https://www.twine.fm/clancypat

3D digital modelling using 3ds max.

 

 

Having done a little digital modelling in the animatic for the FYP, I've decided to do a bit more. I would like to try a digital version of one of the scenes from the FYP - something without too much movement - but obviously requiring a character, with rigging, and props/environment. I.ve done a bit of set building and lighting for the animatic so I'm going to start with prop making. Modelling in general (of props/ objects) will be a case of combining and manipulating primitive shapes to match reference drawings. With lots of online tutorials available, I decided to start with modelling a car. Not for my animated scene, but more to get used to the software.This could then be animated to drive around a track, or something like that.

 

I figured that a VW Beetle might be easy enough to do, as it seems to be a collection of spherical shapes. It turns out that it's not that simple. First of all I sourced some reference drawings of the car - front, back side and top views. These came as a single file and then had to be separated into four individual images - of the same scale - as they would be set up onto four separate planes in the view port. This was done in Photoshop where the images could be scaled to match each other using the grid. Each image is then applied as a bitmap material to each plane. Naturally you would assume that they should be saved as bitmap images in Photoshop? No, nothing is that simple or straightforward in the workings of computers. So having failed to import the images as bitmaps I had to go back into Photoshop and save them as jpegs, which is the correct format to import as a bitmap image.

My initial plan to connect a series of stretched and squashed sphere primitives didn't work out as the beetle has flat sides and a flat windscreen. Though that did work to a certain degree (i.e. from a distance) for the wings. So I had to follow a tutorial that moulds the basic shape from a box - rectangle - primitive, which was divided into lots of segments, and then shaped into the images profile by moving rows of vertices. I placed each reference image on it's own layer so that it could be switched on or off depending on whether or not it was obscuring my view as I worked. I took a few screen shots as I went along which I've uploaded here.



In the first image the side profile has been shaped. I must have made a mistake during this though because the cars bonnet (or boot lid in the beetles case) had disappeared. I know it looks as though the drivers side of the car is missing in the image above but it's just the way it rendered - probably something to do with normals. This is when I leant to use the 'bridge' (polygon) tool. After filling the gap I then had to cut my new polygons into sections to match the front to back edge-flow of the existing top view polygons. The front and back reference images were turned off while I shaped the side and top profiles.

 

With the 'bonnet' gap filled in I then switched to the top view port to shape the sides, I said earlier that they were flat - which they are (sort of) - but they do taper towards the centre at each end. 

 

 

A perspective view shows the sides and top/ floor are roughly shaped at this point. I also removed the floor (which I wasn't going to need) as I kept accidentally selecting vertices on it - which in turn distorted the side I was working on.

 

I didn't get any screen shots of the wings being constructed but I only made rough versions by Squashing and stretching a doughnut primitive. I then deleted some of the inner rings of polygons. The remaining shape had the bottom half removed, and one side edge stretched away from the centre. I started with one front wheel wing and copied this for the back wheel. These were then mirrored for the opposite side. The wheels were also just a rough draft - a doughnut primitive shape - coloured black, and a cylinder with a few bevels and extrudes applied. Again this was copied and mirrored. I added a turbo smooth modifier (temporarily) to the body just to see how it would look when added later. The overall shape is looking fairly good though. I think I would get away with this if it was moving in an environment. Obviously the windows, doors, lights and bumpers will be added first.

 

The side windows proved to be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. I had planned to manipulate two box primitives - with lots of segments - into the same side profiles as the side widows, and then cut out the shapes using Booleans. I mustn't have used enough segments because after spending far too long trying to replicate these (window) shapes it just wasn't working out. In the end I had to do what I should have done at the start, which was to draw the window profiles using splines. the splines were then extruded to cut out the window shapes in the body - using Booleans.

 

After cutting out the side windows I applied the turbo smooth modifier again to see how it looked. What I hadn't noticed was that when I cut the window shapes in the main body I had distorted the edge flows along those planes (each side) from front to back and between each side. You might just be able to notice the distortion's towards the front of the roof. There are a few others that are not as obvious in this image.When I removed the turbo smooth modifier almost all of my previous edge flows were gone. Considering how long it had taken to replace the edge flows on the bonnet earlier I don't know if I will continue with this model. I realise now that I should have added some edges outside the window hole cuts - before I cut them - which would have preserved the previous edge flow lines. Even more importantly I should be saving incrementally rather than just saving regularly. For some reason I couldn't undo back far enough to regain my original lines so they are gone for good. Now I have to figure out a way of fixing the distortions or it looks like I'll have to start again from scratch. Hopefully by the time I post again I'll have fixed this and added some more parts.

 

So my FYP got finished for the grad show opening, but there were a few glitches that I hadn't noticed when I did the final render. I did get them sorted out the night before but had to render them on the laptop - which resulted in a poorer quality resolution. There were also still some issues with the sound and the end titles which meant reworking the whole thing the following Monday in GQ, on the mac.

