Cameras

For the cameras I wanted to have basic camera scans of the buildings to show off their building and make people wonder about their heritage and history. The first camera scan that I decided to do was the Hylands House camera scan. From the plans I made, shown below, I can see that I wanted two scans around the building and one scan going into the doors of the House.








I did this by firstly placing a target camera onto the scene and aiming the target into the middle of the house. I then created a line in the top view in a slightly curved pattern. I then clicked on the camera and changed the movement features by applying a path constraint and adding the line as the path. By doing this, it automatically created key frames where the camera moves from one side of the line to the other.













I was very impressed by this way of creating a pathway for the camera. I decided to use the same concept with Colchester Castle except this time the camera would come down from the sky and scan across the castle. I thought this movement was very effective.














This is the view in 3Ds Max of the camera and the lines around Colchester Castle. I was also able to see what the camera would be facing by going into camera view and sliding the bar along the frames while the view showed what the camera would be facing as it moved.













The beach scene was the easiest part to do. However, because a cylinder was surrounding the scene, I had to be careful that the camera did not disappear behind the shape.















The camera in the beach scene made the ocean look very effective. The image below shows the route of the camera and where it was facing within the scene.

Essex Coastline - Sand and Wall

After I needed to add the sand to the scene which was very basic. I simply created a long plane and set it at a slight angle going down towards the ocean. I then applied a material to it which a bitmap of a sand texture which also had a slight bump map applied to it.











This is the rendered image of the beach scene with sand. I think that so far this looks very effective. However, something needs to be added behind to sand to make it look more like a beach and less like an island.















For this reason I added a wall and lifted the sky to show some bushes. The wall was given the same material and texture as Colchester castle as this looked very effective. All the planes were set to be very long in width and very short in height to give the illusion of distance of the camera.













This is a rendered image of the final scene. I am very happy with the final image as it was a very easy to make but effective scene. I had to be quick with this scene as I did not have much time before the presentation to make a detailed scene, but I will be able to make this better when I make changes.

Essex Coastline - Sky and Sun/Lighting

Next I needed to make the sky which was very easy to do as I had done this for both the other scenes. This time I placed the material onto a cylinder to make sure no corners were shown in the render as it's only a small scene.













I then had to place a light in the scene to represent the sun as well as the reflection on the water. I made an omni light for this and set it in the right place in the scene. I then set the multiplier to 0.8 and added a lens effect and set up a glow to make the effect of the sunlight. This set a really effective reflection on the ocean.













This is a rendered image of the beach scene so far. I am very impressed with the way this looks as I did not think I would be able to create this scene as quickly as I have been able to and as effectively as I have been able to.

Essex Coastline - The Ocean

After I had created two separate scenes for representing scenery in the Essex advert I knew this would not be enough to show the different kinds of scenery around. One of the specifically different types of scenery in Essex is the coastline. Most of Essex is surrounded by beautiful beaches and coastlines so I thought that it would be the perfect thing to show in an advert.



For the ocean I had a rough idea of how to make it. I knew that water can be made to look very effective because I have seen it in many other animations. So, I looked around on the Internet and found a very good and easy tutorial for making an ocean. The tutorial I used to help me with this is shown below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE44k7d_FtI&feature=related

I created the sea by firstly making a plane and applying a specific material to it. The tutorial took me through the many features which could help me make a very effective ocean. I chose a deep blue as the colour of the ocean because the water in Essex is very dark.




I then used the phase feature along with auto key to create a timeline of the phase of the material increasing which meant I was able to create a rippling water effect.

Colchester Castle - Lighting

The lighting was set up last of all for Colchester Castle and it made the castle look very realistic and effective. I set up the lighting the same way that I did for Hylands House. I firstly set up a skylight with a multiplier on 0.79 and I then Set up a target light opposite the skylight set at 0.5 with the shadow feature set on. I am very impressed with the way this made the scene look very effective and come alive. The image below shows a rendered version of the scene.

Colchester Castle - Scenery

The ground around Colchester Castle was very fun to make as I was able to experiment with the path around the castle. Firstly I made a large plane and placed the castle in the middle. I then made the plane an editable poly and made the plane look more like an uneven ground. Underneath the castle the ground dips largely so I made sure this looked effective. I then made a multi/sub-object material which was two different textures, one of grass and the other concrete. I played about with the tiling feature until they looked right. I also edited the vertexes around the castle to create a curving path and edited the polygons to show concrete instead of grass. I thought it also might look effective if I raised the path slightly.













These are the material textures that I found on the Internet for the ground around the castle.












After I applied the material I realised that the building looked very unrealistic as all the materials looked very animated. To solve this I individually changed the textures in Photoshop to look more realistic. I changed the roof to make it darker to look dirty and old. I also changed the grass to make it look darker to achieve a more rustic and realistic effect. The bricks also needed darkening to make the building look old and the tiling needed to be sorted to make the texture able to be tiled without looking odd.











After I made the material for the ground sorted I began to make the bridge which would lead people to the doors of the castle. This was very simple to make as it only consisted of a flat box set at an angle and and given the same material as the path on the ground. I then made the gates that appeared on their side of the bridge. This was simple because I was able to create one part of the gate and duplicate it across the whole length of the bridge.

I then had to focus on the trees surrounding the castle. This was easy as I have had experience with the trees during the process of Hylands House. I placed a few around the building but I made sure that there was not too many so that I did not take the focus away from the building and to make sure the rendering time would be as quick as possible.

I then made the sky which was also very easy to make as I duplicated the sky that was used around Hylands House. I wanted to keep the same sky so that the sky looked the same brightness and similar in each scene.

Colchester Castle - Roof Material

The roof consisted of many different shapes and styles. The first material I made was the glass roof inside the cylinder shape part of the building. This was very easy to do. I made the frame around the glass white and I made the clear glass grey. This was done by creating two different colours on a multi/sub-object material.













I then made a roof material by finding a roof texture on the Internet and applying it to certain parts of the roof. Once there I used the tile feature to make sure it was placed in the right place and looked right. I did this to all the parts of the roof. I also applied a bump map to make the roof look slightly bumpy.













The part of the roof that was most difficult to do was the curved part of the roof. For this I had to use the Unwrap UVW modifier which allowed me to unwrap all the material vertexes to make sure the material sat on the shape fine. The picture below shows how I unwrapped the vertexes and what the UVW map looked like once I had finished with it. This was not an easy task as I had to work out which way the vertexes needed to go and then try manipulating it to form the right shape.
















This is a rendered image of the roof after I applied the material to it and used to UVW map to make sure it fit on properly around the curved areas and borders. I am very impressed with the way this turned out because I looks like the right colour as well as style.