Week 12 - Into the Final Stretch

It is now time to put the finishing touches on my animation. First, I re-did Scene 4 to take into account the TIE fighters' positions at the end of Scene 3; as the TIE Defender ended up alongside the Y-Wing, I also edited the scene to make the Defender repeatedly swipe sideways at the Y-Wing as though trying to ram it, adding to the drama of the scene. My storyboard was also updated to take the changes to the scene into account.

Fig.1: A still from the updated Scene 4; though it is hard to tell from just a screenshot, the Defender is currently swiping sideways at the Y-Wing.

Next, I will create Scene 6. Like Scene 3, this is a six-second static shot, and one of the most pivotal scenes in the animation. It depicts the Y-Wing approaching the rock formation and swerving to avoid it at the last minute, while the TIE fighters both slam into it. I am unsure of what exactly will happen once they collide with the rock; an explosion effect would be desirable but I am unsure of how to create this within Maya, so it is possible that the ships will merely bounce off.

One problem I found while setting up the scene was that the lighting angle I had used for the rest of the animation caused the rock face to be almost completely in shadow, meaning it would be hard for me - and the audience - to tell where it was. I rotated the angle of the lighting by 60 degrees and the rock face is not properly illuminated; of course, this will require the audience to suspend their disbelief.

Fig,2: A close-up of Scene 6; compare it to stills from Scene 5 and you will see how the rock face is better illuminated.

As with Scene 3, setting up the animation itself is tricky and may require some trial-and-error. I will use a curve to animate the Y-Wing's movement, using the orthographic views to help draw it. I do not want the animation to last for the duration of the scene - once the Y-Wing disappears from view there is no point in animating it any further - but attaching an object to the motion path automatically sets the movement to last for the duration of the scene with no way to change it. To counter this, I temporarily set the scene duration to the number of frames I wanted the animation to last for - in this case, 100 - then changed it back to the actual duration of the scene (180 frames) once the motion path had been created.

Fig.3: The Y-Wing's motion path. One can see that it ends at frame 100. The other ships have not been properly positioned yet.

The other two ships have much simpler movement, and so do not require motion paths. The Defender slams head-on into the rock face, whereas the Phantom turns to try and avoid it but clips an outcrop and spins away. I thought about how to implement an explosion effect when the Defender hits the rock face; it was suggested that I do it in After Effects, so tomorrow I will attempt that during the lab sessions. For now, I will simply animate the ship up until the point where it hits the rock face.

Fig.4: A still from Scene 6: the Phantom (highlighted) has clipped the rock face and is spinning out of shot, while the Defender is tucked into a nook having slammed into the rock

As Scene 6 ended up taking up less time than I originally planned, I have shortened it from 6 seconds down to 4 seconds by cropping out the first 15 and last 45 frames, during which there was no on-screen action. To compensate for this, Scene 7 will crossfade into a credits screen. My storyboard will be edited to take these and other changes into account (the final storyboard will be linked to within my final blog post).

Now I have only Scene 7 left to create. Like the first two scenes, this is a very simple scene that depicts the Y-Wing, having escaped its pursuers, flying off into the distance; this will then crossfade into a credits screen.

Fig.5: A still from Scene 7.

All seven of my scenes have now been finished and rendered. All that remains is to add the finishing touches, then string them together in Windows Movie Maker and publish the finished animation.