Have you ever been on a flight and all of a sudden the Air Hostesses summon you to the cockpit to land the Aeroplane safely, with hundreds of passengers on board? I have...
That is exactly what I had to do for my first Computer Applications module. Well at least that is what working on 3D Studio max feels like; figuring out what all the buttons in the cockpit do. The interface of the Autodesk software bears much resemblance to a cockpit.
At least I don't have to worry about licenses though...yet
Now...Have you ever seen those Grand Designs animation videos? We were tasked with reproducing an animation video of a building we had modelled previously but to a much less complex degree. The assignment is to help us familiarise ourselves with the basics of animating on the 3Dsmax software and we can hopefully use it as an important tool later on with an increased complexity and proficiency.
The most important things to get right or focus on during the animating are camera paths and movement, clarity of how the building is constructed and that is affected by the number of components coming in and their speed, number of frames because it affects movement speed of the components, and finally the render quality because it affects clarity.
The recipe to achieving an animation video of satisfactory quality and content is to first group and/or put in layers all the components you would like to move in unison at any one time during the video. Once that process is done you animate all the individual groups/layers in a sequence that makes sense and speaks to how the building is constructed. The animation should explain even to a layman the anatomy of the building. The last thing to look at is the number of frames and adjust them to an amount that shows a moderate speed before setting up the render parameters (assuming one has already set up appropriate materials and and lighting).
As one gets accustomed to the basic functions of producing an animated video 'ON MAX... coz you know it is kind of a big deal hey(modest huh?)' they should, in future, scale up in proficiency and introduce multiple cameras with more complex angles and paths, custom paths and movements of the components, and begin to introduce realistic materials and context.
Here is the video we have all been waiting for...I mean videos (hides):
Do stay tuned for the improved and consolidated video. Adieu!
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