The Animation So Far

I have started messing about with my final animation, I haven't got very far but here it is at the moment.
I started by importing my three models into a single file. This was relatively simple except that they lost their textures. Slightly irritating but not the end of the world, I reapplied them and was back on track.

I then decided to create my Ornithopter flight path and then lock the Ornithopter model to it. Here came the second problem, up to this point the models were essentially just various shapes positioned to look like they're intended invention. This meant that each individual part could be moved independantly, the problem came when I tried to map the Ornithopter to its flight path. Rather than all the pieces moving and staying in their original orientation, each one was mapped to the start of the flight path, reducing my Ornithoper to looking like it had been in a serious collision, wings, wood and rope all bundled up together.
This made me realise that I needed to make all the individual pieces one whole model so they would be easier to work with. I did theis by selecting all the individual pieces of a model and, in the group menu, group them together!
This now meant that when I click on any part of a model, the whole thin is selected as if it was on object. I then mapped the Ornithopter to its flight path again, changed it's orientation to match the direction it will need to go and that was that. Jan 1, 3DS Max 0!

Reactor

Enter the world of real world physics! Within this tutorial we had a look at some of the applications of the built-in physics engine of 3DS Max.
We started with some basic models, a box falling onto another box, but then we were provided with some bowling alley models and had to use the physics engine to Reactor tool to make them behave appropriately.

Having been provided with the models we had to add them all to a Rigid Body Collection. We then had to give the models properties like Mass, Friction and Elasticity, these obviously dictate how these objects will behave in the simulation.
To make the animation work we had to start off the motion. This was the same procedure as we did for earlier basic animations, using AutoKey and moving the bowling ball. We only had to do this between zero and five frames, just to get it going. After that the physics takes over and moves the object how they would given their properties and motion.

SSSTTTTTEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRIKE!!!!

The Walking Man

In this tutorial we had a look at some of the more natural, real-world pre-set actions, namely walking.

We started with a simple biped model, one of the model pre-sets. This model can be modified in itself but for this tutorial I left it as is.

This little animation was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, the pre-set walking animation is great and gives a fantastic base to build on.

With any body part of the biped selected we just went into the motion tab and expanded the biped drop-down menu within. Here we select Footstep mode and then go down to the Footstep Creation menu below. This menu gives a few options for creating the footsteps that are required; these options include walking, running and jumping.

Although it is possible to create each footstep individually and position it, for this tutorial we used the Create Multiple Footsteps option. This panel gives you the option to create a path of as many footsteps that are needed, for this on I chose 12. When the selection is made, the footsteps are laid out in a straight line however the path can be bent by using the, appropriately named, bend option in the motion tab. I used this tool to make my biped walk in a circle.

Then it was just a matter of pressing play and watching the action…

Morpher

With this tutorial we worked with the Morpher tool. It was surprisingly easy to pick up.

We were provided with a face model which we then copied three times. To each of the three different faces a different effect was applied.

To do this we used the polygon selection, however, on the open mouth modification we coupled this with the Grow tool. We selected four of the polygons around the mouth, two on the bottom lip and two more within the mouth and then grew them around the mouth so the selected polygons coved the entirety of the bottom jaw. Then, using the move tool, we moved the jaw down, opening it.

A similar procedure was used to open the close the eyes and raise the eyebrows on the other two models. We were then left with three different, odd looking, faces.

Going back to the original face, the modifier tab was selected and the Morpher tool chosen. We were then presented with a list of blank channels. By right clicking on these channels we could then choose to add a morph from the scene. By repeating this process three times, one for each of the different morphs, the original face could now open its mouth, close its eyes and raise its eyebrows.

The final model was then TurboSmoothed and animated in the standard fashion. The only issue with the animation is that, on the timeline, all the channels are represented as a single line, each indistinguishable from the others. If we wanted to work with just one of the channels we could go into the curve editor and then choose just one to work on.

The morpher is very easy to use as long as proper labelling is used for each of the different morphs, just so they are easier to keep track of.

Pixar! Here we come!

The Storyboard

So here is the storyboard for my animation. Apologies for the poor drawing but hopefully the idea is put across.
The idea behind the animation is to show off the models in a realistic situation so I am aiming to get a few close up shots detailing the textures on the models.
I was working on the idea of a military weapons demonstration in Da Vinci's era focusing specifically on the Armoured Tank and it's destructive power.
In the opening scene, the Ornithopter will be seen flying through the sky, soaring in close to the camera and away again. The camera will then pan down to reveal the front of the Armoured Tank slowly moving into shot with the Ornithopter still flying above.
The straw man model will then be dropped from the flying machine which will be advanced upon by the Armoured Tank.
The tank will then fire a cannon ball at the straw man. The camera will zoom into the cannon ball spinning through the scene then zoom out as it impacts the straw man.
The tank will then be seen driving past the knocked down man and into a group of more straw man targets.
The final scene will show of all the tank's guns, flattening the group of targets with the words "Power through Innovation" appearing on the screen.
Time to get cracking!