Today in 3D max we covered the first parts of learning animation using firstly the "Auto Key" and then the "Set Key" . The shift key held on a frame was used to reverse the animation. The curve editor initially caused some confusion but provided me with the oppoutunity to make the animation look more natural For example: Sphere looked as it was just floating by changing the curve the movement had more definition.
Later made two copies of the object and went into the "Dope Sheet" this option allows the user to change the timing of the balls. Later we experimented with these options.
Great to be doing something constructive a much better start to this semester than last semester.
Research - Some favourites
I found the idents on rythmn and movement from the BBC somewhat boring so I have decided to put in a version of one of them from another source. Do you all remember it?
Another ident I quite like but this is from Channel 4
Research Board for BBC1
windows opening helicopter over rig
Kite flying Penquins on ice rink
Children playing with flowers Snowball pushing through street
Surfers Morphing Footballers
Rabbits in the wood Hippos swimming
Research for BBC2
Idents in 1990 and 1993
Idents for 1993
Idents relating to nature and adventure 1993
Idents from 2000
Rebrand March 29 2009
These last ident was found at the end of March showing the discovery channel rebrand.
Unfortunately my designs had already been agreed upon prior to the rebrand launch!
These two have been added months later than the ones above.
03/02/09
At this moment in time there are no ideas posted on the blog other than Tom Mortimer who wants to try and produce something alittle different. This is a great thought as long as he keeps within the ethos of the channel.
Brief History Of The Discovery Channel
21/05/2004 by Mcnab Robert
Section: ONE-TO-ONE MARKETING DIRECT CHOICE: DISCOVERY CHANNEL MAILER
"Discovery has more affluent viewers with deeper pockets than any other cable channel."
9/6/2005 by Parish Nick
Reports that the Discovery Channel is looking for an agency to handle an advertising brief to promote the channel in the autumn.
30/03/2006 by Parish Nick
Plan of Discovery Networks Europe to offer iTV advertising across its network of digital TV channels. Discovery Networks Europe is the last major broadcaster to start offering iTV advertising across its range of channels. The reason for the delay in the broadcaster's first iTV campaigns is presented. Rhys McLachlan, head of TV implementation at MediaCom, commented on the Discovery portfolio of channels. Turner Broadcasting is also launching iTV advertising across its children's channels, including Cartoon Network, Toonami and Boomerang.
02/11/2007 by Hicks Robin
The article reports that Discovery Networks Inc. has launched an advertising campaign to attract viewers to its new series, Dirty Jobs. The series profiles workers who earn a living doing jobs inconceivable to people, such as bat biologists or those paid to determine the genders of chickens. With an engaging host, the series informs and educates through light-hearted yet very real situations, said Kevin Dickie, senior vice president of marketing and communications, Discovery Networks.
2007 October by Parish Nick
Going forward, the network is eager to remain relevant and provide more programs to sate its fans, nicknamed "The Insatiables," people "who are deeply passionate, not just in the intellectual way -- people who want to know more, feel more, they want to be immersed, they want to be on the edge of their seats, they want to go on a wild ride," says Willis. It only helps that "we don't present things that make you feel awful, or guilty about the environment or world trauma," says VP/creative director Dan Bragg. "Planet Earth is all about falling in love with the Earth, it's not about what we're doing wrong to it."
The above is an extract from the abstract below:
The article presents information on marketing tactics employed by the cable television network, Discovery channel, to promote its television programs. It states that Discovery has made science and nature fun, through its innovative programming and marketing. It talks about the promotional efforts for the program, Planet Earth. It also mentions about the promotion of the program, Shark Week, through an online game, SharkRunners.
18/06/2007 by Grover Ronald
The article reports on the ratings improvement chief executive Jane Root has brought to the Discovery Channel by adding more extreme nature programming like the fishing show "Deadliest Catch." The channel is trying to do better with adult male audiences, who are generally drawn to sports but who are turning to Discovery's new offerings
Extract
Root likes to say that Discovery shows must equally educate and entertain.
11/3/09 Mood Boards
The idents from the discovery channel denote a very earthy organic feel ranging from watercolour to cmyk photoshop, video colour.Their brand colour is predominately various shades of blue. Most of the idents relate to real life adventures and discoveries.
They also have idents which relate to a new series, a documentary or film.
The Discovery is an innovative channel and seem to be constantly aware of viewers needs, whims and fashions.
They are aware of the benefits of keeping their audiences entertained and informed of the delights through their marketing techniques. They are very proactive in their approach and seen to be aware of the changing demands of society.
16/03/09 - 30/3/09
Thoughts on design for the idents
I have decided to base my designs purely on a sphere creation that relates to the channels expertise in marketing and what they are always striving to achieve.
Ident 1 – Conservation – Storyboard 1
Ident 2 - Enhancement - Storyboard 2
Ident 3 - Show All - Storyboard 3
Sav came up with a very interesting statement that he could not tell what channel it was until the logo came up.
At the time I agreed with this statement, hence I decided to do extra research on the Discovery Channel.
On researching some of the Discovery Channels history I now believe that I could easily define which idents belonged to the Discovery Channel.
All the idents will have the background of a starry sky ie.. stars showing the light.
On the third ident the globe will rotate and their will be some movement put into the material for the flags.
Flags denote celebrations and identity. The discovery channel has made its identity perfectly clear.
Critique of initial ideas
My first ident is well underway, but I have hit many problems with inserting the videos into the globe. After discussion about the initial ideas I feel that perhaps although the original ideas are good I don’t always take my thoughts to the final image.
I need to take my thought process one step further before I start the design. Richard has helped me a great deal in pointing out this weakness which I will strive to improve.
Comment on two presentations
A difficult one as many people have stated that they have completed an ident, but not put it on the blog so I am limited in what I can say!
Tom Mortimers is very good. The penquin ident is my favourite as it is quite tranquil and serene.
The ball rolling down the channels is also good, but I not sure that the colouring and contrast is how I personally would like it. I would like to have seen a sharper, crisper look!
Sav has shown part of a design relating to the BBC2 Channel, but not really enough to comment on.
Creating Ident 1 – Conservation
Step 1This process was taken from a tutorial found on the internet and it was not as easy as they led the reader to believe.
- From the material library in 3dmax I opened the image “Earthmap.jpg” in Photoshop.
- With the eyedropper I selected the blue from the image and in the Select –Color-Range Window adjusted the fuzziness until all the blue was selected and clicked OK.
- Next I choose Edit-Fill from the main menu and selected the black colour to fill all the sea area.
After this was completed choose Select-Inverse and selected white then pressed Ctrl+D to deselect. - The final process was to change the threshold values in order to remove areas which were tending to look grey. This threshold option took alittle time to master.
- The image was then saved as a gif given a name called globe_opacity.
Step 2
The sphere was already created in 3D Max and I now needed to apply the finished image to the sphere using the material editor.
- I chose the diffuse colour option and selected an aqua blue this was applied to the sphere.
- Proceeded to the Maps Rollout and selected the opacity button. From the resultant list chose the Mix option.
- In the Mix Parameter section I used the Colour#1 box which defaults to a black colour and loaded my processed globe_opacity.gif image.
The next process gives me the wireframe look which I know could have been achieved by selecting the wireframe checkbox in the “Shader Basic Parameters”, but I wanted to learn techniques within the 3D Max environment and wanted to keep the image as well as having the wireframe look.
- Within the Mix parameters there is a box called Mix Amount on selection I chose Tiles.
- Using the advanced rollout changed the texture to the colour black.
- Increased the horizontal and vertical count to 23.0 and the variance count to 0.
- Horizontal and vertical gap were changed to 0.2 this decreases wireframe thickness.
- The Grout setup area texture changed to white.
The advanced rollout options usually create a black and white image, but because it was used as an opacity channel it produced this blue type of wireframe.
Step 3
The next stage was to create a multi map around the globe consisting of four videos. These videos were obtained from Discovery.co.uk. The choice of video was quite difficult as there are many videos to choose from.
The deciding factors were as follows:
Conservation issues relating to the animal planet and the plight of orang-utans and the pandas.
- Discovery - hidden treasures from the ocean.
- Weather conditions - effects of climate change.
- The history of the Dinosaur.
- Celebration – the 20th anniversary of the Discovery Channel.
All these videos needed to be edited and remade so selected sections were taken from the originals to produce four videos. These were done within my camera video editor software.
Step 4
These videos were then imported in readiness for the globe.
Video 1 - Pandas
Video 2 - OrangUtans
Video 3 - 20th Anniversary and Discovery
Video 4 - Dinosaurs
Due to the sizes of the each video only a portion of the each has been uploaded to the blog.
Step 5
Creating the areas for where the videos will be placed. This initially caused me a great deal of trouble. Somehow I had managed to use a different video encoder on three of the videos and although they played at home they did not play on the university machines. After an anxious moment this problem was solved and rectified.
A fair amount of time was taken in ensuring that the videos were mapped onto the selected areas correctly. The orang-utan video posed some problems in fitting but I managed to get there in the end.
The stages in preparing the globe for these videos were as follows:
- Converted the globe into an editable mesh.
- Selected the polygons and then selected the area for video 1.
The idea was to have four areas of the globe with video.
I tried to keep each video the same size so the polygons were selected using the squares from the wireframe design.
The other three videos went through exactly the same process as video 1 (as stated above).
- From the material editor applied the map to the defined area.
- Changed the mapping coordinates to fit the map to the defined area as shown below.
Step 6
Initially the globe was rotated by hand at various stages using the Setkey function. This was changed after discussion to a helix whereby a target camera would follow the helix with the target aimed at the centre of the globe. To do this the following was executed:
- Create a target camera.
- Select Animation from the main menu and from this select Path Constraint.
- Then select the helix as the target and this will be on the Z axis.
- The camera target is placed towards the centre of the globe.
- Amend the animation by moving the keyframes were necessary.
- Quite a frustrating operation as the globe rotated fine, but not at the angle I desired therefore it required a fair amount of tweaking.
- The composition then needed a light, because as the globe rotated the side areas were black. To eliminate this problem an Omni light was placed direct on top of the globe.
Step 7
Animating text ie. The logo was to enter from the side of the screen and travel around the globe finally resting at the front.
This again proved to be problematic because the text rotated round and proceeded to go back to the side of the screen.
To eliminate this we decided to incorporate two circles and two lots of logo.
When the first logo went to the back of the globe from the first circle the alpha levels were changed to 0% so that it became invisible.
At this point the second logo had its alpha changed to 100% and this then proceeded around the second circle finally resting at the front.
This again proved to be problematic because the text rotated round and proceeded to go back to the side of the screen.
To eliminate this we decided to incorporate two circles and two lots of logo.
When the first logo went to the back of the globe from the first circle the alpha levels were changed to 0% so that it became invisible.
At this point the second logo had its alpha changed to 100% and this then proceeded around the second circle finally resting at the front.
Creating the text:
- Created the text and modified it using the Editable spline option.
- Extruded the text.
- Amount to 1 and segments to 4.
- Selected Morph and Mesh.
- Selected the modifier Path Deform.
- Selected the path which was circle 1.
- Percent was set 0.5. Stretch to 1.0. Rotation to 90 and axis to X.
Both text fields were set to allocated a white material.
- Ambient and Diffuse with a Specular level of 3. Glossiness level of 2. Soften level of 1.
Step 8
I did not want to use an image for the background so I decided to use the Video Post option and use the starfield.
The procedure for this was as follows:
- Selected Add Scene Event.
- Selected scene motion blur. Duration frames to 0.5. Subdivisions to 2 and dither to 50%. Made sure that the video post options were the same length as my animation.
- Selected Add Image Filter Event on the rollout selected the last option Starfield.
- Went into the Setup option and set source camera to camera01.
- Set brightest star to 255 and Linear.
- Set Star size pixels to 1.5.
- Select Motion Blur and set the amount to 75 and dimming to 40.
- Used the defaults for the others except for count which I set to 50000.
- Compositing was set to background.
- Ensured that the video post parameters were set from timeline keyframe 0 through to end keyframe 300.
- Selected Add Image Output Event.
- Here in this window is where my animation was rendered out to an avi file.
I chose this sort of background because it actually moves with the rest of the animation.
Result for ident 1 "Conservation".
Creating Ident 2 – Enhancement
This ident is to depict the formulation of ideas used by the Discovery Channel; they open the viewers mind to new topics and enhance ways of gaining knowledge. As stated by Root “Part of discovery channel mission is to educate and entertain" the viewer.
Step 1
The globe material from ident 1 was used for ident 2.
The globe needed to be open for this ident therefore a few procedures were needed to complete this stage:
- Create a sphere.
- Apply modifier “Editable Poly”.
- Select the top half of the sphere by polygons and apply a “Quickslice”.
- Apply a “Cut”.
- Finally a “Detach” and call the new object “Tophalf”.
- The above process was repeated for the Bottom half of the globe and called “BottomHalf”.
Step 2
To enable the plasma contents to sit inside the sphere a “Shell Modifier” was required therefore a shell modifier was applied to both the top component and the bottom component.
Step 3
The following objects were used for the material plasma and were placed inside the globe:
- Ringwave
- Torus Knot
- Tubes * 4
This was time consuming because I wanted to create a decent effect.
After each object was created the plasma was developed in the “Material Editor”.
- Opened the “Maps Rollout” and chose “Diffuse Map” and selected “Noise”.
- Set the Source to “ObjectXYZ” and the “Map Channel = 1”.
- “Blur = 0.1” and all “Tiling= 1.0”.
- In the Noise Parameters rollout set the following:
- “Turbulence” ,”Noise Threshold High = 0.125”, “Levels = 1.4” and “Size = 7.0”.
- Swapped the colours so black was at the bottom and changed the white to red.
- Went through the same procedure for the opacity in the maps rollout still swapped the black and white colour boxes but kept the default colours.
- Returned to the parent and set :
- “Self-illumination = 100” and kept the white colour.
- “Opacity = 100.”,”Glossiness = 10” and “Soften = 0.1”.
- “Pink material set the phase to 6.5” but the others “Phase=0”.
The deep red material was the foundation and then I duplicated the material and just changed colours and parameters.
These materials make the objects in the globe squirm, sparkle and change shape.
Step 4
Using the set key method for animation I raised the top half of the sphere front end first as if a jewel globe case was being opened. It hovers for a short time and then rotates anti-clockwise on the descent. This operation was also done by the set key method.
The bottom half works in conjunction with the top half of the globe in that it rotates anti-clockwise whilst the top is raised but as the top half comes down with force this moves the bottom half until they unite. The operation of the bottom half was also done with the set key animation.
The idea behind this was a person opens their mind in order to learn and then stores it for later use; hence the name enhancement.
Step 5
The super spray was added and the following procedure was executed:
- Create “Particle Systems” and chose “Super Spray” and placed it at the bottom in the core of the lower half of the globe.
I played around with the settings to see the effects before I decided on the following parameters:
- “Off-Axis =20.0%”, “Spread =106%”, “Off Plane =40%” and “Spread =168%”.
- “Icon size = 27.703” and the “emitter” was hidden”.
- I chose ticks because they gave more of a spacey feel. The particles were kept at 100%.
- The “rate” for Particle quantity was set to 64 and “particle motion speed” to 10.
Timing was set as follows:
- “Emit start = 2” and “emit stop 300”.
- “Display unit = 600” and “life = 450”.
- The “sub frame sampling” was left with the default values.
- “Particle size = 0.75”, “variation = 50”, “grow = 10” and “fade =10”. These values were changed often to try and keep some particles visible once the globe had shut for a few seconds longer to make it look more realistic.
- The type of particle chosen was “six point” as I wanted some feel of lightness to the operation as the other particle types looked cumbersome and heavy for this particular scene.
- Spin speed and controls also took time as I was quite green to their roles. I went for a “Spin Time = 54”, “Variation = 0.28” with a “random spin axis”.
- “Influence stayed at 100%” but changed the “Multiplier = 1.173” and “Variation = 0.18”.
- Then I went through the “Bubble motion”, “Particle spawn”, “Direction”, “Speed” and “Status” Chaos.
- “Particle Spawn” took some time to evaluate.
This area was very interesting and time consuming I felt that it was a useful tool, but it is very difficult to achieve the look that the creator requires.
Step 6
I used a “Displace Space Warp” to give displace effects to the particles as they were emitted and also to have some influence on the plasma.
In selected the “Spherical gizmo” as it went with the shape of the globe.
The strength was set to 1.0 and this tended to make the particles go away from the displace gismo. “Decay = 0.095” to vary the strength of the displacement.
The displacement time warp was used initially in error, but I found the effects it produces useful.
Step 7
The text was created in exactly the same as the first ident but it has a slightly different operation. Due to the amount of spray I decided to set the text to run from the side of the screen once the spray had started to disperse.
The problem of the variance in size I put down to the position of the camera. I found it quite difficult to get them all to look the same.
The camera is one of the tools were I experience an amount of difficulty. The perspective view gives the look and feel of what is required. I find it extremely difficult to achieve the same look after the insertion of the camera.