 

 

There were e few things I didn't get around to doing, but I think it turned out fairly o.k. My intention to create a sense of atmosphere - or maybe drama - using the lighting and camerawork, turned out pretty much as I had planned. I will go into more detail in my next post - regarding the good and bad points of this project - as there may be some useful things to consider for anyone who is thinking of following the same route.

 

 

 

I was trying to light this scene with an orange glow from where the fire will be positioned. For some reason the gel filter clashes with the fluorescent causing a purplish reflection on the seats.

 

 

Where the character has to walk I cheated a bit by suspending them from a support (covered in green paper).

 

Somw wide-angle views of my workspace.

 

I had to plan ahead with the lighting of the characters so it will coincide with the digital lighting for that scene

 

Sometimes the shadows caused problems when keying out the green.

 

 I did have some problems with the cameras battery. There was no spare or no mains lead and I had to have the live view turned on while shooting, which meant that the battery failed fairly often. In the image above you can see where I had to support the character with string as she had been left so long in a leaning forward position that gravity had caused a permanent over-lean,- not in the same position as when the battery died. Luckily the software has an onion skinning feature - allowing a semi transparent view of the previous frame - which allowed me to reposition her correctly and continue shooting in sequence.

 

The string can be seen clearly from an angle but it was a face-on shot so I got away with ti.

 

One of my shots involves a rotating camera move. The camera should revolve around four characters who are standing around a table. A big thanks to fellow student Jack Brown who built this device for another project and allowed me to us it for this shot. I positioned each character as they would appear in the scene - at north, south, east and west outer points on the lower (big) disc. Turning the cog on the right then rotates the disc at a consistent speed, which meant I could shoot the scene in live-action mode. I did do a graduated still sequence also - just in case.

 

Running repairs were a constant distraction. In this instance the characters leg fell off when the armature wire broke. One of the drawbacks of doing things on the cheap. Worse still was the fact that the legs were cast in silicone. I had to drill a hole into the thigh section and glue in some new wire. Then I drilled through the pelvis and threaded the wire through and wrapped it around the waist. maybe I should have been a surgeon.

 

 

I made a stage for the shots where the characters have to stand freely. I just drill holes at their feet positions and secure from underneath with bolts. The first time I shot using this I forgot to cover the floor with green paper. This can then be keyed out along with the background.

 

 

I made a new section of wall (that's in ruins) for my final scene. It's a tower wall and so it should be round but it seems that you can curve a plane in After Effects, which is what I plan to do. I've made a round section of floor for this shot and will curve the wall plane along it's edge.

 

I only had one piece of foam board to make the background walls from. It measures 60 x 60cm and so I made a door opening in the bottom third.

 

I then flipped it upside down and made a section with a window opening on the opposite third..

 

this leaves me with a section of plain wall in the middle.

 

I wasn't sure how I was going to make the spiral staircase but we got some more foam board and I decided to use this. Details of the construction are below.

 

I also had to make a new fireplace, as one that I already had didn't match in colour or scale.

 

The new circular section of floor. I couldn't use the existing rectangular piece for this shot as it involves a vertical pan.

 

The old fireplace

 

One of the shots is a low-angle view point from inside the fireplace which meant adding detail to the inside.

 

To construct the spiral staircase I began by cutting a dozen keyhole shapes.

 

They were a bit uneven but I think that might look more realistic than having it perfect.

 

I then pierced the centre of the end circle on each one and pushed them along a wooden skewer

 

Each step was then fanned out away from the next

 

While foam board is great for making stuff it is fairly fragile. I broke the bottom step when painting them - thank god for superglue.

 

My first attempt at a wall torch using newplast. I've made more robust ones since from Fimo - which can be baked hard.

Well I've bought a new hot-glue gun - can't do this without one - and was able to assemble the table and benches (and one chair) for the great hall scenes.

 

For this green screen test I have two spot-lights, one on either side of the screen, directed at it, and another above and to the left of the character.

 

 

I also made a stand for the characters to be suspended from when shot against the green screen - for full length shots. It's been covered in the same material as the screen but is obviously lit differently as it's closer to the camera. It seems as though the lighting for the screen might be too bright, I'm using spotlights but I think they will have to be changed to regular bulbs with reflected shields.

 

I tried another shot with the spot lights directed off the green screen altogether. I also used a higher resolution as I thought the quality of the first images where affecting the keying. But the spot in front of him is also too bright, maybe I can just diffuse all the lights as I don't think I can get lower rated bulbs for them. I have tried keying out the green screen in After Effects but the variations in the light intensity is causing big problems. I need to get this sorted out soon, or I will have to build sets to match the characters scale - about 30cm tall - which is going to add loads more work. What's actually a bit strange is that his tunic is grey, his boots are black and his skin tone is tanned. And the belt (hair bobble) is navy blue? I must have changed something on my camera settings - I've no idea what though. Cameras - and their multitude of settings - are not really my strong point, so if anyone knows what it could be, maybe you could let me know?

