Motionpath Test / wip

I just tried out several techniques to animate the camera for my rollercoaster. I ended up with a combination of 2 motionpaths. One path is for the actual camera, the other path is for the orientation of the camera.

Work in progress screens.

Rollercoaster - Key Elements: Launch

After deciding for the Underwater Theme I started thinking about the key elements of the ultimate rollercoaster ride. I watched some (rollercoaster-) videos for track-reference and googled a lot of images for underwater-reference. I came up with those elements that should be in the shot:

• High-Speed Launch
• Massive "Airtime" Jump
• Speed Verts
• Loops
• Corkscrews
• "Hills"

• Underwater/Above water (jump)
• Different sea levels
• Tunnels
• Underwater town

1. Dry Room 2. Visor closes 3. Room being flooded

Brainstorm - Card Game

The task ist to design, formulate and refine a non-digital card based game system. I think the module is a great way to learn basic game-techniques. This are some random thoughts i wrote down.

I'd like to make a "grid-based" game. My initially thought was to make something with chain-reactions like in a puzzle game (Dr. Mario, Zuma).

• Goal: Grind opponents library
• Reinforcements: Combos
• Performance indicator: Combostreaks

Setup:

• Each player has a 5x2 grid of cards.
• Round-based
• At the beginning of a round, the players can switch cards.
• Cards function as "Attack-Cards" and simultaneously as "Power-Up", which can be sacrificed to activate them. The drawback, or respectively the cost, is the loss of the used card.

3dmax to Maya rigging

I determined that it's not that easy to convert techniques from 3dsmax to Maya, as i thought. In Maya you have to use bones for rigging, there is no workaround to achieve anything similar to the 3dsmax techniques. So i have to find out how it has to be done in Maya.

I have nearly completed a rigging tutorial to assure that I'll be able to reconstruct all necessary steps in Maya.

I've put in joints, bones and IK handles. Additionally I added Pole Vector Constraints to adjust the behavior of the elbows and knees. To control the most important joints, I've made some icons to gain access to them.

Furthermore there are some "Set-Driven Keys" to clench the fist and to roll the feet proper.

Next: Skin Binding

Rollercoaster - 1st thoughts

After playing Theme Park and Rollercoaster Tycoon years ago it's time to craft the ultimate roller-coaster by my own in 3D.
Task: Design and model the ultimate roller-coaster. Set in either outer-space or underwater or in-between...

First decision to make is if I use the outer-space or the underwater theme. Therefore i made a comparison-table where I wrote down some important key elements (and more) and filled it with my first thoughts regarding to the certain topic.

• Space
• Key Elements: stars, planets, spaceships, asteroids, nebula clouds, explosions
• Mood: dark, black, space, forsakenness, partially funky
• Famous role-models: nearly every science-fiction stuff
• Architecture: angular

• Underwater
• Key Elements: floating particles, fish, bubbles, swarms, seaweed, refractions on ground, waves, corals, anchors, rusty waste, scuba stuff, boats, submarines
• Mood: dark, blue/green, forsakenness
• Famous role-models: atlantis, rapture (bioshock), finding nemo
• Architecture: organic and partially angular

My conclusion is that I'll use the underwater theme, because I think that there are more possibilities and i can get used to the Maya Fluid System.

Recommendations:

Maya Dynamics: Underwater Environments

Maya Fluid Effects: Particle Integration

Loco

Basic model of a toy-train. I smoothed the corners to mimic the wooden material. I used "discrete move" within the move-tool, to model "exact". I don't know if this is the best method. Maybe something similar to "Set Point Value" in C4D. I'll figure out.

Orrery

First animation task. Nothing special. Just a couple of spheres and some extruded splines. After parenting everything into a certain hierarchy it was easy to animate the planets. I picked up the AO style lightning idea.

I had some problems with the extruded splines. They are not proper smoothed whilst in smooth shaded mode, but whilst in wireframe mode they are. I am sure to find a solution.


Added a vintage look and subtle camera shake in AE.

Just started...

Hiya!
I've just set up my journal for the NTU Multimedia Course. I'm still a little bit plan-less, but I'm sure, that I'll figure out where and when I have to be. The first impression was promisingly and I think, that I will learn much during my semester abroad in Notts.