Week 11 - Problems and the Next Scenes

As described in my previous post, I have run into problems regarding the animation in Scene 3; namely, I cannot figure out how to get the ship to execute a banked turn. I have decided to leave Scene 3 for the time being and consult my tutor on how to do the scene during tomorrow's practical.

Furthermore, I then attempted to render Scene 1, partially to try and figure out the ideal rendering settings, partially to get it out of the way so I am not panicking about rendering times towards the end of the project. The scene rendered relatively quickly on my laptop, however the shadows are noticeably poor, even in "Production quality", Maya's highest quality settings (see Fig.1). Again, I will consult my tutor as to why this is the case - perhaps there is a setting I can change to fix the shadows - and if needs be, I will simply render the scenes using the university computers.

Fig.1: A still taken from my computer's rendering of Scene 1, as viewed in Windows Media Player, showing the terrible shadow quality

Due to these difficulties, I have decided to move on for the time being and do the next scenes. Scene 4 is another aerial shot similar to Scene 1, but zoomed out and from a different angle; it is thus much easier to animate. Like Scene 1, the skydome is not visible and is thus not needed.

Fig.2: The first frame of Scene 4, as it looks in Maya

The next scene, Scene 5, is an on-board shot from the Y-Wing as it approaches a large rock formation. To achieve this "on-board" look, I used the Align tool to move the camera so it was in line with the Y-Wing's nose cone, before having to move it forwards so it actually poked out of the front of the ship.

Fig.3: A close-up of Scene 5 after the camera has been aligned with the nose cone...

Fig.4: ...and what the camera initially saw once it had been aligned, until I moved it forwards

Due to the set-up of the scene, the TIE Fighters will not be visible and are thus not needed; however, I will need to model the rock formation itself. Since it will also be visible in Scene 6, it would be better to create it in a separate scene and import it into both. The rock formation will be made simply from a cuboid that I will sub-divide into several sections before manipulating and smoothing its edges and vertices to produce a craggy look.

Fig.5: The giant rock as it looks in its own Maya scene

Fig.6: The scene as it looks with the untextured rock added. Note that its scale may be changed in the final scene.

I used the same texture for the rock as I did for the ground, and the same shader type as well (Lambert), but I used a different material with lower tessellation (as it is much smaller than the ground). As with the TIE Fighters, the lighting angle means that the front of the rock is in shadow, giving it a menacing effect.

Fig.7: A close-up of the rock within the scene, showing the texturing and the shadow on the front face (note its proximity to the edge of the skydome)

With this in place, all that is left to do is to animate the ground and the rock, to make it seem as though the ship is rapidly approaching it. This is easily done, and so will not be documented. Hopefully, i will soon be able to go back and complete Scene 3.