Please check out previous posts for more work on this project.

 

I'm still working on my characters, it turns out that there's a lot more involved than I'd anticipated. I had bought a set of 'Action Man' figures with the intention of replacing their heads and hands with ones that I made - which would mean having ready-made armatures for my male characters. The problem with that was that they're not actual 'Action man' toys but a cheaper version, with thighs like tree trunks. Not really suitable for my "men in tights" aesthetic (from the spoof film about Robin Hood, co-incidentally featuring king john himself). So I decided to make legs for the figures to replace the gigantic ones they had. This involved making a pair of suitable legs in clay, making a mould from this in plaster. and then casting the legs in coloured silicone.

 

 

The first thing I did was to build an armature to sit inside the silicone. I used aluminium wire slotted inside some lengths of plastic raw-plugs. I glued a section of wire to the pelvis section to act as a spine.

 

 

On the feet I glued a couple of M6 nuts to the looped wire (I would have used epoxy putty but I am trying to save time where possible)

 

O.k. maybe the legs I made look like a woman's, nut they're in keeping with the characters design which is tall and skinny - for King john and Troy. The others will be getting the 'Action Man' legs as they won't have tights.

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn't sure how long to leave the silicone to set so I erred on the side of caution and left it overnight. Apparently silicone dries quicker when acrylic paint is mixed with it, but exactly how long that is I don't know and I don't want to risk having to re-do stuff at this stage.

 

As you can see there is lot's of overspill to be trimmed off with this method

 

So this is the first pair of legs. The boots have to be painted and they're a bit thick - which means there isn't that much movement at the ankles, but it's not a problem as there's loads of movement (for walking) at the knees.

 

I decided to go with Alan's advice regarding the characters dialogue, which was to make replacement mouths. Well he suggested replacement faces - which usually involve replacing everything from the eyes down - but that would mean duplicating the nose accurately several times and I wasn't confident about being able to do that. So what I did was make copies of the three main characters heads (using the existing moulds) in Fimo clay. The mouth section was then sliced off with a kidney cutter, and then everything got baked to harden it - hence the tin foil.

 

A clearer version of the previous shot

 

For the characters hair I'm copying something I learned last year during my work experience with Emma Fisher, where we used unravelled rope or chord for hair strands. I had some white nylon chord lying around and I cut it into short lengths, unravelled it and painted it in a selection of colours.

 

Having made the first mouths I was able to make copies to which I added lips in a variety of open shapes - I'm hoping to have enough here to cover the dialogue.

 

 

 To secure the different mouths I drilled a small hole in the head section and fitted a small magnet. I then drilled into each mouth section and fitted a small nut - which would then stick to the magnet (in theory. Not surprisingly this didn't actually work like it was supposed to and the mouth sections were slipping and sliding around - though they did stay on the face. So I then had to drill two tiny holes in each head section and fit wires inside them. Then I had to drill corresponding holes in each of the mouth sections so that they would stay in position when placed.

 

 

As a king my character doesn't look very impressive - in fact he looks a bit menacing - but at this stage I was mostly concerned with trying out the mouths with a bit of dialogue.

 

 

So I finally got round to testing out the replacement mouths and although the timing is a little bit out I think they might work out o.k.

 

 

My female main character has the luxury of Barbie doll hair.

 

 

I had been meaning to experiment with casting silicone hands for a while. I have tried gradually building up layers of liquid latex over wire armatures but it's very time consuming. So I made a plaster mould using the most recent pair of hands I'd made with latex. They look ridiculously big on the characters but I just can't make anything smaller that will be moveable.

 

 

I made the armature by twisting five very thin wires together - for the fingers, and then twisting together again for the palm and wrist. The wires had to be matched to the mould which is a bit frustrating - or they would stick out through the silicone. So again I mixed some acrylic paint with the silicone and left the mould as long as I dared before separating it.

 

As you can see there is a lot of overspill to be trimmed off but they didn't turn out too bad for a first attempt.

 

 

A shot of the hands after trimming off the overspill

 

I also got around to making the parts for the table and chairs - well, it's now one chair and two benches. Unfortunately my hot-glue gun died so I have to replace that before I can assemble them.

 

This is King John and Troy. You'd never have guessed right? One problem with the torso's is that they tend to turn too easily - I might have to tape everything together (the torso parts - not KJ and Troy)

 

 

My plan to paint the shoes isn't working as you can see. I think I might get away with colouring some liquid latex and painting it on.

 

Just a random shot of my workspace

 

Some of the stuff I need to organize.

 

I finally made a start on the king's crown. I used a plastic bottle top, trimmed to shape, with a hair bobble glued to the bottom. It'll need a few more coats of paint - that's supposed to be gold? - and I will stick on some diamonds or something like that. At least he's nearly finished and I can start shooting his solo scene's.