New Wheel for Car

After Glenn had created the car for the Northweald scene, we discovered whilst trying to animate it that he had added camber to the wheels on the car. This would make it extremely difficult for us to animate them without them moving un-naturally.
Instead of trying to make them work, we decided it would be much easier to create another wheels for the car, which I set about doing.
The wheel was simple to create, and was made out of a flat cylinder to start with for the face of the wheel, with the edges then extruded up, down, in and out to create the lip of the wheel and the tyre.
We felt creating the back of the wheel would not be necessary as this part would never be seen, so the back was left open.
For the material, I gave each part of the model a different material ID. I then created a multi=sub=material to use on the wheel, which a chrome effect for the lip, a shiny silver for the face, and a satin black for the tyre.
Here is the finished wheel.

Visit Essex Scene

I wanted to create an actual scene for the title of Visit Essex, as opposed to putting a title on top of our video.
I decided on a statue theme.
I wanted to create the Visit Essex title as if it were a statue, set in a field in Essex somewhere.

For this, I started by creating planes for the scene to be based around. I created one plane for the field, and one plane for the sky and background. I then slightly modified the field pl;ane so that it sloped up towards to the background scene at the rear of the scene.

Now it was time to create the statues.
I used the font tool to write our my title.
I then converted these into an Editable Poly, so that the letters could be made 3D.
I extruded the letters to a substantial depth.
I now had the title in 3D form.
From here, I used the Element tool, and selected each letter individually.
I then jumbled up the letters a small amount, so that they appear to be leaning on each other to keep themselves up.
Now that I had my statues in places, I could move onto lighting.
For lighting, I used Omni lights, as these give a nice soft light, and as I wanted this scene to be an evening time scene, the Omnis give a defocusing effect on things around them, just like real soft sunlight gives.
I added one Omni to the rear of the scene to give the whole secen a soft light.
To this Omni, i gave a glow lens effect so that you can see it once renders. These gives the illusion of the sun. I coloured it accordingly so that it looks like a setting sun.
Aswell as this omni, I added another one just infront of the title, yet not as strong as the other. This just lights up the title so that is can be viewed from the front. If this Omni were not here, the front of the title would be cast in shadow as the sun Omni is placed at the rear of the scene.

I then thought that the scene didn't seem complete, so I imported my Spitfire into the scene, which brings my total Spitfire scenes to 3.
This ties with the rest of the scenes, and gives the animation a short storyline.
The spitfire flies over the title and then off screen.

In Flight Scene

To create a flight scene to follow the takeoff one, I opted to go simple.
For the sky and background, I created a Sphere.
I made sure that the sphere was large enough to house my spitfire, and a substantial amount of space around it.
I then applied a skyline texture to this, the same skyline texture I used for the take off scene, except this time without the silhouettes of trees and buildings.
I orientated this correctly, so that the blue of the sky is at the top the scene.

For the scene to be animated, I inserted a camera. I wanted the camera to float around the plane as its flying, showing all the detail of the plane. And so I made the camera pan around the plane, moving up and down aswell, to get a full view of the plane.

Here are some images of my build up and the end result.

Airfield Scene

As Glenn was creating the Car seen for NorthWeald, I created the Plane one.

I started up a fresh MAX file and imported my spitfire into the scene.
I then set about creating the floor first.
I created one plane that would act as the airstrip itself, and another larger plane that would act as the surround grass.

I then created a Sphere for the surrounding background. The reason for choosing a sphere is so that there is no corners when it comes to renders, and no chance of gaps in the scene, which would look very unprofessional.

I managed to use the same grass material for the grass in this scene as i did for the Hadleigh scene. However, i did change the brightness and hue slightly in photoshop so that it did not look the same, and tied in better with the evening theme of the Airstrip scene.

For the airstrip, I used a default Asphalt material found in the MAX maps, however I changed it up slightly in photoshop also, and added a strip down the centre.
Once this was inserted into max, I used the UVW map tool to orientate it correctly, so that it tile down the runway.

