Animated scene analysis

Animated scene analysis – Jonathan Scott

My scene consists of three separately animated areas all joined together to give the impression of a process taken to launch a rocket. The first aspect of animation consists of the windmill turning to power the cart which then hits a launch button at the end of its tracks. Whilst this scene isn't of the highest quality that I would like it it hits the criteria laid out on the specifications as it has more animated models than requested, has UV mapping on most created models, the scene has created terrain with texturing and there is also an animated body of water.

The scenery and terrain was also coloured to be an earthy brown and green mixture focusing the green areas to the base and the earthy brown colouring to the mounds that are surrounding the scene, this keeps in with the theme of it being a set scene and I have gone for a smaller sized scene area to show that of what a launching site for a rocket might be.

The windmill is basic in design but functions exactly as I wanted it to and has been created with a mixture of polygons, the edging tool and UV wrapping. The animation process behind it has the turbine blades rotating at the same time as they are two separate entities and they keep an equal distance from each other throughout as well as keeping a steady pace of rotation.

The water created as a part of the scenery also had lily pads created and inserted into it which have been animated to bob slightly with the waves, this wasn't a lengthy process to complete but does add more detail to the scenery as a whole.

The cart was a good example of the animation process taught to us as it had a gradual increase of speed and distance and bounces off of the launch button at the end, It could however have done with a bit more detail added into the cart itself but I liked the addition of the sparks coming out of the wire as the cart started to give the appearance of an electrical current. The contact point for the cart and launch button were created with basic polygon tools and with added colour, given more time there should be more detail added into these and possible UV mapped detail in to show and actual buttons with wiring.

The rocket itself begins the scene sitting on a launch pad which is UV wrapped to give a metallic sheet metal texturing around the base this adds a little more realism as it is a very popular building material for structures such as this. The rocket itself is a traditional base rocket shape with a singular thruster at the bottom and two additional either side of it.

The animation process behind the rocket has been created to try to emulate that of an actual rockets take off procedure which there was plenty of video options available for researching into. This research showed me that I needed to begin the rocket with a slow steady take off with a fairly slow concussion push off in which the thrusters then begin to kick in so the rocket picks up more and more speed to the point it sticks to a steady pace and heads off towards the atmosphere as any rocket would. The camera angles follow this route to reflect this.

The camera work to follow these animations will begin on the windmill which will be spinning in order to “power” the cart the camera then catches the cart and follows it's progress to the launch button at which point shortly after hit will launch the rocket and follow the rocket on its trajectory.

Overall the project has some very strong points and points which could be improved upon, the stronger points tend to be the extra bits of detail put into areas such as the colouring on the scenery, the ponds added features of lily pads, the time taken to research into the take off procedure of a rocket and the particle effects to add  the flames to the thrusters of the ship. The areas which could be improved upon are the core models themselves with either more time put into the modelling process or creation of better UV mapping textures for said models. The animation aspects of the project were completed to the extent that they continued on as they should do in theory as their real world counterparts would or they stop with a gradual decline in speed rather than an unrealistic instant halt which would break immersion from the scene, this I feel gives the animation aspects more credibility as they have been researched into and act how they would in a real world scenario such as the rockets take off which was previously mentioned.

Given more time this project could do with some more detail added into it such as further animations to add smoke to the thrusters of the rocket after the flames or maybe even a bit of stuttering on the rocket which may affect trajectory of its planned course just to add further detail into the animation process.

As for the design aspects of the animation I feel for a beginner level of entry with very little prior knowledge of the software and the animation properties available on said software this was a very solid attempt and the software does have more options available to aid in improving the quality of design such as further experimenting with the slicing option of the UV tool and additional ways in which to design core aspects of the models and altering them, the most useful of these tools so far has been the facing tool and the image plane tools which allow for creation of a design and alteration of aspects to the models to match a background template which with more time to play around with and test out could yield a higher quality and level of detail in models and animation.

PDF download: