Final Conclusion

Final Conclusion
06/12/2016
Vasil Nikolov

In Conclusion, the creation of the following 30 second animation was a great experience in which one does not hoold any regrets and knows that if he has to re-do he can use much more efficient ways to achieve some of the items that he desired (For example changing the colour of the cabin to a brighter blue in order for the viewer to see better the cockpit of the tie pilot).

But for now I can only hope you enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBmfjArPlhM

Building the sequence

Building the sequence
05/12/2016
Vasil Nikolov


Building the sequence was possibly the best part as it once again allowed me to use the software that I used back when I was a media student. The software used was called Cyberlink PowerDirector 14 and is possibly one of the best types of software to use for creating videos. With it I managed to quickly build the sequence. Add the title as prommised and even add the sound effects that I found. They are off course not mine and I did check before I added them whether they could be used.

Above you would be able to see how the editor looks. 

Animating and Rendering Scene 8, 9 and 10

A and R Scene 8/9/10
03/12/2016
Vasil Nikolov

Again this scene was now added as an aftermath filler in order for the user to make sure that the Tie Figther`s faith is sealed. As it was only half a second, the set-up for it was very quick to make as it was recycled from Scene 6. The only difference this time was swapping the Falcon and Tie fighter place and then making the blaster effect green and slightly bigger.

 From then onward the two ships were unconnected and then grouped as separate objects for Scene 9. Another path was drawn, which the Tie fighter followed gracefully. Further addition to the scene was the flame effect that was seen in scene 4 when the cruiser was set alight. The only difference was tweaking speed at which the fighter started falling so it could explode off screen without actualy needing to. This was done thanks to a close-up on the middle of the flight path and letting the audience only see the fighter beginning to fall.

The second reason to do it was in order to make the final scene as a more appropriate ending needed to be made due to the importance and "coolness" of the Falcon as a sign of rebelliousness. Thus a half-second scene was made where the Falcon was seen picking up speed before initiating a hyperspace maneuver. The greatest challenge in this section was adjusting the camera so the audience could feel like the Falcon is just a couple of meters above their head as it flies past. This was not helped by my inability to have a steady hand, however, after a while, the correct position was given and the  speed of the Falcon adjusted from the speed graph.

And with these last word ends the A and R sequence of posts. Hope you did enjoy, two more should be up soon.

Animating and Rendering Scene 6 and 7

A and R Scene 6/7
01.12.2016
Vasil Nikolov

And thus come scenes 6 and 7.
The interesting bit about scene 6 was having to insert a Tie fighter and then deleting almost all of it. As you can see, only the front frame of the fighter was kept and was attached to the camera. While some may question this idea, they must remember that horror films sometimes put a mask on top of the camera in order to give perspective of the killer. As an ex-media student, an example one could give is from the 1978 Halloween film, which put the audience in the eyes of the killer with a simple prop being used in the beginning of the film and being put on the camera.

The next scene showed the new flight path with which the Falcon saves its turkey. The reason for once again modifying the scene from the original storyboard was that making a charge fly out of the Falcon and then causing the Tie fighter to explode would take too much screening time, so it was much easier to make the Falcon do a Loop De Loop and outsmart the Fighter. Furthermore, this way, the story would be more true to the flying style of the captain of the Falcon a she would try and outsmart the enemy rather than just cheat.

 And thus come the end of this segment.

Animating and Rendering Scene 4 and 5

A and R Scene 4/5
29/11/2016
Vasil Nikolov

Scene 4 depicted the new flight path that was made for the middle cruiser. Another feature would be the burning effect, which could be found under the FX Layer. It was quite easy to implement, however, a word of warning would be that it does consume RAM. Another interesting point would be that in the official storyboard, the audience would see an explosion and then the two other ships being hit by the blast wave and moving in opposite directions. While this was very cool and not impossible in theory, Maya decided to provide me with the challenge of not wishing to shatter my cruiser. A new attempt was done by putting two cruisers and a trapezoid that was squished in the form of a cruiser and set on fire so the audience would not be able to see it un-textured and not really looking like a cruiser. However, Maya once again found the object too hard to shatter. Because it was getting late and doing the issue now, rather than near the beginning of the year, a new scene had to be improvised. Thus the idea of the middle cruiser catching fire and begging to fall (Similar to the falling stars book cover) was made, which was feasible but also led to a gap in the time as the scene now would be much shorter.

 And thus scene 5 had to be altered as well. Originally it would have been a close-up of the split nose and the falcon flying out of it, while being chased by a Tie fighter. The cruiser was cut out and two extreme close-ups were added to show how the blasts from the fighter were getting closer and closer to the Falcon. The scene was doen twice with the camera being moved on the two sides.

And thus these two scenes had arrived by an end. The moral of the story would be that it would be better to check earlier for such issues in order to prevent having to wonder how to fix the issue.

Animating and Rendering Scene 2 and 3

A and R Scene 2/3
19/12/2016
Vasil Nikolov

Scene 2 proved to be uneventful as the formula from the previous scene was the same with the slight difference of moving the planet behind the ships and the camera being moved more towards the left and more upwards in order to show the vastness of space.

Scene 3 was the more interesting as the camera was now moved as a close-up and following the rocket that hits the leading ship (The one in the center).

The graph technique had to be used in order for the rocket to look like it was traveling at a much faster pace than the ships. 

The image above shows how the camera stood before Maya decided to crash again. Furthermore, the space that was used would not be visible in the scene files as it was on the desktop of my computer and the path would lead to it (Which you would not have sadly).

As said before, these were the only sniggles during the rendering of the two scenes.

Animating and Rendering Scene 1

A and R Scene 1
25/11/2016
Vasil Nikolov

Hello one and all to the second to last milestone in the journey. So far, I have heard that the animating and rendering would be the most challenging bit as Maya is not always the best at doing some editing styles. This is why, This first post will be a longer version on one scene and the others would mainly mention the failures encountered during their creation.

 As you can see for the animation, I used a path for both the camera and ships to follow. Getting the camera to follow was probably the hardest bit as Maya sometimes did not like looking through another view except the camera itself. This made timing the ships passing by while the camera is panning towards the moon they are passing much more difficult. Another challenge that was met was getting the sphere with a space image to work. Sometimes the texture would just not wish to work in the space that was given it. Nevertheless, thanks to a colleague (That I still owe a KFC), the sphere secrets were explained to me and in the future images, you will be able to see it.

Getting the ships to run together was the most fun bit because it meant that they needed to be grouped before they could be united in one and then added to the path. If I did know that I would need to do these two steps, I would have saved me an hour in wondering why they would merge as one ship once they were attached to the map.

A big "thank you!" should once again be expressed for my colleague Kain, who helped me with the art of modifying and centering the point to the new objects. This made the manouvres of the many items much easier to complete. 

 Maya was also kind enough to crash 3 times in the span of 10 minutes. This is why some of the renders took me a much longer time to complete as the software would crash just before the updated version would have been saved.

While not scene in the images, another tool that was used was the speed graph, which allowed me to times the sequence correclty and make the ships look like they were traveling appropriately.

Nevertheless at the end, the perfect render for the scene was achieved and the scene looked marvelous.

More updates would be comming in soon and hot.