Week Eleven

Tuesday

Today it was just me Paul and Matt as Keeley was still off ill, we began animation today by each taking a character and animating them with the instruments i created to form the band. Paul created a singer, Matt created the Guitarists and i created the drummer. Today was something totally new for me as i had never created an animation using 3D Studio max before. At first it was quite tricky getting the hang of things but the more i got use to it, the easier it become.

First of all the character and Drum Kit were in two different files so i had to merge them together. i then started on arranging the scene and getting the drummer into place. I started by making the drummer look as though he was sitting on the drum stool, i did this by moving the bones in his feet up to a seated position and then scaled the stool to the right size and placed him on it.

I then had to move the drummer's hands into a clenched position so that he could hold the drumsticks i created. I did this in vertex mode, selecting certain vertex at a time and using the move and rotate tools.

After this i moved his arms and hands into position, i selected certain bones and used the move tool to bring his arms forward. His hands needed to be rotated separately after so that they were facing the correct direction.


I the attached the drumsticks to the drummer by first moving them into place and then using the link tool, i linked the drumsticks to the drummers hand bones so that the drumsticks moved with any movements of the hands.

I moved the drums into position and then arranged the drummers arms and hands into position to play. this was a little hard at first as the arms were quite hard to move into the position i wanted, however after some time trying i achieved the position i wanted. I didn't want his arms and movements to look so stiff so played about with different positions until i thought it looked right.


Once everything was in place i then began the animation, i animated each arm separately, his head and his upper body. Each arm move in an up and down motion at different timings to give the effect he is playing the drums. His head nods to the beat of the music and his upper body twists slightly to each side at different times as he plays across the different drums.






Today has been very enjoyable and i have achieved so many more 3D studio max skills, i now feel more confident with 3D Max then ever and i have definitely learnt skills for the future which i will continue to develop further. This module is proving very beneficial and i am enjoying it so much, i really feel like i am gaining and achieving something.

Over the next few days i am going to continue with the animation for our final piece of work working on other characters such as the crowds in each room.