I then placed the runway plane extremely close but still slightly above the grass plane.

To add an extra effect, I added small omnis down the entire length of the strip, giving the illusion of runway lights at an airstrip. Northweald may not have these, but I thought that it gives a better impression of an airfield than if they were not there.

Light for the entire scene is again supplied by an Omni floating high above the rest of the scene but still inside the sphere.

UVW Unwrapping

To create the most realistic Spitfire possible, I decided to use UVW Unwrapping, much like my head model, to achieve the best maeterial wrap possible.
As you can see from the images below, after first unwrapping my model, my mesh was rather a mess. However, I did try and work with this, and create a material for this mesh using photoshop. I completed the material, and brought it back into 3DSMAX. However, it did not come out aswell as I had hoped, and so I went back and changed my mesh.
It took me around 10 hours to stitch the mesh together, and ortietate it correctly, due to the small parts of the mesh that were scattered around the page.
However, once i had completed the mesh, making a material for it came alot easier.
I was now able to use images of actual spitfires as opposed to a camo material I was using previously to create my material.

Spitfire Modelling

I wanted to create my Spitfire as accurately as possible to ensure our animation didn't look gimmicky.
I decided the best way for me to create the spitfire would be to use the same method as I used for my head model.
So the first thing I did was set up some planes with images of spitfires from different views. These would act as my reference planes for my model.


Now I had something to work from.
From here, I used the next method I used with my head model.
I created polygons using the line tool over the top of my side on view of the spitfire. I then converted these into editable polys so that I could manipulate them.

After much modeling and playing with the polygons, I was left with this basic shape.


As you can see, I added exhausts onto the side of the plane.
At this stage the plane was rather crude in its shape, and a turbosmooth was added to smooth out any irregularities in the surface.
Now i could use the symmetry tool, just like my head model, and create the other half of the plane.
Once the plane body was in place. I could create the propellers.
I created an individul blade first, and then cloned this 3 times, so that I had 4 exact clones.
I then placed these at 90 degrees from each other.

I wanted the propellers to spin just like the real thing, so I used the Set key feature, and created a key frame at 0, then rotated the propellers 360 degrees and created another key frame at 5.
however when I tried this, it did not work, and the propellers spun off centre and unnaturally. I realised that the pivot point of the propellers was way off.
In order for them to work properly, i would have to group them around a tiny reference object, that would act as the pivot point.
Once i had set the pivot point as this tiny object in the middle of the propellers, i could go back and add key frame to get them to spin.
I tested this and then spun fine, but obviously stopped and started.
For all my scenes with the Spitfire, the propellers will be moving constantly, so i used the Out Of Range Types tool in the Curves editor to get my propellers to constantly spin. This tool loops the key frames I had already placed in the scenes, and loops them infinitely.

Tyre Barrier

To go with the Northweald Motorsport scene, I created a Tyre Barrier that will be placed at the side of the track.
As most people will know, tyres are used as barriers in most racing car events, as they provide protection for the car and the driver as opposed to a concrete barrier.

To create the individul tyre, I used the same method as I did for Hadleigh Castle. I create a Cylinder, and deleted the middle polygons. Instead of stitching it together, i left the inside open, as the inside would not be seen.

I then applied a tyre material to the outside. I found 3 different tyre materials in the default images on MAX.
I cloned the original tyre a number of times until I had a substantial tyre wall. I then applied each material randomly to different tyres. To make sure the material fit properly to each tyre, i used a UVW Map.

Northweald Airfield

As a group, we are very interested in transportation, especially cars.
A chance to include our personal interests came in the form of Northweald.
Northweald is host to many different airshows, and car shows, year round.
Lots of different track effects take place at the airfield, from racing, to drifting.

We have decided to recreate this prominant place in Essex in a couple of scenes.
We will recreate the corner shown below for a car scene, and the airstrip for a plane scene.