Step 8
An “Omni light” was set behind the target camera once again I experienced some difficulty with this operation and felt I was restricted in the lights placement due to the shape of the globe and the effects it placed on the text.
The target camera was set at to the front of the globe.
Step 9
The circles were created in the same way as ident 1 but the “Auto key” was used and then the keys were moved so the text entered the scene later.
The final product for ident 2 "Enhancement".
Ident 2 - Enhancement
Creating Ident 3 – Revelation
This ident is the last of the three and depicts the wide range of cultures and ages that the Discovery Channel serves. In addition the doors welcome the viewers by opening and also serve as the “doors of opportunity” by the use of information that the Discovery Channel provide.
Step 1
Created a sphere and applied a modifier “Editable Poly”, then I selected a range of polygons in the shape of a door. The polygons were copied and called “Door1” and “Door 2”. The marked polygon area on the sphere was deleted to provide openings for the doors which were to be on the front and back of the sphere.
Step 2
This idents material for the sphere could not be transparent therefore the opacity needed to be 100% so that the viewers would not see the flags inside the globe.
To apply the new effect but keep the theme I applied the following parameters and colours but used the same base map “Global_Opacity”.
Applied a tiling effect and use the “Self-Illumination” made it look more sci-fi, but I did have plenty of memory issues once this was selected.
The material was very difficult to apply because in hindsight it would have been wiser to apply the material before making the doors. On applying the material seemed to break up over the doors when I grouped the three objects. Finally I succeeded.
Step 3
Both doors had an editable poly modifier applied and then they were opened and closed using the “set key” function and by using the rotation and move tool.
The doors were placed just inside the sphere to give the impression of sliding doors, but I could not get both doors to line up with the tiles. I feel that the problem arose from cloning the first door and possibly the sphere may not be truly symmetrical. If I had the time I would do the whole procedure again so that they would match exactly.
Step 4
Created a cylinder and then a plane for the flag and a connection object for the flag.
I needed the plane to stick to the cylinder therefore I applied a cloth modifier to the plane the in the modifier stack highlighted the group option and proceeded to select the top row of vertices by the cylinder.
Then I selected “Make Group” were it defaults to group01 and then clicked the “Node Button” this asks for the object you wish to stick to therefore I clicked the cylinder (this makes the top row of vertices static).
Next used the cloth option and selected “Simulate”, this took several attempts because the flag did not stick to the cylinder at the beginning.
Next I chose “Erase Simulation” because I wanted to add wind forces.
- Created a “space warp” and chose “Forces” then the “Wind” option and set the following parameters:
- Strength, Decay and turbulence.
Selected “Cloth Forces” highlighted “Wind01” and pressed the right arrow key. The wind now affects the flag.
Last phase I clicked simulate again to create a waving flag animation later I applied a “Turbosmooth” modifier to the flag to give a softer look.
This flag tutorial was found on the internet by “Didik Wijaya”, but I changed the parameters because his end result is not what I wanted plus my flag had different orientation. It came in useful as a start point.
Changing the flags visibility initially was very difficult because I was doing this through the timeline. Eventually I remembered that it was far easier to execute the visibility times by using the “Curve Editor”.
Step 5
The text was created using the same technique as in ident 1 and 2 but I used a single circle for its path deform.
Due to frequent crashes the text came out small although I used the same parameters as ident 1 and 2.
But I decided to brave it and apply a material to the text and enlarge it. Eventually I managed to render it out but had to use the mov format because it was too memory intensive as an avi or wmv.
Finally
All the idents were processed in “Premiere Pro” and sound included after being edited in “Sound Forge”.
ident 3 - revelation
Evaluation
This assignment was very interesting and thought provoking were lots of help and advice was gratefully accepted from the tutor.
The most difficult part of the whole assignment was the reliability of the university machines. There were frequent crashes which caused a multitude of problems both in design and in time.
The assignment required a fair amount of research to see what the missions and vision of the Channels were before I could even begin to think of a design.
The mission and vision of the Channel is the key to their identities within the idents which I would never have dreamed of before taking part on the CAV course.
Reflection
I feel that I am beginning to act on the topics learnt on the CAV course and the importance of research. Planning is also another aspect which is finally sinking in rather than going at everything like a bull in a teashop.
I am pleased with the logistics of the idents, but feel that I still lack expertise in the use of 3ds Max although it is improving slowly.
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