Thursday 13 December 2012

Week 1

Brief

In teams of three or four, using 3d Studio Max, we are to produce an animation to show how the attack on Pearl Harbor unfolded. We are expected to produce an informative documentary style video which accurately depicts the attack with reference to thorough research.

Reaction to Brief

After watching the conspiracy videos in class i am now eager to start modelling, but firstly research will need to be done to understand more about one of the conspiracies, that we will use to create our animation.

I believe that the skills i have learnt in 3d Max over the past few years will show in this animation as modelling is my strongest skill.

I am also looking forward to learning several new skills, and hopefully use these to create a well researched, and realistic animation.

The project will be in groups of 3 or 4 people, as there is alot of modelling and animating involved in this module. I am looking forward to sharing ideas and thoughts with the other team members, so that we can hopefully make an excellent animation. 


Group Members


Our team name is The Dreamteam

We firstly shared ideas and thoughts about the conspiracies behind pearl harbor, and how we could portray these in an animation.

We decided that we wanted to create an animation that showed the calmness of the harbor the morning of the attack and how the American people had no idea that an attack was planned by the Japanese, but whether Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) knew about the attack as he moved a fleet of vessels from California to Pearl Harbor. A radio transmission was also made by a Japanese vessel that was intercepted by an American Warship. We will then show the surprise attack on pearl harbor with various scenes of Japanese planes attacking the harbor and showing the devastation they caused.

The whole animation will narrated, but we haven't decided to include one of the Dreamteams voices or a narration that is available online.

Once we decided how we would like our animation to look, we each put forward what we would like to research and model using 3DS Max, so that all our models could be put together at the end for animating.

In this first week i am researching Japanese planes that were used in the attack and the American planes which were stationed at Peal Harbor, so that i can see how each plane looked and to find specific blueprints online so that i can model each plane in detail.


Research - The Pearl Harbor Conspiracy

The Attack on Pearl Harbor happened on the 7th December 1941, it lasted 110 minutes, lasting from 7.55am to 9.45am, and more than 2000 US servicemen were killed and more than 1000 injured.

The Japanese lost 65 men, with an additional soldier being captured. 

Pearl Harbor is on the south side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu and is the home to the US naval base.



 This map depicts exactly where each ship was anchored at the time of the attack how much much damage was caused, we can use this map the create a realist and factually correct environment.



 The attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States the second world war, and many people believe that FDR knew that the attack was about to happen and that he needed an excuse to join the war against the Germans.


Plane Research

Before i can start modelling i need to research the type of planes that were involved in the attack, and if possible any blueprints that will help me model them. I found a few images after searching the internet, which gave me an excellent idea of how each plane needs to look.


The Planes that were involved in the attack were....


- Zero Fighter ( A6M Zero)






- Type 97 Carrier (B5N Kate)
 



Type 00 Carrier Fighter (D3A Val)





 There were a total of 387 Japanese aircraft used during the attack spread over 6 Japanese Vessels. In our animation we will not be including this amount of planes as the render time would be horrendous. Due to our time constraints in this module i will only be modelling three planes, two being Japanese and one being American (picture below), although there were no American planes in the air during the attack, the P40 warhawk will be stationary on the airfield during the calm scenes, and depending on render time we may use the reactor tool to blow it up.


P40 Warhawk -


 

 I am looking forward to modelling the p40 warhawk the most, because of the interesting decals on the front of the plane. I hope to find out in later tutorials how to add an image onto a plane without the material becoming distorted.


Plane Blueprints 

Now that i have researched what type of planes were used i need to find blueprints to import into 3ds max as a guide to give me an accurate model. I found an excellent website that i shared with the group to help them accurately make there own models.

www.blueprints.com 

A6M Zero Blueprints
 

B5N Kate Blueprints 


P40 Warhawk


 I will edit each blueprint in photoshop so that i have the front side and top view for each plane to model from. 


Class Tutorial

For our first class tutorial we were shown how to create more lines and polygons on an existing shape. It is a quick an effective way of to create polygons to be able to give more detail to a shape by insetting or extruding certain parts.

I firstly created a box and changed it to an editable poly, i then selected a line and selected Ring, 3ds max automatically selects all the other lines around it, by then clicking on the Connect tool a line is then placed in the center of the polygons, i am then able to change the amount of lines and where i need them to be.

I repeated the process to make a door and windows, i then selected the polygons and used inset and extrude to give the door and window frames

To make the roof of the house, i made a line going round the center of the house and selected the lines in the middle, by then using the drag tool i lifted the polygons up to form a roof.



This method is extremely useful and will come in very usefull for when i start modelling my planes, and any future work.
 

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