Original Chart
Final Chart
The first part of this project was to generate ideas. In order to do this, I created some slides in power point to aid me in conveying my ideas. This made it easier to choose an idea, rather than just attempting to pull an idea at random from whatever I had on my mind at the time.
This was my favorite idea as it's something I've wanted to produce since last year. Essentially I would create a modified robot from my robotic model from the previous year, then I would have it compete against a second robot in what would be a futuristic combat race. I then made the choice to make the E6 logo the star of the show in the most effective way possible, I decided to create a track out of the logo.
24.11.2013
After deciding that I would produce my grav track idea, I needed to create designs for the robots and a story board.
Ultimately I just re-designed my robot which I modeled last year, I also decided that instead of creating two separate robots, I would simply re-skin the secondary bot. I decided to do this as not only did it work from a practical stand point in terms of time, but it also worked as an identifying factor. Just like Rally car defines Nas car, this combat bot would define Combat racing.
Whilst keeping in mind the shape of the E6 logo, I drew out my story board. My ultimate issue is that there wasn't really anything connecting the 6 to the e within the logo. As can be seen in frame 6, I overcame this by adding a ramp. The bots will jump this to get from the e to the 6. At the very end of the animation, the camera will zoom outwards to reveal that the track which these two bots were racing on the whole time is in fact the E6 logo.
28.11.2013
Now that I have my design down, I began creating my 3D track within the Lightwave modeling software. To start we were provided with a 3D model of the logo from a previous project, I began by using this as a base. I then started to bevel the shape of my track into the logo, as well as adding alternative features, such as lamp posts on the rims of the track. After the model was complete, I began adding Surfaces ready for adding colour and texture within Layout. The track was finished by 05.12.2013.
09.12.2013
With the track complete, all that was left to do was the robot racer and the animation its self. I began by recycling the parts I would need from my previous model in order to create the new one.
Also I decided it was time to add timing and number of frames per sequence within the story board, it was also important to add descriptions of what's happening within each scene with as much detail as possible. This helps in making it clear as to what's going on and how I may achieve that result. This will ultimately give me an idea of where each sequence should begin and end.
17.12.13
I completed my Robo Racer model. It took more work than I had previously imagined and I ran into a few more issues than expected. However through these issues I was able to learn a few more skills.
I've become more adept when handling points, previously this was a bit of an issue, especially when it came to shaping the head, as a result my first model from the previous year was effectively created via tracing around one of my drawings using points, then creating and extruding polygons.
This time however, I created my bot with nothing but visual aid from my designs.
I was able to create the head initially from a ball shape, I then rearranged various points and welded them where necessary in order to gain the desired shape. There was one issue which my tutor helped me with when it came to adding the bots face, the points positioned didn't allow a smooth surface, while that in its self wasn't the issue, by creating that polygon from all the surrounding points, it caused a problem that when rendered appeared odd or buggy. This could have been fixed by tripling the polygons. \Whilst that fixed the issue at hand, it resulted in a bit of a wild pattern across the face, instead I created polygons in segments rather than one as a whole.
19.12.13
With all my assets created I was now ready to create my animation. At first I was going to rig my bot with a skeleton, however my tutor advised me that this was unnecessary, as I was using a robot which made movements solely using hinges or ball points, it would be easier and make more sense to simply place my pivots at the various joins. (Shoulder, Neck, Elbow, etc...) The skeleton is more effective for more organic characters which possess mass and muscle, whereas in this situation, pivots were just easier, quicker and produced a more desirable effect.
Now that this was all done, I knew that I wanted to use the same model for both robots. I simply planned to re-skin the second bot with different colours and textures, however after experiences last year I already realised the implications in doing this. If I simply copied and pasted the same model within the Layout software, regardless of the fact that I may re-skin Bot 2 alone, Bot 1 would also be re-skinned. This is because they shared the same surfaces. However I overcame this simply by duplicating the completed bots file and renaming it. It wasn't practical to re-name every single surface and I was glad to find that this worked.
The last issue I faced was the size of my track VS the size of my bot. At the time, my bot was just a tiny bit too big to be racing on the track. The simple solution here would be to simply resize the bot, however in order to do this, my bot would have to occupy a single layer, this was a problem as each part of the bot had to be on a separate layer in order for each part to move independently with the use of the pivots. I didn't want to have to re-do all this again after getting so far, so I just re-sized the track instead.
08.01.14
I've managed to get my first racer around the track with basic animation, i.e body turning in correct direction when making corners. I noticed it was a little more difficult to get my racer around the track at a steady pace. There were points where my robot seems to slow down at certain points on the track. This is down to the distance travelled between frames being less than or more than the last. The issue is, due to the size of the track, I need my racers at certain places at certain times, so it's not so easy to simply speed them up or slow them down.
I've decided that the solution is to simply use camera angles to my advantage and attempt to position them in a way which either hides or gives the illusion of speed.
15.01.14
I now have both my racers going around the track with basic animation. I decided that I would flesh out the animations further once my camera angles are set up. This will give me a better idea of what exactly the viewer will see. Even though I'm thoroughly enjoying animating in this project, I don't see the purpose in animating something that won't be seen, I'd much rather put that time into the parts that will be.
I have noticed a problem which has occurred twice now. The arms of my racers have gone out of sync with the rest of their bodies. They do exactly what they are meant to, however they trail behind the racers rather than being attached to the bodies. I fixed this by simply going back to a previous save, however I do think it is down to a glitch rather than a mistake, as even if I messed up one key frame, it doesn't explain how every other keyframe in the project connected to the arms got affected as well.
22.01.14
I have my camera angles in place and have polished up my racers animations. They now react more realistically to their environment and situations. etc: They will lean forward when speeding up as well as adjust their arms and bodies to give the impression that they are shifting their weight for balance.
With these things in place, I've decided to start experimenting with textures. Initially I was going to use cel-shaded textures, however after further experimenting, I decided to go with a more realistic look with actual metallic textures for my racers. I am now trying to figure out how to create an explosion for a scene in my race as well as a way to have my lighting originate from the lamp posts which I modeled into the track.
28.01.14
After discussing ideas with my tutor and a few friends, I found a way to create my blast and explosion scene. I simply created a cylinder for the initial shot and then a ball for the explosion. By placing these new objects somewhere hidden within my scene, I was able to make them instantly appear where I needed them at the specified keyframe.
In order to make these appear as explosions, I used a light texture, I also set the ball to be larger at a later keyframe to give the impression of an expanding explosion.
My only other issue was making the lamp posts appear as if they were lighting the scene. I knew how to do this via using spot lights, however this was making an already long render time unreasonable. I made the decision to abandon this idea and at my tutors suggestion, heightened the illumination of the glass texture used on my lamp posts as a compromise.
03.02.14
Once all my animations, textures and lighting were done, all that was left to do was render the scenes out and edit them within video editing software. I had to render each of my cameras out separately, this initially posed an issue for me as I couldn't view all my scenes in a sequence until they were all rendered out. In order to do this, I had to set a key frame range while having the correct camera selected.
I did have an issue after rendering two of my scenes, I realised that even though the render settings were set to 1080x720, the frames rendered still came out at 720x480. My tutor pointed out that this was down to the cameras themselves being set at the incorrect resolution, thus I had to re-render two of my scenes again after fixing the issue.
With all my scenes rendered, I imported them into Adobe Premiere. I used a provided sound track and edited my scenes appropriately. (Cutting parts out, speeding scenes up, altering colours, etc...)
Once again after initially rendering out my video, it was set at 720x480. This was down to the video codec. I fixed this by turning this off and using my own custom settings. I re-rendered the video with the resolution set to 1080x720.
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