather from 1.0 to 0.3. This gave a much more realistic effect and didn't make the grass look radioactive!

The rendering took longer than I thought as Scene 1 took almost 3 hours. The others scenes had considerably less frames and therefore took less time.

I was glad I did not use fur or grass effect on my animation as it considerably increased the rendering time for my friends who did. I didn't think it added much to the animation either.

Once all the scenes had been rendered I had to compile them into one video.

Adding light

I found adding light the most confusing part of the animation as when I rendered the work it seemed very bright even though the viewports were very dark. I overcome this by looking at other tutorials and seeing that they used a box in rendering > exposure control > and then checking the box "Exterior light". This sorted the confusion.

By looking at other tutorials I found that using the daylight system would be the best choice for the work. Target and free lights seem to create too much of a focused light that did not seem realistic.

By creating daylight it gave models subtle shadows and highlights and made the scene seem more realistic throughout.

Even though the viewport seemed very bright, by checking the "exterior light" box the render seems realistic.

I had to make sure, like the foliage, that the light was the same in each scene otherwise continuity errors would occur.

I adjusted shadows down to 0.3 density from 1 to produce more subtlle shadows as I have placed a cloudy sky which in real life would not produce much sunlight.

I think the light produced creates a more interesting perspective for the scene although I think it does not add anything to the background hills.

Adding foliage

To add more to the background of the animation I added some foliage. I thought this would provide something else for the audience to see while the cameras turn.

I chose the scotch pine tree to be scattered over the animation as this seemed to be the most relative tree to use. The others would mostly be seen in Africa and other places that the animation would not set even though there is not a set location for the work. I attempted to place them in areas of the background which the camera will capture.

I would like to use more of the trees to make the scene more interesting but this would drastically increase the rendering time so I decided not to.

I had to make sure these trees were placed in the same place in each scene otherwise there would be continuity errors.

Making scene 3

Scene 3 consists of the castle wall being smashed down by the cannon ball.

The first task was to create the scene. I am using the wall smash scene, made by using the reactor tool, that was made earlier in this blog. I had to open the file and merge the existing scene into this one (the cannon and siege machine) and place them into the identical positions they are in the other scenes. The new hilly plane had to be positioned into the correct position as well so the walls were not floating in the air.

The next stage was to add cameras into the scene to capture the wall smashing at the best angle possible. By looking at my storyboard I could estimate where to put the cameras. I chose to use two cameras as I thought this was an important part of the animation so it should be captured in different angles.

I thought that the angles at which I caught the motion work very well in providing an interesting perspective but if I had more time I would include maybe one or two more angles to emphasise the moment of impact.

I am proud of the reactor wall as I think it looks good and is relative to the animation.

Making Scene 2 part 2

The next step was the cannonball itself. I created a sphere and added the cannons material to create the ball.

While adding it to the animation I came across a problem. When adding the ball to the scene it was constantly there. I attempted to place the ball inside the cannon to hide it before it was shot. But when the cannon moved forward it left the ball behind. To overcome this I used the set key to move the ball every few frames so it kept within the cannon until it was shot.

I wanted a life-like shot so by researching cannon movement I found out that there is recoil when a ball leaves the cannon. To animate this I made the cannon barrell bounce back and then forward again in the space of three frames. This jolting action gave a violent motion which the cannon would have given off in real life.

Using the auto key I made the ball move from the cannon mouth to the wall. I found in some research that cannon ball do rotate when fired due to friction. So I added a rotation to the ball as it is fired to the wall.

Now that the animation motions are complete the next stage is to capture them. Using a free light I managed to swipe across the scene to capture the best and most dramatic shot I could.

By moving the camera into different perspectives I could capture the motion of the cannon and the ball in an interesting way.

By looking at the storyboard I knew what to capture and how.

I placed the camera at the mouth of the cannon to capture the moment when the ball is shot out. This makes for a more dramatic camera shot.

The ball flies through the camera and is met the other side where the camera follows the ball as it travels towards the wall. This shot allows to viewer to see the rotation and movment of the ball.

From here I can add the wall smashing and futher moments in the animation.



Making scene 2 part 1

In this scene the cannon will enter the animation and fire a cannonball at the castle wall.

The first thing to do was to import-merge the cannon file with the animation. First of all I had to shrink the cannon so its size was relative to the castle and machine.

It was important to think about the animation ahead, as when I first made scene 1 the machine approaches the castle at the center of the wall but I had to realign it so it approached to the left as the middle section of the wall will be blasted down by the cannon. So then I had to align the cannon to the center of the castle wall.

The next stage was to make the cannon move at the speed and in the motion that I wanted. I spread the moving motion across 100 frames. This meant the cannon would move slower which is important as in real life it was a heavy piece of machinery.

I was then able to animate the the aiming of the cannon. I did this by just rotating the barrell and using the autokey. Again, I made this a slow motion because the weight of the cannon would be so great.

Changing the scenes environment

To create a better effect for the abckground I chose to change the tubed sky and use the environment option in the rendering drop down menu.

I had the choice of using a normal mental ray sky but this did not give the effect I wanted the animation to have. To improve this I used an image of a cloudy sky.

This image is then dropped into the background and will not be black when it is being rendered.

Making scene 1 Part 3

To complete the scene I will use cameras to create a more interesting perspective of the animation.

By refering to my storyboard I knew what the camera was supposed to show and how it should move.

I used the camera to focus on the machine as it moved towards the castle. As it bends round it ends at the entrance of the bridge tunnel. Using the set keys I could precisely program how and when the camera rotates.

This gives a more interesting movement for the animation. I thought the camera through the tunnel gives a more obscure and exciting view. It also allows the audience to see from the perspective the soldiers that would use it.

After checking how the camera sees the scene and checking for any problems I can render.

Making scene 1 Part 2

Now the scene was moving the way I wanted it to I could change the background to make it more interesting.

I converted the plane (floor) to an editable poly. From here I could select the vertices and move them up and down to create a hillside. By changing the falloff it could create a more subtle hill. After this I used turbo smooth to make it more life-like.

The next step was to add a sky to the scene so it made it look more interesting. After looking at a couple online tutorials I decided to create a tube to surround the scene and add a sky texture to it. This will give the effect of a surrounding sky without seeing any edges.

Within the scene ready I can now add light.

To do this I added a target light and used shadows to make the scene more appealing. I played around with different light angles and tried to find which was best.



 The scene still seemed really bright so I changed the intensity down from 1 to 0.5.

Creating the first scene Part 1

After creating a storyboard to plan the animation I was ready to start animating.

The first scene sees the siege machine approach the castle creating the entrance of the story. I used the auto key to make the machine move from one side to the castle wall.

I attempted use the wheel reactor tool to create the rotation of the wheels but this proved quite complex so I used the normal auto key method to rotate the wheels.

By using the curve editor I was able to make the motion of the machine seem more life-like. I was able to add a slow tangent to the beginning and end of the motion to give the effect of the it slowing down and starting up.

I made sure the bridge of the machine was able to rest on the castle wall otherwise the machine would be useless!

Now the motion was complete I could make the animation more interesting.